The devastating tsunami that hit Japan in 2011 took the lives of 19,000 people. To those who bore witness, the images of death and destruction still haunt them to this day. The following article talks about how the survivors of the tsunami are now suffering from extreme cases of PTSD, or Post-traumatic stress disorder. They’re claiming to be haunting by the ghosts of those who perished. The article from the Reuters talks about the phantom apparitions of headless ghosts.

What’s also interesting about this article is that Japanese psychiatrist, Keizo Hara, stated that these apparitions were due to the effects of PTSD.

“We think phenomena like ghost sightings are perhaps a mental projection of the terror and worries associated with those places.”

Hara said post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) might only now be emerging in many people, and the country could be facing a wave of stress-related problems.

“It will take time for PTSD to emerge for many people in temporary housing for whom nothing has changed since the quake,” he said.

In essence, the paranormal activity that patients are reporting is being explained by the traumatic events. Which from a  psychophysiology perspective, this is just a hallucinatory effect. Now let’s sit on that for a minute.

In parapsychology, psychokinesis is thought to be the body’s psychophysiological response to heavy stress. But unlike those patients who report the ghostly hallucinations, those who report psychokinesis can willingly or unwillingly manipulate physical objects around them. But this is just a theory so take that with a grain of salt. Unfortunately parapsychology has been marginalized since the 1970s. Since then, there’s been very little headway in that obscure branch of psychology.

In a society wary of admitting to mental problems, many are turning to exorcists for help.

Tales of spectral figures lined up at shops where now there is only rubble are what psychiatrists say is a reaction to fear after the March 11, 2011, disaster in which nearly 19,000 people were killed.

“The places where people say they see ghosts are largely those areas completely swept away by the tsunami,” said Keizo Hara, a psychiatrist in the city of Ishinomaki, one of the areas worst-hit by the waves touched off by an offshore earthquake.

“We think phenomena like ghost sightings are perhaps a mental projection of the terror and worries associated with those places.”

Hara said post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) might only now be emerging in many people, and the country could be facing a wave of stress-related problems.

“It will take time for PTSD to emerge for many people in temporary housing for whom nothing has changed since the quake,” he said.

Shinichi Yamada escaped the waves that destroyed his home and later salvaged two Buddhist statues from the wreckage. But when he brought them back to the temporary housing where he lived, he said strange things began to happen.

His two children suddenly got sick and an inexplicable chill seemed to follow the family through the house, he said.

“A couple of times when I was lying in bed, I felt something walking across me, stepping across my chest,” Yamada told Reuters.

Many people in Japan hold on to ancient superstitions despite its ultra-modern image.

Yamada, like many other people in the area, turned to exorcist Kansho Aizawa for help.

Aizawa, 56, dressed in a black sweater and trousers and with dangling pearl earrings, said in an interview in her home that she had seen numerous ghosts.

“There are headless ghosts, and some missing hands or legs. Others are completely cut in half,” she said. “People were killed in so many different ways during the disaster and they were left like that in limbo. So it takes a heavy toll on us, we see them as they were when they died.”

In some places destroyed by the tsunami, people have reported seeing ghostly apparitions queuing outside supermarkets which are now only rubble. Taxi drivers said they avoided the worst-hit districts for fear of picking up phantom passengers.

Read the full article here.