The argument of whether Abigail was a ghost or a projection is limiting. When viewed through a metaphysical lens, we see that time itself is nonlinear everywhere except in material reality. This theme of temporal nonlinearity recurs throughout season three. In the process of dying, what many understand as the afterlife is not a distinct place, but a trance state, a timeless experience induced by chemicals in the brain. Consciousness in this state can encounter their mind’s ideas of heaven, hell, or hauntings.

When a haunting is perceived, it appears to occur after death in the material realm, yet in actuality, it unfolds in the dying moment. Consciousness becomes less tethered to the physical world, magnetizing itself to a place or a person, a point of attachment. A ghost, then, is both an echo of a spirit and a projection of the mind. The astral realm is shaped by the subconscious; a thousand psychics might enter the same haunted house, each encountering something different, yet each experience remains real. In the astral, everything becomes malleable, shaped by the viewer’s perception. They tune into a particular frequency, Abigail, for instance, and in the absence of material evidence, the mind fills in the gaps. So, it is simultaneously a ghost and a projection.