Don't dis the human brain!

Shadow People! 

Shadow People?

Yes, Shadow People! They could be creeping up behind you... right now!

I think the recent Skeptoid podcast episode on Shadow People was the first I'd heard of this new (?) supernatural threat. We've probably all had the experience of thinking we see a flicker of movement in a dark shadow; some people even claim to have seen ghostly humanoid figures in their darkened bedrooms at night. Therefore: Shadow People, those spectral demons (or interdimensional beings, or ghosts of the departed, or something) that haunt the living (or flit away to avoid the living, or astrally project themselves into random places, or something).

They often wear hats. Really.

There's no need to rehash Shadow People details here; as you'd expect, thoughtful discussions of the topic quickly begin and end with the damning fact that there's no evidence for such a thing. And that's pretty much the end of that story, until someone can show the smoking gun (or smoky fedora, as many stories would have it).

Rather, what interested me about the Skeptoid piece was that it goes into a topic that really fascinates me: the awesome power of the human brain to create its own reality – and the way in which "open-minded" believers in the supernatural are so often close-minded toward the brain's wonders.

Science and skeptical thinking repeat it over and over: The mind has amazing faculties to delude itself. (One great work on this topic is Carl Sagan's The Demon-Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark.) Visual illusions easily fool our eyes. We're subject to illusions in our other senses as well. Phenomena like hypnogogia, hypnopomp, and sleep paralysis add to the tricks the inner self can play on us.

This random uncertainty that goes on between our ears can be frustrating, even dangerous, when it makes us see a reality that isn't there. We need to exercise diligence in detecting these misdirections and compensating for them. And that, in a nutshell, is what skeptical thinking and science are: tools for identifying and weeding out the myriad biases and illusions that can mislead us, including the illusory senses and experiences our brains concoct out of thin air.  

Yet at the same time, this internal theater of shadow puppets is something we need to celebrate as well! Isn't this imagined reality the muse that an artist taps into when she envisions a sculpture that doesn't yet exist, or a song that no one's yet sung? Could we maintain our astounding human ability to find patterns and connections among disparate pieces and leap to a higher understanding, if we couldn't "see" a whole that isn't actually visible? Would anyone have flashes of inventive genius, or reach unexpected insights while dreaming, if the mind didn't run unbidden on its own course at times? Doesn't the brain's fallibility enable incredible feats such as ignoring pain in an emergency, or the self-hypnosis of a meditating guru?  

Yes, there's a weakness in "seeing" a face in the shadows where there actually is none (or a Jesus where there's only grilled cheese), but as long as we know and deal with that weakness, we're all right. By using the tools of critical thinking to separate what's real from what's imagined, we enjoy both demonstrable reality and creative visions.

That's my beef with people who make extraordinary claims and insist that their experience couldn't possibly have been imagined – or worse, who call the skeptic close-minded for suggesting such. In truth, the shoe is on the believer's foot: He's closing his mind to the astounding (and real!) feats of creativity his own brain can perform.

Of course, that's not to say that the believer couldn't have been fully awake and alert, and actually experienced a real and unknown phenomenon. But we know how to confidently settle the truth of that: evidence. And if there isn't any... well, where do we go from there? 

There are two questions I like to pose to anyone insisting on a "real" supernatural experience: 

1. "Without taking anything away from your own claim, can we both agree that there are people with similarly confident claims but whose experience was actually illusion, a waking dream, or other non-supernatural phenomenon?" (Any minimally reasonable person should reply, "Sure, that sort of thing has happened to other people.")   

2. "Then with that in mind, what differentiates your claim from theirs?"

That leaves the believer with a tough question to answer. Yet it's not a mocking or dismissive question; it's open-minded and ready to acknowledge a meaningful difference between the current claim and false claims. Ideally, it'll lead the claimant to realize that there can only be one meaningful differentiator: evidence.

If the claimant can't provide evidence, there's still no need to be derisive! I see this as a great chance to point out a wonderful, positive alternate explanation, one that doesn't call the claimant a liar either. It's this:

"So it was probably some sort of sleep-related hallucination – but think what that means. You've got an incredible imagination! Think of all the geniuses who claimed to receive great story ideas in dreams, or hear music from a muse they couldn't identify. We don't fully know the details of that amazing ability in the mind, but your brain has definitely got it! Wow!"

In short: Believers, don't dis your brain by insisting that the Shadow People had to be real because you felt awake. Give that gray lump some credit. Embrace its awesome imaginative powers! Learn to spot when it's pulling one of its tricks, and then revel in that creativity!

That's my message to the Shadow People spotters. Of which... I believe I am one. Yes, I've had my own "freaky" experiences, which I might mistake for reality if I weren't aware of the alternative (and better) explanations. I've got a few good ones. Hypnogogic songwriting! Fearsome faces in the window! Unearthly visitations besetting my paralyzed form! And in at least two cases... yes, hats!

Anyone interested? Just say so, and I'll spill all for you.