On some recent Haunted Cornwall FM radio shows I have spoken with medium Angie Kruger about the possibility that many, if not all, of those experiences we call ‘paranormal’ are caused by errors in perception, errors in the way perceptual information is processed or internal brain functions (or dysfunctions).
So lets stop for a moment and reflect…
EVERY experience we experience is a result of the way the brain interprets what we see, hear, feel, taste, touch, smell and think. These processes give rise to an inner sense of ‘mind’.
Often brian and mind are used interchangeably but in the strictest possible sense BRAIN is the biological structure inside our heads and MIND is the collection of processes it drives. Whilst some people like to think of ‘mind’ as being somehow separate and different to the brain, and therefore consciousness relating to something esoteric and distinct (the basis of spiritual thinking perhaps), most neurologists seem to accept that Mind and Consciousness is an emergent property of brain processes. This idea is not, however, what I wanted to talk about here…
Angie’s agreement with me that ‘brain chemistry’ has a lot to do with ‘psychic’ abilities and perception spurred me to do a little research about some very specific brain functions. It seems that as each month passes scientists who ask questions (and then investigate ways of challenging and answering them unlike some so called paranormal investigators who simply anomaly hunt) about the brain are make more and more sense of what is one of the most complex systems known.
We know that if the living brain is ‘stimulated’ with small electrical charges (electricity is the language of the brain) the person will experience some very real sensations. Such sensations can include
a ‘feeling’ that there is some ‘higher self’, ‘god-like presence’, ‘otherworldly entity’ in contact with the individual….
a sense that the individuals own consciousness is outside of itself and looking down upon the ‘body’…
hearing sounds
seeing shapes, shadows, patterns, flashing lights, people
recalling memories and the associated feelings
All of these are REAL to the individuals concerned – they are genuine personal experiences.
Of course this research must have implications for any and all paranormal experiences.
I recently sent out a series of emails, Twitter posts and chat room calls for people to submit their ‘best evidence’ for ANY paranormal event. Now whilst I’ve only had a few dozen responses, it is no surprise that the ‘best’ evidence is ‘personal experience’ – and of course perhaps it should be. However powerful and personally relevant these experiences are for the individual (and this is where my mytsical/transpersonal psychology interests lie) the fact of the matter is that personal experience are the result of personal brain processing.
Now before I get too many comments saying what about ‘shared’ experiences, I have to say that the mechanisms for individuals sharing a ‘reality’ bring into play some other powerful social-psychological process that need to be explored before we can simply accept as ‘real’ any jointly witnessed paranormal event.
What are these possible social-psychological processes?
Well they could include confabulation, mass-hysteria, social compliance, mass hallucination, misperception, misrecognition, spiritual rapture, hypnotic effects (which could be all of the above) as well as environmental conditions that are conducive to any or all of the above – infrasound, weather conditions … and so on.
Back to the brain..
I thought it’d be interesting to give a generalised overview of what types of experience are generated within which part of the human brain.
The boxes in yellow show the kind of sensations that have been experimentally produced in people, under laboratory conditions, when those parts of the brain have been stimulated. In most, if not all cases, the sensation faded or stopped as soon as the external stimulation ceased.
There are a number of questions that must come from these kind of studies..
1) Can the findings be generalised across the whole human race?
2) Are there naturally occurring situations in which the same targeted stimulation of the brain could be achieved?
3) How do each of these independent sensations combine to produce a perceptual understanding of the ‘outside world’?
4) Is there any distinction between the world as it is ‘out there’ and the world we create ‘in the mind’
5) How do we really know what is real?
Ummm – more than enough questions for a Tuesday afternoon.
Alan
Useful reference for the research on this topic can be found HERE
