The psychic staring effect (sometimes called scopaesthesia) is a supposed phenomenon in which humans detect being stared at by extrasensory means. The idea was first explored by psychologist Edward B. Titchener in 1898 during a series of laboratory experiments that found only negative results. It has been the subject of contemporary attention by parapsychologists and fringe researchers, most notably Rupert Sheldrake.
Famous quotes containing the words psychic, staring and/or effect:
“Despite crime’s omnipresence, things work in society, because biology compels it. Order eventually restores itself, by psychic equilibrium.”
—Camille Paglia (b. 1947)
“I saw a staring virgin stand
Where holy Dionysus died,
And tear the heart out of his side,
And lay the heart upon her hand
And bear that beating heart away;”
—William Butler Yeats (1865–1939)
“The effect of a good government is to make life more valuable; of a bad one, to make it less valuable.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)