Apparitional experience

In parapsychology, an apparitional experience is an anomalous experience characterized by the apparent perception of either a living being or an inanimate object without there being any material stimulus for such a perception.

In academic discussion, the term "apparitional experience" is preferred to the term "ghost" because:

1. The term ghost implies that some element of the human being survives death and, at least under certain circumstances, can make itself perceptible to living human beings. There are other competing explanations of apparitional experiences.
2. Firsthand accounts of apparitional experiences differ in many respects from their fictional counterparts in literary or traditional ghost stories and films (see below).
3. The content of apparitional experiences includes living beings, both human and animal, and even inanimate objects.^[1]