The Theories Behind the Psychic Staring Effect: Is It Possible to Know When You’re Being Stared At?

Hope Lachapelle 0295752

February 11th 2015

RLST 2326

Laurentian University

Many people have experienced the sensation of eyes following them or the feeling of being watched by someone they were not aware of, only to find themselves desperately glancing around in search of the culprit, wondering if it’s just paranoia. In many cases, they find themselves looking into the eyes of a stranger and realizing their feelings were not without cause. This feeling that we have all experienced is known as the “psychic staring effect,” which is a phenomenon that explains how we can tell when we are being watched. This theory is passionately supported and has been studied in depth by Rupert Sheldrake, a biologist who wrote Seven Experiments That Could Change the World. In this book he discusses the relations between the mind, the soul and the body, highlighting that we do not know the extent our minds can reach. In fact, he proposes that the extended mind can reach out and “touch” what we are looking at, specifically a person, affecting them by doing so (Sheldrake, 2002, p.107). According to surveys that have been conducted on the topic, approximately 70-97% of the population have experienced psychic staring (Sheldrake, 2001). Despite these results and Sheldrake’s published works, psychic staring is still argued and experiments to disprove the theory have been conducted by David Marks, John Colwell, Robert Baker and Edward Titchener. In their written articles, they outline their disbelief of the theory by stating that Sheldrake did not properly conduct his experiments, as well as explain their observation and results from their own experiments. Despite the harsh criticism, Sheldrake continued to further his experiments and once again produce evidence that psychic staring is a common occurrence and persists in our lives today. Despite the fact that sceptics have dismissed psychic staring as “paranormal” and superstitious, Sheldrake has persisted in his beliefs and has experimentally proven that it can occur and there are people who are able to sense when they are being stared at. In his book, Sheldrake explained two experiments that he conducted which confirmed the positive findings of other researchers. The first consisted of four subjects who participated in 20 second trials, having to determine whether or not they were the subject being stared at after the 20 seconds finished. Although most people performed no better than chance, Sheldrake found that there were two people who stuck out of the group and were able to score significantly higher than chance. One of the two, a woman, had claimed to have practiced it as a child with her brothers and sisters, honing it as a skill. The other, a man, was on a psychoactive drug that heightened his sensitivity to the world around him. This makes them perfect test subjects, not relying on simply guessing. In his second experiment, random trials were conducted where the subject was told after each guess if they were right or wrong. The overall results showed that there was a high tendency for people to do better than chance, landing 3.1% above chance levels. For Sheldrake, this showed significant statistical results (Sheldrake, 2002, p.118-119). Although the results were positive, Sheldrake formulated the opinion that we cannot perform well under artificial conditions due to pressure and the awareness of being tested. For example, paranoids or people with heightened sensitivity will perform better under experimental conditions due to their mindset, but the average person