During this holiday season, investigations are plentiful. Many people come forward with the belief that their home is haunted, but more often then not, other factors are at play. Consider that this is the time of the month when horror movies run on television and people get spooked easily. This is not to say that all people that come forward during this time of year are simply victims of their imagination, but there are ways to filter through some of the Halloween-ghost crazies this time of year. Here are some things to watch out for and questions that you can ask in an interview before you take the case:
The Attention Seekers: There are many people who live alone and just love attention. One way to tell if you are in the company of an attention seeker is that they will tell you their life story on the first visit. This time of year can be hard on people who live alone because they feel more vulnerable and scared with no one living with them. Often these types of people are more interested in you than the investigation that they asked for.
Medication & Mental Illness: These are two key factors in people hallucinating. This is why it is very important for you to ask whether a person has any form of mental illness and/or is taking any prescribed medications. These are the hardest, in my opinion, to deal with because as the saying goes “seeing is believing” - and these people really are seeing things due to hallucinations
...Also, please keep in mind, not all mental illness and medication lead to hallucinations - only some. So do your homework if you are unfamiliar with the condition or medication. Halloween can play an influence on what type of hallucinations people have and should be taken into consideration.
High EMF: Use your EMF reader, not to detect ghosts, but to measure the amount of EMF in a home. High levels of EMF can actually cause a panic reaction in people as well as paranoia and fear. These days, we have a little too much EMF around the homes with all of our appliances and wireless items. If someone complains that they see shadow figures out the corner of their eyes while on the computer, chances are that these are effects from high EMF and not shadow figures. Once more, Halloween fused in with this paranoia can cause people to feel that odd events happening around them are from ghosts.
How you choose to inform someone that ghost sightings may be their imagination and not paranormal events should be well thought-out. Let them down gently. If you are rude to people, word-of-mouth can be deadly in this field. Some researchers choose to continue with the investigation in hopes of putting the person at ease by telling them nothing is in their home. This is good in the event that you have an attention seeker; however, this may not work out so well with others. People will look to you for validation of what they’re seeing. Despite all of this, it is most important to keep yourself and your team safe.