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So, you're having this dream. For some reason, I can't move. And it might be a witch that's holding you down, a ghost, aliens. Hello and welcome to Instant Genius, a byite-size masterclass in podcast form. I'm Jason Goodger, commissioning editor at BBC Science Focus. In today's episode, we're joined by Professor Richard Wisman to talk about the psychology of all things spooky. So, Richard, welcome to the podcast. Thanks so much for joining us. Thank you. Pleasure. So today we're talking about all things spooky. So the first thing to me I think which is quite surprising anyway quite a lot of people claim to have seen a ghost. So what are
some of the common characteristics of a ghostly experience? Well actually seeing a ghost is reasonably rare. So people experience a ghost. So they'll say oh there's that sense of presence or a sudden drop in temperature or I heard a creaky floorboard something like that. You are right. I mean, some people do see a ghost. Often they'll wake up in the middle of the night and they'll see a strange entity, uh, strange ghostly figure at the end of the bed. So, all of those things wrap around to a ghostly experience. If somebody says, "I think this place is haunted. I experienced a ghost." That's what we're talking about. But it isn't just a visual experience.
Are some places more kind of ghosty than others? Some environments? Yeah. I mean, certainly some places have a reputation for being haunted. And what they mean by that is over time people have gone into those places often not knowing the reputation the building and experienced a ghost often in the same place. Now of course what you don't know is when they say I didn't know anything about the reputation is whether that's true or not. Maybe somebody did say to them oh you're in the ghostly room and then that sort of kicks off an experience. So some of the research we did and we did it at Hampton Court Palace and then the Edinburgh vaults uh up in Edinburgh surprisingly um was to take the idea and try and test it
scientifically. So at Hampton Court we had the uh the haunted corridor which is where Katherine Howard was allegedly dragged down um kicking and screaming uh in the 16th century. And in this corridor over time, people had reported some very strange experiences and we could look back on those historical records and pinpoint the areas uh where people had said there's something weird going on here. Then we took groups of people who allegedly didn't know very much about where those experiences have been. We took those groups through the area and said, "Put an X on a floor plan if you experience something rather odd." And we could see that those experiences tended to clump in the places where
historically a ghost had been reported. So you're absolutely right. There's certain parts of an environment that kick off this rather strange reaction of saying this place is haunted. And if you're a believer, you'll say that's because that's where the ghosts are. And if you're a skeptic, and I tend to be a bit more skeptical, you say maybe there's something about that environment. And in Hampton Court Palace, we could see that sometimes it was due to drafts. There are hidden doors uh in the place which caused these rather odd air movements. Um in the Edinburgh vaults, we could see that sometimes it was a very dark environment that you going into that means that people would say there's a thing there's
a ghost here. So I think those environmental factors shouldn't be underestimated. They can drive paranormal experiences. So is there anything to do sort of some places just seem to be inately creepy? So speaking from um personal experience a few years ago my partner and I uh went on holiday. We're going around Devon in Cornwall and we went to Hope Cove in Devon and uh we booked ourselves into an Airbnb um arrived there and came up to this place very isolated. It was like the overlook hotel from Psycho. Um there's nobody around and um we sort of, you know, unpacked our luggage, went to bed, and after about 5 10 minutes, my partner said to me, "Just don't like it here. I don't think I can sleep here."
And um I so glad you said that cuz I feel exactly the same. And then we packed our stuff and almost ran to the car to get back. That's the kind of rational behavior we're looking for. Yes. Very good. Yeah. But of course I don't believe in anything like I don't think I didn't feel under well I did feel under threat but you know where did that come from? Because I know it was completely irrational. So I think part of it is that we watch movies and you mentioned one there and that drives what spooky places are like and if you're in a place which matches something you've read about in a book or seen in the movie or whatever it's not surprising. you then feel very
uneasy because you've just seen the spirits emerge in the movie or whatever it is. Um, I also have my kind of Scooby-Doo uh sort of theory about ghosts, which is that these experiences may have evolved over time to keep us out of places that are actively dangerous to us. Now, your hotel doesn't sound like that, but if you go into a cave and it's very dark and there's a predator in there, well, probably it's a good idea to get out. And so it could be that we the people who think, "Oh, that place feels like it's haunted. I'll leave are the ones that have survived and passed on that idea to future generations." So it could be that they've got some kind of um evolutionary power. Or I mean, more likely in a
sense, I'm a social psychologist, not an evolutionary psychologist, that you're watching films, you're reading books, you're seeing photographs, and those places depict in the West haunted places in a certain way. Suddenly you find yourself in one of those environments. It's not surprising you're scared. And what can happen is as soon as you become afraid, you start to become hypervigilant. You start to go, "Oh my goodness, where's there's a threat?" And a creaky door or the wind blowing across an open window, suddenly that makes a noise. Oh my goodness, that's a ghost. You become more afraid. You become more hypervigilant. So it feeds on itself. So all those things might explain why you
ended up rushing, terrified, screaming like a child from the hotel. So let's have a look at sort of seeing things. So this phenomenon of paridolia. Yes. So could you explain that for us? Why what's going on there? Paridolia is about faces. So we are social animals and so faces are really important to us. And it's incredible what our brains do in that we can recognize and identify faces really easily. You put a photograph of 100 people, you instantly see the faces. You could zoom in on any one and know how that person feels from their facial expression. We like faces big parts of the brain put over to facial processing.
And so we'd rather see a few faces that aren't there than miss one that actually is there. Missing a face that is there is disastrous. And so when you present people with anything that looks like a face, you know, two eyes and a mouth, uh they'll see a face there. And you get it all over the place. You get it on bags, on sinks, on the side of houses. You know, you get these incredible images where people go, "Oh my goodness, it looks like a face." Um, and that's that part of the brain kicking in. When it comes to ghosts, well, now you might see a photograph of a haunted place. There might be a bit of a blur there or an odd reflection and you see the face. Maybe you see it in smoke. Maybe you see it in fire and you
think, "My goodness, this was taken in a haunted place." That's evidence of a ghost. And it can happen in real life as well. It can be light reflecting on some rocks or something like that and you suddenly see a face there. So that can drive some of those visual experiences. Do we see a similar thing with sound? Because often on that you see a lot on these television shows they'll go around record trying to record sort of ghostly sounds or something. So is that a similar phenomenon? Yeah, you can get that EVP where again we're very attuned to the human voice and to words and so you give people static and they'll hear fractions of words in there and go oh my goodness that's somebody saying you
know help me or something like that but you need to have the suggestion almost with those things they can sound random until somebody says no listen and then you can hear the words help me and suddenly you can so often they're driven by a suggestion there's been quite a few studies that show when you take away those suggestions people can't identif y reliably the noise that's that's in there or the sounds that are allegedly in there. And the other thing you bring up there is that now a lot of scientific investigations do involve gizmos, involve people going around with bits of equipment recording, you know, magnetic fields or humidity or whatever. And so it's this weird thing of people using
quite legitimate scientific instruments that aren't designed to be used in ghost hunting, but using them in a sciency way to appear scientific despite doing something which is often deeply irrational, which is using that instrument to look for a ghost. So you mentioned their suggestion. Are some people kind of more susceptible to these experiences than others? Yeah, totally. Well, well, you have a whole lot of factors that clump together. So good imagination uh believing obviously in the paranormal being a good hypnotic uh subject. So if you ask people to um you know hold their hands out close their eyes and imagine one hand becoming heavy the other hand becoming light if you're a good hypnotic subject when you open
your eyes you'll get difference in hand level. Very quick and easy way of uh checking that. If you get a big difference there because you've been suggestible and you've made one hand go up and the other hand go down, you'll tend to be the sort of person that sees and reports ghosts because you're very suggestible and oh my it's a haunted place. Oh my goodness, now I feel the ghost of the energy and so on. So there definitely are coralates of belief uh in the paranormal and with paranormal experiences as well. So let's move on to something that really interests me because I've experienced it several times myself. absolutely terrifying at the time. Um, and that's sleep paralysis.
Yes. So, you know, what is this? What's going on there? Well, sleep paralysis and you're not alone experiencing it. So, around about a quarter of the population experience it at some point is that when you are dreaming, you are very close to work waking state. So, there's the sort of sleep cycle. You start off in light sleep, you go down into deep sleep, uh, and then you come up into dreaming and you're very close to consciousness. So, you're having this dream, you don't want to act out the dream. Um, and so you're paralyzed. So, during a dream, we're paralyzed. It doesn't take much to push you up into waking state. And there's a very odd state of consciousness in between those two where you're kind of
awake and aware of your environment, but you're also paralyzed. So you bring in some of the bizarre dream imagery, but you also paralyzed and your brain tries to make sense of that. It tells you a story. And the story is for some reason I can't move and I'm seeing these odd images. Maybe I'm being held down. And it might be uh a witch that's holding you down. It might be the aliens. Uh it might be a ghost depending on your belief system. But the phenomena, the experience is absolutely real and terrifying as you say for people and a lot of people would say that's evidence of a ghost. So it's one instance where yes, you get these experiences associated with sleep. The other one that I used to experience a
lot and thank goodness I don't anymore is a night terror which happens in deep sleep. So that's the exact opposite. you're in um paralysis again for the most part, but you I wouldn't use the word wake up. You uh sit up, your eyes are open, and you are totally convinced there is some kind of evil entity at the foot of the bed. It can be a giant spiser, it can be a hooded figure or whatever. um and you'll scream out and if you're sleeping next to somebody else, they'll wake up properly uh whilst you just go straight back into deep sleep. So, the reason it's a night terror is it's more terrifying for them than it is for you. Um and again, people often think, oh, that's because there's
a ghost there. Um if you believe in those sorts of things and that it's often associated with anxiety and so on. So many of these experiences are reported around sleep and dreaming and now we're starting to get a bit more of a handle on why that's the case. Yeah. So I have a twin and um growing up he used to get these. Okay. Um it's a horrible thing to see. Yes. They're absolutely terrified that look awake. Yes. Staring at something. So I'll never forget seeing that. It was horrific. But he just Yeah. He wouldn't remember. No, that's right. I mean, sometimes the scream can wake you up. Um, but then you're in a very odd state because you've been woken up from deep sleep and it's it's very unsettling. Um, and there's not much you can do. The
the thing not to do is approach the person because if you touch them or even come close to them, they see you as the entity and that can get quite violent quite quickly. Um, so the thing you can do is say their name very gently from a distance. Um, and sometimes that will do. sleeping in a cold room actually reduces them and reducing anxiety um then minimizes them as well. Um but they're in the same sort of category as sleepwalking. So often sleepwalking, sleepalking, uh night terrors all deep sleep associated um phenomena um unlike a bad dream which is dreaming state basically and so a nightmare in that sense is very different to a night terror. We were talking there about being um visited by
ghosts, but let's change gears and have a look at actually trying to speak to spirits. Yes. Like the idea of a seance. Yes. So I know this is one of your things. So what exactly is a seance? Well, seance is an attempt to commune with the dead. Uh and it can take various forms. So the simplest form is table tipping which used to be done in Victorian times. And I've had many a happy evening doing uh table tipping. You need a light table that tips reasonably easily. There's no point in doing it with a big mahogany table. Uh so a small table, a group you sit around, you just touch your fingertips to the table and you sit there for a while and hope that the spirits will
come and tip the table and they normally do. Uh and then the table will start to move around the room and so on. And what's happening there is what's called idiomot action, which is that without realizing it, you're gently pushing the table. When all of you push in the same direction, uh, often by chance, then it will start to move. At that point, you'll unconsciously know which direction to push in and that can start to move. It will never levitate, but it will move across the table and across the floor. Uh, so that can be lots of fun. And that was a sort of Victorian parlor entertainment and is good.
It's not very far away from the Ouija board where you'll then put an upturn glass on the table and put the letters of the alphabet around and you put your fingers on the glass and it spells out a word. Um, if you're lucky, otherwise it just spells out nonsense. Uh, it's exactly the same thing that you know, everyone's pushing and at some point they all push together. If they can all unconsciously double guess what the word is, they'll start to spell it out and so on. Hello or something. Hello. That's right. Yes. or some little old nonsense if it's a bad day. Um, so there's that. Uh, less fun because people take it a bit more seriously. But both of those things are different to what I've done a great deal
of, which is the Victorian dark room seance. So, this is where the full-on seance is. It's luminous objects, objects with luminous dots on, like a ball or a candlestick. you extinguish all of the lights, so you're in complete darkness, which is still an alien environment to most people nowadays. We're just not used to that. Can't see anything at all. And you essentially use trickery, use magic tricks, my background is a magician, um to fake these phenomena. And we always say to people when we do it, it's a reconstruction of a Victorian seance. We absolutely honest with people. Um, but people are still doing them nowadays, still faking that stuff and still convincing people there are ghosts in the room. And it is a very, very creepy
experience to see those objects move around. You can see why that convinces people of spirit forms. So all of those things would count as a seance. And then sort of most recently because infrared lighting and recording has made um dark room seances a tad problematic and challenging uh there's the move towards mediumship which we have a medium give you message from the dead which some people would count as a seance as well because it's any attempt to communicate with the dead. So with a haunting you experience it with a seance it's a two-way interaction. So you mentioned there mediumship. So you hear people call it talking about cold reading. Yes. When it comes to this. So what does that mean?
Well, cold reading means that you're using various psychological strategimms to give the impression that you know about a person if you're a psychic or that the spirits are telling you about that person if you're a medium. Different to hot reading where you'd go in knowing that information. So, if I was doing a hot reading on you, I'd look you up on the web. I'd find out as much as I can, and I come into the room knowing that most mediums aren't doing that at all. Uh, most of them, I think, are sincere in their beliefs. They're walking in and they're doing a cold reading, which is they don't know anything about the person, but you, if you're a believer, would say, "Oh, they're in communication with the
spirits." If you're a skeptic, you go, "Hold on a second." you know, and it's a very strange interaction because you're trying, if I was the medium, to help me out, you know, you're not trying to be skeptical. So, if I say I get the impression, you know, your great-g grandandmother's in spirit and I'm I'm getting a J or a is J or a K. I can't hear it properly. That's two letters of the alphabet down. And I'm looking at your reaction. If you nod, I might follow up on that. If you look blank, then I'll move on to something else. um you know she's telling me there's a pain on this side of your body is there something over here something happened recently and again it's a two-way interaction. So often they start out with quite vague statements which
are then sharpened on the basis of how you're responding. That's one of the strategies. Um another one is to predict things which are true of most people. So you know you've got a scar in your left knee. Um that's true of about a third of men apparently for various reasons. And there's just this vagueness. Uh so that um you know you could say I see a ship. Is there something to do with sailing or and think a ship? There's a ship coming in. There's a ship. You're standing there and there's a boat or a ship coming in. Does that make sense? And the person will tell you if they go not at all. You know the ship's a metaphor. There's a big change. There's a change coming into your life. And
people are only there to talk about x number of topics. is either going to be travel or relationships or career or money or health. And so they'll bop around these topics until they find the one. So all these things will count as cold reading. And they can be done consciously. There are books and downloads and DVDs on how to do it or it can be done unconsciously where a medium over time has just learned these techniques. So Professor Richard Wisman, thanks so much for joining us. Pleasure. Thank you very much. Thank you for watching this episode of Instant Genius, brought to you from the team behind BBC Science Focus. That was Professor Richard Wisman. To discover more about the topics we just discussed,
check out his book, Paranormality: Why We See Things That Aren't There. If you liked what you just saw, then please do consider liking and subscribing.
