Are Ghosts Real? A Psychologist’s 35-Year Answer

Professor Chris French on ghosts, sleep paralysis, UFOs, and what 35 years of testing the paranormal actually found.

Chris French grew up terrified of the dark and believed every second of Uri Geller’s spoon-bending. He is now Emeritus Professor of Psychology at Goldsmiths, founder of their Anomalistic Psychology Research Unit, and one of Britain’s foremost experts on why people believe in things that aren’t there.

He spent 35 years in laboratories and haunted buildings, testing ghost hunters and psychics under controlled conditions. In this conversation he explains sleep paralysis, why ancient Greek ghosts mostly just gossiped, the lucid dreamer study that left him discombobulated for several days, and why UFO congressional hearings produced nothing but hearsay.

The sleep paralysis section is the most useful thing this show has aired for anyone who has woken up paralysed and terrified. The house-proud mouse is the best argument for not ruling out the mundane. And the question, why do ghosts have clothes?, punctures more assumptions than any data point in the episode.