The Sensed Presence as A Coping Resource in Extreme Environments

Peter Suedfeld and John Geiger, in J. H. Ellens (ed.), Psychology, Religion, and Spirituality: Vol. 3. Miracles: God, Science, and Psychology in the Paranormal (Praeger Publishers, 2008).

Abstract: People sometimes sense, see, or hear another being in situations in which the actual presence of another being is highly improbable, if not impossible. Psychologists refer to this as the “sensed presence experience.” Sensed presence experiences occur in a wide variety of situations, to a wide variety of people; and the presences themselves vary in appearance, identity, and behavior. There are many kinds of sensed presence phenomena. They include psychotic, feverish, and drug-induced hallucinations; angelic and other religious visitations, ghosts, “corner of the eye” glimpses of someone almost seen or almost heard, quite common among recently bereaved persons; vivid dreams and daydreams, hypnagogic images in the “twilight” state between sleep and full awakening; and misinterpretations of actual percepts, as when the shadow of a tree or the rustling of a bush is perceived as a human being or an animal. This chapter will not deal with such percepts. Rather, we address experiences that are reported by people in extreme and unusual environments (EUEs), which are of interest to psychologists because no obvious explanation presents itself. Sensed presences in EUEs may be seen, heard, and sometimes touched; but commonly, they are, literally, sensed. Their identity may be unknown to the perceiver, although even in such cases people usually do know whether the being is male or female. Sometimes a presence is recognized as a religious figure, friend, acquaintance, or relative. They often appear when the person is weakened by exhaustion or illness; on the verge of death from cold, thirst, or starvation; lost and alone; or in an unusually stimulus-poor environment. Most surprisingly, they do not just serve as companions: they actually help the person in trouble, sometimes by offering useful information or advice and at other times by seeming to take a hand in whatever needs to be done to improve the chances of survival. This chapter will describe episodes in which such apparitions were reported, analyze the causal conditions, and review the theoretical explanations that have been advanced for the phenomenon.