Sue St.Clair and Matthew Didier's Paranormal Blog

From The Desk of Matthew Double-Decker Bus Guy Didier...

syn·drome (sĭn'drōm') - A group of symptoms that collectively indicate or characterize a disease, psychological disorder, or other abnormal condition.

Apparently, there's a lot of "sick puppies" in the world of the paranormal...

Why?

Because you wouldn't BELIEVE how many times even I have attached the word "syndrome" to things...

It took a diatribe from Sue to break me of this habit.

The most ostentatious breech of this word came from the use of "Three Dot Syndrome"... This was ACTUALLY coined by an article on the old ABC News Website and was about the "face on Mars" image.

In essence, the author decided, and rightly, that people tended to look at images and find "familiar" things in them. This is actually a truth.

Much like kids looking for clouds with special shapes, ("I see a bunny rabbit in that one!" or think of it as one does the Rorschach inkblot test,) people DO have a built-in brain function to find familiarity in the random.

Ergo: We used to get scads and scads of images of random smoke, trees, rocks, dirt, "orbs", and the like where the "witness" was certain there was a "face" to be seen... even though, more times than not, one really couldn't discern a face without a lot of effort... Effectively, finding three dots to make eyes and nose/mouth and therefore a face.

In essence, these "faces" would validate the image as bone fide "paranormal" in the eyes of the witness.

Well, not to make light, but on occasion, we had to look at some of these and wonder if the "bunny shaped cloud" was bone fide evidence of large rodents floating above the Earth.

(Oh, so you don't think we "mock" everything that came in like this... in some cases, "witnesses" sent us these faces from places where they admitted there had been no previous reports of "paranormal activity" and they nor anyone around them felt there was a REASON to suspect anything "paranormal"... except the photo with the "face". To be honest, ALL evidence presented MUST be taken absolutely seriously until such time as you can realistically either decide that the weight of possibility of the "natural" being mistaken for the "supernatural" is such that determination of the image as "paranormal" is impossible... even then, it's arrogant to say with absolute certainty that it's "bunk"... or it's "genuine".)

The ABC author felt the same way.

...so "we" (not Sue… this was before Sue and I had met…) adopted it... "Three Dot Syndrome".

Problem is, it's NOT a syndrome. At least, in essence, it has nothing to do with a medical condition or disease... it's perfectly normal human instinct.

In fact, little by little, I've been removing references to "Three Dot Syndrome" on the Torontoghosts website as I come to them.

A better word, coined in 1994 Steven Goldstein to describe "a psychological phenomenon involving a vague and random stimulus (often an image or sound) being mistakenly perceived as recognizable." and more-or-less accepted by the psychological community is Pareidolia.

The word comes from the Latin para meaning, in this case, the Greek for "wrong", "mistaken", or "amiss"... and eidolon meaning image, the "smaller version" of eidos meaning "appearance" or "form".

According to modern dictionaries, it would be pronounced Pairay-Dole-Ee-Ah.

Well, leave it to the "ghost hunting community" to find a word that makes good etymological sense... and try to "cool it up"... and in the process, kinda lose the meaning.

More than one group, (I don't know who truly originated it,) is using the term "Matrixing" for cases of pareidolia.

For the record, "Matrixing" is actually a form of charting... To "matrix" is to create a two-dimensional display of information on a "X/Y" axis in columns and rows.

Actually, the truest definition of "Matrix" is...

ma·trix (mā'trĭks) - A situation or surrounding substance within which something else originates, develops, or is contained.

Now, I suppose, using this "broader" and truer definition, you could say "Matrixing" is okay... but it would elude to the ACTUAL "face" or whatever being there and ACTUALLY finding it.

In other words, when using this "term" (and it could not be called "matrixing" because it is not taking a "X/Y" axis of information to find it,) you'd have to assume strictly positive results.

...and call it a hunch or an opinion, that's NOT what most cases of pareidolia are... sadly.

I think one of the possible reasons that these "ghost groups" avoid the word pareidolia is it's origins... which, to be honest, are from the much loathed CSICOP (now called CSI) as Steven Goldstein coined it in an article for one of their publications.

...but...

The word and it's origins and etymology are accurate... and why throw the baby out with the bathwater?

On occasion, even the worst individuals can occasionally do SOMETHING of value.

...and I'd say pareidolia is an apt term for many (not all) of these cases...

...and realistically, it is better than "Matrixing", sad to say.

I liken it to Sagan again... Absence of Evidence is not Evidence of Absence was not uttered by him to PROMOTE Ufology... he was, for the most part, adamantly and utterly against the idea of UFOs and the ETH (Extra Terrestrial Hypothesis).

...and yet, this "catch phrase" works wonders in favour of our studies.

So, call it what you will... but "Three Dot Syndrome" doesn't work as it's not a disease or symptoms of a disease... "Matrixing" isn't correct as to "Matrix" means to chart or graph something on an "X/Y" axis (oh, and there's a type or printing known as "Matrixing" too!) and sadly, someone from CSICOP (now called CSI) had it right.

The best term and really, the only "acceptable" one is pareidolia.

I guess, in essence, there's a larger lesson to be learned...

If you want to "coin a term" or "word", you really DO need to try and ensure it's origins are sound, it's etymology stands up to scrutiny, and you're not trying to capitalise on a recent movie or what the news media is tossing down the masses throats.