I think it might not be a good idea to blog on this Friday; not so many people want to read a blog in the last day, so I blog a bit earlier. The article "The Sensed-Presence Effect" really catches my attention. Honestly, some of the previous articles I have blogged did not catch my interest at all, but I could not find the more interesting or easier ones, so I just say this cliche as a formal pattern, otherwise I cannot account for a question like "Then why do you choose this article?".
Shermer introduce a psychological phenomenon when people stay in certain psychological or physical conditions, they would feel that there is another person staying near them. Shermer calls this feeling the sensed-presence effect, in which a person can sense the presence of some people around them, even though it is actually hallucinational. Shermer explains that such a hallucination occurs wiht people who are in "monotony, darkness, barren landscapes, isolation, cold, injury, dehydration, hunger, fatigue and fear", as well as "sleep deprivation". Then he gives several examples about this phenomenon such as antarctic explorers who were in extreme exhaustion, Charles A. Lindbergh during his transatlantic flight, and Jure Robic during "the 3,000-mile nonstop transcontinental bicycle Race Across America". He concludes that this effect result from the operation of our brain; such presence occurs inside our head, rather than behind our back.
When I read this article the first thing I think of is ghost that people usually claim to see. I think most of them might be in the same condition as Shermer describe. They were afraid of something before they encountered any strange things. Also I have experienced such a kind of hallucination before when I had to work with insufficient sleep for a long time. In some night, I heard some people talking next to me in the laboratory at night when I stayed alone. Fortunately my head was so blank that I did not wonder where those sound came from. Later, when this hardship ended, I have never had such hallucination again.
Shermer introduce a psychological phenomenon when people stay in certain psychological or physical conditions, they would feel that there is another person staying near them. Shermer calls this feeling the sensed-presence effect, in which a person can sense the presence of some people around them, even though it is actually hallucinational. Shermer explains that such a hallucination occurs wiht people who are in "monotony, darkness, barren landscapes, isolation, cold, injury, dehydration, hunger, fatigue and fear", as well as "sleep deprivation". Then he gives several examples about this phenomenon such as antarctic explorers who were in extreme exhaustion, Charles A. Lindbergh during his transatlantic flight, and Jure Robic during "the 3,000-mile nonstop transcontinental bicycle Race Across America". He concludes that this effect result from the operation of our brain; such presence occurs inside our head, rather than behind our back.
When I read this article the first thing I think of is ghost that people usually claim to see. I think most of them might be in the same condition as Shermer describe. They were afraid of something before they encountered any strange things. Also I have experienced such a kind of hallucination before when I had to work with insufficient sleep for a long time. In some night, I heard some people talking next to me in the laboratory at night when I stayed alone. Fortunately my head was so blank that I did not wonder where those sound came from. Later, when this hardship ended, I have never had such hallucination again.
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References
Shermer, M. (2010, April). The Sensed-Presence Effect. Scientific America. Retrieved April 6, 2010 from http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=the-sensed-presence-effect
I notice that Shermer cites Gazzaniga as an important source, as do Bargh and Morsella in "The Unconscious Mind".
ReplyDeleteI'm not clear about your last sentence. Could you explain "behind our back"?
ReplyDeleteI am never in this phenomenon. However, I heard from some people that they felt like someone passed them in the same place, a private place. What do you think about this? I don't think that hallucination will happen to all of them.
I think I would like to make some juxtaposition between in our mind and behind our back in that it is hallucination rather than physical occurrence, but it seems a bit confusing.
ReplyDeleteI can account for my own experience, but for other I really have no idea about it. Anyway I like Richard Dawkins' argument that we can explain think without the need of those kind of hypotheses. However, if sometimes we could not, those hypotheses might be acceptable.