Shadow Person

[Dingo667]

I am sure this has been covered already, however I tried to search for it but I am a plum when it comes to searching the board. I found this quite interesting and if anyone remembers a thread where this may have been discussed, could they let me know please? It may explain a lot.

http://www.cosmosmagazine.com/node/686

Scientists discover 'shadow person'
Monday, 25 September 2006
by Erica Harrison
Cosmos Online
Scientists discover 'shadow person'
A 'shadow person' might reside in our left temporoparietal junction.
Image: Wikipedia
Cosmos Bright Spark Awards 2007
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SYDNEY: Ever feel as though you're being followed? As if someone is behind you, shadowing your every move? It might be your ‘shadow person', created by unusual activity in a specific brain region, a new study shows.

The paper, published in the British journal Nature, describes the case of a 22-year-old woman with no history of psychiatric problems who was being evaluated for treatment of epilepsy. When a region of her brain called the left temporoparietal junction was electrically stimulated, the woman described encounters with a ‘shadow person' who mimicked her bodily movements.

"Electrical stimulation repeatedly produced a feeling of the presence of another person in her extra-personal space," said Olaf Blanke, co-author of the study conducted by a team of researchers from University Hospital in Geneva, Switzerland.

When the patient was lying down, stimulation of this brain region caused her to feel that someone was behind her. She described the person as young, of indeterminate sex, "a shadow who did not speak or move, and whose position beneath her back was identical to her own", according to the researchers.

When the patient sat up, leaned forward and clasped her knees, she felt that the figure was also sitting, embracing her in its arms - a feeling she described as "unpleasant".

During a language task, in which the seated patient held a card in her right hand, she described the person sitting next to her and trying to interfere with the task. "He wants to take the card … he doesn't want me to read," she said.

Because it was possible to induce the sensation repeatedly, and because the ‘shadow person' closely mimicked the patient's posture and movements, the researchers conclude that the patient was experiencing a perception of her own body.

"The strange sensation that somebody is nearby when no one is actually present has been described by psychiatric and neurological patients, as well as by healthy subjects," said Blanke. Until now, however, it was not understood how the illusion was triggered in the brain.

The temporoparietal junction is known to be involved in creating the concept of ‘self', and the distinction between ‘self' and ‘other'. According to the researchers, stimulation of this region interfered with the patient's ability to integrate information about her own body, leading to her experience of a ‘shadow person'.

Although the woman was aware of the similarity between her own movements and those of her doppelganger, she didn't recognise the experience as an illusion of her own body.

Similar shadowy encounters have been described by people with schizophrenia, as well as by healthy subjects, leading the researchers to believe that: "Our findings may be a step towards understanding the mechanisms behind psychiatric manifestations such as paranoia, persecution and alien control."

 

[OldTimeRadio]

So we now know that shadow people, ghosts, out-of-the-body experiences and even belief in God can be induced by the stimulation of various sections of the brain.

But does this automatically establish that shadow people, ghosts, exteriorizations of the consciousness and God don't actually exist?

 

[escargot]

Very interesting.

I'm always delighted, but no longer surprised, each time I learn another way in which people's own brains can fool them in this way.

We have often discussed, for example, the effects of undiagnosed TLE, which can produce illusions and 'manifestations' galore.

 

[Pietro_Mercurios]

So we now know that shadow people, ghosts, out-of-the-body experiences and even belief in God can be induced by the stimulation of various sections of the brain.

But does this automatically establish that shadow people, ghosts, exteriorizations of the consciousness and God don't actually exist?

Quite.

It could be a sort of 'psychic mirror', evolved to sensitize people to the possibility of being watched. A survival characteristic that's taken on a life of its own. Perhaps, related to those areas of the brain which help us to understand what might be going on in the minds of others by mimicking their actions?

 

[PeniG]

But does this automatically establish that shadow people, ghosts, exteriorizations of the consciousness and God don't actually exist?

Of course not. You know perfectly well that a negative can't be proven.

What this does is further expand the possibilities, though people will treat it as a limitation because we prefer limitations - freedom is so scary. Each of us, when something weird happens, has to evaluate it for ourselves, examining the available alternatives and plumping for the one we find most convincing. This mental shadow person mimicing one's actions does not, for example, account for many apparitions or shadow people stories. Any phenomenon that does not involve a sensation of being followed or having your interior space invaded will not be explained in this way; and not all phenomena that do will be, either, but that's up to the experiencer to figure out.

It does account, nicely, for that God-awful sensation in the small of my back when I get up in the middle of the night to go to the bathroom, and have to take heroic/cowardly measures to avoid looking in the mirror (which would almost certainly show me something I didn't want to see, because it's dark, I'm not wearing my glasses, and I'm good at inventing things). It remains to be seen whether having this potential explanation makes me any more comfortable next time I that happens.

 

[551166G]

PeniG: "Each of us, when something weird happens, has to evaluate it for ourselves, examining the available alternatives and plumping for the one we find most convincing."

It isn't necessary to choose the 'most convincing'. You left 'I don't know yet' and/or 'insufficient data to conclude as yet' off the menu.

Sometimes we are biased towards considering certain choices as most convincing not on their merits, but on the implications were it true. Take the premise:

"551166G is quite probably the handsomest man who ever lived."

I find this most convincing, but suspect others may not agree.

 

[PeniG]

I didn't make a list off of which to leave things. As an agnostic, I find "I don't know yet" to be the most convincing option in most cases.

If you form an opinion just to have an opinion, you aren't convinced and don't really believe it. These are often the opinions people defend most savagely.

 

[OldTimeRadio]

Any phenomenon that does not involve a sensation of being followed or having your interior space invaded will not be explained in this way; and not all phenomena that do will be, either, but that's up to the experiencer to figure out.

That's the point I was attemptinjg to convey but once again you did it so much more adroitly.

....have to take heroic/cowardly measures to avoid looking in the mirror (which would almost certainly show me something I didn't want to see, because it's dark, I'm not wearing my glasses, and I'm good at inventing things).

I'm convinced (well, half-way so) that mirrors were invented for the specific purpose of scaring people at night.

 

[Dingo667]

Also it doesn't explain sightings by multiple people [especially stickmen or shadow-ghosts]. I am also not quite convinced that this finding is an answer to everything. If we can pinpoint all paranormal experiences to the brain, doesn't mean that they are generated by the brain. When they stimulated the brain this woman felt a "shadow person" mimicking her or a presence. What if...a stimulation of that part of the brain makes the brain-owner AWARE of those shadow-people/ghosts/etc. In nature it would mean a small seizure could bring this on and hey presto you are "connected".
An analogy might be a TV. If a TV-doctor would press a certain button, the TV in question would start to feel and see people running around in it. Doctors then concludes that the TV is making them up inside because he pressed a certain button, when in reality the people are real but cannot be seen until the button is pressed.

Does that make sense?
Its just a thought.

 

[OldTimeRadio]

What if...a stimulation of that part of the brain makes the brain-owner AWARE of those shadow-people/ghosts/etc.

Exactly! Otherwise the fact that by stimulating certain nerves we can make the subject feel that she/he has just experienced an electrical shock would prove that electrical shocks don't actually exist.

What these researchers may very well have discovered is how to "trigger" the "trigger mechanism."

It reminds me of the scholars who over the past decade have assured us that "ghosts" don't exist. When we think we see ghosts we're in reality just registering the presence of peripatetic electro-magnetic fields.

But what in the hell did they THINK we thought ghosts were?

 

[volfie]

If I'm reading this article correctly, the term "shadow person" came about because the subject thought the person behind her was "shadowing" (copying) her movements, not because she was seeing a smokey-looking form. IOW, it has nothing to do with what we Forteans commonly think of as "shadow people" -- it just happened to use the same term. And it certainly never acted independently of the subject's movements.

Am I completely off base here? :?:

 

[Dingo667]

No, you are right. Still, the theory can be used for any other sightings/experiences. For if you have the feeling that there is "someone else" [a present that isn't yourself] might explain some traits of schizophrenia or the "Nighthag" experiences. Of course as I said in both above mentioned cases some trigger might just conjure up something that we all have but cannot perceive.

 

[OldTimeRadio]

If I'm reading this article correctly, the term "shadow person" came about because the subject thought the person behind her was "shadowing" (copying) her movements, not because she was seeing a smokey-looking form. IOW, it has nothing to do with what we Forteans commonly think of as "shadow people" -- it just happened to use the same term. And it certainly never acted independently of the subject's movements.

Am I completely off base here? :?:

No more than any of the rest of us. <g>

I sometimes get this weird mental ideation or glitch that may fit this discussion.

Occasionally when I'm unsuccessfully attempting to recall a phrase or title or photograph I receive the distinct mental impression that the "fact" I want is "floating" in free space about three or four inches behind the back of my head, and that if I could just turn around quickly enough I could see or catch it.