--- title: "In Bizarre Experiment, Scientists Put Subjects in Dark Room With a Large Mirror and Instructed Them to Think of the Dead" description: "Scientists had participants sit in a dark roomed called a psychomanteum, where they stared at an upturned mirror for nearly an hour." date: "2026-11-14" modified: "2026-11-14" authors: - name: "Frank Landymore" job_title: "Contributing Writer" link: "https://futurism.com/authors/flandymore.md" url: "https://futurism.com/health-medicine/scientists-participants-dark-room-mirror" categories: - "Brain" - "Health & Medicine" --- # In Bizarre Experiment, Scientists Put Subjects in Dark Room With a Large Mirror and Instructed Them to Think of the Dead ![A woman touching a mirror.]() *Shutterstock / Futurism* How do rituals for communing with the dead affect the mind? And conversely, how does the way your brain is wired affect the perception that these experiences are real? A team of researchers decided to find out in pointed style: by isolating research subjects in a dark room where they were directed to sit in front of a mirror for nearly an hour. Strange things, they [reported in a study]() in *Journal of Anomalous Experience and Cognition*, then ensued. The setup may sound familiar to paranormal enthusiasts: it's what's known as a psychomanteum, a place that supposedly lets you communicate with the spirits of the dead. Trapped in the darkness of the space, your only company is a mirror that's tilted up at the ceiling so it reflects nothing but blank space, providing the canvas for ghostly forms to appear. For the experiments, the researchers recruited 30 people, with half of them being those who had reported a previous experience with a ghost, and the other half having a condition called synesthesia, in which the brain's sensory pathways are jumbled up, commonly manifesting as tasting or hearing colors. Before going in, the participants were told to think of a deceased loved one for fifteen minutes. Then they sat in the psychomanteum, staring at the upturned mirror, for another 45 minutes. The researchers kept tabs on their heart rate, while also monitoring typical ghost-hunter environmental clues like electromagnetic readings and temperature variations. The participants could also press a button when they believed they detected a presence in the room or experienced strong visual imagery. After their time in the psychomanteum, the participants rated the intensity of their spooky encounters on a scale, and whether they felt the encounters were real. Some indeed felt very compelled by their experiences. "One participant experienced her hair being stroked by her loved one, which was meaningful and strongly impactful," lead author Christine Simmonds-Moore, a psychologist at the University of West Georgia, [told *ScienceAlert*](). To the researchers' surprise, those with synesthesia didn't report feeling a presence more often, or having experiences that were more intense than those without the condition. But what they did find is that the participants who were deemed more creative, based on a survey they had them take beforehand, also tended to report more intense experiences and visual imagery in the mirror. Strangely, the data showed a correlation between geomagnetic fluctuations and the physical perception of a ghostly experience — but for synesthetes only. (As *ScienceAlert* notes, the study heavily relied on statistical comparisons, which raises the risk of finding patterns that may be down to simple coincidence.) The results suggest what you probably suspected: that people's backgrounds, subjective differences in how they perceive the senses, and physical factors in the environment, all [affect people's supposed encounters with the supernatural](). **More on spooky science:** [*Scientists Say They’ve Figured Out What Causes "Ghosts"*]() ## Author At Futurism, my work has often centered on bringing a sense of clarity and insight to complex topics ranging from the regulation of emerging technologies to the esoteric ideologies of Silicon Valley executives, while striving not to lose the poetic sense of awe inspired by often-obscure fields like astrophysics and quantum computing. I broke the story of CNET using AI to produce articles that turned out to be riddled with factual errors and plagiarism — a dam-breaking inflection point, as I've reported, that's inspired copycats and endless discourse while beguiling stakeholders ranging from tech giants to purveyors of spam around the web. My work at Futurism has been cited by publications including CBS News, the Los Angeles Times, Vice, Gizmodo, Engadget, the Verge, and Vanity Fair. I grew up in locales ranging from India to China, and now live in the exotic suburbs of Virginia. In my free time, I'm an avid reader of weird sci-fi literature, an aficionado of East Asian cinema, and, regrettably, a relapsed gamer. Allegedly, I’m working on a debut novel, currently untitled. ### Author social links [Bluesky]() ## More - [AI Chatbots Are Only Useful If You Think They Are, Scientists Find]() - [Scientists Are Now Testing Medical DMT on Human Subjects]() - [Dark Future: Here’s When We’ll Have Feedback-Based Online Dating from Black Mirror]() - [Something Grim Is Happening to Kids Who Got Cell Phones Early]() - [Scientists Intrigued by Old Drug That Reverses Signs of Alzheimer’s in Mice]() - [The Digest: That Brain-Tingle Sensation Might Have Physical And Mental Benefits]() - [Latest Patient Implanted With Neuralink Is Using It to Play “Counter-Strike 2”]() - [Elon Musk Says Neuralink Tests Only on Terminally Ill Monkeys]()