Psychic powers that enable people to see auras around others

[Mal_Adjusted]

Hi

source:
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http://www.news-medical.net/?id=5619
Posted By: News-Medical in Medical Study News Published: Monday, 18-Oct-2004

quote:
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Psychic powers that enable people to see auras around others may simply be a quirk of the brain


Supposed psychic powers that enable people to see auras around others may simply be a quirk of the brain, according to a University College London (UCL) study of a rare form of synaesthesia where some people see colourful ‘auras’ around their loved ones.
The case study, reported in the October issue of Cognitive Neuropsychology, shows how some people can experience colours in response to people they know or words that evoke emotions – a condition known as emotion-colour synaesthesia.

Dr Jamie Ward, author of the study, says: “A popular notion is that some people have a magical ability to detect the hidden emotions of others by seeing a colourful ‘aura’ or energy field that they give off. Our study suggests a different interpretation. These colours do not reflect hidden energies being given off by other people, rather they are created entirely in the brain of the beholder.”

In the study, Dr Ward of UCL’s Psychology Department documented a woman known as GW who could see colours like purple and blue in response to people she knew or their names when read to her. Words triggered a colour which spread across her whole field of vision, whilst people themselves appeared to have coloured ‘auras’ projected around them. For example, “James” triggered pink, “Thomas” black and “Hannah” blue.

A similar test using 100 words rated on a scale of 1 to 7 for their emotional impact showed that highly emotive words such as fear or hate also triggered colours. Words associated with positive emotions tended to elicit pink, orange, yellow, and green, whereas words associated with negative emotions triggered brown, grey, and black.

Whilst it is quite common to describe people or emotions metaphorically in terms of colours, GW actually reported vividly seeing them. Indeed, when “James” (a pink word) was written in the wrong colour (e.g. blue), her reaction times were slowed.

Synaesthesia is a condition found in 1 in 2000 people in which stimulation of one sense produces a response in one or more of the other senses. For example, people with synaesthesia may experience shapes with tastes or smells with sounds. It is thought to originate in the brain and some scientists believe it might be caused by a cross-wiring in the brain, for example between centres involved in emotional processing and smell perception. Synaesthesia is known to run in families.

GW, 19-year old with an IQ of 112, became aware of her condition around the age of seven but refrained from telling her family or friends. In GW’s case, people acquired a synaesthetic colour as she got to know them and the colour was then triggered whenever she was presented with the person’s name or face.

In contrast, a case discovered in the 1930s documents a seven year old boy who also associated colours with people, but saw strangers in bright orange with a black outline which faded to a mild blue and finally pink when he got to know them.

Dr Jamie Ward continues: “The ability of some people to see the coloured auras of others has held an important place in folklore and mysticism throughout the ages. Although many people claiming to have such powers could be charlatans, it is also conceivable that others are born with a gift of synaesthesia.

“GW does not believe she has mystical powers and has no interest in the occult, but it is not hard to imagine how, in a different age or culture, such an interpretation could arise.

“Rather than assuming that people give off auras or energy fields that can only be detected by rigged cameras or trained seers, we need only assume that the phenomenon of synaesthesia is taking place.”

http://www.ucl.ac.uk

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endquote

Mal F

 

[elffriend]

So what about the people who claim to 'photograph' them then? I have seen it done and although I think it is a load of bull, wonder how it is achieved.

 

[pintquaff]

Go on then lets just get rid of the last fragments of imgination and magic shall we.... What a really C£$P world we live in. :headbutt:

 

[Graylien]

That's interesting. Someone's just set up a shop nearby selling new age paraphernalia and offering "aura readings".

People do often have a kind of 'atmosphere' about them though, don't they? Like, some people you can just see walking down the street and you instantly know they're not to be messed with, while other people have an air of depression or fragility about them. I suppose it's just a combination of things like posture and facial expression, which we learn to read and judge without consciously thinking about it.

 

[Mighty_Emperor]

Another article:

Published online: 19 October 2004; | doi:10.1038/news041018-6

Auras may be generated in the brain

Emma Marris

Synaesthetic woman sees colours around faces and names.


She sees colours emanating like haloes from her friends and foes. Blocks of colour form in her mind when looking at names of acquaintances, or even at words like 'love' and 'hate'. And no, she will not read your aura for a low introductory fee. She is not a charlatan, or a psychic - she's a synaesthete.

People with synaesthesia, perhaps one in 2,000 by conservative estimates, get two-for-one sensory experiences. They feel music, taste art, and often see colours around words or things. A new case study now raises the possibility that cases like this are the origin of the new-age belief in 'auras', a coloured emanation of energy that can be seen only by the spiritually in-tune.

G.W. is a young woman who sees colours around words or things only when the object has an emotional association for her. Many synaesthetes see letters as coloured, for example in the word 'love', 'l' might be green, 'o' might be cream-yellow, 'v' might be crimson, and 'e' royal blue.

But instead G.W. sees the whole word 'love' as pink or orange because it is a positive word. She sees the word 'James', or James himself, as pink for the same reason: she likes him. Her case is described by Jamie Ward, a psychologist at University College London in the latest issue of Cognitive Neuropsychology1.

She went into a room, and it was a happy party, and the room took on a red tint.

Jamie Ward
University College London

"She sees as things as being coloured, out there, in space," says Ward. Sometimes a colour would be attached to a whole area because of an emotion, he explains: "She went into a room, and it was a happy party, and the room kind of took on a red tint."

Colour test

To test whether G.W.'s experiences were genuine, Ward presented her with a list of names of acquaintances and words that she said evoked colour, and asked her to note down the hue she saw. A group of control subjects was also presented with similar lists of emotionally resonant words and familiar names and asked to assign each word a colour.

After a week, G.W. relabelled 86% of the words with the same colour, while the control subjects only did so for 46% of the words. Four months later, she was still giving the same colour 76% of the time.

Another test was derived from the classic Stroop test. In this, colour words are presented in another colour. For example, 'green" might be shown in red or blue.

When reading a list of words quickly, we stumble over such words. Or, when asked to tell the colour of each word as it flashes on a screen, we trip up when one of the words is a mismatched colour word.

For G.M., these bumbling reaction times also show up for her synaesthetic words. If she sees 'James' as pink, and it is presented in blue, her reaction time goes down. This effect is subtle, and according to Ward, difficult to fake.

Hardwired

Synaesthesia most probably comes from a cross-wiring in the brain. Psychologist Simon Baron-Cohen of the University of Cambridge, UK, has suggested that it comes about when the densely connected infant brain does not prune itself rigorously enough as it grows. Ward suggests that the cross-wired areas in this case are the retrosplenial cortex, which is associated with emotion, and the V4 area, which has been shown to be involved in colour perception. The two areas are close together in the brain.

Could people with this condition be the original aura-readers? GW doesn't have any interest in the occult, but others may have. "You can understand how people who have this and were born in a different age would consider themselves able to see spiritual states," says Ward. They would see the colours, and assume they were coming from the people, not from their own brains.

Richard Cytowic, neurologist from Washington DC and author of a 1970s book on synaethesia that helped legitimize it as a neurological condition, says that emotion always seems to be part of the experience of synaesthetes. "Even a phone number is described as delightful and luxurious," he says, "and mismatches like an ad in the wrong colour are like fingernails on a blackboard."

He is intrigued by the idea that synaesthesia could explain auras, but doesn't see a way to prove it. "We don't have any way of knowing," he says. "But certainly synaesthetes are perceiving things that others aren't. It's an interesting supposition."

Ward, like many, is a bit jealous of those with synaesthesia, but the condition seems to be present from birth and impossible to learn. "The literature of aura reading - such as it is - claims that you can train yourself to read auras," says Ward. "This I do not believe. Synaesthesia is hardwired and biological."

-----------
References

1. Ward J., et al. Cognitive Neuropsych., 21. 761 (2004). |

http://www.nature.com/news/2004/041018/full/041018-6.html

Ward, J. (2004) Emotionally mediated synaesthesia. Cognitive Neuropsychology. 21 (7). 761 - 72.

Abstract:

This study reports a synaesthete, GW, who experiences synaesthetic colours in response to a limited range of stimuli-namely those that have an emotional connotation. GW is significantly more consistent than a group of controls, and shows a Stroop-like congruency effect when the text colour differs from that reported for her synaesthetic photisms. The names of people who are known personally to GW are more likely to induce a synaesthetic colour than names referring to people with whom she is not personally acquainted and other categories of word (including colour names themselves). This feature resembles a number of reports in the historical literature on synaesthesia. This is explained by the fact that these stimuli are more likely to elicit an emotional response. In support of this, other words that have an emotional connotation (e.g., "love") have a tendency to elicit a synaesthetic response. The valence of the emotion (positive vs. negative) may have some role to play in determining the colour of the stimulus. It is concluded that emotion-colour synaesthesia is a genuine, if unusual, form of synaesthesia.

 

[Mighty_Emperor]

Its interetsing as there are other cases similar to GW's:

The case that is presented here is
unusual in that we postulate that it is the affective
component of a word (or other stimulus) that
directly triggers a synaesthetic sensation of colour.
This can be empirically demonstrated in a number
of ways. First, stimuli with an emotional connotation
may be more likely to induce a synaesthetic
response than those that do not. One class of
stimuli that this would particularly apply to would
be the category of personally familiar people,
because emotion is an integral part of our social
world. Second, the particular hue of the
synaesthetic photism may relate to the emotional
valence (e.g., negative emotions being associated
with particular hues). There are five case descriptions
in the literature published in the early 20th
century that, to a greater or lesser extent, fit this
pattern (Collins, 1929; Cutsforth, 1925; Raines,
1909; Riggs & Karwoski, 1934; Whipple, 1900),
together with a number of brief reports in the
contemporary literature (Cytowic, 1989; Weiss,
Shah, Toni, Zilles, & Fink, 2001). These are
summarised below.

Synaesthesia induced by emotions

The case most similar to the one that I shall report
below was documented by Riggs and Karwoski
(1934). Their 7-year-old synaesthete associated
colours with people. The colours were often
projected on to the people (e.g., their lips). Their
observations suggest that the colour is fixed by
degree of acquaintance rather than physical characteristics.
For instance, plaster cast heads elicited no
subjective colour but all real strangers are described
as being “bright orange with a black outline” and
“As I know them better they get mild blue or
pinkish orchid ... When I know people well they
stop changing colours; they are the colour” (p. 32).
When taken to watch Oliver Twist at the cinema,
Fagan and the Artful Dodger were black, Oliver
was light blue, Nancy was red or green, and so
on. One month later, when asked to categorise
coloured yarns according to pleasantness, his
groupings were appropriate to the previous characterisations
(black, grey, and brown being unpleasant,
and rich saturated colours being identified
with people he was positively disposed towards).
Riggs and Karwoski argued that the synaesthete’s
own internal, affective reaction to a stimulus can act
as a determinant of synaesthetic colour.

Collins’s (1929) synaesthete, S, also associated
colours with people. She noted that: “Individuals of
no interest to S, or not well known to S, or of unimpressive
personality, have no colour. The colours of
individuals are liable to change as S becomes
acquainted with them” (p. 13). In this case, the
synaesthesia is by no means restricted to people or
even to colours. Pure tones, vowels, and numbers
all have colour, and smell is also often elicited as
a synaesthetic experience. Nevertheless, there are a
number of interesting observations that suggest
that the synaesthesia is determined, at least in part,
by factors other than the perceptual properties of
stimuli. The colour of people can change even
though their names, faces, and voices presumably
do not. Furthermore, Collins reports that all things
disagreeable elicit the same colour (e.g., a discordant
note played on the piano or in a song).

Cutsforth’s (1925) detailed case study describes
how various stimuli (e.g., smells, days, sounds) are
coloured by affective influences. For instance, tones
would tend to be coloured according to pitch unless
the tone’s pitch and/or intensity were increased to
the point at which it became unpleasent, in which
case it would take on the hue appropriate for this
affective state. The affective colours are often
superimposed on the visual scene. For example, the
subject relates the following incident: “Read of the
death of a near neighbour; the newspaper suddenly
turned green and took on a swirling motion; as I
read the details the colour faded somewhat but for
several hours my imagery took on a greenish cast.
Later in the day I picked up the American
Magazine and discovered a reference to an old
acquaintance. The green cast changed to colours
characteristic of happier moods—rose, orchid and
cream-yellow” (p. 539).

The two cases reported by Raines (1909) and
Whipple (1900) are harder to interpret because the
descriptions are less detailed and there appear to be
other forms of synaesthesia co-occurring. Raines
reports that “only certain persons produce the
sensation of colour” (p. 250), and that certain
emotions (e.g., happiness, desire) have colour both
“as a word or as an emotion” (p. 251). Whipple
explicitly interpreted case M’s synaesthesia as
occurring via an affective process. Neither words
nor letters were coloured, but affectively toned
Christian names could elicit a colour and letters
often elicited emotional responses and personifications
(e.g., D = stupid, C = good-natured, N =
agreeable).

In the more recent literature on synaesthesia,
Cytowic (1989) notes two synaesthetes who associate
coloured “auras” with people, which appears to
be affectively linked. For BB: “The stimulus seems
to come from the people themselves, who have
colors around them. It feels like an emotional bond.
The feeling lasts a few seconds … sometimes I
think I see the color and react emotionally; others it
may be reversed—I get an emotion and then see
this colour” (pp. 50–51). Similarly for DS, a suspicion
that somebody is no good produces a “colour
spike” that “she feels is entirely based on her feelings
[about that person].” (p. 50). Although both of
these reports are anecdotal, they fit with the earlier
literature in the sense that it is the emotional
responsiveness of the perceiver that seems critical in
these synaesthetes.

Finally, Weiss et al. (2001) reported a single case
study of a synaesthete who reported reliable synaesthetic
experiences given the names of personally
familiar people, but not unfamiliar people. This
was interpreted as a case of “chromatic-lexical”
synaesthesia because the colour of words was not
derived from the (presumably colourless) letters
and phonemes that make up the word. However, no
explanation was given as to why the synaesthesia
should be restricted to the category of personally
familiar names, and nor was it clear whether colours
were noted for any other type of stimulus (e.g.,
emotionally-loaded words).

762 - 3

and about her:

GW is a 19-year-old, right-handed student. She
experiences colours in response to certain people
and to a lesser extent to some words, letters, and
numerals. Colours elicited by words are perceived
as occupying the whole field of vision, but are not
projected onto the external stimuli. Faces and some
objects can also often appear to have visual halos or
“auras” which are coloured, and projected around
them. A synaesthetic taste is occasionally elicited,
which has subjective location on the tongue. The
taste responses were too infrequent (less than 1% of
responses) to analyse or test objectively and this
study therefore concentrates on colour.GWclaims
to have had the sensations all her life but only
became aware that she was different from other
people at about 7 years of age. She has not asked her
family about any similar sensations they may
experience.

page 764

and the end of the conclusion which has the most Fortean interest:

Finally, the special ability of certain individuals
to perceive the coloured auras of other people has
held an important place in folk psychology and
mysticism throughout the ages. In some instances,
there are clear parallels with what has been
published in the scientific literature on synaesthesia
over the last century. For instance, consider the
following quote from A Witches’ Bible: “The sensitive
is psychically aware of character qualities, or
emotional or spiritual states, in the subject, and this
awareness presents itself to him or her as visual
phenomena” (p. 271; Farrar & Farrar, 1981).
Although many people claiming to have such
powers could be charlatans, it is also conceivable
that others are born with a “gift” of synaesthesia.
GW does not believe that she has mystical powers
and has no interest in the occult. However it is not
hard to imagine how, in a different cultural and
social environment or a different age, such an interpretation
could arise. Rather than assuming that
people give off auras or energy fields that can only
be detected by rigged cameras or trained seers (e.g.,
Bagnall, 1937; Kilner, 1911), we need only assume
two things to have a “scientific” account of the
phenomenon in terms of synaesthesia. First, we
need to assume that people with whom we are well
acquainted and certain other stimuli (e.g., emotionally
loaded words) can trigger an emotional
response in the perceiver (e.g., Shah et al., 2001).
Second, we need to assume that certain synaesthetic
individuals have an exaggerated cross-wiring (or
some other neural mechanism) between centres
involved in emotional processing and colour
perception, which enables the emotion-inducing
stimulus to explicitly acquire this novel dimension.
The former is taken for granted by most cognitive
scientists. The latter is a conjecture on the basis of
the findings from this case study.

pages 770-1

 

[headnspace]

This doesn't explain everything. . .

This explanation does not explain a few things that I have witnessed in those who can see auras.

For example. I hurt my ankle at a holiday get together. I was outside, and was walking inside. Once I opened the door, my friend said "What did you do?" I asked what they meant. They said that I hurt my foot. I requested verification of which foot, and they told me correctly. When I opened the door, I was not moving, and wasn't favoring one foot or another. A dozen witnesses saw this.

Another example. When being told a lie, or is being deceived, they sense the color orange.

Another example. They know when someone is pregnant, and not showing, and guesses the correct sex for the child. This ability runs in their family.

Another example. Varying degrees of size of the aura for different people. Weak, dying, very ill people have very small auras, and some people have auras that take up a whole room. Some have bright "headlights" (the light that moves up through the spine out of the top of the head), and others are dim. If it was just synaesthesia, auras would not depend on where tumors were, where bones were broken, where pain is, or where blood flow is poor.
(research conducted at Scripps Hospital in La Jolla, California. Scripps opened the Scripps Center for Integrative Medicine in January 1999. A year later, the center was one of three health facilities nationwide to receive the prestigious Medtronic Leadership Grant, along with Harvard and Stanford.)

Although synaesthesia can explain some of these to a certain extent. This type of sensing goes beyond "they are my friend, and are now pink" types of descriptions. THESE PEOPLE ARE SEEING emotions, illness and health, personality (to an extent), and perhaps some description of an energy field around the body of living things. I cannot explain everything, but I don't think it falls in the realm of supernatural. It's just an extra-sensory perception, and most of us are "color-blind" and cannot sense those colors.

I guess if everyone, but a few, were colorblind, those few would be treated like witches, charlatans, and devils. I only ask everyone to look at this differently than that. To look at this ability as a natural, and/or god-given ability.

 

[pintquaff]

Ahhhh The world is great once more

 

[Anonymous]

An interesting article, but riddle me this:

After years of concentration exercises, meditation, and whatnot, I have finally managed to be able to see auras after about 30 sec of 'gazing' where I stare at an object (like a mountain or tree) or a person. Only, I don't see a color aura. What I see is a white band of energy emenating. This doesn't happen with regular objects like cars or furniture. What is the big deal about seeing the natural energy fields around things?

 

[headnspace]

Auras around living or not living objects

Fnorder,
Do you see the auras around only living objects, or also around non-living objects? If it's also around non-living objects, I don't think you're seeing the energy field.
Although it being around a limited amount of things rules out a few things.

It is not retinal fatigue, where you stare at an object, and then look away and you see an after-image of the object. This may look like an aura if you look near the middle or bottom of an object for a long time, and then look toward the top of the object. The after-image of the object will be like a shadow above the object. (although the shadow may be lighter than the object, depending on the color of the object)

To answer your question "What's the use of being able to see the energy field?". . . well, it can be useful in some ways, but mostly gets you odd looks.

It's kinda like the ability to do large math problems in your head. People are fascinated by it, and it is a fascinating ability, but the usefulness in day to day life is what you make of it. Many do not make much use of it, others see it as a gift to be used and practiced, like a musical talent. The more it is practiced, the better you get at it.
What would you notice first about a person? Their eye color is brown, their hair color is black, or the fact that their aura is a bit bright in the belly, which even though the belly is thin, could mean a child within . . .

 

[Anonymous]

more boasting

i think PintQuaff is onto something, why must we always
try to figure everythin out ? (and that the road to
hell is paved with heavy metal).
fuckin science, i fair reckon its near-enough had its day.
afterall, we cant understand everythin, there would be no fear
or negative energy left... positive energy wud flow supreme.
which may seem good until you consider the fact that
all creation would probably cease.
how about we dont be nerds for once, hows about we
try and fight instead.
i think we are losing a race here, chaps.

plus the fact, i have the pyschic gene, training in recent
years has rewarded me with a few glimpses of my own aura.
my friend claims to be able to see mine too, but i dunno.