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A 'shadow person' might reside in our left temporoparietal junction. Credit: Wikipedia 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." Readers' comments
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shadow people
Hi,
I was very interested in this subject, because I have seen photos of "Shadow People ". If they are caused by the brain functions at all why would they show on film if they aren't really there?
Photos? Where? Are they
Photos? Where? Are they proven - or fakes?
Did you even read the
Did you even read the article?
Er...
...maybe, just maybe, you're talking about something completely different?
what if
What if we're actually only telepresences inside a MMPORG, and messing with the temporoparietal junction is messing with the place where we jack in... and the "shadow selves" are actually our "real selves" in some metauniverse outside of everything?
*cue twilite zome musik*
the problem with shadows as a game reality:
If we exist as avatar's of actual identities playing a game, and our consciousness is an artificial projection or simulation of a "real conscious entity," then we can make several conjectures. One is that the universe in which the game is created is infinitely more complex than ours, and like our contemporary video games employ simplified physics to create a simple simulation of reality, the physical laws of their universe would be at least as much more complex as the ratio of our own simulations to our reality.
As entities with limited consciousnesses, guided by an external source, it's naive to think of those external entities as our "real selves" since their thought processes and motives would be external to our own (which must, if those playing the game were involved in its creation, be infinitely-seeming more complex than our own meager intellectual ability). As such, the ability for the avatar to become aware of the hand that manipulates it would be either be a bug in the program, or a tacky, self reflective and indulgent choice on the part of the game's staff.
Congratulations, we're living in an MMO created by hacks.
Unlikely...
My dog was first aware of the "shadow person" in my room last night. Heres my story...
I experienced a shadow person last night. At about 3:30am, my dog barks, even though she’s a pit mix, she’s very accepting of people and animals that she doesnt feel threatened by, but this time, she leaps off the bed almost instantly, spreading her front legs while her back legs were planted firmly, i’ve never seen her so ready to attack, and she was doing this constant growl thing, she kept running towards this thing while staying in attack-mode. I woke up and looked, and seen a male figure, about 6′5″, blacker than black, shoulders and all were apparent, at first I thought someone had broken in, as the dog neared closer to the figure, in almost a 2-step frame animation, I could see it turn and lean forward with one leg lifted up as though “running” away into my kitchen. I ran after it, my first instinct, to kill whoever it was before they killed me, when I made it out to the kitchen and clicked on the lights and screamed “WHO THE F*@(#) IS IN MY HOUSE?!?!” I realized, no one was there. The dog had stopped growling now, and began looking around confused. Thinking that the person was hiding, I went to each room individually, holding a battery in my hand as to use it for a fist-hardener, since I had no weapons. After moving to every room, checking for the burglar, I suddenly realized this wasnt human. It was impossible for anything to get out that quickly, as all my doors were locked and the house isnt big enough to lose someone in. I went back into my room, and realized it was about 85 degrees in there, I went back out to the kitchen, the rest of the house was 62 according to the thermostat, the air was set to stay at 72 degrees and it was 76 outside that night (Cape Coral, FL). After going back to bed, my asthma began acting up, I continually woke up because I couldnt breathe and was choking on my own saliva, upon waking up each time, I just continually went back to bed because it was so hot (again, about 85) in my room, I was sweating uncontrollably and so fatigued, I couldnt wake up, I didnt wake up until about 3pm and had to force myself to get up. Last night was the same thing when I was trying to sleep, I had the girl I am dating stay the night with me, and we were both woken up at the same time from the heat increasing in my bedroom, checking the thermostat, it was still set at 72. The dog at one point had barked and ran into the closet, and stayed back there, when we went into the closet, we noticed there was the attic, there, although I doubt it has any significance, I thought i'd post that anyways. I've been having a lot of really bad dreams, and even worse thoughts, and have been crying and affected by this uncontrollably. As strong of a man as I am, theres just something about this I cant shake and I feel helpless. I had just moved into this house a month ago, living in another house a month before that, and another a month before that. The 2nd house I lived in was very german-gothic style, all the appliances original to the 1950’s, a girl I am dating told me two months ago that had seen an entitiy in that house, she said it was a man, 6 foot tall, wrapped in burlap and badly burnt, she didnt want to tell me because she didnt want to frighten me, when I told her what I had seen, she told me she had seen the same thing in my new house, but had not wanted to tell me because she knows I dont believe in it and didnt want to frighten me. She’s insisting that it’s following me…
Shadows
Well I have never written about this but I will now. When I was about 15 a friend and I were at the beach one night smoking a J, now this was nothing new and we were not that messed up. The strange thing was as we sat there our vision began to vastly improve we could see miles across the water with crystal clearity. So with this new found sight we decided to venture along the beach to see what great things we could find with this new sight. Now I will mention here that all along we had heard this strange erry laughing but has payed it no heed. At the moment we stood up to go for a walk no more than 50 feet away from us sat 3 women as we rose up they did as well and began chanting and dancing in a circle. Well you can believe that we ran out of that beach faster than you can imagine, we were so frightened, we ran to the top of the stairs and unlocked our bikes, we road away so quickly. Once we had parted ways I went to the park by my house to cool down and have a smoke. Thats when it started, there i was sitting on the bench smoking a cigarette when this shadow appeared. It moved so quickly, then would stay still and move again, it did this all around my bench, I was stuned I couldn't believe this was happening, When I finally went home the nightmares began and for 2 years this was want happened it seemed that almost every time I cut through that park at night the shadow was there, then there were 3, I began seeing them in other places and my friends began seeing them around me as well. and just as suddenly as it began it stopped.
I can't explain this, the women had a bad energy around them but the shadow had no negative or postive energy to it. I have read about the flying shadows that occur when there is a solar eclipse but that doesn't explain what happened to me. I don't know what got me to write this today, but here it is.
last night about 3A.M. I
last night about 3A.M. I woke up, having a feeling someone was in my room I looked around and saw a shadow person rise out of the floor from behind my computer. Just to let you know that my laptop is right next to my bed, about a foot away on a small stool. After it had stood up fully it dove into me. Needless to say I was scared. I've had other experiences with this kind of thing before. I've been pulled off of my bed. I've been paralyzed, unable to move with something standing next to me growling, once it even said my name right next to my ear. Last night was the first time I have ever seen a shadow person and I saw it clearly. It was a perfect human shape, very thin about 3 1/2 - 4 1/2 feet tall, the color was black and seemed to have a slight pearl effect. It took a step through my PC and stool and dove head first into my chest. After this I was unable to speak clearly and and then collapsed back on the bed and passed out/fell asleep. This is true.
Haunted
Did you guys read the article carefully enough? Shadow people are illusions created by your brain. If you're really experiencing what you say you are, you really should look into a house blessing or something. You could very well be haunted. Or you could try something yourself at least: light some incense or some dried sage and take it through every room in your house. As you do this imagine all of the bad dark things melting away and leaving each of the rooms. If it helps any, you can say something like, "All of the evil in the house is dissolving into nothingness and going away forever!" I won't explain how this works, but I hope you'll be surprised by the results.