One-third of Estonians report unexplained experiences, folklorist says

About 34% of Estonians say they have had a supernatural or unexplained experience, folklorist Ülo Valk told ERR. The finding comes from a study of Estonians’ religious identity commissioned by the Ministry of the Interior.

Valk, a professor of Estonian and comparative folklore at the University of Tartu, said the study did not explore what people had experienced. Examples could include ominous dreams or unexpected coincidences associated with the death of someone close. Death, he said, is an extraordinary event that can prompt such stories and observations. Other accounts resemble classic ghost experiences, involving sounds, voices or footsteps.

For Valk, these accounts are less a matter of belief than of experience and how people interpret it. People may find cultural frameworks that give strange events meaning, or they may set the experiences aside or forget them so they do not cause distress. Human consciousness is often surprising, he said, and such stories can arise on their own.

Valk said people can hold different ways of thinking that become prominent in different situations. Someone with an analytical, scientific and materialist outlook may use another interpretive framework when facing events that are traumatic, unexpected or difficult to process.

He said many real estate agents in Estonia know ghost stories, which can be relevant when deciding what to tell prospective buyers. Old farmhouses where deportations, violence or accidents took place are often associated with ghost stories.