What Is Pareidolia? Or Demons?

Hello my para beauties. I hope everyone had a fabulous weekend and enjoying the start of 2014. I hope some of you have been able to stay warm during these insane weather conditions. It's sure miserable being that cold! Yikes....

According to Wiki Pareidolia (/pærɨˈdoʊliə/ parr-i-doh-lee-ə) is a psychological phenomenon involving a vague and random stimulus (often an image or sound) being perceived as significant, a form of apophenia. Common examples include seeing images of animals or faces in clouds, the man in the moon or the Moon rabbit, and hearing hidden messages on records when played in reverse.

The word comes from the Greek words para (παρά, "beside, alongside, instead") in this context meaning something faulty, wrong, instead of; and the noun eidōlon (εἴδωλον "image, form, shape") the diminutive of eidos. Pareidolia is a type of apophenia, seeing patterns in random data.

I have viewed countless images that were deemed evidence and come to find out they were nothing more than Pareidolia. Example: you know how clouds in the sky can look like a "bunny" in form but we know it's not a actual bunny. There are many images that do not seem to be a trick of the eyes after all. We have to be very careful in examining our findings and not jump to conclusions to quickly without taking the time to seek any possible natural explanation. I can't express this enough. Many don't even try or they do a half a$$ job for selfish reasons. It's a type of fraud in my humble opinion.

In 1971, Konstantin Raudive wrote Breakthrough: An Amazing Experiment in Electronic Communication with the Dead, detailing what he believed was the discovery of electronic voice phenomenon (EVP). EVP has been described as auditory pareidolia. The allegations of backmasking in popular music have also been described as Pareidolia.

Ghost Boxes and the related prove to be Pareidolia. The device is a receiver that scans, or cycles, through the radio spectrum. Since it is constantly scanning the airwaves, it generates white noise that is infused with AM and FM stations. Many believe any ghost or demon could then manipulate the spoken words and through the white noise, communicate with the living. The device has dials and other trinkets that help the user hear the sounds more clear to the other side. That’s it. Ones mind can play tricks especially if we really want to hear a demon. When your mind is in that mode it's so easy to hear what we want. Mind over matter type of situation. The power of suggestion is very much a contributing factor as well.

There is also a phenomenon known as hypnogongia. This happens either when we are just falling asleep or just waking up. During this time, many people have very real visual and auditory hallucinations. Again, if someone already strongly believes in the supernatural, they might interpret these experiences as supernatural in origin.

Have you ever heard of The Rorschach Test? The Rorschach test was developed in 1921 by Herman Rorschach. The Rorschach test is a series of ten ink blots of varying patterns and colors. It is believed by many psychologists to be the key to unlocking someone’s psyche. The answers a person gives to the different blobs is supposed to be indicative of their personality. The concept is much akin to palm or tarot card reading. In fact the accuracy of such a test is narrow at best.

Apophenia is a form called pareidolia, people pull shapes or sounds out of meaningless data. The most well known example of pareidolia is probably cloud-gazing, in which people see shapes in the forms of clouds in the sky. Many people also obtain pareidolia when they pull meaningful sounds from static in the radio, and it can sometimes be extremely frustrating, as other people will not recognize those sounds or patterns. Apophenia is an example of what is known in statistics as a type I error, or a false positive. Most people do not bring on apophenia by conscious choice; they simply draw connections where there are none out of a sense of false sensitivity. The behavior of someone with severe apophenia can veer into the absurd, as someone may go to elaborate lengths to support the connections he or she makes, or to avoid particular circumstances.

Written By Jennifer L Auld