The effect of Eye Contact : an interesting experiment

[Elohir]

Hello !

I would like to discuss about an experiment run by Giovanni Caputo from the University of Urbinorun, Italy in august 2015.

Let me quote BEC CREW from Science Alert for a better explanation than mine (I don't know well this website but it's a pretty good explanation and all the sources talk about the same things) :

The experiment, run by Giovanni Caputo from the University of Urbino, involved having 20 young adults (15 of which were women) pair off, sit in a dimly lit room 1 metre away from each other, and stare into their partner’s eyes for 10 minutes. The lighting in the room was bright enough for the volunteers to easily make out the facial features of their partner, but low enough to diminish their overall colour perception.

A control group of 20 more volunteers were asked to sit and stare for 10 minutes in another dimly lit room in pairs, but their chairs were facing a blank wall. The volunteers were told very little about the purpose of the study, only that it had to do with a "meditative experience with eyes open".

Once the 10 minutes were up, the volunteers were asked to complete questionnaires related to what they experienced during and after the experiment. One questionnaire focussed on any dissociative symptoms that the volunteers might have experienced, and another questioned them on what they perceived in their partner’s face (eye-staring group) or their own face (control group).

Dissociation is a term used in psychology to describe a whole range of psychological experiences that make a person feel detached from their immediate surroundings. Symptoms such as a loss of memory, seeing everything in distorted colours, or feeling like the world isn’t real can be brought on by abuse and trauma; drugs such as ketamine, alcohol, and LSD; and now, apparently, face-staring.

"The participants in the eye-staring group said they'd had a compelling experience unlike anything they'd felt before," Christian Jarrett writes for the British Psychological Society’s Research Digest.

Reporting in journal Psychiatry Research, Caputo says the eye-staring group out-scored the control group in all the questionnaires, which suggests that something about staring into another human being’s eyes for 10 uninterrupted minutes had a profound effect on their visual perception and mental state.

Source : http://www.sciencealert.com/staring-into-someone-s-eyes-for-10-minutes-induces-an-altered-state-of-consciousness

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It's possible to find a good synthesis of this experience on the website "Psychatry Research" :

Highlights

•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.

Source : http://www.psy-journal.com/article/S0165-1781(15)00321-2/fulltext

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Some of you might already know Marina Abramovic, a Yugoslav performance artist based in New York. In 2012, a french article had been written on SOTT about her experiment run in Zagreb in 1974 and called Rhythm 0. She stayed 6 hours without moving whatever the people around could od to her. 72 objects were disposed on a table wich could be used for pain or pleasure. Go to see the result if you are curious...

Source : https://humansareweird.com/2013/02/21/marina-abramovic-a-performing-artist/ or in french https://fr.sott.net/article/19747-Une-performance-qui-montre-ce-que-les-gens-peuvent-faire-en-des-circonstances-inhabituelles

In 2010, Marina experimented another weird thing. She decided to spend more than 700 hours seated on a chair to face volunteers for several minutes each without moving and looking in each other eyes. All people who run this test talk about the same kind of effects.

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Several journalists all around the world tried themselves the experience with a friend or a colleague. Each time, they could confirm some perception effects as distorsions. Here is an example :

I feel nervous, which seems ridiculous considering I’ve seen C lose her father, she’s seen me give birth and hers is the face I’ve looked at most in my adult life. But what if it is the equivalent of feeding a mogwai after midnight and C goes all gremlin on me? Will I ever look at her in the same way again? Also, we had a fight earlier. Maybe now isn’t the best time to be gazing into each other’s eyes, looking for monsters.

With all these misgivings pouring out of the windows to my soul, I set the stopwatch and we’re off …

Minute one: my heart knocks in my chest, I keep forgetting to breathe and C’s eyes seem to have hoovered up all the oxygen in the room. Must all forms of meditation begin this way?

Minute two: dog burp.

Minute three: the world seems very loud (as people in Caputo’s experiment also reported). Buses wheeze, traffic lights beep, the damn dog breathes.

Minute five: how have I never noticed how blue C’s eyes are? The windows are reflected in her pupils, producing winking white lights at each centre like two tiny parties. Definitely a bit hallucinatory. I spend ages looking at her left eye, then the right, then I try to look at them at the same time. Ow. Looking into someone’s eyes is surprisingly hard. We should really call it looking into someone’s eye.

Minute seven: I don’t see monsters, myself or my mother, but I do start to zone out. C’s face goes a bit distorted, like when my friends and I used to draw eyes on our chins and hang upside down. When I blink, I can still see the blotted outline of C’s face, as if my eyes have been dazzled by the sun. I start to think mmm, I could do this forever … and then the alarm goes off.

Source : https://www.theguardian.com/science/shortcuts/2015/aug/24/look-eyes-staring-hallucinate-10-minutes

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C's said that the center of each sphere can be a window or a portal or both.

Q: (Pierre) Uh, okay. This cosmic energy coming from the sun and its interaction with its companion powers El Niño. But I guess El Niño is not the only effect of these surges...

A: Remember that the center of a sphere is a window!

Q: (Pierre) Yeah, I remember that.

A: Portal too!

Source : Session of February 27th 2016 http://cassiopaea.org/forum/index.php/topic,41076.0.html

Humans use to say that the eye is a way to reach the soul of someone, is there any sense in that ?
Does this experiment show us a brain reaction, an after effect of a prolonged view on something frozen ? Or maybe as some persons explain it, we approach the LSD effects on our perception of reality ?

Is there something "special" in that case or is this a simple optical effect ?

I plan to try this with someone soon and I think it could be nice and interesting to share our points of view and experiences about that.
For now, I don't know what to think. Everything's possible but if I'd have to chose I'd say that it's more than a simple optical effect.
For a long time, humankind is attracted by eyes and many theories exist about it.
By the way, I advice you a good movie (according to me) about these beautiful spheres : I Origins (2014) from Mike Cahill (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt2884206/)

We always say that we live in an illusion. It's true if you're referring on our society according to a metaphoric way of speaking but we already know that it's also true in a physical point of view. Things are not exactly the way they seem to be...
Maybe, it's a natural path for seeing things from another perspective and maybe train ourselves to see behind the veil of illusion.

Thanks for your attention.

 

[BHelmet]

You said a mouthful. A huge pandora's box. The first 3 aspects that come to mind regarding eye looking: the bio-physical part and the conscious/soul part and then the mental part. I guess you could relate this to the 3 lower centers, too. I would throw in cultural taboos and biases as well. (there is a sexual aspect also)

In some cultures, eye-looking is a taboo. Learned this in Hawaii. For a man to look into another man's eyes can be a sign of aggression rather than an acknowledgement of another's existence. For a man and woman to look into each others eyes can be a sign of sexual interest/availability. For some cultures you only look into the eyes of those in your various groups and this is governed by social relationships. This muddies the waters of just purely 'being' with another person without all the unavoidable cultural baggage.

That said, looking into the eyes of another is an intimate thing. It vibrates between "me allowing you to see into me; to see through my masks" and me allowing myself to really be with the other person and to confront my projections, thoughts, feelings etc. Since there is a kind of merging or allowing someone else 'in', I think you have to be careful. Psychopaths know very well how to exploit this phenomenon!

I would say, American culture is very underdeveloped in this regard of 'real being with'. I would say it is getting worse what with our addiction to gadgets. It is always disarming to travel abroad and realize how superficial is the normal way of being for most US citizens.

All for now.

 

[JGeropoulas]

...
C's said that the center of each sphere can be a window or a portal or both.

Q: (Pierre) Uh, okay. This cosmic energy coming from the sun and its interaction with its companion powers El Niño. But I guess El Niño is not the only effect of these surges...

A: Remember that the center of a sphere is a window!

Q: (Pierre) Yeah, I remember that.

A: Portal too!

Source : Session of February 27th 2016 http://cassiopaea.org/forum/index.php/topic,41076.0.html

Humans use to say that the eye is a way to reach the soul of someone, is there any sense in that ?
...

It's interesting that, if we consider our head to be a "sphere," sitting in the middle of it is the mysterious pineal gland--a unique brain structure discussed extensively in "DMT-The Spirit Molecule" by Rick Strassman, M.D.:

Western and Eastern mystical traditions are replete with descriptions of a blinding bright white light accompanying deep spiritual realization. This "enlightenment" usually is the result of a progression of consciousness through various levels of spiritual, psychological, and ethical development. All mystical traditions describe the process and its stages.

In Judaism, for example, consciousness moves through the sefirot, or Kabbalistic centers of spiritual development, the highest being Keter, or Crown. In the Eastern Ayurvedic tradition, these centers are called chakras, and particular experiences likewise accompany the movement of energy through them. The highest chakra is also called the Crown. In both traditions, the location of this Crown sefira or chakra is the center and top of the skull, anatomically corresponding to the human pineal gland-unique in its solitary status within the brain. All other brain sites are paired, meaning that they have left and right counter-parts

The pineal gland of evolutionarily older animals, such as lizards and amphibians, is also called the "third" eye. Just like the two seeing eyes, the third eye possesses a lens, cornea, and retina. It is light-sensitive an helps regulate body temperature and skin coloration-two basic survival functions intimately related to environmental light. Melatonin, the primary pineal hormone, is present in primitive pineal glands.

As animals climbed the evolutionary ladder, the pineal moved inward, deeper into the brain, more hidden and removed from outside influences. While the bird pineal no longer sits on top of the skull. it remains sensitive to outside light because of the paper-thin surroundingbones. The mammalian, including human, pineal is buried even deeper in the brain's recesses and is not directly sensitive to light, at least in adults. 6 It is interesting to speculate that as the pineal assumes a more"spiritual" role, it needs the greater protection from the environment afforded by such deep placement in the skull.

The human pineal gland becomes visible in the developing fetus at seven weeks, or forty-nine days, after conception. Of great interest to me was finding out that this is nearly exactly the moment in which one can clearly see the first indication of male or female gender. Before this time, the sex of the fetus is indeterminate, or unknown. Thus, the pineal gland and the most important differentiation of humanity, male and female gender, appear at the same time.

Also related to this forty-nine day point in fetal development is the Buddhistbelief that it is on that day (7 weeks x 7 days) when the soul enters the body, which supports the ideas of karma and reincarnation: proper reincarnation to fulfill one's karmic mission would only be possible after the gender of the fetus was set.

The human pineal gland is not actually part of the brain. Rather, it develops from specialized tissues in the roof of the fetal mouth. From there it migrates to the center of the brain, where it seems to have the best seat in the house .

We have already noted the pineal's proximity to cerebrospinal fluid channels, which allows its secretions easy access to the brain's deepest recesses. Additionally, it sits in strategic closeness to the crucial emotional and sensory brain centers.

...electrical and chemical impulses that begin in the eyes and ears must pass through the colliculi before we experience them in our minds as sights and sounds. The pineal gland hangs directly over these colliculi, separated by only a narrow channel of cerebrospinal fluid. Anything secreted by the pineal into that fluid would settle onto the colliculi in a moment.

In addition, the limbic, or "emotional," brain surrounds the tiny pineal. The limbic "system" is a collection of brain structures intimately involved in the experience of feelings, such as joy, rage, fear, anxiety, and pleasure. Therefore, the pineal also has direct access to the brain's emotional centers.

In the late 1950’s, scientific studies found that constant darkness blocked reproductive function and shrank the sexual organs; it also stimulated pineal growth and the production of melatonin. On the other hand, constant light shrank the pineal, reduced melatonin levels, and turned on sexual function. Using these experimental results, scientists concluded that melatonin was the crucial pineal factor in whose presence reproductive function flagged, and in whose absence reproductive function flourished. Put simply, melatonin possessed powerful anti-reproductive effects.

So I began to wonder how melatonin might relate to the long-standing spiritual properties attributed to the pineal gland? I firmly believed that there was a spirit molecule somewhere in the brain, initiating or supporting mystical and other naturally occurring altered states of consciousness. My first best guess was that pineal melatonin was this "spirit molecule," the chemical interpreter through which the body and spirit met and communicated. If melatonin had profound psychedelic properties, my search for the vehicle by which the pineal affected our spiritual lives was over.

For any chemical to qualify as a spirit molecule, it must at least possess psychedelic effects. Does melatonin's striking chemical similarity to DMT, the intense psychedelic substance used by South American shaman, mean that it also is profoundly psychoactive? Some early studies suggested that melatonin indeed might have mind-altering properties. For example, administering high doses before bedtime seemed induce vivid dreams.

The most general hypothesis is that the pineal gland produces psychedelic amounts of DMT at extraordinary times in our lives. Pineal DMT production is the physical representation of non-material, or energetic, processes. It provides us with the vehicle to consciously experience the movement of our life-force in its most extreme manifestations, such as:

- When our individual life force enters our fetal body, the moment in which we become truly human, it passes through the pineal and triggers the first primordial flood of DMT.

- Later, at birth, the pineal releases more DMT.

- In some of us, pineal DMT mediates the pivotal experiences of deep
meditation, psychosis, and near-death experiences.

- As we die, the life-force leaves the body through the pineal gland, releasing another flood of this psychedelic spirit molecule

That sure sounds like a "portal" to me!

 

[Elohir]

You said a mouthful. A huge pandora's box. The first 3 aspects that come to mind regarding eye looking: the bio-physical part and the conscious/soul part and then the mental part. I guess you could relate this to the 3 lower centers, too. I would throw in cultural taboos and biases as well. (there is a sexual aspect also)

In some cultures, eye-looking is a taboo. Learned this in Hawaii. For a man to look into another man's eyes can be a sign of aggression rather than an acknowledgement of another's existence. For a man and woman to look into each others eyes can be a sign of sexual interest/availability. For some cultures you only look into the eyes of those in your various groups and this is governed by social relationships. This muddies the waters of just purely 'being' with another person without all the unavoidable cultural baggage.

That said, looking into the eyes of another is an intimate thing. It vibrates between "me allowing you to see into me; to see through my masks" and me allowing myself to really be with the other person and to confront my projections, thoughts, feelings etc. Since there is a kind of merging or allowing someone else 'in', I think you have to be careful. Psychopaths know very well how to exploit this phenomenon!

I would say, American culture is very underdeveloped in this regard of 'real being with'. I would say it is getting worse what with our addiction to gadgets. It is always disarming to travel abroad and realize how superficial is the normal way of being for most US citizens.

All for now.

Thank you for your answer. I agree with you.

I should have been more accurate about the experiment with "someone". I completely agree with you about the power of eye-contact and the risk about allowing someone to look into us. In fact I meant with my wife or my brother whom I trust about that.

I also thank you for your Hawaiian experience ;) Actually, I know for sure that in Japan and South Korea, people don't use sunglasses, it's very uncommon to see someone wearing it. I don't know why yet but I will ask to someone soon since I live in South Korea. They don't like to watch you in the eyes for nothing, especially japanese but it seems to me that they don't want to hide their eyes from others.

For the sexual aspect, some researchers as Thomas Aron, studied the sexual aspect of eye contact and even conclued that it can be a good way for people to fall in love or sexually attract someone else.

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JGeropoulas,

Thank you for this interesting material. I learned a lot since I don't know much about brain structure.
For example this information is very important :

electrical and chemical impulses that begin in the eyes and ears must pass through the colliculi before we experience them in our minds as sights and sounds. The pineal gland hangs directly over these colliculi, separated by only a narrow channel of cerebrospinal fluid. Anything secreted by the pineal into that fluid would settle onto the colliculi in a moment.

It probably means that pineal gland reacts according to what you see and hear.

Besides, it's a good timing since I talked about pineal gland with my brother yesterday. The eye looks like a kind of window/portal to the pineal gland that is a portal to the spiritual world.
Anyway, I have to take a further look to "DMT-The Spirit Molecule" by Rick Strassman, M.D."

Reading your abstract suggests that the results of the prolonged eye-contact experiment could find some explanations from the pineal gland's point of view.

 

[Joe]

There's some relevant info here:

June 9th 2009

(Craig) Is there any danger in the eye gazing?

A: Yes, as with everything. But knowledge protects. That particular part is a bit of the New Age fluff. Gazing and unifying exercises should be undertaken with some care.

 

[Elohir]

There's some relevant info here:

June 9th 2009

(Craig) Is there any danger in the eye gazing?

A: Yes, as with everything. But knowledge protects. That particular part is a bit of the New Age fluff. Gazing and unifying exercises should be undertaken with some care.

Thank you Joe for this interesting abstract. If I understand it well, it confirms what we discussed in the previous messages about the power of eye-contact. But it's logical.
By the way it reminds me the experiment of Marina Abramovic. Some people even herself simply cryed during the session. All the persons who once tried it felt at least some changes in their perception.

It's understandable to think that it could be dangerous to do that with a person with bad intentions.

I will try it with my wife and I will tell you what kind of effect we had, what we felt.

 

[BrendaH]

Here is a video about an eye contact experiment that I watched a couple of months ago:

https://youtu.be/Xm-T3HCa618

Description

Studies say that 4 minutes of uninterrumpted eye contact can increase intimacy. To test this theory out, we brought in six pairs in different stages of their relationship and had them try it

 

[Elohir]

Thank you for your video. It also confirms the fact that one shouln't do that with everybody carelessly.

 

[Woodsman]

Aliens as described in abduction scenario accounts use eye gazing as a means to establish total control over their subjects, injecting thoughts, commands and entire real-seeming dreamscape realities into the receiver's head. They can erase memories, insert new ones; basically total access and control over every aspect of another human.

According to some accounts, regular humans which have a history of involvement with the abduction phenomenon have been trained to exert this kind of control over people through eye-gazing.

It doesn't surprise me that regular humans experience some kind of residual effects from each other when staring into each other's eyes, despite our (probably) having been genetically modified to be more easily controlled than controlling.

It's like a secret backdoor access to the entire human race which was made for aliens and not us.

-This is all lifted from David Jacob's books.

 

[BHelmet]

I think some kind of hypnosis can take place or a hypnotic effect when eye-gazing.

An off-the-wall thing I recall is Gurdjieff writing something about the need for a man to resist the temptation to gaze into a woman's left eye. FWIW One of his comments I always puzzled about.

 

[Deleted member 4320]

I think some kind of hypnosis can take place or a hypnotic effect when eye-gazing.

An off-the-wall thing I recall is Gurdjieff writing something about the need for a man to resist the temptation to gaze into a woman's left eye. FWIW One of his comments I always puzzled about.

Focusing on gazing usually goes hand in hand with some energy. Left eye is connected with the right brain responsible for emotional part of the man/woman. Gazing into woman's left eye make it more intimate. For the better hygiene, looking into woman's right eye (man too), make contact more earthbound and runs on the level of the left brain responsible for reasoning. I don't know what G. had on his mind, but I speculate that it might be it. Summarising, for daily contact more desirable is looking at the right eye. And deeper look and gazing into left eye, keep in the relationship.

 

[Elohir]

I think some kind of hypnosis can take place or a hypnotic effect when eye-gazing.

An off-the-wall thing I recall is Gurdjieff writing something about the need for a man to resist the temptation to gaze into a woman's left eye. FWIW One of his comments I always puzzled about.

Focusing on gazing usually goes hand in hand with some energy. Left eye is connected with the right brain responsible for emotional part of the man/woman. Gazing into woman's left eye make it more intimate. For the better hygiene, looking into woman's right eye (man too), make contact more earthbound and runs on the level of the left brain responsible for reasoning. I don't know what G. had on his mind, but I speculate that it might be it. Summarising, for daily contact more desirable is looking at the right eye. And deeper look and gazing into left eye, keep in the relationship.

I agree with this idea. Besides it might have another meaning.

 

[realitybugll]

Abramovic is the woman related to the spirit cooking Clinton thing. I was just going to post about her art project, but I see it's in the original post.

 

[Ðekel]

Abramovic is the woman related to the spirit cooking Clinton thing. I was just going to post about her art project, but I see it's in the original post.

There are a few images online which show lady gaga and the "artist" in question eating some sort of reddish liquid with a spoon out of a box/coffin containing a naked person in it... And the liquid is either supposed to resemble blood, or is blood (?). To me it seems not to be the right color..

If this is supposed to be some kind of "art", and that's a paid actor in that box then it's just stupid. .
But based on earlier "works" of hers which include etching a pentagram into her stomach, I assume there's probably some weirdness involved, which shouldn't come as a shocker.

 

[Pierre]

Abramovic is the woman related to the spirit cooking Clinton thing. I was just going to post about her art project, but I see it's in the original post.

There are a few images online which show lady gaga and the "artist" in question eating some sort of reddish liquid with a spoon out of a box/coffin containing a naked person in it... And the liquid is either supposed to resemble blood, or is blood (?). To me it seems not to be the right color..

If this is supposed to be some kind of "art", and that's a paid actor in that box then it's just stupid. .
But based on earlier "works" of hers which include etching a pentagram into her stomach, I assume there's probably some weirdness involved, which shouldn't come as a shocker.

Knowing about Abramovic occult interests, I'm wondering if some attachments (or worse) were transmitted during her staring sessions.