Dr. Frank McAndrew

But the same thing that made you see the first one will also help you see the second one, right?

All the time.

And it isn't even usually that vivid where they see this ghost at their bed.

It's most often an encounter with a long lost relative, a parent or a child who's died, or they swear that they've seen them, that they've interacted with them.

And they are very sincere and they absolutely believe this.

So yes, I do have that experience.

Yeah, more of the second.

I'm kind of a killjoy.

Well, yeah, people who are firm believers in this become very upset very quickly because what you're telling them is that you don't believe that they're, I believe they're experiencing what they're experiencing.

My interpretation of the cause behind it is a little different.

So I don't think they're lying, but they think that they're telling me what they believe they saw should be all I need.

I do, yes.

I don't think I have, no.

It is kind of perverse, right?

We spend money to...

go to scary movies or haunted houses to be in the presence of things we would avoid like the plague in day-to-day life.

And because it is such a universal thing, it's part of human nature.

And there are a lot of hypotheses about why we do this.

But one of the ones that I find most compelling is it's a very adaptive trait.

If you are in a movie theater or a commercial haunted house or wherever it is you're voluntarily being scared,