Living Person Apparitions are reports in which someone sees, hears, or senses a person who is actually alive but physically absent at the time of the experience (apparition).
These experiences have been studied in parapsychology and psychical research for over a century. They are sometimes called veridical apparitions of the living or living agent apparitions.
Common Features
- The experiencer perceives a recognizable person.
- The person is alive at the time of the apparition.
- The apparition may appear visually, be heard speaking, or be sensed as a presence.
- The experience may occur during an emotionally significant event involving the distant person.
Types of Living-Person Apparitions
1. Crisis Apparitions
The most frequently reported type.
A person appears to a friend or relative at the moment they are:
- Seriously injured
- Experiencing a medical emergency: Consult with a Medical Doctor, ASAP.
- In extreme danger; Call 911.
- Believing they may die
The apparition is later found to have coincided with the crisis.
2. Experimental Apparitions
In some psychical research experiments, a “sender” attempts to mentally project an image or presence to a distant “receiver.” Results have been mixed and remain controversial.
3. Spontaneous Apparitions
A person unexpectedly perceives someone who is alive and elsewhere, without any known crisis occurring.
Psychological Explanations
Controversial psychology may interprets these experiences as:
- Misperceptions
- Vivid mental imagery
- Hypnagogic or hypnopompic experiences (between sleeping and waking)
- Memory reconstruction
- Expectation or emotional longing
Parapsychological Interpretations
Some researchers have proposed that living person apparitions may involve:
- Telepathy
- Psi mediated communication
- An unconscious projection of information during emotional crises
- A temporary manifestation of consciousness at a distance
Historical Research
Researchers associated with the Society for Psychical Research collected thousands of reports of apparitions, including many involving living persons. Classic investigators documented numerous cases in the landmark work Phantasms of the Living.
Current View
There is scientific some consensus that living person apparitions represent an actual paranormal phenomenon. However, they remain of interest to psychologists, consciousness researchers, and parapsychologists because some cases appear difficult to explain through ordinary coincidence or known psychological processes alone.
In short, a living person apparition is an experience in which a person perceives someone who is alive but not physically present, with explanations ranging from normal psychological processes to theories of telepathy or other psi related mechanisms.
Shervan K Shahhian
LIBERTY PSYCHOLOGICAL ASSOCIATION 