Ghosts and the Perception of Consciousness
For most of my life, I never understood why someone could believe in ghosts. (and before I get too deep into this short article, no I don't believe that ghosts are real.) Arguments for the existence of ghosts always felt emotionally hopeful ("grandma is still with us") or else emotionally fearful. ("there's someone in the room with us!") Neither of these explanations ever really sat right with me. You might hear someone explain that "the door kept opening all by itself" and I would wonder to myself: out of all the possibilities here, why would ghosts seem more likely than drafts, pressure on the door frame, changes in temperatures as the house settles, etc? Some of this likely has to do with cultural worldview, but I'm not really interested in addressing that here. But I do want to acknowledge that that worldview could be doing a lot of the heavy lifting in some cases. What I want to discuss might be a bit more fundamental, and at a minimum, less discussed.
Once in my life, I did have an experience which made me understand how someone could feel the presence of a ghost. I was alone in my apartment and was in that twilight between waking and sleep. With the deep clarity and certainty that a dream provides, I felt the presence of another entity in the apartment with me. The sensation was vivid enough to seriously unsettle me for at least another 20-30 minutes while I checked the apartment for a person and talked myself out of the fear. I probably can’t do the experience enough justice. A better writer could make it feel just as real to the reader, but please trust me: it felt absolutely real to me. It felt like there must have been some entity in the room with me, and the feeling persisted even when I knew it was a foolish idea. And, that experience led to an inescapable conclusion: if I had that sort of experience on a regular basis, if it had been happening to me my whole life, I would be inclined to believe in ghosts as well. In other words, the experience I had felt like a misfire of my mind's ability to sense another consciousness, and this psychological "misfire" feels more pertinent than social predilections.
It also strikes me that there's a potentially deeper conversation here about what it means to know another conscious being. For instance, when I talk to a close friend in front of me, my brain is doing the heavy lifting of building the appropriate feelings: the sensation that I'm talking to a full-bodied conscious being, the feeling of trust, the feeling of empathy, the knowledge that the person I'm talking to has intent, and that this intent can be discerned. I'm not saying that any of these things are an illusion. Rather, I'm saying I don't get to know the other person directly. First I obserserve the other person through my senses, and second (and most importantly) I build a theory of mind of that person. My ability to perceive and interpret another consciousness (ie, the person I'm talking to) are relatively accurate, and (more importantly) useful observations which help me navigate the world in front of me. But, it seems clear that much like seeing a face in the clouds, my brain is probably prone to detect consciousness and intent where none actually exists.
Nearly anyone can imagine people they’ve met who are generally more, or less talented when it comes to reading and understanding the people around then. I also want to make it clear that I'm not referring to anything metaphysical when I say "another consciousness." I just mean "another person," or "a dog." Something which most people would consider to have consciousness, and was able to act with intent. Most people don’t accidentally perceive a rock as being able to act with intent, however this is also not without precedent. (eg: many ancient religions)
Another potential example which is somewhat relevant here was beautifully described by Dr. Jill Taylor, in "My Stroke of Insight." In short, Dr. Taylor was a neuroscientist who experienced a stroke, and she outlines in great personal detail her exact experience during the morning of her stroke. Here is an excerpt from the relevant section:
The harder I tried to concentrate, the more fleeting my ideas seemed to be. Instead of finding answers and information, I met a growing sense of peace. In place of that constant chatter that had attached me to the details of my life, I felt enfolded by a blanket of tranquil euphoria. How fortunate I was that the portion of my brain that registered fear, my amygdala, had not reacted with alarm to these unusual circumstances and shifted me into a state of panic. As the language centers in my left hemisphere grew increasingly silent and I became detached from the memories of my life, I was comforted by an expanding sense of grace. In this void of higher cognition and details and details pertaining to my normal life, my consciousness soared into an all-knowingness, a "being at one" with the universe, if you will.
By this point I had lost touch with much of the physical three-dimensional reality that surrounded me. My body was propped up against a the shower wall and I found it odd that I was aware I could no longer clearly discern the physical boundaries of where I began and where I ended. [My] sense of the composition of my being as that of a fluid rather than that of a solid. I no longer perceived myself as a whole object separated from everything. Instead, I now blended in with the space and flow around me. Beholding a growing sense of detachment between my cognitive mind and my ability to control and finely manipulate my fingers, the mass of my body felt heavy and my energy waned.
Dr. Taylor's words here are incredibly interesting for many reasons. Without context, it would be very easy to assume that she was talking about a psychedelic episode. And many people who have tried psychedelics have described similar experiences: being at one with the universe, feeling like the boundary between themselves and others has been completely broken down. I doubt it's as simple as all this, but I can't help but think about the not-so-hidden sixth sense in this context: proprioception. People will usually describe proprioception as your body's knowledge of its own boundaries, but in a much more mundane way; eg, it's how you can touch your finger to your nose even when your eyes are closed. In other words, it's described as your mechanical knowledge of your body's dimensions, but I've never heard it linked to your spiritual sense of your body's boundaries. And to be clear, I am not a neuroscientist, so I could be flatly wrong here.
Whether or not I'm correct about proprioception, it does strike me that the ability to "sense" another consciousness, just like the ability to have a clear emotional boundary between myself and other people, is something that is maintained by the brain. And like just about any neurological trait people can have, it must exist on a bell-curve. There must be people who do an extremely poor job of building a mental model of another consciousness (we might even have words for this: autism, sociopathy, etc.) and there also seem to be people where this happens too well and too often and even fires off without valid external stimulus. Anyone who owns a dog gets to observe a much more mundane example of this. My wife knocks the table too hard, our dog worries that someone has knocked at the door, and barks loudly while aggressively running to check the front door. In other words, he assumed intent where no other intent could be found. Is this really so different than thinking that a ghost closed the door rather than a draft?