A recent post on Reddit claimed that many “haunted” houses have been investigated and that the culprit was carbon monoxide poisoning, not the supernatural.
Indeed, in some cases this may be the best explanation, and according to one toxicologist, carbon monoxide and other poisonings may explain the rise in Victorian hauntings and ghost stories.
An incredibly detailed report published in the American Journal of Ophthalmology in 1921 documents the case of a family who moved into a house nine years ago and began seeing ghostly visions. The father, who likes to eat fruit alone in the kitchen before going to bed, begins to feel that someone is constantly watching him from behind, and he turns his face to the corridor to pay attention to other beings. Children get sick and turn pale. They lose all interest in the game. The father, on the other hand, hallucinates a “strange woman” dressed in black walking towards him from the dining room.
Years later, Anne tells her ophthalmologist, “I had vague and strange dreams that lasted for hours,” and continues: “In the morning, I felt too tired and sick to get up. G. told me that he woke up in the middle of the night as if someone had grabbed him by the throat and was trying to strangle him.”
The one who makes the logical explanation is the father’s brother. And the ophthalmologist, who later found obvious damage to the children’s eyes, confirms the explanation. The cause of all this was the house’s broken oven and carbon monoxide poisoning.
An “evil spirit entity” is following me!
In another much more recent case, author Carrie Poppy says she began to feel stalked by an “evil spirit entity.” Poppy feels like she’s being watched before she develops auditory hallucinations and a strange feeling of pressure in her chest.
“I’d hear a hum as if something were passing by me – maybe the sound of the ocean,” he told NPR’s TED Radio Hour. Rather than being haunted by something, Poppy says she felt like a demon was in her house: “I used to come home every day. And gentlemen, this feeling has gotten so bad. I used to sit there in bed at night. I used to cry every night. And the feeling in my chest just got worse. It was physically painful.”
Luckily for Poppy, who, after a bit of Google searching, contacted the “ghostbusters” forum, the people around her were the skeptical ghostbusters and soon began asking her if she had ever heard of carbon monoxide poisoning. Of course she had heard: “I researched and found that symptoms of carbon monoxide poisoning included a pressure in your chest, auditory hallucinations, humming, and an inexplicable feeling of dread.”
Afterwards, the gas company confirmed there was a leak and told him he might have died soon if it had been left unchecked.
Of course, carbon monoxide poisoning doesn’t account for all reports of ghosts. These events can also be explained by many things, such as hoaxes, hallucinations during sleep paralysis, poor sleep, and hotel managers trying to reinvigorate their jobs.
However, toxicologist Albert Donnay believes that carbon monoxide and other poisonings can cause haunting hallucinations, and that this theory might explain why Victorian people, surrounded by gas lamps and venomous wallpaper, experienced and were fascinated by so many hauntings.
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