This psychologists call pareidolia-the tendency to perceive familiar patterns, like faces or voices, in random stimuli. It’s not too hard to see how pareidolia might take over in a place like the asylum, with its long, dark hallways and endless creaks and groans. Your brain is constantly searching for meaning in the chaos, and sometimes it creates things that aren’t really there.
Yet, at the same time, there were moments that really could not be ignored—moments that really felt real, because what I was experiencing was not easily explainable by the simple tricks of the mind. The slammed door, the drop in temperature, the follow-a-long footsteps down the halls—these things felt too solid and real to be just a product of my own imagination. It is this balance between the psychological and the supernatural that has made the experience so profound. It forced me to face the horror not only of the unknown but also of my own mind turning against itself.
