I've only read lightly on the historical literature of ghosts, but I think TFA has some basic misconceptions. Through most of history, ghost sightings appeared to be of regular people, with the witness only realizing later that it was a ghost. The conception of ghosts having ethereal appearance appears to have become widespread in the late 19th century.
There are accounts of spirits/ ghosts much earlier than 19th c that aren't "regular" people.
In Homer's Odyssey (8th c. BC), while in the underworld Odysseus attempts to hug his mother Anticlea but is unable to do so.
Thrice I sprang towards her, and my heart bade me clasp her, and thrice she flitted from my arms like a shadow or a dream..... “‘My mother, why dost thou not stay for me, who am eager to clasp thee, that even in the house of Hades we two may cast our arms each about the other.... Is this but a phantom (ghost) that august Persephone has sent me, that I may lament and groan the more?
I read that they fade over time. A famous one was a lady in red who appeared in a castle in the UK. Over a couple hundred years of sightings the color if her dress faded from deep red through crimson then pink then finally white.
Roman writers used "umbra" or "shadow"/"shade" as a word for specters, phantoms, ghosts, etc. They had many other words, too, but this is probably closest to how dead apparitions were physically perceived.
I remember some tradition that Roman ghosts were often associated with or seen as blue for some reason? That's only my fuzzy and likely incorrect memory though, from when I was studying in college. I have a memory of a play or piece of literature where a candle flame turns blue and it was meant as a cue to what was about to happen.
for me horror movies with ghosts shown as regular people in foggy daylight (for example the kid in the original Omen) are scarier then the ones that fly at night or have heavy makeups with abnormal bodies etc.
There's another theory I've heard that goes more into what ghosts are, that isn't in the article: They're not spirits, but more like an imprint on reality. This would also explain why so many just repeat the same actions over and over, and to some extent not just clothes but other things that appear in a ghost-like form they'd interact with. The one missing part of this theory is, it should be possible to create such an imprint with someone who is still alive.
> The one missing part of this theory is, it should be possible to create such an imprint with someone who is still alive.
I've read of this idea, it's traditional in some cultures, I just don't remember the name of it. I think it's cognate with ideas of doppelgangers and so forth.
I also think there's often an implicit assumption that whatever it is that causes the "imprint" can only reach a certain necessary magnitude that is commensurate with death or dying.
I feel obliged to note this is not my own perspective on things at all, although I admit I like reading about and thinking about these things sometimes as a kind of psychosocial phenomenon, and think it's worthwhile to engage in metaphysical discussions sometimes just as a kind of check.
If ghosts are the souls of deceased people, unless they were nudists, wouldn't they prefer to wear clothes similar to the ones they used when they were alive?
That is, instead of "ghost-seers dress the ghost", it's the ghost that dresses itself. In fact, that whole paragraph even makes sense once flipped that way:
"[...] ghosts dress themselves, automatically, through unconscious processes. And so we see a ghost in its usual dress because that is the mental picture the ghost has of itself, and this choice of garment is most likely to inspire recognition."
"Is it really so hard to believe? Your clothes are different, the plugs in your arms and head are gone, your hair has changed. Your appearance now is what we call 'residual self-image'. It is the mental projection of your digital self."
I always thought the "white sheet" thing was just about representing funeral wrapping. I found it interesting that the topic goes much deeper than that.
Ghost sightings can cover a wide range of clothes and that is generally because ghosts wear whatever they wore when their mortal form died. The concept of ghosts dressed in white gained prevalence at a time and place when white linens were rapidly becoming common for the average person. The industrial revolution increased the supply of white linen clothes, also white linen bedding, both at homes and in hospitals. Ghost stories gained popularity during this era, which was also a time of growing world population and growing deaths in densely populated areas. This intersection is why ghostly appearances very much fit the description of a nightgown-wearing tuberculosis patient. During the Victorian-era in Great Britain, the medical field was advancing rapidly, so a keener awareness of life and death coincided with customary dress/fashion of the time to produce stereotypical images of ghosts and ghouls.
I thought the point of the white sheet trope was that the ghost (whether clothed or not) is invisible, and so they throw a real physical sheet over themselves so they can be seen at all. Although, a ghost that's visible but naked would be just as good justification.
Why is the question about clothes? Why not ask why ghosts usually appear wearing skin? Or flesh? I guess these days in common depictions, clothes > skeleton > peeled > nude in terms of frequency. And what about age, or state of injury? It seems more commonly reported that ghosts do not exhibit their fatal injuries, though again it "happens". Or the big question: why should anything be visible at all?
If a ghost is meant to be associated with a spirit or soul, there's no particular reason for them to have any form or be visible at all. But as an exercise in worldbuilding, they can be, and their visual appearance can give all kinds of fascinating clues about their previous existence or the viewers'. I'd rather speculate about that.
When I lived in manhattan I was friends with this hippie spiritual Buddhist woman who was very into reincarnation, she described it as a "glitch in past life memory system". Basically something from the history line accidentally implanted a memory in the current that manifested as the person witnessing a past life component. I always thought that was pretty fun.
Might dust coverings be also part of this? Not that those are used here, but them being used in some abandoned or less frequented locations with slight movements of air could explain some imaginery. Peeking from windows for example and seeing objects covered in sheets.
Ghosts aren't real, but the folklore around them has to conform to acceptable societal norms, particularly in the context of Victorian era Britain where the cultural template for most Western ghost stories originates, so ghosts have to be depicted with the necessary modesty unless offending that modesty is an intentional theme.
Also, clothes are useful for signaling a "ghost's" identity and status.
Are ghost clothes made from ghost cotton? Or is there a mystical alteration process to convert human clothes to those that ghosts can wear?
Jokes aside, I am wondering if cynicism and humorous over-analysis is a recent phenomena, because the general population is more educated/have basic needs met than those in Victorian times.
An important principle in folklorists study of legends (which many ghost stories fall under) is that the legend cannot be separated from its telling. That means that telling legends is generally a group process. For example, after someone tells a legend someone else might speak up to add some details that they heard; only to be interrupted by someone to contest a point, and so on. I suspect that in that framework there have always been people who play the role of the skeptic who provides alternative interpretations or the practical joker who makes light of the story.
This is what happens when people still have a desire to believe in a metaphysical reality, but want to reconcile that with their understanding of physical reality. It's assumed that ghosts are real actual disembodied spirits of the dead because belief in them serves a cultural need, but in a modern society not entirely governed by magical thinking, such beliefs don't seem practical enough to be comforting. The attempt to move past "superstition" and ground the supernatural in science was the driving impetus behind the spiritualism movement (that and grift.)
You see the same incentives in the modern day with Biblical literalism and flat earth, and UFO folklore where "ultraterrestrial" and "interdimensional" theory shows up. It seems like science if everything you know about science comes from Reddit and TikTok but it's really just three space goblins stacked in a lab coat. Three because, of course, three is a sacred number.
There's no explanation for why ghosts wear clothes that isn't less ridiculous than the obvious, that it's because we imagine people wearing clothes, and ghosts are imaginary people.
“Real” in the sense it exists within your mind, which exists (somehow) within your brain, which is itself likely real. So your imagination must have some physical basis, but it would exist entirely within your brain (or body, to the extent the rest of your body influences the brain itself).
Your brain imagining a specter in a doorway does not mean there is any anomaly within the physical space of the doorway at all that anyone else could perceive or measure - they would need to measure your brain to (theoretically) detect the physical basis of it.
What you see, feel, hear, taste is an interpretation of your physical environment, and may not accurately reflect it at all times.
To tack on to the amount of complexity; your brain’s operation allows you to perceive a world outside your brain, but the actual perceiving of it happens inside your brain, which again rests inside the perceived world more or less..
I know funny isn't really the goal for comments around here but man that made me laugh. So subtle and obvious at the same time and quite an appropriate response to the posed question!
My small experience with seeing a ghost was that it appeared out of a mist. The white sheet could be a figurative way of portraying that. But there was a face too, and that stood out most starkly. And the gaze, when it fell on me, was electrically frightening.
The Japanese ghost stories recorded by Lafcadio Hearn in the late 19th century are different:
> "For the face was the face of a woman long dead, and the fingers caressing were fingers of naked bone, and of the body below the waist there was not anything: it melted off into thinnest trailing shadow. Where the eyes of the lover deluded saw youth and grace and beauty, there appeared to the eyes of the watcher horror only, and the emptiness of death." - Lafcadio Hearn, In Ghostly Japan
The relationship with Japanese and ghosts are on another level. Here in Europe I know nobody who believes in ghosts, but I heard so many ordinary Japanese people telling ghost stories, from scary to quite amusing ones (how about having a ghost as a roommate:) ). That may explain why they are masters in horror movies. I was into Japanese horror until I became afraid to go upstairs in my own house without switching on a light, just like a little child. So maybe it is the other way around: they believe in ghosts because the movies are so good.
I've only read lightly on the historical literature of ghosts, but I think TFA has some basic misconceptions. Through most of history, ghost sightings appeared to be of regular people, with the witness only realizing later that it was a ghost. The conception of ghosts having ethereal appearance appears to have become widespread in the late 19th century.
And in the 19th century with the advent of cameras and their “ghosting” of images with people moving.
See also the rise of https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phantasmagoria in the 19th.
There are accounts of spirits/ ghosts much earlier than 19th c that aren't "regular" people.
In Homer's Odyssey (8th c. BC), while in the underworld Odysseus attempts to hug his mother Anticlea but is unable to do so.
Thrice I sprang towards her, and my heart bade me clasp her, and thrice she flitted from my arms like a shadow or a dream..... “‘My mother, why dost thou not stay for me, who am eager to clasp thee, that even in the house of Hades we two may cast our arms each about the other.... Is this but a phantom (ghost) that august Persephone has sent me, that I may lament and groan the more?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shade_(mythology)
Ancient Romans used "umbrae" (shadows) to refer to ghostly spirits, which for me invokes the figures on the wall of Plato's cave
I read that they fade over time. A famous one was a lady in red who appeared in a castle in the UK. Over a couple hundred years of sightings the color if her dress faded from deep red through crimson then pink then finally white.
Well, yes, I suppose repeated washings over a few centuries would do that.
Probably dried it on the sun too much.
[dead]
Homer describes them as a vapor or smoke I believe
Roman writers used "umbra" or "shadow"/"shade" as a word for specters, phantoms, ghosts, etc. They had many other words, too, but this is probably closest to how dead apparitions were physically perceived.
I remember some tradition that Roman ghosts were often associated with or seen as blue for some reason? That's only my fuzzy and likely incorrect memory though, from when I was studying in college. I have a memory of a play or piece of literature where a candle flame turns blue and it was meant as a cue to what was about to happen.
The Witch of Endor described Samuel as a "god" coming up out of the earth in the appearance of an old man in a robe.
skia - shade / shadow
> HORATIO A countenance more in sorrow than in anger.
> HAMLET Pale or red?
> HORATIO Nay, very pale.
~1600
for me horror movies with ghosts shown as regular people in foggy daylight (for example the kid in the original Omen) are scarier then the ones that fly at night or have heavy makeups with abnormal bodies etc.
There's another theory I've heard that goes more into what ghosts are, that isn't in the article: They're not spirits, but more like an imprint on reality. This would also explain why so many just repeat the same actions over and over, and to some extent not just clothes but other things that appear in a ghost-like form they'd interact with. The one missing part of this theory is, it should be possible to create such an imprint with someone who is still alive.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stone_Tape_theory
> The one missing part of this theory is, it should be possible to create such an imprint with someone who is still alive.
I've read of this idea, it's traditional in some cultures, I just don't remember the name of it. I think it's cognate with ideas of doppelgangers and so forth.
I also think there's often an implicit assumption that whatever it is that causes the "imprint" can only reach a certain necessary magnitude that is commensurate with death or dying.
I feel obliged to note this is not my own perspective on things at all, although I admit I like reading about and thinking about these things sometimes as a kind of psychosocial phenomenon, and think it's worthwhile to engage in metaphysical discussions sometimes just as a kind of check.
In Japanese folklore there's the concept of "ikiryō" (literally "living ghost"):
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ikiry%C5%8D
The second missing part of the theory, is the lack of existence of its subjects.
It's not a theory, just detailed, more self-consistent fiction. Like Tolkien's very detailed descriptions of elves.
If it is consistent with a set of axioms, then it is a theory.
[dead]
If ghosts are the souls of deceased people, unless they were nudists, wouldn't they prefer to wear clothes similar to the ones they used when they were alive?
That is, instead of "ghost-seers dress the ghost", it's the ghost that dresses itself. In fact, that whole paragraph even makes sense once flipped that way:
"[...] ghosts dress themselves, automatically, through unconscious processes. And so we see a ghost in its usual dress because that is the mental picture the ghost has of itself, and this choice of garment is most likely to inspire recognition."
"Is it really so hard to believe? Your clothes are different, the plugs in your arms and head are gone, your hair has changed. Your appearance now is what we call 'residual self-image'. It is the mental projection of your digital self."
Easier to do optical illusions / alpha blends with white clothes too, so I suspect that tech furtherd the practice.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pepper's_ghost
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alpha_compositing
I always thought the "white sheet" thing was just about representing funeral wrapping. I found it interesting that the topic goes much deeper than that.
Ghost sightings can cover a wide range of clothes and that is generally because ghosts wear whatever they wore when their mortal form died. The concept of ghosts dressed in white gained prevalence at a time and place when white linens were rapidly becoming common for the average person. The industrial revolution increased the supply of white linen clothes, also white linen bedding, both at homes and in hospitals. Ghost stories gained popularity during this era, which was also a time of growing world population and growing deaths in densely populated areas. This intersection is why ghostly appearances very much fit the description of a nightgown-wearing tuberculosis patient. During the Victorian-era in Great Britain, the medical field was advancing rapidly, so a keener awareness of life and death coincided with customary dress/fashion of the time to produce stereotypical images of ghosts and ghouls.
I thought the point of the white sheet trope was that the ghost (whether clothed or not) is invisible, and so they throw a real physical sheet over themselves so they can be seen at all. Although, a ghost that's visible but naked would be just as good justification.
Why is the question about clothes? Why not ask why ghosts usually appear wearing skin? Or flesh? I guess these days in common depictions, clothes > skeleton > peeled > nude in terms of frequency. And what about age, or state of injury? It seems more commonly reported that ghosts do not exhibit their fatal injuries, though again it "happens". Or the big question: why should anything be visible at all?
If a ghost is meant to be associated with a spirit or soul, there's no particular reason for them to have any form or be visible at all. But as an exercise in worldbuilding, they can be, and their visual appearance can give all kinds of fascinating clues about their previous existence or the viewers'. I'd rather speculate about that.
When I lived in manhattan I was friends with this hippie spiritual Buddhist woman who was very into reincarnation, she described it as a "glitch in past life memory system". Basically something from the history line accidentally implanted a memory in the current that manifested as the person witnessing a past life component. I always thought that was pretty fun.
Might dust coverings be also part of this? Not that those are used here, but them being used in some abandoned or less frequented locations with slight movements of air could explain some imaginery. Peeking from windows for example and seeing objects covered in sheets.
Great. After reading that headline my subconsciousness is going to put a whole new weird spin on my nightmares.
There is shopping in the afterlife, duh.
Any qualified psychologists in the house?
Of course ghosts wouldn't appear naked, we can't see beyond the veil
Ever see that movie "The Sentinel" (1977)? Ghosts and/or demons scurrying out of Hell. Lots of nude ghosts there. White eyes. Scary.
God likes his thermostat low.
Ghosts maintain some procedure too..like we humans wear clothes ..maybe they have feelings
Ghosts aren't real, but the folklore around them has to conform to acceptable societal norms, particularly in the context of Victorian era Britain where the cultural template for most Western ghost stories originates, so ghosts have to be depicted with the necessary modesty unless offending that modesty is an intentional theme.
Also, clothes are useful for signaling a "ghost's" identity and status.
Are ghost clothes made from ghost cotton? Or is there a mystical alteration process to convert human clothes to those that ghosts can wear?
Jokes aside, I am wondering if cynicism and humorous over-analysis is a recent phenomena, because the general population is more educated/have basic needs met than those in Victorian times.
An important principle in folklorists study of legends (which many ghost stories fall under) is that the legend cannot be separated from its telling. That means that telling legends is generally a group process. For example, after someone tells a legend someone else might speak up to add some details that they heard; only to be interrupted by someone to contest a point, and so on. I suspect that in that framework there have always been people who play the role of the skeptic who provides alternative interpretations or the practical joker who makes light of the story.
This is what happens when people still have a desire to believe in a metaphysical reality, but want to reconcile that with their understanding of physical reality. It's assumed that ghosts are real actual disembodied spirits of the dead because belief in them serves a cultural need, but in a modern society not entirely governed by magical thinking, such beliefs don't seem practical enough to be comforting. The attempt to move past "superstition" and ground the supernatural in science was the driving impetus behind the spiritualism movement (that and grift.)
You see the same incentives in the modern day with Biblical literalism and flat earth, and UFO folklore where "ultraterrestrial" and "interdimensional" theory shows up. It seems like science if everything you know about science comes from Reddit and TikTok but it's really just three space goblins stacked in a lab coat. Three because, of course, three is a sacred number.
There's no explanation for why ghosts wear clothes that isn't less ridiculous than the obvious, that it's because we imagine people wearing clothes, and ghosts are imaginary people.
Maybe its a remnant of the classic geeks- dressing in togas - with the person itself invisible?
> a remnant of the classic geeks
Those ancient and respected forebears of the modern geeks.
From the times of jesus throughtout the middle ages there was no coffin, people were buried in a sheet
Is the imagination real? Is it made of fermions or bosons?
“Real” in the sense it exists within your mind, which exists (somehow) within your brain, which is itself likely real. So your imagination must have some physical basis, but it would exist entirely within your brain (or body, to the extent the rest of your body influences the brain itself).
Your brain imagining a specter in a doorway does not mean there is any anomaly within the physical space of the doorway at all that anyone else could perceive or measure - they would need to measure your brain to (theoretically) detect the physical basis of it.
What you see, feel, hear, taste is an interpretation of your physical environment, and may not accurately reflect it at all times.
Are fields physical in your explanation?
Imagination is real; imagined things are not necessarily.
Imaginary numbers are also not real.
The whole situation is quite complex.
To tack on to the amount of complexity; your brain’s operation allows you to perceive a world outside your brain, but the actual perceiving of it happens inside your brain, which again rests inside the perceived world more or less..
I know funny isn't really the goal for comments around here but man that made me laugh. So subtle and obvious at the same time and quite an appropriate response to the posed question!
Complex indeed...
Real gets complicated when human minds are involved :)
My small experience with seeing a ghost was that it appeared out of a mist. The white sheet could be a figurative way of portraying that. But there was a face too, and that stood out most starkly. And the gaze, when it fell on me, was electrically frightening.
clothes are reflection of the of the mind imagining the ghost, not due to ghosts fashion sense.
Now if we only knew why aliens who've developed the technology to visit earth haven't also invented clothes! Maybe there's STEM funding for that.
The Japanese ghost stories recorded by Lafcadio Hearn in the late 19th century are different:
> "For the face was the face of a woman long dead, and the fingers caressing were fingers of naked bone, and of the body below the waist there was not anything: it melted off into thinnest trailing shadow. Where the eyes of the lover deluded saw youth and grace and beauty, there appeared to the eyes of the watcher horror only, and the emptiness of death." - Lafcadio Hearn, In Ghostly Japan
https://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/8128/pg8128.txt
The relationship with Japanese and ghosts are on another level. Here in Europe I know nobody who believes in ghosts, but I heard so many ordinary Japanese people telling ghost stories, from scary to quite amusing ones (how about having a ghost as a roommate:) ). That may explain why they are masters in horror movies. I was into Japanese horror until I became afraid to go upstairs in my own house without switching on a light, just like a little child. So maybe it is the other way around: they believe in ghosts because the movies are so good.