Why can we feel another presence even if we are alone?

 

 

 

 

Published: 11^th November 2014

Source:  Rebecca Morelle, BBC

Link: http://www.bbc.co.uk/mundo/noticias/2014/11/141110_fantasmas_presencia_cerebro_laboratorio_lp

Science field: Discoveries, Paranormal phenomena.

Summary

Did you ever have the feeling of not being alone? According to a study, published in the Current Biology Magazine, is our brain which causes this sensation.

In addition, some scientists have developed an experiment that allows feeling the closeness of a “ghost” by reproducing this sensation.

As Giulio Rogningi said, having that kind of sensations is very common in people that experience extreme conditions, such explorers and mountain climbers, and people suffering from neurological conditions.

One of the most surprising effects is that the presence seems to do exactly the same as the person who is feeling it.

The medical team made a scanner to 12 people with neurological disorders that had previously experienced the sensation of being next to a ghost. They discovered that the patients suffered a kind of pain in some parts of the brain related to:

-          Self-conscience

-          Movement

-          Body position in space

In other tests, the scientists used 48 healthy people that had never experience a presence. They suppress them to an experiment to alter neurological signs. They followed the next steps:

   1.      Bandage volunteers’ eyes.

  2.      Manipulate a robot with their hands. While they were doing it, another robot was drawing the same movements in their back.

  3.      The movements were exactly the same on the two sides, but when one of them changed, a third of the volunteers seem to feel a presence.

Glossary

-          Self-conscience: unduly aware of oneself as the object of the attention of others; Conscious of one's existence.

 

-          Presence: the state or fact of being present: Her presence at the party created some excitement.

The state or condition of being near someone; proximity.

 

-          Neurological: of or relating to the nervous system or neurology.

 

-          Schizophrenia: a severe mental disorder usually seen in a person's disorganized speech and behavior.

 

Review

These strange interactions with the robot temporally change the cerebral function in regions associated with self-conscience and perception of the position of the body.

Scientists say that when people imagine the fact of being next to a ghost or presence is because their brain is confused. Our brain has several representations of the body in space. Under normal circumstances, we can compose a unified sense of ourselves, but when this system goes wrong because of a disease, for example, it can create a second representation of one's body, no longer perceived as "I" but as someone else.

Researchers believe that the study will help to understand neurological conditions such as schizophrenia.

 

Written by Alba Pazos