The psychology and science behind ghost stories

So what is it about the mountains and wild places that make them such fertile ground for ghost stories?

Barry Markovsky, an American sociologist, explained: “Ghosts are almost always seen under ambiguous circumstances — such as in poor lighting, or when we’re just waking up or falling asleep, when our senses are not at their peak function.” Sightings of ghosts are often in situations where people are expecting to see them, such as in a place that has a reputation for being haunted, or where they feel uneasy.

The mountains are a contrast to our safe, familiar lives, and can present challenges to the mind, body and senses. In the right (or wrong) conditions, mountains have the ability to plunge us into a world of uncertainty. It’s perhaps not surprising then, that in poor light, howling winds, challenging terrain and hostile weather, the mind is easily tricked.

Some researchers have identified a phenomenon that they call ‘mountain panic’. This is thought to be linked to an overwhelming fear of the power of nature. Historically, these experiences were associated with the God of Nature – Pan – which is possibly where the word ‘panic’ itself originated.

Anomalistic psychology is the study of extraordinary phenomena, including the paranormal. It attempts to explain experiences in terms of known psychological and physical factors, such as ‘waking dreams’ (which are experienced in the transitional states to and from sleep), false memories, the unreliability of eyewitness testimony, placebo effects, suggestibility, reasoning biases and so on.

Anomalistic psychologists believe that ultimately perception and memory can deceive, and what we see and hear – especially under less-than-ideal observational conditions, such as in the mountains – can be heavily influenced by our prior beliefs and expectations.

The meteorological phenomenon of the Brocken spectre (see page 8) has also been offered as an explanation for sightings such as the Big Grey Man. The human mind looks for patterns to make sense of ambiguous information, so for anyone who has not seen this spectacle before, it is easy to see how they could leap to conclusions. Legend has it that a climber was startled by the sudden appearance of a human figure in the mist with a ring of light around its head on the Brocken mountain in Germany. Frightened, the climber fell to his death, killed by his own shadow.

Of course, despite the many rational explanations that are offered, the debate and intrigue around the existence of the supernatural endures – after all, we all love a good ghost story, and why let the truth get in the way of a good story?