Staring Into Someone's Eyes For 10 Minutes Can Radically Alter Your Consciousness

[Carmen Elsa Irarragorri Wyland]

Staring Into Someone's Eyes For 10 Minutes Can Radically Alter Your Consciousness

They say the eyes are the window to the soul. Now, it may be that the eyes of others can be the windows into your own soul as well. Apparently by staring into the eyes of other people for extended periods of time, you can slip into an altered state of consciousness.

This isn't a bunch of pseudo-science nonsense, there's some science behind it.

Giovanni Caputo, a researcher at the University of Urbino, Italy, made the discovery a few years ago after asking 50 volunteers to gaze upon their reflections in a mirror for 10 minutes in a dimly lit room. After about a minute, they began to experience trippy things.

After a while, their faces seem to warp. They start seeing images of animals, monsters, and even family members long since gone. This is a phenomenon known as "strange-face illusion." The effects become even more bizarre when instead of a mirror, you look at another person.

Published in Psychiatry Research, Caputo brought in 40 young adults to sit across from each other in dimly lit rooms. They were placed 3.3 feet apart. The room was dim, but not so dim that they couldn't pick up on finer facial features. Color and perception were diminished though.

Half of the group stared directly at one another. The other half sat back to back, staring at the wall. The participants weren't told what the experiment was about, but were informed that it would involve meditation.

The results were pretty impressive. Those who faced each other said they experienced higher levels of color intensity. Noise seemed louder than they should have. Time slowed down and they spaced out. 90% said their partner's face looked deformed. 75% said they saw monsters and 15% said they saw faces of their relatives.

Caputo says the sensations indicate symptoms of dissociation, which describes a departure from one's connection to reality. He thinks these hallucinations could be a consequence of snapping back to this reality after entering into a dissociative state.

In either case, there's a lot we can learn about this strange phenomenon. What do you think?

 Here is the material from the highlighted links..

''Strange Face Illusion''

Abstract

In normal observers, gazing at one’s own face in the mirror for a few minutes, at a low illumination level, triggers the perception of strange faces, a new visual illusion that has been named ‘strange-face in the mirror’. Individuals see huge distortions of their own faces, but they often see monstrous beings, archetypal faces, faces of relatives and deceased, and animals. In the experiment described here, strange-face illusions were perceived when two individuals, in a dimly lit room, gazed at each other in the face. Inter-subjective gazing compared to mirror-gazing produced a higher number of different strange-faces. Inter-subjective strange-face illusions were always dissociative of the subject’s self and supported moderate feeling of their reality, indicating a temporary lost of self-agency. Unconscious synchronization of event-related responses to illusions was found between members in some pairs. Synchronicity of illusions may indicate that unconscious response–coordination is caused by the illusion–conjunction of crossed dissociative strange-faces, which are perceived as projections into each other’s visual face of reciprocal embodied representations within the pair. Inter-subjective strange-face illusions may be explained by the subject’s embodied representations (soma-esthetic, kinesthetic and motor facial pattern) and the other’s visual face binding. Unconscious facial mimicry may promote inter-subjective illusion–conjunction, then unconscious joint-action and response–coordination.

Highlights 

► The study extends previous research on mirror-gazing to gazing at another person. ► Inter-subjective gazing increases strange-faces with respect to mirror-gazing. ► Strange-faces are dissociative of the subject’s self who loses self-agency. ► Inter-subjective gazing produces synchrony of event-related responses to illusions. ► Synchrony of responses actually reflects synchronicity of illusion contents.

Keywords

• Dissociative-identity; 
• Embodiment; 
• Empathy; 
• Joint-action; 
• Carl G. Jung; 
• Mirror;
• Numinosity; 
• Out-of-body experience (OBE); 
• Self; 
• Synchronicity.

''Psychiatry Research''

Dissociation and hallucinations in dyads engaged through interpersonal gazing

• •Interpersonal gazing in dyads of individuals is investigated.
• •Tests of dissociation, dysmorphic face perception and strange-face apparitions.
• •Dissociative symptoms and face dysmorphia were correlated.
• •Strange-face apparitions were non-correlated with dissociation and dysmorphia.
• •Strange-face apparitions and dissociative symptoms might be independent processes.

Abstract

Interpersonal gazing in dyads, when the two individuals in the dyad stare at each other in the eyes, is investigated in 20 healthy young individuals at low illumination for 10-min. Results indicate dissociative symptoms, dysmorphic face perceptions, and hallucination-like strange-face apparitions. Dissociative symptoms and face dysmorphia were correlated. Strange-face apparitions were non-correlated with dissociation and dysmorphia. These results indicate that dissociative symptoms and hallucinatory phenomena during interpersonal-gazing under low illumination can involve different processes. Strange-face apparitions may characterize the rebound to “reality” (perceptual reality caused by external stimulus and hallucinatory reality caused by internal input) from a dissociative state induced by sensory deprivation. These phenomena may explain psychodynamic projections of the subject׳s unconscious meanings into the other׳s face. The results indicate that interpersonal gazing in dyads can be an effective tool for studying experimentally-induced dissociative symptoms and hallucinatory-like apparitions.

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