Gothic science update: a team has found how to trigger a certain creepy feeling. The sense of a person nearby, perhaps just behind you, can be sparked by sending electrical current into a certain part of the brain.
Though the woman had no history of psychological problems, she repeatedly perceived a "shadow person" hovering behind her when doctors electrically stimulated an area of her brain called the left temporoparietal junction.
The article itself is quietly disturbing, including the subject's reports of the shadowman interfering with the tests.
If this pans out, when will we see military and policing applications? Or will installation art be first to market?
In Mary Roach's "Spook" she has a chapter about an experimenter in Canada who spends his time studying this phenomenom. Apparently trying to understand the sensation people report at "haunted" places.
Posted by: Ceredwyn Alexander | October 05, 2006 at 13:59