Are Ghosts Just Brain Creations?

July 6, 2000 -- Have you ever seen a ghost? “Felt” a presence? Has your phantom double ever followed you around? Ever leave your body for a few moments?

These might not be paranormal experiences. But they don’t necessarily mean you’re crazy, either.

Much like some people experience a “phantom limb” after an amputation, you could be experiencing the presence of a “phantom of the entire body,” according to Swiss neuroscientist Peter Brugger of the University Hospital in Zurich.

This can be caused by brain damage, but intense emotion can also trigger the “ghosts,” he told ABCNEWS.com. An article on Brugger’s doppelganger theories will appear in an upcoming edition of New Scientist magazine, according to Reuters.

“Many healthy people have ghost experiences and do not suffer from overt brain damage,” said Brugger. “Normal brains can easily be duped about the source of an ‘action at a distance,’ that they themselves have the agency over actions.”

Looking at the Brain

These phantoms could be the result of damaged pariental lobes, which help the brain distinguish between the body and the space surrounding it, but it can also pop up in “normal brains” as a result of powerful emotions such as intense fear, sadness, or euphoria, said Brugger.

He pointed to the example of automatic writing, in which practitioners claim other entities take control of their hands in order to write messages from beyond.

“If one’s own hands to not seem to obey one’s own brain, the brain must construct an entity responsible for an action,” he said. “In cases of brain damage, the threshold for unreasonable conclusions/misinterpretations [of all kinds] is simply lowered.”

Other research bears this out: Amputees often describe not only the presence of a phantom limb, but the presence of the very pain once associated with that limb — pain that, neurologically speaking, should no longer exist (see Web link).

The Invisible Doppelganger

In one case, Brugger and his colleagues interviewed eight world-class mountaineers, all of whom reached altitudes above 27,000 feet without supplementary oxygen. These climbers often reported feeling “a presence,” and sometimes even out-of-body experiences.

This, says Brugger, is the same condition. He calls it the “invisible doppelganger.”

Brugger hopes to test this theory by use of something similar to the “virtual reality box,” which has been used to treat people experiencing the phantom limb phenomenon.

“It will only be a simulation but comes as close to the real thing as possibly to be achieved without drugs,” he said.

A series of video cameras and VR glasses will be attached to the subjects so that they are aware of their own presence sitting next to them.

Ghosts, said Brugger, are illusory. “But even the illusory has to be explained.”

Perhaps the modern technology of the virtual reality box can explain the age-old mystery behind ghosts, phantoms and doppelgangers.