why do some people see ghosts while others don't

By M.Farouk Radwan, MSc.

The ghost that wanted to marry me (A true story)

Susan (not her real name) was a normal person who never reported seeing ghosts before. One day she saw something standing beside her bed and so she started screaming waking the whole house up.

Few weeks later that ghost appeared once again and talked to her. Again she felt extremely frightened and started seeking help. After sometime the ghost started telling her that he wants to marry her and this scared her even more.

After she went to see religious people, who told her that most probably this was the act of demons, the ghosts disappeared and she stopped seeing them again.

Why did Susan see ghosts?

When Susan told me the story i found the part that the ghost wanted to marry her very interesting. It was clear from her body language that she was describing what she saw and that she wasn't lying but because i knew that the brain can alter our perception and let us see things that doesn't exist i started to doubt whether her brain wanted her to see ghosts for one reason or another. (see How your emotions affect your perception)

I started asking Her about how her life was before ghosts started appearing and i found what i was looking for. She told me that she suffered from a severe breakup and that she was so depressed.

The guy dumped her, stopped answering calls and never showed up again all of a sudden. All of these events were too much for her self esteem to bear and that's why her brain tried to find another soloution to make her feel good about herself.

Because her brain wanted her to feel that she is still desired it made her see a ghost that wants to marry her! In other words the whole setup was done by her brain to protect her self esteem.

This is why some people see ghosts

In many cases the brain sets up a similar scenario in order to help a person reach a certain important psychological goal. I have said earlier in my article How your beliefs and concerns affect your perception that our perception of things isn't constant and that it could change based on our needs.

Here is a simple example, your fears can alter your perception so that you become more likley to spot the object you are afraid of. This is why people who fear ghosts might believe that a curtain is a ghost only to realize milliseconds later that it was just a curtain.

This article is not trying to prove that all people who see ghosts see them for that reason but its just showing you how can you can see things that doesn't exist just to help yourself remain psychologically stable.

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