Different authors and people in the paranormal have their theories as to what a shadow person is, and these ideas come from all fields of study and belief, ranging from metaphysics, religious ideals, parapsychology, cryptozoology, even the occult and demonology. Others have ideas that shadow people are thought forms, ghosts themselves or sometimes even demonic forces.

A thought form, by the way, as most people are familiar with the basic ideas of what a ghost and demon may be, is a manifestation of mental energy from a thinker or person into a semi corporeal (physical) form. They called tulpas alternatively and the idea for them comes from Tibetan and Hindu mysticism.

Further speaking of the tulpas, there is a book called Thought Forms by Annie Besant and C.W. Leadbeater, which is essentially study on the power of the nature of thoughts. They state as their premise that thoughts have two effects on the physical world, a “radiating vibration” and a “floating form” and going further, they break up their classification of thought forms into several different categories:

*Thought forms that take the image of the thinker

* Thought forms that take the image of a material object

* Thought forms which take the form of a unique entity all of its own, expressing its inherence qualities in the matter which draws around it.

The book also examines the effects of music, emotion and colors in regards to thought forms as well. Some people feel that shadow people are creatures from another plane of existence that overlaps ours. Oddly, others believe that shadow people are two dimensional entities that reside or pass through our three dimensional reality and are somehow tied into Grey Aliens. This explanation is often tied into deep and twisted conspiracy buff theories and I personally don’t hold much to it.

I personally prefer the tulpas theory for most shadow people experiences. Remember, at any given time there may be more than just your own thought forms in a given area if that theory holds true. Tulpas may also be present during poltergeist outbreaks when people believe they are seeing demonic forms and monstrous creatures…if a thought form takes the form of your thoughts, and you are angry, distressed or worried, one must consider, what would anger look like given form? Or fear? Or passion?

I can almost bet it wouldn’t be pretty.

Of course, these are all possible and none confirmed. Now that we have explored the paranormal possible causes, we also need to be balanced and examine logical explanations as it always best to eliminate all possible rational explanations first before jumping to paranormal conclusion. Many different scientific principles can explain the effects experienced during shadow people encounters, including hallucinations and optical illusions brought on by different physiological or psychological conditions, drug use and or the interaction of external agents on the human body.

Also, images seen in the peripheral area (edge) of vision can be caused by what is termed pareidolia, which means in simple terms, when your brain incorrectly interprets complex lines, colors, light or shadow or texture that may appear to be something familiar…the common term used by us and the majority of other researchers was coined by Grant Wilson, matrixing.

Hypnagogia, what is known as “waking-sleep” is a condition in which a person is half way asleep and half way awake. While in this state, people can be conscious and aware of their environment but also at the same time in a dream like state, where images from their own subconscious may be perceived. People who have been in this state often report lights, and shadows moving around them, or faces in the dark as well as a heavy feeling of impending dread. This is one of the effects of sleep paralysis, as you noted earlier with the paralysis part coming from your body’s natural tendency to paralyze itself while in REM sleep to avoid reacting to internal dream stimuli.

Sleep paralysis is another good possible explanation or even lucid dreaming, while rare, may be occurring in which it would almost be a waking dream.

So in the end, Shadow People are as mysterious as ever and they are just one further reason to keep your eyes open and always be vigilant.

The scariest movie ever made.

That tagline used to belong to William Peter Blatty’s “The Exorcist.”

Not anymore

Now it belongs to a surprise smash hit that has stormed the country titled simply, “Paranormal Activity.”

Made on a budget of 15,000 dollars, the movie is filmed in a documentary style and is the brain-child of director Oren Peli, the plot revolves around a young couple living in a suburban home in San Diego CA, named Katie and Micah. Katie tells Micah that she has been followed since she was a young girl by an entity. Micah, a day-trader, purchases a video camera to attempt to document the entity and record its manifestations.

At first, little to nothing happens. Katie seems to tolerate Micah’s behavior up until the point that things begin to happen. After a self proclaimed psychic visits the home, small things begin to happen at first; objects moving, electronics malfunctioning, and it slowly escalates to larger and more terrifying events, such as doors slamming, horrible slamming footsteps and inhuman roars and growls.

As time progresses, Katie and Micah’s relationship becomes more and more strained as Katie looses sleep and begins to have prolonged sleep walking episodes and her fears about being harmed by the activity rise.  Katie repeatedly asks Micah to stop filming as she fears it will make things worse and finally, Micah asks to bring in an Ouija board to communicate with the entity after capturing some disturbing EVP’s.  Katie vehemently objects to this and after a heated verbal fighting match, Micah promises to not bring one in.

Despite Katie’s objections and trust, Micah brings a board in and uses it, to get no results. They leave and while they are gone, Micah leaves the camera on to film the board…and the camera catches a very eerie occurence, during which the board itself comes alive and the planchette beings to draw out a pattern, eventually bursting into flame.

Of course, Katie is furious with Micah and a titanic fight occurs, further driving up the stress in the home.

The pattern of activity escalates and finally the film attempts to climax in a  fashion that I won’t reveal here for spoilers sake but that is where the problem comes in; the film builds up a good level of suspense and delivers more than its fair share of genuinely scary spook attacks, but fails to live up to the hype in the end by nose diving into cheese…a large vat of ectoplasmic cheese that the Blair Witch Project fell into and never came out.

As an investigator, and an author myself, I attempted to set aside my investigators instincts and just enjoy the story and I did, but again, the ending ruined the whole piece. There is no exposition, no explanation, no reasoning, not even a believable or plausible ending. The film also overlooks key factual points in true demonic assaults. The acting is well done and believable, the special effects are quite good for a budget the size that it had and over all the story is solid but the ending should have packed more power, more of a punch and gave a better resolution.

It is like a roller coaster that climbs and goes up and up and then instead of an adrenaline rush as gravity throws you back in your seat….you get flatlined. The odd thing is, it is not the fault of the actors or the director but rather, strangely, Spielberg who altered the films ending. I honestly feel that if he had not done this, the film would have been much more coherent and packed a far more potent punch than it did.

With that being said, how did I finally score Paranormal Activity?

On a scale of 1-10, with 1 being the worst and 10 being of course, best, I feel that Paranormal Activity scored a modest 3 out of 10.