Most of us have experienced the strange sense that we are being watched, only to turn around and find someone looking right at us. It's an unnerving but fairly common experience but why does this feeling actually come from, is it just an illusion, the result of unconscious clues like a slight shadow or a noise?
Or is it as some believe a real sense that hints to a deeper connection between us?
You might be surprised to learn that scientists have actually designed experiments to find out.
The pioneer in these studies is biologist Rupert Sheldrake. He found that people did quess above chance that wether or not they were being watched by another person in a hidden location. He has done multiple experiments on the subject since 1985. Overall there were small but consistent result distributions that can't be attributed to chance.
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Another study by psychologist William Braud and anthropologist Marilyn Schiltz also found positive evidence of the sense of being stared at.
Their experiments used closed-circuit TV, placing two people in distant locations. During randomised trials one person would focus intently on the distant persons image. Without any ordinary way of knowing the results suggested that people were sensitive to another person's attention focused on them.
These studies tracked emotional responses by measuring changes in the body. Skin conductance was found to slightly increase during times when a person was being remotely observed.
A similar study, this time looking at brain activity by psychologist Dean Radin at the institute of Noetic Sciences, reported further positive evidence of the sense of being stared at.
After going to great lenghts to exclude possible outside factors, tightly controlled conditions he still produced positive results.
A meta-analysis published in 2005, which looked at a large number of studies, concluded that a very subtle although apparently repeatable effect had been demonstrated.
Did this sense evolve alongside the others, what does it tell us about our connection to the world and each other?
The strange sense of being stared at challenges main stream assumptions about the mind and yet it seems to be real.
Sources and further information
http://www.sheldrake.org/research/sense-of-being-stared-at
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Psychic_staring_effect
http://www.sheldrake.org/files/pdfs/papers/JCSpaper1.pdf
https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/how-the-illusion-of-being-observed-can-make-you-better-person/
https://pdfs.semanticscholar.org/3202/68f7325b4e9b380385050b0624908ffae9a4.pdf