Science, ghosts and ESP

Ghost Stories: Visits from the Deceased: Scientific American

This is an interesting article (and series of comments following) about the quite commonly reported phenomena of people having an experience of the presence of their deceased partner (or even beloved, dead animal.)

According to the post, over 80% of elderly people experience "hallucinations" associated with their dead partner one month after bereavement "as if their perception had yet to catch up with the knowledge of their beloved's passing." These can be visual, auditory or other experiences.

I did not know that they were so common, but it is a topic of personal interest because my mother reported her own (not very dramatic) experience of this. She told me and her other children, quite some weeks after my father's death, that she had unexpectedly heard his breathing beside her in bed at night. She said it was distinct and clear, and actually a comforting experience. As is typical for these experiences, they did not recur all that often, but felt very "real", and stopped in time.

Many of the people commenting on the above article question (some based on their own experiences) how science can know that these are really hallucinations.

Perhaps the best evidence on the paranormal side is that of crisis apparitions: the well known stories where a person sees someone (usually, but not always, someone close to them) who appears unexpectedly and disappears, with the later discovery that at the time of the experience the person viewed had just died.

These type of apparition greatly interested the early scientists who set up the Society for Physical Research in England in the 19th century, and from the start the question was whether they represented proof of an afterlife, or "only" suggested ESP.

To the mind of nearly all present day scientists, ESP is just as ridiculous idea as belief in the afterlife, so it is still a topic of considerable interest, even if it is one that by its nature is never likely to be open to much in the way of definitive study.

I sometimes wonder what would happen if strong evidence of a repeatable form of ESP was produced. It should, by rights, shake up the scientific establishment to its core; but at the same time, you can imagine the majority of the public shrugging their shoulders and just taking it as confirmation of long held hunches and beliefs based on anecdote and personal experience.

Still, it would be remarkable if it ever occurs.