What explains the ‘invisible presences’ that many feel – 07/16/2023 – Science

In 2015, explorer Luke Robertson ventured solo into Antarctica. There was nothing around him but immense fields of snow and ice.

Two weeks had already passed on their lone expedition to the South Pole, scheduled to last 40 days. He was late, exhausted and haggard. That’s when he looked up and to his left he saw… green fields.

And it wasn’t just any green field. It was the fields on his family farm in Aberdeenshire, Scotland. And there, too, was the house and garden he grew up in—a comforting sight, and at the same time a frightening one.

I spoke to Robertson for BBC Radio 4’s “All in the Mind” programme. He told me it was weird. But everything would get even weirder.

His charger wasn’t working, and he couldn’t hear the songs he had brought with him. The only sounds accompanying him were the creak of his skis on the ice and the howling Antarctic winds. But, for some reason, the theme song of The Flintstones played over and over in his head.

Perhaps it wasn’t such a strange thing—everyone has had a “bubblegum” song stuck in their heads—but he saw the cartoon characters in front of him, on the horizon.

As the days passed, his experiences got weirder. He heard someone shouting his name and was convinced there was someone behind him, following in his footsteps. But, whenever he turned around to check, he found no one.

Even so, Robertson could not shake this feeling of another presence, which remained until his arrival at the South Pole.

As he sat down on the sled, weak and exhausted, and closed his eyes for a second, he heard a second voice. This time, a female voice warned him that he should get up, not fall asleep, which could be dangerous.

He felt the voice urging him forward. She may have even saved his life. But then again, there was no one else around.

Other explorers and adventurers reported feeling similar presences, most notably Ernest Shackleton (1874-1922), who had the feeling of having a “fourth man” accompanying his group of three explorers on the final leg of their epic journey through South Georgia in 1916.

Everest climbers have also felt these “ghosts” acting like guardian angels, helping them survive and providing mysterious comfort.

The phenomenon is sometimes called the “third man factor”. In psychology, it’s an experience known as a “sense of presence.”

Psychology professor Ben Alderson-Day at the University of Durham in the UK is author of a new book called Presence: The Strange Science and True Stories of the Unseen Other (“Presence: The Weird Science and True Stories of the Invisible Other”). He found that these experiences are not limited to people in extreme situations.

You may well have felt at some point that someone is next to you in the room with you, even if you couldn’t see that person. It is not an uncommon phenomenon after bereavement or in people suffering from psychosis.

Up to 25% of people who have Parkinson’s report this experience. And it can also happen when you are about to wake up or fall asleep.

For some, the experience can occur as part of sleep paralysis, when you wake up but can’t move. People may have the strong feeling that someone is in the room with them or even sitting on their chest, pressing them down.

Alderson-Day found that half of sleep paralysis-related experiences involve a very frightening presence.

The sense of presence makes it seem like someone is with you, in your private space.

It is difficult to determine exactly what the sense of presence consists of. It is not an experience perceived with the five physical senses of touch, sight, hearing, smell or taste – therefore it is not a hallucination.

Objectively speaking, there is nothing there, in reality. But neither is it an illusion, involving thoughts. Nor is it the same as imagining that someone is there.

Sometimes people talk about something nebulous, like “density in air”. It’s almost a sixth sense, which feels very real in that moment.

In Alderson-Day’s words, “It’s too hollow to be a hallucination, but too tangible to be an illusion.”

What are the causes?

In her search for explanations, Alderson-Day turns to a combination of the physical and the physiological.

In the case of mountaineers and explorers, lack of oxygen to the brain is known to induce hallucinations and may be to blame. But there is also the aspect of survival. Is the mind somehow evoking a presence to help us?

Robertson’s own explanation is that his brain was creating what it most needed to help him on his arduous journey—sometimes bringing him comforting portraits of home so he could face the bleak and lonely landscape before him. And at other times, the brain conjured up the voices it needed to urge it forward.

Some people are more likely to experience a sense of presence than others.

In part of their research, Alderson-Day and her team found that women tend to report more sensations of presence — and are more likely to find them distracting or invasive. And the sense of presence is also more common among younger people.

Researchers at a laboratory in Geneva, Switzerland, have created a robot that, with a complex procedure, is able to trick your brain to make you feel that someone is after you.

And people with Parkinson’s are particularly susceptible to this experience.

An unusual pattern of brain activity was found in a network that includes the temporoparietal junction, the insula and the frontoparietal cortex. These regions are associated with integrating the senses and feeling where your body is.

The variety of situations in which the sense of presence can occur led Alderson-Day to formulate the hypothesis that the cause is the loss of sense of the boundaries of our body.

When something is missing, due to extreme physical stress on the body, as happened to Robertson, or due to psychosis or Parkinson’s, the information we receive from our senses can generate the curious sensation that someone is with us, even though we cannot see it. , touch not even hear the “person”.

But anticipation also seems to be part of the process. There is a second theory related to so-called predictive processing — the idea that the brain fills in missing information when something doesn’t quite make sense.

Therefore, in the same way that we see patterns like faces in clouds, we can identify a person who is not there. Or, in the words of Alderson-Day, the brain is “making an informed guess about what’s there.”

Angels or ghosts?

How we experience the sense of presence may depend on our personal feelings and beliefs.

It may seem comforting, as Robertson did, or perhaps evil or religious, depending on how you interpret the experience—perhaps a guardian angel, a ghost, a visitor, or your brain trying to help you.

Alderson-Day believes that the body and mind need to be studied to truly understand what this common experience is all about. Meanwhile, starting to talk about experiences can make them seem less frightening to some people.

Doctors often ask patients with psychosis to report any voices they hear, but it is much rarer to ask them about the sense of presence.

Alderson-Day believes these sensations are worth exploring. Strategies for dealing with them could be shared. Or just knowing that you’re not the only one feeling that way can help.

Robertson eventually reached the South Pole. But when he saw the research station, he thought it was a figment of his imagination – when he had, in fact, arrived at his destination.

He would also like to see more discussion of these experiences, so other explorers like him can understand what’s going on and stay focused on their journey.

This way, the invisible visitor will be able to help them better.

Read the original version of this report (in English) here.