Do I believe in ghosts in the literal sense of an actual spirit hanging around in the physical world haunting places and people? No.

Do I think it’s fascinating to see how the idea of “ghosts” are used in a cultural sense usually representing an individual or group’s desires, thoughts, feelings, etc. after they’ve passed on and usually storytelling around respecting their wishes or finishing what they started so they can finally be “at peace”? Yes.

I also find it fascinating in a tragic way how people who’ve gone through extreme grief and loss can cling to the idea of ghosts, particularly of loved ones. Perhaps the pyschie doesn’t want to let go of that person so much that it can manifest as audio-visual hallucinations that feel incredibly real to the individual.

After all, we all perceive the world through our brain: it is the filter for everything.

I’ve experienced some strange stuff personally, but I don’t think I’ve seen an actual ghost. I remember having a dream about a close relative the night they died suddenly and we all found out in the morning. But that could be my memory post-rationalising something.

I’ve seen a milk bottle fly out from the back of the fridge but I swear I remember that the fridge wasn’t rocking unstably and that the milk was definitely at the back of the fridge. But I could have seen incorrectly because who pays attention to the precise location of a milk bottle when opening the fridge.

And I’ve encountered machines that appeared to be haunted. An ex-gf’s iPod classic she kept because it is a time capsule of her music would randomly turn itself on, play 10 seconds of a random song, then turn itself off again.

I can feel how a ghost story would fit all of these and feel like it would make emotional sense to me. Like there’s some deep part of our evolutionary psychology that supports feeling this way. Why?

Now in that sense I believe people genuinely experienced “ghosts” that aren’t actually there but are a part of their perceived reality and I find that fascinating.