Which explains the 'invisible presences' that many feel on a daily basis
Source:BBC News Brazil
Which explains the 'invisible presences' that many feel on a daily basis
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 his solitary expedition to the South Pole, scheduled to last 40 days. He was late, exhausted and dejected.
That's when he looked up and, to his left, saw... green fields.
And it wasn't just any green field. They were the fields of his family's farm in Aberdeenshire, Scotland. And there was also the house and garden in which he grew up—a comforting and at the same time frightening sight.
I spoke to Robertson for BBC Radio 4's All in the Mind programme. He told me it was weird. But it would all get even weirder.
His charger wasn't working, and he couldn't hear the songs he'd taken. The only sounds that accompanied him were the creaking of his skis over the ice and the howling winds of Antarctica. But for some reason, the theme song of The Flintstones played nonstop in his head.
Maybe it wasn't such a weird thing—everyone has had a bubblegum song in their head—but he saw the cartoon characters in front of him on the horizon.
As the days passed, his experiences grew weirder. He heard someone shouting his name and became convinced that there was a person behind him, following in his footsteps. But whenever he turned to check, he found no one.
Even so, Robertson could not shake this sense that there was 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 that he should get up, not fall asleep, which could be dangerous.
He felt the voice encourage him to move on. She may even have 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 that there was a "fourth man" accompanying his group of three explorers on the final leg of their epic journey through South Georgia in 1916.
Everest climbers also felt these "ghosts" acting as if they were guardian angels, helping them survive and providing a mysterious comfort.
Sometimes the phenomenon is called the "third man factor." In psychology, it's an experience known as a "sense of presence."
Psychology professor Ben Alderson-Day of Durham University in the United Kingdom is the author of a new book called Presence: The Strange Science and True Stories of the Unseen Other. He found that these experiences are not limited to people in extreme situations.
The feeling of a mysterious presence is sometimes associated with people who have gone through a bereavement, suffer from psychosis, or have illnesses like Parkinson's
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 grief 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're about to wake up or fall asleep.
For some, the experience may 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 the experiences related to sleep paralysis involve a very frightening presence.
The sense of presence makes it feel like someone is with you, in your private space.
It is difficult to determine exactly what the sense of presence consists of. It's not a perceived experience with the five physical senses of touch, sight, hearing, smell, or taste—so it's not a hallucination.
Objectively speaking, there is nothing there, really. But it is also not an illusion, which involves thoughts. Nor is it the same as imagining that someone is there.
Sometimes people talk about something nebulous, like "density in the air." It's almost a sixth sense, which feels very real at that moment.
In Alderson-Day's words, "it's too empty to be a hallucination, but too tangible to be an illusion."
What are the causes?
In his search for explanations, Alderson-Day turns to a combination of the physical and the physiological.
In the case of mountaineers and explorers, the lack of oxygen in the brain is known to induce hallucinations and may be responsible. But there is also the survival aspect. Is the mind somehow evoking a presence to help us?
Robertson's own explanation is that his brain was creating what he needed most to help him on his arduous journey—sometimes bringing comforting portraits from home, so he could brave the bleak, lonely landscape in front of him. And at other times, his brain would conjure up the voices he needed to encourage him to move 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 often report more sensations of presence—and are more likely to find them disturbing 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 into making you feel like someone is behind you.
And people with Parkinson's are particularly susceptible to this experience.
An unusual pattern of brain activity has been found in a network that includes the temporoparietal junction, the insula, and the frontoparietal cortex. These regions are associated with the integration of the senses and the sensation of where your body is.
The variety of situations in which the sensation of presence can occur led Alderson-Day to formulate the hypothesis that the cause is the loss of the sense of the boundaries of our body.
When something is missing, due to the extreme physical stress of the body, as occurred with Robertson, or even due to psychosis or Parkinson's, the information we receive from our senses can generate the curious feeling that someone is with us, even though we cannot see, touch or even hear the "person".
But expectation also seems to be part of the process. There's a second theory related to so-called predictive processing — the idea that the brain fills in the missing information when something doesn't make much sense.
Therefore, in the same way that we see patterns like faces in the clouds, we can identify a person who is not there. Or, in Alderson-Day's words, the brain is "making an informed assumption about what's there."
As Luke Robertson advanced on his lonely journey to the South Pole, he experienced new episodes of 'sense of presence'
Angels or ghosts?
How we experience a sense of presence may depend on our personal feelings and beliefs.
It can feel comforting, as it did with Robertson, 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 in order to truly understand what this common experience is. Meanwhile, starting to talk about experiences can make them seem less scary to some people.
Doctors often ask patients with psychosis to report any voices they may hear, but it is much rarer to question them about their sense of presence.
Alderson-Day believes these sensations are worth exploring. Strategies for dealing with them could be shared. Or simply knowing that you're not the only one to have this feeling can help.
Robertson eventually made it to the South Pole. But when he saw the research station, he thought it was a figment of his imagination—when he had, in fact, reached his destination.
He would also like to see more discussion about these experiences, so that other explorers like him can understand what is happening and remain focused on their journey.
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