Directional Scopaesthesia and Its Implications for Theories of Vision
Here, we examine the natural history of the phenomenon based on a collection of 960 case histories collected over 25 years involving both humans and non-human animals. This collection includes more than 80 interviews with surveillance officers, detectives, martial arts teachers, celebrity photographers, wildlife photographers, and hunters who have extensive experience of watching people or non-human animals. In 466 (49%) of the cases, directional effects were explicit, in that the person or animal looked at responded by turning and looking directly back at the looker rather than searching at random for the source of attention. In 186 (19%) of the cases directional effects were implicit. In most of the other cases, directional effects were not mentioned, usually because they were general statements lacking detail. In online surveys, including a survey of a group of skeptics, the great majority of respondents said they had experienced directional scopaesthesia. We conclude that directionality is a normal feature of scopaesthesia in real-life situations and suggest that this finding supports the idea that minds are extended beyond brains and that this extension involves some kind of visual extramission.
Heart and Soul – My Journey beyond Death – BBC World Service Documentary
Following a dramatic train accident, David Ditchfield was dragged under a speeding train in Cambridgeshire and nearly lost his life. As he lay in hospital, just before being taken into surgery, he had an extraordinary spiritual experience characterised by overwhelming love, white light and spiritual beings The experience awakened a previously hidden talent for painting and music. Despite his vision of angelic beings and a white tunnel of light, he doesn’t view his life-changing spiritual awakening as a religious experience. He tells his remarkable story and meets the founder of Near Death Experience UK who too had a profound spiritual awakening while in a critical condition. Together, they share the astonishing changes they underwent and explore how their experiences relate to formal religion.
Frontier Journalists’ Network
The FJN is an international group of editorial professionals devoted to making it easier for journalists to get the resources they need to cover the mysteries of human experience, such as the nature of consciousness and the science of spirituality.
Directional Scopaesthesia and Its Implications for Theories of Vision
Here, we examine the natural history of the phenomenon based on a collection of 960 case histories collected over 25 years involving both humans and non-human animals. This collection includes more than 80 interviews with surveillance officers, detectives, martial arts teachers, celebrity photographers, wildlife photographers, and hunters who have extensive experience of watching people or non-human animals. In 466 (49%) of the cases, directional effects were explicit, in that the person or animal looked at responded by turning and looking directly back at the looker rather than searching at random for the source of attention. In 186 (19%) of the cases directional effects were implicit. In most of the other cases, directional effects were not mentioned, usually because they were general statements lacking detail. In online surveys, including a survey of a group of skeptics, the great majority of respondents said they had experienced directional scopaesthesia. We conclude that directionality is a normal feature of scopaesthesia in real-life situations and suggest that this finding supports the idea that minds are extended beyond brains and that this extension involves some kind of visual extramission.
Heart and Soul – My Journey beyond Death – BBC World Service Documentary
Following a dramatic train accident, David Ditchfield was dragged under a speeding train in Cambridgeshire and nearly lost his life. As he lay in hospital, just before being taken into surgery, he had an extraordinary spiritual experience characterised by overwhelming love, white light and spiritual beings The experience awakened a previously hidden talent for painting and music. Despite his vision of angelic beings and a white tunnel of light, he doesn’t view his life-changing spiritual awakening as a religious experience. He tells his remarkable story and meets the founder of Near Death Experience UK who too had a profound spiritual awakening while in a critical condition. Together, they share the astonishing changes they underwent and explore how their experiences relate to formal religion.
Frontier Journalists’ Network
The FJN is an international group of editorial professionals devoted to making it easier for journalists to get the resources they need to cover the mysteries of human experience, such as the nature of consciousness and the science of spirituality.
Directional Scopaesthesia and Its Implications for Theories of Vision
Here, we examine the natural history of the phenomenon based on a collection of 960 case histories collected over 25 years involving both humans and non-human animals. This collection includes more than 80 interviews with surveillance officers, detectives, martial arts teachers, celebrity photographers, wildlife photographers, and hunters who have extensive experience of watching people or non-human animals. In 466 (49%) of the cases, directional effects were explicit, in that the person or animal looked at responded by turning and looking directly back at the looker rather than searching at random for the source of attention. In 186 (19%) of the cases directional effects were implicit. In most of the other cases, directional effects were not mentioned, usually because they were general statements lacking detail. In online surveys, including a survey of a group of skeptics, the great majority of respondents said they had experienced directional scopaesthesia. We conclude that directionality is a normal feature of scopaesthesia in real-life situations and suggest that this finding supports the idea that minds are extended beyond brains and that this extension involves some kind of visual extramission.
Heart and Soul – My Journey beyond Death – BBC World Service Documentary
Following a dramatic train accident, David Ditchfield was dragged under a speeding train in Cambridgeshire and nearly lost his life. As he lay in hospital, just before being taken into surgery, he had an extraordinary spiritual experience characterised by overwhelming love, white light and spiritual beings The experience awakened a previously hidden talent for painting and music. Despite his vision of angelic beings and a white tunnel of light, he doesn’t view his life-changing spiritual awakening as a religious experience. He tells his remarkable story and meets the founder of Near Death Experience UK who too had a profound spiritual awakening while in a critical condition. Together, they share the astonishing changes they underwent and explore how their experiences relate to formal religion.
Frontier Journalists’ Network
The FJN is an international group of editorial professionals devoted to making it easier for journalists to get the resources they need to cover the mysteries of human experience, such as the nature of consciousness and the science of spirituality.

– Erwin Schrödinger
– Prof David Bohm


– Albert Einstein
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