"The Sensed Presence Effect."

Hi readers

Oc occasions, people report feeling that there is "someone" or "something" present, even when they know they are alone. It happens to mountain climbers, solo sailors and others. In a recent article titled "The Sensed Presence Effect" in Volume 301 number 4 April 2010 of "Scientific American," author Michael Shermer suggest four possible explanations.

"1) The hallucination may be an extension of the normal sensed presence of real people and is, perhaps triggered by isolation. 2) During oxygen deprivation, sleep deprivation or exhaustion, the rational cortical control over emotion shuts down, as in the fight-or-flight response, enabling inner voices and imaginary companions to arise. 3) The body schema, or our physical sense of self-believed to be located primarily in the temporal lobe of the left-hemisphere-is the image of the body that the brain has constructed. If for any reason your brain is tricked into thinking that there is another you, it constructs a plausible explanation that the other you is actually another person-a sensed presence-nearby. 4) The mind schema, or our psychological sense of self, coordinating the many independent neural networks that simultaneously work away at problems in daily living so that we feel like a single mind."

Comment:

I have previously written about the "sense of presence" and "sense of self" and its possible application to abduction reports, in posts dated 22 Oct 2009 and 27 Oct 2009.

Sense of self returns!

In several previous posts I wrote of the "sense of self" and how some people had a sense that, for example, their leg was not their own but belonged to someone else.
Then there is the "alien hand syndrome" where someone believes their hand is not their own.

I wondered if the part of the human brain which controls this "sense of self" could switch off the entire body through a problem with this area, such that a person could believe that all of them was "alien" and not human?

One of the other books I am reading my way through at the moment is "Alien Dawn:an investigation into the contact experience" by Colin Wilson, 1998, Virgin Publishing of London ISBN 185 227 746 7.

On page 8 Wilson reviews a case history of a man called Paul, contained in John Mack's book "Abduction." "At this point in the hypnotic session, Paul seemed to break through an 'information barrier' and to recognise that he had a dual identity, as an alien and a human being. He came from another planet, and "there are a lot of us here." At one point, Paul remarked plaintively, 'I want to go home.'"

On page 9 "...Mack himself notes how many abductees feel that they themselves are part alien, and belong elsewhere than on earth."

P192. "In her book The Human Brain, Susan Greenfield points out that patients with damage to the parietal cortex often feel that parts of their body do not belong to them, and may even insist that their arm belongs to someone else."

Alan Jones, a reader of my blog left me a comment the other day about my post on "Alien hand syndrome, suggesting I read a book titled "The man who mistook his wife for a hat" by Oliver Sachs. Alan relates one of the stories from the book concerning a man in bed who found a strange leg in bed with him. The man threw the strange leg out of bed and promptly himself fell on the floor. It was actually his own leg but he didn't recognise it as such! Thanks Alan.

Am I really here?

Just been re-reading a book by English researcher Jenny Randles, after digesting more of the posts on out-of-body experiences:
http://anomalies-australiancomments.blogspot.com

The book is "The complete book of aliens and abductions." Piatkus. London. 2000.

On page 40 Jenny writes about the October 1974 Aveley, Essex, England case. "The witnesses told under hypnosis of how the car was stopped in the mist and they were then 'beamed' into a UFO. They could see their own physical bodies back in the car, as their 'other selves' wandered about the UFO."

Later, (page 41) Jenny commented "The second phase of this abduction memory is far more like an out-of-body experience than a ride in a spacecraft."

Here, we have an episode where the individuals involved described viewing from a location that was not coincident with their physical bodies, and of seeing their own physical bodies. A classic OBE perspective. Given the latest scientific research on OBEs and its apparent brain generated origin, what then does this say of this abduction?

I read further into Jenny's book looking for other examples. On page 49 there is a description of events at Lindholman, Sweden from 24 March 1974. A voice in a man's mind told him to walk across a road, when there was a blinding flash of light and the man fell to the ground. Later, when regressed "...as the light beam struck, he had begun to float upwards as if in an out-of-body state..." Then followed shades of Albert Budden's work (see previous posts), the witness "...seemed hypercharged with electricity for days after the encounter...When he went near electrical equipment it stopped working properly." Interestingly, a witness was found to some of the event. This person related seeing "...a light beam fall to the ground..." but did not see the witness abducted by a UFO.

On page 82. In 1963 Olaf Neilsen was walking in woods "...when he was struck by a swirling sensation that made him dizzy. He floated upwards and could see a hovering object. His next memory is of being inside a room on a couchlike bed with an entity of human size and appearance nearby."

Did anyone conduct a medical examination of Olaf? Was there some sort of medical seizure which precipitated the floating sensation?

Interesting that the shift from normal perception to OBE perception almost always happens in an instant with the OBE percipient unaware of how the change happened. Recall, that in alien abductions the transition from bed to strange room or car to strange room seems to happen in an instant. Could this simply be the transition from external to internal brain mode?

Reading on, to page 143 where Jenny reminds of of her "Oz factor." "In case after case we hear witnesses describe the 'Oz factor.' They tell of all environmental sounds fading, time stretching out and a sort of inward tuning of consciousness where the external world temporarily disappears."

This switch from being aware of external factors to focussing inwardly, is an important clue. Does it indicate the event was internally brain generated?

Finally, on page 144, talking of consciousness researcher Lilly. "By 1964, Lilly was regularly able to slip into the "Oz factor." This was marked by the sensation of floating out of his body. Many abduction stories start with this claim by the witness."

Well now. Isn't this telling? Start with the latest scientific OBE research, and go back through some of the UFO abduction literature and I start seeing it all from a new perspective - that of a brain generated event. Happy reading!

A sense of presence!

In a previous post on 'infrasound' there was a mention of a "sense of presence" of "being watched." This sense of 'someone' or 'something' observing you is a well known aspect of the paranormal in general, and alien abductions in particular.

The other day, while trawling the web, I came across an article from the online COSMOS magazine dated 25 September 2006 titled "Scientists discover 'shadow person.'

The story reported on a 22 year old female, under evaluation for epilepsy. When her left temoroparietal junction of her brain was electrically stimulated she told of seeing a 'shadow person' which mimicked her own bodily movements.

She had a sense that there was another person present, which she described as young, of indeterminate gender, who did not speak or move.

The researchers involved, including one Olaf Blanke from University Hospital, Geneva, Switzerland, believed that the woman was experiencing a perception of her own body.

"The temporoparietal junction is known to be involved in creating the concept of 'self' and the distinction between 'self' and 'other.'

I recall reading of similar observations from abductees, where they would report feeling an invisible 'sense of the presence of someone or something else' watching them.

The research reported in the COSMOS article may be the start of an understanding that there may not be a 'real' alien presence there. It might well be the creation of a "Shadow person' within the mind of the abductee.

Have any readers come across similar research material?

Infrasound

Hi

I've been doing some reading about infrasound (see my earlier post). A good link is: http://www.answers.com/topic/infrasound

Of particular interest is the statement "Infrasound has been known to cause feelings of awe or fear in humans [16] [17] since it is not consciously perceived, it can make people feel vaguely that supernatural events are taking place."

Reference 16 is John D Cody. Infrasound. Bordeland Science Research Foundation. See: http://www.borderlands.com/newstuuff/research/infra.htm


Reference 17 is V Tandy & T Lawrence 'The ghost in the machine.' Journal of the Society for Psychical research number 62, pp360-364. 1998. You can read the full text of this article by registering at the Library of Exploratory Science at: http://www.lexscien.org/lexscien/index.jsp
This will allow you to read abstracts of any issue of the Journal of the Society for Psychical research. Then you can get a free 7 day access to the full text of any article, which will allow you to read the full text.

Quirkology!

I have just finished reading a very unusual book written by one Richard Wiseman titled "Quirkology:the curious science of everyday lives," published by Pan Books, London, 2008. ISBN 978 033 0448 116.

It is the result of 20 plus years of academic research by psychologist Richard Wiseman. It covers a range of topics including "What does your date of birth really say about you?"; "The psychology of lying and deception;" through the search for the world's funniest joke to decision making.

What does this have to do with the subject of my blog? Well, pages 118-127 describe the work of Vic Tandy. Vic had an odd experience at work in 1998 when one night "...he started to feel increasingly uncomfortable and cold. Next, he had the distinct impression of being watched, and looked up to see an indistinct grey figure, slowly emerge in the left side of his peripheral vision. The hair on the back of his neck stood up...to turn and look at the figure. As he did, it faded away and disappeared."

Research by Vic indicated that the room experienced a low-frequency sound wave below human hearing. He located the source to be a newly installed air fan.

Wiseman relates that in the 1960's, NASA found that 'infrasound" could "...vibrate the chest, affect respiration, and cause gagging, headaches and coughing." It appeared that certain frequencies could vibrate eyeballs and cause distorted vision.

Vix went on to suggest that the ghost like effects at some haunted locations might be caused by infrasound.

Wiseman and friends conducted an experiment during two concerts during which infrasound was generated in the venue. Four times during each concert the audience used a questionnaire to note any unusual experiences. "The effect was far from trivial, with people reporting, on average about 22 per cent more unusual experiences with infrasound present." p126. What did they report? The effects included shivering, stomach sensations, and ears fluttering .

One can readily see the possibilities here for haunted locations if infrasound can cause objects to vibrate due to no apparent cause, cause sensations of cold, and generate apparent figures. It could also perhaps why only one person in a group sees a fleeting figure from their side vision.

I wonder if a person waking paralysed at night in a venue where infrasound occurred, could induce an apparent alien abduction? Has anyone carried out research in this area?