Maybe people see things in haunted houses because molds have messed with their brains. That's a theory being tested by some New York state researchers.
The idea is that certain toxic moulds or fungi, like the rye ergot fungus, are able to cause severe psychosis in people who breathe in the hard-to-detect fumes they project. When the air is contaminated, the brain can play subtle tricks on you — a sudden chill, a movement in the corner of your eye, or potentially other ghastly and hallucinatory illusions. “Similarly, some people have reported depression, anxiety and other effects from exposure to biological pollutants in indoor air,” Rogers said....
One wonders if searching for mold will become standard methodology for ghost hunters.
By comparing samples to “non-haunted” locations, Rogers hopes to find what sets these locations apart and find similarities in the mould microbiome between the haunted locations that could point to a less supernatural culprit.
(thanks to Randy McCall)
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