Creepy "Shadow Person" Effect Conjured by Brain ShocksBrian Handwerk
for National Geographic News
September 20, 2006
Schizophrenics sometimes feel the presence of an unknown person behind them who mimics their movements. Now scientists have produced the same disturbing effect in a nonschizophrenic person by applying electric stimulation to a specific area of her brain.
The discovery could help scientists unravel the brain processes behind delusions of paranoia, persecution, and alien control.
Doctors unintentionally produced the delusion while evaluating a 22-year-old epileptic woman for possible surgery.
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.
"Our data most importantly show that paranoia might be related to disturbed processing of one's own body, [which] in some instances may become misrecognized as the body of somebody else," said Olaf Blanke, a neuroscientist at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Lausanne.
The hallucinatory condition was temporary and ended when stimulations were stopped.
Too Close for Comfort
During her ordeal, the patient described sensing an unknown person standing just behind her, mimicking her body positions.
"He is behind me, almost at my body, but I do not feel it," she told doctors, who report their discovery in this week's issue of the journal Nature.
When asked to lean forward and grasp her knees, the patient reported that she felt as if the shadow person were embracing her—a sensation she described as disturbing.
When performing assigned activities, such as a language-testing card game, she said that the shadow tried to interfere.
"He wants to take the card," she told doctors. "He doesn't want me to read."
"In that condition she might have understood that [the shadow] was an illusion, but she didn't," said study co-author Stephanie Ortigue, a neuroscientist at Dartmouth College in Hanover, New Hampshire.
Disturbed Sense of Self
Researchers suggest that the electrical stimuli may have disturbed the brain's concept of its own body.
The brain's temporoparietal junction has been linked to self-perception and the processes that distinguish oneself from others.
The region helps humans understand their spatial environment as well as their bodies' positions in that environment.
"It's an area that is known to be involved in the integration of different modalities like visual, auditory, tactile—all the modalities that make you realize where your body is in space and what you feel," Ortigue said.
Hyperactivity in the region has been found in schizophrenics who attribute their own actions to other people.
(See National Geographic magazine's "Beyond the Brain.")
Idil Cavus, a professor of psychiatry at Yale University School of Medicine, found the report interesting and promising, but she offered a caveat.
"This is only one subject," Cavus said.
"So the question is whether this is something that can be obtained in other patients or whether it was somehow particular to that patient because [of her epileptic condition]."
Cavus also notes that schizophrenia is a far more complicated condition than that exhibited by the study's female subject. The perception of shadow people is reminicent of, but not necessarily the same as, a host of delusions suffered by schizophrenics.
"They report seeing and hearing things that can be anywhere around [them]," Cavus explained.
"[Delusions] can be sounds or visions of people. Many times it's a sense of being watched, of being tracked, of being talked to.
"People can have very complex delusions about alien control or having things implanted in their brains, or about others watching them, controlling their thoughts, and telling them what to do," she continued.
Schizophrenia affects about one out of every hundred people worldwide.
The recent find could help scientists unravel the brain processes behind such debilitating mental illnesses.
"We understand so little about how the brain makes sense of itself," Cavus said.
"It's very interesting to pursue how those processes can be broken down."
Interesting. An explanation into the alter-egos of super-heroes with potential applications into energy and psionic entities made-manifest. Definitely worth looking into again to see if more research has been generated.
- JnW
“The Shadow Self”
Dark Energy Duplicate
Dimension Control: 2-D Form 15 [Drawbacks: Bio-Link, Mute, Noticeable, Extra: Affects Corporeal, Feat: Alternate Power [x5] – Insubstantial 03, Stun 15 - Flaw: Range 1 – Touch, Requires Grapple, No Effective Strength, Tiring, Disintegrate 10 - Flaws: Limited -Inorganic or Inert Matter Only, Elasticity 10, Feat: Alternate Power - Cling-Wrap, Flaws: No Point Advancement, Enhance Trait: Attack 08 - Extra: Grappling Attack, Flaws: No Point Advancement, Flight 05] Power Packaging: All Linked
The character can usher forth a quasi-energy double of pure dark energy to do his bidding. The duplicate has all attributes and saving throws equal to the character’s own attributes. The Shadow-self can see, hear and replay information to his host once he has rejoined him. What the shadow duplicate experiences, the host will experience as well.
Other flaws can be added to the additional Dimension Control power. The energy duplicate may emit radiation and thus the character may require a protective suit or chemically bandages to protect others from poisoning. Or the character may emit an ionic or electrical charge thus requiring a suit of protective insulation or may not come in contact with water or pockets of condensed moisture. In a third variation, the energy duplicate may be composed of thermal energy and may burn on contact, thus requiring a suit of asbestos or flame retardant material.
Initial Cost: 100
- Power Package: 50
New Cost: 2/R+2
Standard Cost: Blast - 2/R
- Based on the Unlimited Power Point Rule Variation
Variants: The Shadow self doesn’t necessarily mean the character is a mutant. It can be power packaged with any or more of the following:
- Alter Ego: The shadow self has his own persoanlity and agenda outside the hero’s sphere of influence.
- Astral Manifestation/Planar Voyager: A lost voyager stranded upon the astral plane. His symbiosis or sharing of a host body gives him measurable access in the physical world.
- Device: The shadow self taps into the unlimited potential of the human brain through a cosmic artifact, extraterrestrial technology, lost technology (Atlantis), or a modern invention (i.e. Power Harness, Power Belt, Power Helm, Power Ring, A Piece of Jewelry, etc.)
- Dimensional: The shadow self is actually from another dimension, possibly an exile or an advanced scout. Living inside a host body may be only one of the ways it can exist in other dimension without harm.
- Divine: The shadow self is an angelic creature, benign or vengeful, or another manifestation from a higher realm.
- Magic: Demonology, Elemental Ritual, Magic Talisman, Shadow Magic
- Profane: The Shadow self is a demonic creature or some manifestation from a lower realm.
- Psychic/Psionic Manifestation: The shadow self is the lighter or darker half of a psychic personality whose only anchor a physical body in the physical worlds. The shadow self could be based on another psionic ability or manifests in times of extreme personal fear or anger.
- Xeno-Planar Manifestation: A shadow self is from an unknown or little-known dimension.
Shadow-Self
© Jeffrey Williams 2008.
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