This notion is a staple of popular literature, and I’ve heard the claim made IRL many times as well. But it does not seem possible other than through paranormal means. I would guess that people don’t tend to remember the times that they had the same feeling but turned around and did not see anyone there.
I’m paranoid, so I tend to look around a lot and always “keep my ears on” for people who might be looking at me. I have “felt” this feeling many times.
But then, I’m odd.
Gorgon, I don’t think you’re odd - I’ve know what Izzy is talking about - I’ve “sensed” when someone was staring at me.
I think that for me, moreso than being able to sense if someone is looking at me it’s more a generalized sense of someone being there. I’ve noticed that I’m particularly sensitive to sounds that most other people don’t pick up – slight changes in air pressure, a television turned on but muted in the other room, the hum of the lights in my office – things that other people think I’m crazy when I tell them about.
I think that for me, sensing that someone is there is a combination of listening to the ambient sounds and how they reach your ear. If someone is there, then there’s a ‘gap’ in sounds from a particular area, or the pitch will change from one direction. Or, if I sense that the air pressure is higher/lower in a particular direction.
Most of the time I’m right and there’s someone there, but every now and then I get freaked out when I’m in my house alone, and I feel like that.
I actually have the same sort of thing…
It has been explained to me that it is about filters…
some people have mental filters to block out most noises… and some people don’t have any…
It is not fun because it can be very distracting at times… I hear everything… I have to focus my attention on what to listen to…
I can be talking to someone face to face, and then also be listening to a conversation in a nother room, and also hear all of the random noises throughout the house…
My girlfriend wants to live in NYC… and that would be almost hell for me… I guess I would eventually develope filters for NY, but untill then I would not be able to sleep from all the noise.
It seems to me that my best friend is very good at this. She is completely deaf in her left ear, and so has had to adapt to that from birth. I remember in grade 10 French class, we sat side by side at assigned seats (:rolleyes:), only she was placed to my right, so she couldn’t hear me when I tried to whisper to her in class. We were quite disruptive with our constant chatter, actually!
Anyways, when I could tell she didn’t hear me, I’d just sit there and stare at her. It never took very long…maybe 30 seconds or so, and she’d turn her head and say “What?”. Since I was always there, but she only did this after I had been staring at her, it wasn’t only my presence that she felt, but rather something else, I think. what that Something Else was…I don’t know.
Darn smilie heirarchy. Aren’t all smilies created equal, or are some more equal than others?
Ack! I know exactly what you mean, merge. I have almost no filters for noise. Sometimes it’s very useful, as it tends to make me very aware of what’s going on around me, but I’m almost incapable of carrying on a conversation with someone in a noisy environment because I just can’t extract the sound of their voice from the background noise. Like XJETGIRLX mentioned, I can “sense” things, like people moving around a room, by subtle cues like changes in the noise levels or frequencies, and small noises they make that most people would ignore. I also have a higher-than-normal upper frequency range, so I can hear some sounds that would be considered “ultrasonic,” like those old-style alarm system motion sensors and the sound a muted TV makes (that’s only around 15 Khz, so I can hear that one very clearly).
As far as the OP goes, though, every time someone does a carefully controlled experiment involving this supposed ability of people to sense when they’re being looked at, the results are no better than random chance.
The only time I remember this phenomenon was when I was working in the basement of an office building. The window to my office was level to the ground, and my office was below ground level. The window’s to my right as I’m sitting at the desk.
One day I doing some paperwork, when I felt kind of a warm sensation to my right. I turned to look, and the paper deliveryman was standing outside smiling. He usually came up to knock on the window to get me to go to the back to unlock the door, but this time he just stood there and stared.
So I unlocked the door, told him he spooked me a little bit, and he told me “that was the SPIRIT! You felt the SPIRIT! I didn’t have to do no knockin’ because my SPIRIT reached out to you!”
That was Mr. Boone. Every time he delivered paper to my office he’d get into a big long rant and solve all the world’s problems in 15 minutes. I miss that guy.
Ack! Me too! I have friends in NYC who keep trying to convince me I’d love it there, but from the times I’ve visited I know I could never stand it! I’ve tried to explain to people that I would slowly go insane there, but they don’t understand…
I’ve never really been able to ‘filter out’ background noises…I don’t think I would last more than a few days.
Returning to the OP, though, I think there are a lot of things involved that we don’t always consciously recognize.
Anything from a slight shift of temperature (body heat in a fairly small space) to slight movements (shadows, etc.) can be picked up and processed by our brains without us really even realizing that we’re doing it. Sorry, no cites or scientific information to support this, but that’s at least part of what I think it is.
I can. A couple years ago, I was visiting with my family for the Holidays, and slept on my uncle’s couch for two weeks. Every morning, my 10-year-old cousin would wake me up by standing about 5 feet away and staring at me. The first day, he said it took about 10 minutes for me to wake up. By the 4th or 5th day, I would wake up within about 5 seconds. By the end of the week, I had to pay him $20 to stop, because it was starting to freak me out.
Skeptical Inquirer reported on this “phenomena” a while back and, surprisingly enough, came out with a resounding no.
http://www.csicop.org/si/2000-09/staring.html
Note also, this article, cited to in the one I previously linked.
http://www.csicop.org/si/2000-03/stare.html
I thought that everyone was able to tell if someone was looking at them. I didnt know that this was some kind of phenomena or anything. I can usually tell when someone is looking at me.
I think it’s true… And whenever I feel like it’s happening to me I fake a huge yawn. If it’s in a group of people behind me the person who was looking at me yawns. Works every time.
I think most of us are aware of the people around us most of the time. Someone staring at you is a thing you’d be likely to notice out of the corner of your eye, and until you do see that, you might not realize that you’ve been looking around. This would explain why there is no empirical evidence of any special phenomenon; it’s not a special sense, it’s merely a reaction to subtle cues. You pay attention to someone staring at you where you don’t notice people who aren’t.
Usually feel that people are looking at me, and there is no one there. On the rare occasions that someone is there, I could tell that they were looking at me.
well most of know that this really does happen, because it has happened to us a few times atleast in our lives.
I think it depends on how sensitive we are being to world around us and others.
Im not saying you can’t be totally off in your own world and it happen to you. But there is definately something about being a sensitive person in general. I mean are you the type of person that goes into a restaraunt and sits down with there friend, orders there food and can easily block out everyone and everything else in the restauraunt and have a conversation with your friend? Or are you more like the person who goes into the restauraunt and notices your servers mood, and the other patrons moods or health or psyche. I’m not sure if I described that very well but do your best to understand it plz.
If you are like me, then you sometimes notice everylittle action around you. You look at people around you deeply, you try to see there soul, try to see how they are doing in there life, etc.
I have no doubt in my mind that alot of people have this sixth sense or whatever you wanna call it. I think it is just being a sensitive person, you notice more things then the average joe.
I’m in no way endorsing “psychics” etc. I think alot of them are just full of greed and deciet probably. but so many times have things happened to me where I knew someone was looking at me, and I turned around to look exactly at them. Its just a feeling.
How about times where you “just knew” something? hmmmm?
I know I’m not the only one on this. Many times I would know who was calling me ahead of time and would answer the phone saying there name lol. and trust me I’m not some eccentric yoga guru, meditating all day, these things just happen to me plenty times in my life.
Great example here >> My first Girlfriend went to a different school then me and had to stay after school for some extra curicular activity. I asked her later about how it went and she told me about it. She told me she met this guy “josh” and as soon as I heard his name. I had this feeling in my gutt, a sickness lol. I feared him from the first time I heard his name, I “knew” she liked him. yet she denied it to the core. Anyways not too much longer later we broke up and she was with that guy!!
I don’t take lightly my “feelings”, so many times they are right. But its definately not down to a “science” in my case so don’t start messenging me with ?'s about your lovers etc. haha
there is sooo much we don’t know and don’t understand, it would be just foolish to say these things “don’t” “can’t” be real.
cya, happy holidays
jason ^^)
I don’t care what the scientists say. bah I can sense it, too.
Just because we can’t explain or process everything in our conscious mind doesn’t mean that our subconscious mind isn’t picking up the vibes…you can call it a sixth sense, a survival instinct, or just a Weird Thing That Happens, but most of the time if someone is looking/staring at me, I feel it almost like a hand brushing the back of my neck.
Kind of creepy, even if the person means no ill will.
No, I can’t. And I have a hard time believing that anyone else can either. Sure, I’ve felt that someone’s there, and sometimes I’m right, but usually I’m not. And people sneak up on me all the time.