Halloween is almost here and it’s our favorite time of the year. You’re also never too old for spOoOoky science. Let’s get started!
We are huge fans of scary movies whether it’s a classic slasher film or a psychological thriller that has us on the edge of our seats until the very last second. With that being said, have you ever watched a scary movie where the main character or characters are hallucinating either a traumatic event or the killer lurking at the most inopportune time? Well, hallucination is actually way more common than people think, and not just that Hollywood magic. Hearing or seeing things that aren’t actually there happens every night when you dream, and dreaming tends to leak into your waking life especially when you’re extra stressed, super tired, or you’ve just woken up. Sleep paralysis is also considered a type of hallucination, and this happens when you can hear and see things, but your body can’t move. Historically speaking, sleep paralysis has been to blame for a number of reported ghosts, aliens, demons, and other monster encounters.
When you were a kid did your parents worry you would be poisoned on Halloween or did you have a normal upbringing? It’s not uncommon for parents to worry about Halloween candy, but the fact of the matter? There have only been a couple of instances of this actually happening and in both instances, family members were to blame. In fact, in 1970 a little boy had actually gotten ahold of his uncle’s heroin stash and overdosed. The parents then decided to use candy to cover up the overdose.
The Kraken of the sea, she’s real. Okay, well they’re called cephalopods and they’re giant squids that can grow four stories tall, and they have three hearts, blue-blood, color-changing skin, and tentacles lined with hundreds of suction cups complete with serrated teeth. So think of that the next time you feel something brush your leg underwater.
In nearly every Halloween movie, scary or not, there’s almost always a full moon depicted, but a full moon on Halloween is actually super rare. Full moons have fallen on Halloween in 1955, 2001, and most recently, 2020.
Have you ever experienced pareidolia? Wait, don’t answer that, you probably have. This sounds like the fear of something, but it’s actually the tendency to see or hear recognizable patterns in randomness. You’ve experienced this if you’ve ever seen a shape or a face in a cloud or you swear you’ve heard words or phrases in static or random noises. This happens because it’s super important for your brain to recognize things, so even when there aren’t actually faces, shapes, or even words, your brain tends to find them.