What is a Ghost? A New Theory of Consciousness, Light and Electromagnetic Energy
Updated: 5 days ago
Put aside the ever present Stone Tape Theory for a moment and also that of demons, aliens, skinwalkers, shadow people and everything else sometimes named and used to explain the unexplained. These I believe are different to the more common... how do we say it... erm, "Ghost".
Now, shall we begin by asking the simplest question of all:
"What is a ghost?"
Most people when asked would probably answer; It is the spirit of somebody who has died. However, that assumes we already know what the phenomenon is, and we do not as yet know this at all. Perhaps a better starting point could be:
"A ghost may be the energy of a person who previsouly had a physical form"
I know that this is the same in effect, but there is a difference. It assumes that death is a transition, from one form to another. Some fascinating new neuroscience and my own subjectve observations based on the interviews and observations duing investigations and during my work may be able to provide a part of the answer or at least a hypnothesis.
The person who remains inside the brain
In 2025, researchers proposed a new neurocognitive model to explain a 'Felt Presence or Sense of Presence' commonly reported following bereavement. The theory centres on what they call 'person networks'. Person networks is an idea that has been gathering a following and whilst it attempts to explain some supernatural phenomena, I believe that theory just means that we are all connected!
You see, our brains don't simply remember someone's face. When we know somebody closely, we build an extraordinarily detailed neurological representation of them; their voice, appearance, movements, personality, behaviour, expressions and their most likely responses in various scenarios.
When that person dies, the physical reality changes instantly, but it is suggested that the brain’s deeply ingrained predictions do not. The brain continues to expect that person to walk through the door, sit in their favorite chair, or text etc.
In order to resolve this difference between expectation and reality, the brain's internal person-networks temporarily misinterpret everyday information, i.e. floorboards creaking, a shifting shadow, or a faint scent. These are then translated into a vivid felt presence or brief auditory/visual echo of the person.
"Death [may] ends a life, but it does not end a relationship. The theory suggests that sensing a presence is a healthy, adaptive mechanism that helps the brain transition the relationship from a physical presence to a psychological one" Alicja Nowacka, psychology researcher Psyche Magazine
This is where I now deviate from the curerent theory, I agree that the physical person disappears but the network does not, i.e. the connection. Just a thought, what if we are truly all connected. This corresponds to my own belief that everyone and everything is connected by energy. I have my own empirical evidence; I have witnessed this during my work as a hypnotherapist many times.
Researchers propose that this 'network' can become activated and create a genuine perception of the deceased person being present, perhaps as a voice, image, smell, touch or simply the overwhelming feeling that they are standing nearby. That may explain many experiences. Yet I wonder whether it could also provide something else.
What if the person network isn't always generating the experience by itself?
What if, stay with me here, occasionally, the person acts as a decoder/receiver? What if the reciever is getting data sent to be decoded? What if this is what a 'ghost' is doing? Merely transmitting, data?
My theory: what if a ghost is information carried by energy?
This is where my own working theory now continues. I have long wondered whether what we call a ghost might be some form of energy which is transmitting information about the deceased person. The person's conciousness is enssentially carrying the essence of the deceased. We could be actually be incredible complex and include all versions (thinking PLR) of the person, yet I would prefer to think that it is the person we know or perhaps that is who is transmitted, the version the energy wishes to portray?
Not necessarily a complete human being somehow walking invisibly around a building, moreso the coding as it were. It is carried in the ether (conciousness) field (which is proven to exist btw), it is data, i.e. memory, identity, personality etc all contained in information packets of light? (Helps to explain Orbs and Portals!!)
Perhaps that information exists at a specific channel of the electromagnetic spectrum, because that is where we are 'seeing' spirits. That point immediately raises the subject of light. We tend to think of light simply as something we can see. In reality, visible light represents only a very small section of the electromagnetic spectrum. The human eye detects roughly 380–700 nanometres. Beyond our vision lie infrared, ultraviolet, radio waves and other forms of electromagnetic radiation that surround us but that we simply cannot see. Let's move on. So here's another question:
"Could something be present without existing within the tiny window our biological senses allow us to perceive?"
Of course it could and science suggests it does; moreso it happens around us constantly by the way! The much bigger question is whether wider connected consciousness could somehow be associated with such energy.
We do not currently have evidence that it is, however. Yet there is an interesting scientific footnote here to be taken into account in that living biological cells actually emit extraordinarily small quantities and packets of light, i.e. ultraweak photon emission, sometimes termed biophotons... This is absolutley fascinating. Mitochondria and DNA are primary sources and regulators of these light emissions and recent studies indicate that the human brain emits measurable biophotons from outside the skull. Furthermore, emission patterns shift during different cognitive or perceptual tasks. One theory suggests that the photos travel down collogen fibres! Just like fibre optic data transmissions.
These emissions are real and measurable and appear principally associated with cellular metabolism and oxidative processes. Current research is improving our ability to detect and image them.
That does not mean scientists have discovered what could be considered as part of the conciousness. There is currently no evidence that these photons contain anything, certainly at the moment nothing like memories, personality or consciousness, and certainly no evidence that they continue after death. It does establish something else though, that human beings are electromagnetic biological systems and even produce measurable light. Are we connected? This could be the sceince behind our conceptual thinking.
My hypothesis simply considers and theorises about what happens next.
What if the apparition is being projected into us?
This might also explain one of the strangest characteristics of paranormal experiences.
"Why can one person see an apparition while somebody standing beside them sees or hears nothing?"
This is also coupled with "Why does one investigator hear a voice while everybody else hears silence?" Perhaps the ghost isn't producing a conventional image or sound in the room at all. Perhaps whatever remains interacts directly with the observer.
Imagine an external electromagnetic or information-bearing signal interacting with the brain and activating that existing neurological machinery, the very person networks neuroscience is now beginning to describe. The brain would effectively do the rendering and one might see a person, or hear a voice or even feel them standing nearby.
Yet if we consdier light energy... if it is focussed and direct, or weaker and wider it could be recieved only within a footprint, like a torch shining. There would not necessarily be enough information for everybody else in the room to experience the same thing.
That would create an extraordinary possibility:
The deceased might determine, deliberately or otherwise, who perceives them unless you have the right equipment acting at the right frequencies.
Instead of asking why only one person saw the ghost, perhaps eventually we should be asking:
"Why was that particular person the receiver? Did they see the image directly or in their own minds?"
So yes, it really is all in your mind!!
what about EMF equipment?
This is also why electromagnetic measurements during paranormal investigations remain interesting to me.
An EMF meter is not and never has been a ghost detector. Electrical wiring, mobile phones, radio transmissions, appliances and countless other mundane sources can create electromagnetic field readings. Any unusual result has to be investigated and undestood and areas/equipement controlled before paranormal explanations are considered. This is why an investigator needs to conduct a background check before an event.
If some component of a haunting genuinely is electromagnetic, then interaction with electronic equipment is at least physically conceivable. We understand that the spirits are said to interact with TVs, lights, batteries, cameras etc so it makes sense that a K2 could detect different aspects of a ghost's energy field?
Perhaps the equipment we currently use isn't even looking in the correct part of the electromagnetic spectrum so maybe this could explain why paranormal phenomena appears so frustratingly inconsistent.
"We are attempting to detect something we do not understand that it highly sophisticated with equipment that was never, of course, designed to detect it."
Could ghosts be around us but outside our perception?
This leads me to perhaps the most intriguing possibility of all. Humans experience an incredibly restricted version of physical reality, we know this. There are wavelengths of electromagnetic radiation we cannot see and frequencies of sound we cannot hear. We have built technology precisely because our biological senses are so limited.
So could something exist around us that normally falls outside those limits? Possibly. Sceintific probabilty says yes most definetly. The existence of radiation beyond human perception is established physics. The existence of conscious dead people occupying it most certainly is not though, that distinction is essential.
This is a hypothesis, not an explanation digusied as fact.
However, hypotheses provide us questions that can potentially be tested.
So Finally, what is a ghost?
You made it this far, hurray, and thank you. Perhaps there isn't one answer.
Some ghost experiences may originate entirely within the brain.
The latest person-network theory provides an elegant explanation for how that could happen. Some experiences may be misperception, expectation, environmental effects or coincidence.
I do remain interested in the cases where something else appears to occur, particularly when there seems to be interaction, selection or information that the witness should not possess. I particularly like "Ghosts have warm hands" where I fully accept the expert witness of Will Bird (RIP).
A working hypothesis is thus:
A genuine ghost may be an information-bearing remenant of human consciousness capable of interacting through electromagnetic energy, potentially including forms of light as a medium, with our brains, our environment or our electronic equipment.
Perhaps we don't actually see a ghost. Perhaps something interacts with us, individually or on a group level, and our brain(s) decode and creates the image. Like a projection of data decoded and played inside the mind?
Perhaps it isn't always visible because visible light is only a tiny fraction of the electromagnetic world around us. Perhaps the same underlying phenomenon that occasionally interacts with a human nervous system can also interact with electronic equipment. No-one knows.
This is exactly why we investigate. At Paranormal Hunters UK, we are not interested in declaring every noise, EMF fluctuation or strange photograph paranormal. The challenge is to eliminate what we can explain and concentrate on what remains, because perhaps the real question for us is not simply:
“Do ghosts exist?”
It is now:
“What survives and how does it communicate with us?”
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