Electromagnetic radiation and its effects on the brain (Or, Can we see ghosts!?)

[mooeypoo]

YES!! I'm BACK!! I was out for a while, dealing mostly with personal and work related chaos, but now I'm back, and as usual, I have weird questions

 

I've seen a TV program yesterday in Discovery Science about the possibile connection between paranormal sightings and electromagnetic radiation. The program showed various scientists that claimed that most "haunted" houses were in real close proximity of electrical wires and other objects that emitted high rates of electromagnetic radiation, something that they claimed affected the brain and cuased those sights.

 

What I was seriously wondering about, is your opinion: Do you think the electromagnetic radiation affected the brain by causing halucinations, or do you think it might have affected the brain by causing "another level of perception" that caused them to NOTICE other phenomenas we don't usually have the ability to comprehend?

 

Could that be connected to "mediums" and other paranormal-subjects ?

 

I found this incredibly facinating, specially since it's the first time I see an actual SCIENTIFICAL attempt to explain ghosts and paranormal sightings.

 

Good to be back I'd love to see your inputs on this.

 

~moo

[RICHARDBATTY]

Theres only one way to test this. Tazor a bad medium and see if it improves their powers. But realy you could try recreating the conditions couldn't you. ?

[mooeypoo]

Yeah well the scientists said its not just the radiation, it's being subjected to it for a while - like in one of the houses there was REALLY bad electrical wiring (they found it out with electromagnetic checks around the house) - and they said that if u would spend a few hours in the kitchen your brain would be affected enough to SEE or SMELL or FEEL things - due to the radiation.

 

We should also remember there's a psychological side to all this - if you BELIEVE in ghosts, you probly claim to have seen ghosts of someone who lived in that house, and if oyu believe in hell you say demons and such - the question is do those people start HALUCINATING -- or do they actually notice and feel something that is realistic but is usually beyond the bounds of our normal perception...

 

~moo

[Sorcerer]

No wonder I've started to see my cell phone ring...... na just kidding, yeah maybe EM radiation can make ur brain hallucinate.

[JohnB]

Sorry guys, the hallucination idea just doesn't fly.

 

To be even remotely acceptable, the theory would have to account for the sightings of "ghosts" hundreds of years before electrical wiring in houses. It doesn't, ergo, (my word for the week ) it doesn't fly.

[5614]

According to the Guiness world book of records 2003:

 

 

Most systematic study into 'haunted' locations.

 

In 2001 Dr Richard Wiseman (UK) measured the reactions fo 250 people to 'haunted' locations. the data should provide insights into the effects of factors such as magnetic fields' date=' light levels, temperature and low frequency sound on the mind[/b']

[MulderMan]

i thought ghost hunters take EMF/Gauss meters with them because the ghosts give off an EMF? not the wiring in the house but that would play a part in it.

[Sorcerer]

Wouldn't it be more plausible that they are measuring real EM sources.... and not spiritual ones?

[mooeypoo]

Sorry guys, the hallucination idea just doesn't fly.

 

To be even remotely acceptable, the theory would have to account for the sightings of "ghosts" hundreds of years before electrical wiring in houses. It doesn't, ergo, (my word for the week ) it doesn't fly.

Sorry to burst your bubble, darling, but the show also spoke about places like STONEHENDGE and caves, and explained weird rituals that took place in environments that actually DO contain massive electromagnetic radiation.

 

And those people also had to concentrate more than today's people who just get AFFECTED without knowing. So that changes things. Electromagnetic radiation is not manmade. It exists in nature.

 

And my question was more point towards the point of whether electromagnetic fields cause the brain to "simply" hallucinate, or cause the brain to USE parts we don't know of USUALLY and therefore just NOTICE more aspects of our surroundings...?

 

~moo

[JohnB]

but the show also spoke about places like STONEHENDGE and caves, and explained weird rituals that took place in environments that actually DO contain massive electromagnetic radiation.

Sorry, that wasn't mentioned originally. On that basis it possibly would fly.

And my question was more point towards the point of whether electromagnetic fields cause the brain to "simply" hallucinate, or cause the brain to USE parts we don't know of USUALLY and therefore just NOTICE more aspects of our surroundings...?

Could this be why some places are considered "Sacred"? The Aboriginals in Oz call them "Dreaming Places", and some are seriously strange. To be honest, they "feel" different. Very hard to describe.

Sorry to burst your bubble, darling

That is the politest way I've been told I'm wrong in ages. Thank you.

[AL]

I watched a documentary on Discovery channel once long ago in which they tested the ultra-low frequency sound hypothesis and found that those exposed to it were more likely to report paranormal activity. If I can ever find some sort of machine or device that can generate these sounds, it'll present a golden opportunity to try this out on some of my superstitious friends.

[mooeypoo]

The most amazing thing is that one scientist in the program actually did that, AL, and he proved (well quite awkwardly I must add, but still) that if you use a tesla conductor to create massive ammounts of electromagnetism in a room - objects start to move around.

The ODDEST thing - is that they barely moved when there was no one in the room.

They practically flied to the cieling when that guy just entered the room and looked at them.

 

That scientist claims that electromagnetism causes a link between parts of our mind and actuall matter.

 

It sounds extremely weird and unphysical - but hell, he proved it with cameras filming the box of milk flying to the air as he came into the room and looked at it while the tesla conductor was spinning.

 

Amazing. Makes you wonder what else you can do ...

 

~moo

[Max The Skeptic]

Sorry to burst your bubble, darling, but the show also spoke about places like STONEHENDGE and caves, and explained weird rituals that took place in environments that actually DO contain massive electromagnetic radiation.

 

And those people also had to concentrate more than today's people who just get AFFECTED without knowing. So that changes things. Electromagnetic radiation is not manmade. It exists in nature.

 

And my question was more point towards the point of whether electromagnetic fields cause the brain to "simply" hallucinate, or cause the brain to USE parts we don't know of USUALLY and therefore just NOTICE more aspects of our surroundings...?

 

~moo

 

The problem with the electromagnetic field sensitivity theory is that it has already been debunked by repeated testing. (Look it up!) There has been extensive research done in this area since the initial claim, and it just does not pan out. If it were the case, why don't we experience ghosts while listening to a modern audio system, or when driving in our electric cars, or on an electric trolley? You would think every MRI lab in every hospital in the world would be so haunted people would be screaming out the exits, and this is simply not the case. Sorry but it is just another weak theory that has become popular with those who take it at face value without actually investigating its validity, and consequently fail to realize that it cannot withstand real scrutiny. The best current theory on ghost and haunting phenomenon in my opinion is the Olfactory-Chemo-Detection hypothesis proposed by the Square-Peg Think-Tank! It fits like a glove and explains almost everything! There is an article available at: thatwhichremains.com

Edited October 12, 2011 by Max The Skeptic

[granadina]

Do you think the electromagnetic radiation affected the brain by causing halucinations, or do you think it might have affected the brain by causing "another level of perception" that caused them to NOTICE other phenomenas we don't usually have the ability to comprehend?

 

Might sound absurd , but what is the surety that you are not hallucinating now !

 

The Research is increasingly pointing at something that is hard to digest - ' Our brains are constantly distorting what we see . '

 

Much of what we see is being ' invented ' by the brain's repository - The Memory .

So we ' see ' things that aren't really there .

 

This view does help , in that it erases the blurred line between the natural and the supernatural .

 

 

 

[Max The Skeptic]

 

 

Might sound absurd , but what is the surety that you are not hallucinating now !

 

The Research is increasingly pointing at something that is hard to digest - ' Our brains are constantly distorting what we see . '

 

Much of what we see is being ' invented ' by the brain's repository - The Memory .

So we ' see ' things that aren't really there .

 

This view does help , in that it erases the blurred line between the natural and the supernatural .

 

 

 

 

I could not agree more, and you would be surprised how few actually realize it! It has been said that what we perceive as reality is actually a controlled hallucination. The simple fact is that we did not evolve in the kind of world that we have created for ourselves, but rather in a natural world governed by very different rules and priorities. Consequently, many of the adaptations that once afforded our ancestors a survival advantage now simply serve to confuse us! I am convinced that ghost and haunting phenomenon and all their associated mythologies are the result of survival adaptations that now exist out of context.

Edited October 12, 2011 by Max The Skeptic

[granadina]

It has been said that what we perceive as reality is actually a controlled hallucination

.

- A socially acceptable world view .

but the show also spoke about places like STONEHENDGE and caves, and explained weird rituals that took place in environments that actually DO contain massive electromagnetic radiation.

 

 

There is no dearth of data that cannot be accounted for , by the empirical science .

 

Shamanism uses highly charged energy centres - vortices , in their practice .

 

For that matter , there's a different concentration of energy , whether you visit an art gallery , a military centre , a science lab ( anyone can feel this ) ; and what do we know about the vibes , or how it affects our psyche ?

 

[truedeity]

I think there is a possibility that if your exposed to electromagnetic radiation for a long enough time you could have some hallucination that you cant easily explain. The only interesting thing I could conjure is that if there are different people having the same hallucination at the same time. But people who have done DMT tend to explain a similar 'separate from reality' experience, although not exactly the same.

[Daedalus]

Hi mooeypoo,

I've seen a documentary where they attribute the "sensing / seeing of ghosts" to infrasound. I don't remember which show it was but the following link also discusses the concept:

 

http://science.howstuffworks.com/science-vs-myth/afterlife/ghost3.htm

 

Wikipedia also mentions the effect near the bottom:

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Infrasound

 

I do realize that you posted this topic seven years ago, but it is interesting to see that scientists are still doing research into the paranormal and comming up with sound explanations for what we see and experience.

 

 

[phantom]

Yeah well the scientists said its not just the radiation, it's being subjected to it for a while - like in one of the houses there was REALLY bad electrical wiring (they found it out with electromagnetic checks around the house) - and they said that if u would spend a few hours in the kitchen your brain would be affected enough to SEE or SMELL or FEEL things - due to the radiation.

 

 

First one has to determine the source of the "radiation". The simplest thing to do would be to turn the power off at the fuse box/main breaker or pull the electric meter and see if the effects are still there. If there still is high EMF present, then one looks for other explanations.

[mooeypoo]

Hi mooeypoo,

I've seen a documentary where they attribute the "sensing / seeing of ghosts" to infrasound. I don't remember which show it was but the following link also discusses the concept:

 

http://science.howst...life/ghost3.htm

 

Wikipedia also mentions the effect near the bottom:

 

http://en.wikipedia....wiki/Infrasound

 

I do realize that you posted this topic seven years ago, but it is interesting to see that scientists are still doing research into the paranormal and comming up with sound explanations for what we see and experience.

 

 

 

Yeah, let me tell you something, guys, "Years ago" is an understatement. I've been reading my own posts here and I'm a tad disturbed by them. I guess we live and learn, eh?

 

All current scientific data shows (a) no real effect of EM waves on the brain (unless from VERY VERY close, and even then rather small one) and (b) no evidence for ghosts or anything "paranormal".

 

I am not too sure we can revive this thread like this. If you guys want, maybe you should open a new one, it's such a long time ago that I bet I'm not the only member to shift positions a bit and get wiser with age. And... education (graduating with a physics degree tends to get your feet back on firm ground of reality

 

~mooey

 

 

 

[Daedalus]

All current scientific data shows (a) no real effect of EM waves on the brain (unless from VERY VERY close, and even then rather small one) and (b) no evidence for ghosts or anything "paranormal

 

I agree. I'm not convinced that EM radiation is the cause. That notion does not make much sense considering that we are emersed in EM radiation throughout most of our lives. However, sound has been known to cause several ghostly effects due to resonant frequencies. However, this does not directly affect the brain, but produces phenomena that seems to be supernatural : )

 

Research by Vic Tandy, a lecturer at Coventry University, suggested that an infrasonic signal of 19 Hz might be responsible for some ghost sightings. Tandy was working late one night alone in a supposedly haunted laboratory at Warwick, when he felt very anxious and could detect a grey blob out of the corner of his eye. When Tandy turned to face the grey blob, there was nothing.The following day, Tandy was working on his fencing foil, with the handle held in a vise. Although there was nothing touching it, the blade started to vibrate wildly. Further investigation led Tandy to discover that the extractor fan in the lab was emitting a frequency of 18.98 Hz, very close to the resonant frequency of the eye given as 18 Hz by NASA.^[20] This was why Tandy had seen a ghostly figure—it was an optical illusion caused by his eyeballs resonating. The room was exactly half a wavelength in length, and the desk was in the centre, thus causing a standing wave which caused the vibration of the foil.^[21]

 

Tandy investigated this phenomenon further and wrote a paper entitled The Ghost in the Machine.^[22] Tandy carried out a number of investigations at various sites believed to be haunted, including the basement of the Tourist Information Bureau next to Coventry Cathedral^[23][24] and Edinburgh Castle.^[25][26]

Edited October 13, 2011 by Daedalus

[Moontanman]

Yeah, let me tell you something, guys, "Years ago" is an understatement. I've been reading my own posts here and I'm a tad disturbed by them. I guess we live and learn, eh?

 

All current scientific data shows (a) no real effect of EM waves on the brain (unless from VERY VERY close, and even then rather small one) and (b) no evidence for ghosts or anything "paranormal".

 

I am not too sure we can revive this thread like this. If you guys want, maybe you should open a new one, it's such a long time ago that I bet I'm not the only member to shift positions a bit and get wiser with age. And... education (graduating with a physics degree tends to get your feet back on firm ground of reality

 

~mooey

 

 

This post caused me to go back and read a few of my early posts, I started out several years ago with lots of misconceptions and preconceived notions not to mention an almost religious zeal for pseudoscience but I was looking to learn, as were you, and as long as we are growing and not stubbornly hanging on to our personal reality I am not ashamed of any of my notions i have abandoned along the way, only hanging on to them would have been a bad thing.

 

 

Well I do miss the flat earth theory a little bit but hey that was along time ago and we didn't know any better before Columbus...

[mooeypoo]

I think this is fitting:

 

 

[36grit]

As an artist of thought, (nonscientist lol), I would say that in order for an outside e/m force to affect your thoughts and perceptions there would have to be some kind of harmonic expansion of the two fields.

Everybodys algorythmic thought patterns are different. It might be that an outside e/m source could act as a "bridging" agent between your present thoughts and resinating thoughts and perceptions of a past entity. You don't have to be dead to be a ghost. Sometimes I'll hear my mothers voice inside and start thinking about her. It's amazing how many times she calls shortly after this expereice. It happens so often that we talk and laugh about later.

I've heard that indians in the South Western United States had a name the region heavily laden with iron deposites that ment voice of God or something like that. Some believe that the heavy iron deposites electro magnetically attract the e/m field of the ionashere and caused them to here voices and experience paranormal activities.

 

As far as physical objects moving around, Some believe that the physical world around us is an apparition of our thoughts and expectations. Everything we call "ordianary matter" consist of varying degrees of electromagnetic force as a major componant. Most think of these people as quacks but a glance at history shows them in good company.

[Max The Skeptic]

In my opinion they are trapped in the "energy" box, which is exactly why they aren't getting anywhere with it! Just off the cuff, if this were the case I would have paranormal experiences whenever I spend a day in my home theater room, which is literally surrounded by huge speakers and powerful coils producing massive amounts of E.M. radiation! However, this is not the case. It is also not the case when you go near a MRI machine, which has an E.M.field greater by several orders of magnitude! When I do have experiences is when there is or was a dead person/biological contamination or a lingering scent of either in the environment. Think of it this way, what relevance does E.M. radiation have to us in an evolutionary context? The answer, of course, is none! However, we observe the same kind of behavior from animals and they are doing it with chemo-detection. In fact, chemo-detection is by far the oldest of all the senses and goes back billions (Yes Billions!) of years in our evolutionary line because it is the most basic. On the most primitive level, it is the one that tells you to eat it, mate with it, run from it, or kill it! Do you realize that the gene group for olfaction is the largest in the human genome by a factor of 20 compared to the next largest for neurotransmitters, and that we are only currently using about a third of what(evolutionarily speaking) we have had available in the past? The best hypothesis, in my opinion, is the one postulated by The Square-Peg Think-Tank, which suggests that this is one of many evolved mechanisms that functions out of context in the world we have created in the past several thousand years. It is, testable, based on a naturalistic model, and simply explains every thing about ghost and haunting phenomenon from start to finish, including how and why it began, why we believe it, why we needed to create the mythology surrounding it, and why we have made almost no progress exploring it in 150 years. The key to understanding the answer exists in being able to separate between what is objective and what is subjective, what is lore and what is real, and most don't have a clue where the line actually is! I have spent over a year trying to poke holes in it and have had no success. In fact, in attempting to do so I have found a great deal of supporting evidence not mentioned in their article. I have also noticed that since it was proposed some of the major paranormal sites and groups have been doing preemptive strikes and damage control trying to explain it away and without much success. If you have not read it already, I suggest you do so, and let me know what you think of it. The synopsis of their work and consequent hypothesis is here: thatwhichremains.com

 

Let me know if you have any more success refuting it than I did … Oh, and the infra-sound theory doesn't work either and if you likeI can write back and can explain why.

Edited October 15, 2011 by Max The Skeptic