Electromagnetic Ghost Communication
My Bubbie died on October 9th when I was nine years old. She was not well, her health in decline. There had been a heart attack and strokes. I remember her walker, her wheelchair, her frailty. My only memory of her smiling and laughing was when she called me fat. I didn’t get the joke. I remember her lying on the blue couch in the living room. My Zaida took care of her. He was the kind of man who would sing “On the Sunny Side of the Street” while dancing in the kitchen. I remember an argument where they were yelling and he called her “Misery Guts.” Sadness, wretchedness, sorrow right down to her guts. What if my guts are genetically miserable?
There was no talk of her depression until I was an adult. She took medication to manage mood. Self-medicated with cigarettes. I don’t know how she felt about that. I don’t know if she understood her mind or her mood as disordered, or if she was offered any treatment as a Jewish woman in the 50s, 60s, 70s managing motherhood. Did she take tranquilizers? Did she fear expressing her pain could lead to forced institutionalization? Did she fear electro convulsive therapy? I don’t know what she would think of me, a childless adult woman going to therapy, taking medication, seeking out treatment for my treatment resistant depression.
October 9th is my third day of a 30 day Repetitive Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation Protocol. As I’m getting ready to leave, I unplug my electric toothbrush so that I can plug in my hair dryer. I was clearly told on day one that I can’t receive rTMS with damp hair. I don’t usually blow dry my hair. I haven’t used this tool in years and am a bit clumsy but the air outside is getting colder and it feels soothing to work the warmth through sections of my scalp. Tonight might be the night my downstairs neighbour turns on our heat for the first time. When my hair is sufficiently dry, I unplug the hair dryer, plug my toothbrush back in and continue to get myself ready to go to the hospital. I fill up my water bottle, I put on my socks, and then I hear a hum. Electric spontaneous sound with no logical location. It could be a muffled alarm from my neighbour downstairs or a drone from some equipment outside. It doesn’t stop and it sounds close. I move from room to room searching in case the sound is my responsibility. Bedroom, kitchen, bathroom—I find the source. My electric toothbrush has turned itself on. Buzzing noisily on its base, calling for my attention. I turn it off. Then the light in the hallway outside of the bathroom flickers.
When the telegraph was invented in 1840 it was quickly connected to spiritualism. It’s not so difficult to see how humans made the leap that an electromagnetic device for communicating with people far away could potentially also be used to communicate with people who have left the mortal realm. Scientists and spiritualists shared a fascination with the invisible force of electricity. The evolution of the radio, and telephone communications also involved scientists exploring how spirits might be able to use new technology to communicate from the beyond (Sconce 21). Today ghost hunters still use devices that measure electromagnetic frequencies to lend credibility to their paranormal seeking. When Galvani discovered the connection between electricity and muscle motion in the late 1700s a connection was also made to understanding electricity as a vital force in our bodies (Sconce 31). If we can apply electricity to make a dead body move, then electricity must be part of what makes us alive and part of what is missing when we die. If our electrical divine force leaves our body when we die, then maybe that invisible energy still exists and maybe that means that the spark of our spirits can play with electromagnetism to communicate with the living.
Maybe it is just frayed wires in my ceiling and maybe the toothbrush surge is a fluke, but just in case I say, “Hi Bubbie! Yes. I am doing a depression treatment that looks a bit scary. I am choosing to do this. No one is forcing me. I am doing this to heal my brain and maybe that can heal some history for you too. I’m sorry you spent time suffering in your life. I am taking care of my brain in ways that weren’t available to you, and I know you’re free of the misery now. Thanks for watching over me.”
I put on my coat, and I wonder if the misery is in my guts or if it is located on the left side of my brain where the nurse aims the electromagnetic coil. The leaves are changing and the veil is thinning and that night after my third of thirty treatments when I go to brush my teeth my electric toothbrush won’t turn on. Whatever moved through it was so powerful it died.
Works Cited
Sconce, Jeffrey. Haunted Media: Electronic Presence from Telegraphy to Television. Duke University Press, 2000.
Read Brett Stucker’s review of Rebecca Wood’s Multimorbid in this issue of Wordgathering.
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About the Author
Rebecca Wood (she/her) resides in Toronto, Canada with her plants and craft supplies. Her work explores lived experience of multiple chronic illnesses and episodic disability. Her writing can be found in publications including Room Magazine, Pinhole Poetry, Corporeal, and previous issues of Wordgathering. Rebecca’s first collection, Multimorbid, was launched with kith books in May of 2026. Visit her website at: www.RebeccaWoodWrites.ca,