Annually on Oct. 31, people from all over the world celebrate Halloween, also known as All Hallows’ Eve. Approaching the holiday, people hang up spooky decorations and dress up in scary costumes to get in the Halloween spirit. 

Paranormal investigators agree that the more participation Halloween gets, the easier it is for spirits to communicate through the veil of living and the dead.

According to Night Monkey, a paranormal investigator with over 20 years of experience, energy is one of the main factors that contributes to increased supernatural activity. Monkey explains that seriousness is also another aspect that changes the surrounding energy, affecting ghost responses.

However, energy is not the only component that can affect supernatural sightings. With All Hallows’ Eve around the corner and the eerie ambiance of fall, people tend to be on the lookout for paranormal activity — sometimes even in natural occurrences like the rustling of leaves or sudden winds.

“I think people are looking for the creep factor, and fall time is Halloween season … it’s a creep factor without a doubt,” Monkey states. 

Similarly, in psychology, the mind’s tendency to use a confirmation bias when perceiving things can sometimes make a person accept misleading information as fact. 

Casey Hugelmeyer, a psychology teacher at John F. Memorial High School, elaborates on confirmation bias creating misconceptions in the way we perceive the paranormal.

“So there’s something in psychology that we call confirmation bias, where you tend to look for things that confirm your beliefs,” Hugelmeyer explained. “If I’m interested in paranormal activity or scary things, I’m purposely looking for those types of things … anything unusual, I’m looking for because I believe in that.”

Further discussing the mind’s correlation to a scary environment, Hugelmeyer describes how the mind can respond to the creepy ambiance increasingly present in the fall season. 

“In your unconscious mind you store all your fears, wishes, and thoughts that you don’t have access to,” Hugelmeyer states. “But during the spooky season and when we’re scared, certain things can trigger those things and [they] can come out.”

Paranormal activity can lurk all year round, but as humans, we tend to associate it with less sunlight, the colder seasons, and especially Halloween. Whether you realize it or not, the energy you and others generate, the general change in temperature, or the deceitfulness of the mind can all alter your perception of the world.