Clinicians who have many years of practice with psychiatric patients did their diagnoses according to DSM-IV-R criteria (American Medical Association, 2004). Therefore, the main hypothesis of the present study was that strange-face apparitions, in response to mirror-gazing, should be different in frequency and intensity in depressed patients with respect to healthy controls. On one occasion, while on LSD, I found myself in a bathroom with a single bare bulb hanging above my head, facing a dirty mirror. Instead, the age of participants was not adequately matched between groups, which were different in mean age (; ). Within just a few minutes of mirror gazing (just looking into a plain old mirror hanging on a wall, about four feet away) a mist, clouds, or blue-gray “something” started pouring out of the mirror. The subject then entered the psychomanteum booth, with instructions to gaze deeply into the mirror. mirror-gazing under low illumination (Caputo, 2010a)andintersubjec-tive eye-to-eye gazing in dyads under low illumination (Caputo,2013). In this research, patients with depression were compared to healthy controls with respect to strange-face apparitions. From the Listverse site I read an article about mirrors. Mirror gazing in BDD has been compared to the compulsive checking of Obsessive Compulsive Disorder (OCD) and BDD has been conceptualised as on the spectrum of obsessive–compulsive Prior to the invention of the silver nitrate-coated mirror in 1835, your reflection in the basin or the polished-metal jug used for your morning ablutions was about as good as it got. Keep the turned-around mirror in a closet or behind an open door to make it even less noticeable. It is used for divination or to uncover messages related to personal development, epiphanies, and prophecies. Source(s): https://owly.im/a8xBr. Moody notes that historically mirror-gazing has been discouraged, for reasons such as. The walls of the room were painted light gray. Moody, an American physician and pioneer of NDE research, experimented with several hundred individuals in his purpose-built ‘psychomanteum’, from which he concluded that the method seems frequently to result in therapeutic contacts. Wondering whether such encounters could be artificially stimulated, he started to explore the literature on ‘mirror-gazing’,1 which describes how mirrors, crystals, still liquids and other reflective surfaces have been used throughout history for this purpose. Our study provides first evidence showing that mirror-gazing, at a low illumination level, produces less frequent strange-face apparitions in depressed patients than in healthy individuals. The sentence “How often did it seem real?” did not differ between patients and controls (patients 0.4 ± 0.2 versus controls 0.7 ± 0.3). The sentence “How often did you notice anything strange?” was rated to be lower in strength of apparitions by patients than controls (Likert-type scale score of patients 0.5 ± 0.3 versus controls 1.6 ± 0.2). An hour spent gazing into the mirror produced no result. You, Dear Leader, are the fairest. Stare at yourself in a mirror for 10 minutes in a darkened room and see what happens. With the subject seated in front of the mirror, the experimenter explained the task: “Your task is look at your face in the mirror. From 1990 Moody continued mirror-gazing research in a purpose-built ‘Theatre of the Mind’ set up to encourage altered states. Moody prepared a ‘modern-day psychomanteum’, equipping a special room with a large mirror on one wall and a chair angled so the person sitting could not see his or her reflection. In normal observers, gazing at one’s own face in the mirror for a few minutes, at a low illumination level, produces the apparition of strange faces. In normal observers, gazing at one’s own face in the mirror for a few minutes, at a low illumination level, produces the apparition of strange faces. In the Christian era, mirror-gazing appeared sporadically and was discouraged by religious authorities. The experimental finding that depression patients reported lower ratings of the emotional content of strange-face apparitions than healthy controls can be explained by the general dampening of emotions in depression [7, 8, 19]. They were 5 men and 8 women (mean age 50.0 years; SD 14.2) with depression. In face-to-face interactions between the subject and the other, facial expressions by the other and facial recognition of the other’s expressions by the subject are reciprocally intertwined through mimicry and subject-other synchronization [10]. All participants provided written informed consent before entry to the study. The cumulative duration of apparitions was defined as the sum of durations of apparitions in MGT, averaged per minute (the cumulative duration equals the algebraic product of frequency and mean duration). I describe a visual illusion which occurs when an observer sees his/her image reflected in a mirror in a dimly lit room. In this research, patients with depression were compared to healthy controls with respect to strange-face apparitions. This dynamic self-reflection can produce, within the subject, recognition-expression or perception-action loops. Therefore, a specific hypothesis, which is based on deficits of facial recognition and facial expression of emotions in depression, is that strange-face apparitions should be strongly reduced in patients with depression compared to healthy controls. The mean frequency of event-related responses (patients 0.3 ± 0.2 versus controls 0.8 ± 0.2) did not differ significantly between groups. For them, the mirror is a necessity, and their makeup isn’t a way to conceal so-called “flaws,” but rather an income-generating art form. The two groups (patients versus controls) were matched for gender. From his research of near-death experiences (NDEs), Moody observed a powerful therapeutic effect following seeming encounters with deceased loved-ones. Short answer is sensory deprivation, most forms of it, causes hallucinations. Rods of the eye, though more numerous, don't distinguish colors. The mean cumulative duration of apparitions was shorter in patients than in controls (patients 1.0 ± 0.6 s min−1 versus controls 5.0 ± 1.4 s min−1). A large-scale Census of Hallucinations published by the Society for Psychical Research in 1884 includes many accounts of apparitions spontaneously observed in mirrors and other reflective surfaces.2. The ancient Greeks consulted a ‘psychomanteum’ (oracle of the dead), such as that mentioned in Homer’s Odyssey where Odysseus, gazing into a pit filled with the blood of sacrificial sheep, is reassured by his dead mother that her passing was not violent or painful. The trade-off between frequency and duration of subject’s responses was verified using the mean cumulative duration of apparitions per minute of MGT that differed significantly between groups (; ). ... hallucinations. The interview comprised the following question: “What did you see?” For both patients and controls, the experimenter transcribed the answers. Ten minutes of eye contact leads to hallucinations, monster sightings ... more dissociation states than the wall-gazing group. In the 1950s, an actual psychomanteum was excavated at Ephyra in the western Greek province of Epiros, a subterranean complex where fragments of a giant bronze cauldron were found, possibly used as a reflective surface both from its polished exterior and from liquid it contained. This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. Twenty-four high and 22 low hallucination-prone participants reported on PLEs occurring during brief sensory deprivation and at baseline. Between-subjects ANOVAs were run with a two-level factor (patients versus controls). The altered cognitive and affective processing in depression has been associated with disruption of frontotemporal and frontosubcortical networks [7]. He also notes that the practice does not sit well with modern, technology-based lifestyles. He was also aware that spontaneous encounters are frequently claimed by widows and other bereaved persons, similarly helping to alleviate grief. Depressed and control individuals were volunteers; they were naïve to the research aim. about a quarter of subjects encountered a deceased person other than the one they planned to contact, in about ten percent of cases, the apparition seemed to come out of the mirror, sometimes seeming to touch the subject, a few subjects felt they entered the mirror into the other world, about half the subjects held conversations with the apparition, mentally or audibly, in a quarter of cases, the apparition was encountered not during the psychomanteum session but afterwards, usually within 24 hours, almost all asserted that they experienced the reunions as real events, not fantasies or dreams, certain they were in the presence of deceased loved ones, as with NDEs, the subjects were powerfully affected by their experiences, which challenged their view of reality and life’s meaning, suspicion on the part of religious authorities about people having personal spiritual experiences, the perception that altered states are unscientific, discordance with the officially-sanctioned view of reality. This behaviour in depression is opposite to intense strange-face hallucinations that can be observed in schizophrenia [5]. Both experimental procedures, mirror-gazing and eye-to-eye gazing, consistently produce perception of strange-face illusions in place of the actual face. Attach adhesive pleated fabric shades (like these) at the top of a mirror to cover it like a window. Our clinical sample consisted of thirteen hospitalized patients in “Villa Santa Chiara” Clinic in Verona, Italy. Five out of 13 patients (38%) perceived strange-face apparitions; 13 out of 13 healthy controls (100%) perceived strange-face apparitions. Mirror gazing with a psychomanteum is similar to the practice of scrying and is sometimes referred to as catoptromancy, or the use of a reflective psychic medium, much like the stereotypical fortune teller looking into a crystal ball. Young YouTubers and Instagram celebrities frequently show themselves gazing into mirrors, carefully applying winged eyeliner, rainbow eye shadow, ombre lips, or mermaid makeup. Human faces convey important messages, such as identity, age, sex, eye gaze, and emotional expression, which are relevant to social communication and interpersonal interaction. 10 Crazy Facts About Mirrors - Listverse. The study was approved by the hospital ethical committee. During the 7-minute MGT, patients perceived a lower number of strange faces than controls (patients 0.5 ± 0.3 versus controls 1.6 ± 0.3) and this difference was statistically significant (; ). The experimenter transcribed patients’ and controls’ answers to the questionnaire. Moody spent several hours preparing to invoke his late maternal grandmother, viewing old photographs and recalling memories. In fact, depression patients during mirror-gazing can be described as completely immobile similar to statues of death [20]. Drape a towel or large piece of cloth over wall-mounted mirrors. In Shakespeare’s Macbeth, the three witches conjure apparitions from the depth of a cauldron. A review of aminergic, peptidergic, and neural network perspectives,”, G. B. Caputo, “Archetypal-imaging and mirror-gazing,”. Anonymous. We use an eigentransformation based hallucination method to improve the image resolution. The sentence “How often did it influence you emotionally?” was rated as lower by patients than controls (patients 0.3 ± 0.2 versus controls 1.3 ± 0.2). Also, schizophrenic patients can take advantage of this awareness, since they can ground their (often dramatic) hallucinations elicited by mirror-gazing upon objectivity of the physical mirror. Every time subjects had an abnormal perception, they had to press a button and their responses were recorded and digitally stored. Depression is characterized by maladaptive bottom-up processes that are generally perpetuated by attenuated cognitive control [8, 9]. The experimental finding that patients reported fewer and less frequent strange-face apparitions than controls can be explained by deficits in emotional facial recognition and emotional facial expression and by deficit in interpersonal interactions of patients with depression [13–15, 18]. For his first experimental subjects Moody selected ten mature individuals, mainly professionals, who were interested in human consciousness, were emotionally stable, inquisitive and articulate, and were not influenced by occult ideologies. Moreover, item-by-item correlations showed a correlation between the total SFQ score, strong sense of “reality” (item 17 of CADSS; Table 2 ), and a special kind of awareness (item 13 of … Such dramatic changes in appearance are usually part of a command hallucination or a paranoid delusion and may involve signifi cant periods of mirror gazing. The hallucinated face images are not only much helpful for recognition by human, but also make the automatic recognition procedure easier, since they emphasize the … In this paper, the scope of the study was to investigate strange-face illusions in patients with depression. From: Mind Hacks The strange-face-in-the-mirror illusion « Mind Hacks "At the end of a 10 min session of mirror gazing, the participant was asked to write what he or she saw in the mirror. I propose that mirror gazing can help us with a different phantom syndrome — the illusion of self. The information here is drawn from his 1993 book Reunions: Visionary Encounters With Departed Loved Ones. Observers see distortions of their own faces, but they often see hallucinations like monsters, archetypical faces, faces of relatives and deceased, and animals. To trigger the illusion you need to stare at your own reflection in a dimly lit room. In the latter, she sister was not visually seen as she had been during the NDE. Responses given were scored on a five-point Likert-type scale, ranging from “never” (= 0), “rarely” (= 1), to “very often” (= 4). Other findings were as follows: One person encountered a sister who had died in a car accident both in a near-death experience and in Moody’s psychomanteum. When the MGT ended, the experimenter assessed patients and controls with a specifically designed questionnaire and interviewed them, asking them to describe strange-face apparitions. They were 5 men and 8 women (mean age 40.2 years; SD 13.0) who declared no history of neurological or psychiatric impairment. Recently, Caputo et al. Séance is just a French word for “sitting,” and the cornerstone of Moody’s psychomanteum is sitting in the dark in front of a crystal or mirror, gazing and waiting for an image, ghost, apparition, or other hallucination to These results indicate that dissociative symptoms and hallucinatory phenomena during interpersonal-gazing under low illumination can involve different processes. The sentence “How often did you see another person in the mirror?” did not differ between patients and controls (patients 0.2 ± 0.2 versus controls 0.7 ± 0.3). During a lengthy preparation period the subjects talked about the relationship with the person they hoped to contact, sometimes followed by a relaxation session. The mean onset of the first apparition (patients 68 ± 23 s versus controls 175 ± 38 s) did not differ significantly between patients and controls. Patients with schizophrenia can sometimes report strange face illusions when staring at themselves in the mirror; such experiences have been conceptualized as anomalous self-experiences that can be experienced with a varying degree of depersonalization. xix). So staring into a mirror will cause this. Queen Elizabeth I consulted with John Dee, a polymath scholar who set up a mirror-gazing room in his house and recorded in detail the visions experienced by his guests. This article describes explorations by Raymond Moody of a mirror-gazing technique used by ancient Greeks to contact the dead. Mirror gazing is like dreaming. Actually, crystal gazing is just one of many forms of mediumship and divination. Priori, and S. Zago, “Visual perception during mirror gazing at one's own face in schizophrenia,”, G. S. Malhi, G. B. Parker, and J. Greenwood, “Structural and functional models of depression: from sub-types to substrates,”, L. Clark, S. R. Chamberlain, and B. J. Sahakian, “Neurocognitive mechanisms in depression: implications for treatment,”, M. L. Phillips, W. C. Drevets, S. L. Rauch, and R. Lane, “Neurobiology of emotion perception II: implications for major psychiatric disorders,”, S. G. Disner, C. G. Beevers, E. A. P. Haigh, and A. T. Beck, “Neural mechanisms of the cognitive model of depression,”, T. L. Chartrand and J. L. Lakin, “The antecedents and consequences of human behavioral mimicry,”, M. Merleau-Ponty, “The child’s relations with others,” in, P. Rochat and D. Zahavi, “The uncanny mirror: a re-framing of mirror self-experience,”, W. Gaebel and W. Wolwer, “Facial expression and emotional face recognition in schizophrenia and depression,”, D. R. Rubinow and R. M. Post, “Impaired recognition of affect in facial expression in depressed patients,”, A. Lembke and T. A. Ketter, “Impaired recognition of facial emotion in mania,”, S. Surguladze, M. J. Brammer, P. Keedwell et al., “A differential pattern of neural response toward sad versus happy facial expressions in major depressive disorder,”, T. A. Victor, M. L. Furey, S. J. Fromm, A. Ohman, and W. C. Drevets, “Relationship between amygdala responses to masked faces and mood state and treatment in major depressive disorder,”, D. A. Clark and A. T. Beck, “Cognitive theory and therapy of anxiety and depression: convergence with neurobiological findings,”, D. F. Watt and J. Panksepp, “Depression: an evolutionarily conserved mechanism to terminate separation distress? Age differences between groups had statistically nonsignificant effects. The subjects were seated at a distance of 0.4 m in front of the mirror. Age differences between groups had statistically nonsignificant effects. 8 Mirrors Cause Hallucinations. This study aimed to establish the contribution of hallucination proneness, anxiety, suggestibility, and fantasy proneness to psychotic-like experiences (PLEs) reported during brief sensory deprivation. Depressive subtypes are positioned to differ functionally by differential contributions by serotoninergic, noradrenergic, and dopaminergic neurotransmitter circuits [6]. For event-related responses, the mean onset of the first apparition was defined as the first time the subject pressed the button. Instead, the age of participants did not influence strange-face apparitions. Moreover, apparitions were usually of lower intensity and shorter duration in depressed patients than in healthy controls. I Tried the Mirror Hallucination! In this way, unconscious projections of dissociated contents can be integrated into the consciousness of the self. Controls were 13 individuals recruited from hospital workers. The experiment was conducted in accordance with the Declaration of Helsinki (1964). Windows at work, puddles on the street, bathroom mirror, laptop reflection. From the clinical viewpoint, it may be noted that no study has previously investigated mirror-gazing in depressed patients. In Ganzfeld-induced hallucinations you would look at a uniformly-lit surface that fills the entire visual field. Moody notes that historically mirror-gazing has been discouraged, for reasons such as 1. fear of the unconscious 2. suspicion on the part of religious authorities about people having personal spiritual experiences 3. charlatanism 4. the perception that altered states are unscientific 5. discordance with the officially-sanctioned view of reality He also notes that the practice does not sit well with modern, technology-based lifestyles. However, he emphasizes that purposeful mirror-gazing in a controlled setti… Apparitions of strange faces in the mirror were very reduced in depression patients compared to healthy controls. A mirror was mounted on a tripod and placed in the center of the room. These decreases in depression may be produced by deficits of facial expression and facial recognition of emotions, which are involved in the relationship between the patient (or the patient’s ego) and his face image (or the patient’s bodily self) that is reflected in the mirror. I stopped looking at myself in the mirror and got rid of all reflective things in my house and tried to stay away from reflective things. Mirror-gazing at one’s own face is similar to an interpersonal encounter by the subject (or the subject’s ego) with itself (which is the subject’s bodily face that is reflected in the mirror), as if the subject were an other [11, 12]. mirror-gazing seems to possess greater efficacy for the study of hallucinations than other paradigms, because apparitions of varying sensory modalities are frequently reported, in Depression patients compared to healthy controls showed shorter duration of apparitions; minor number of strange faces; lower self-evaluation rating of apparition strength; lower self-evaluation rating of provoked emotion. Emotional-processing biases occur to sad faces presented below the level of conscious awareness in depression [16, 17]. In the study conducted by Dr. Caputo of the University of Urbino, participants were asked to stare into a mirror in dim lighting for ten minutes. Copyright © 2014 Giovanni B. Caputo et al. 2014, Article ID 946851, 4 pages, 2014. https://doi.org/10.1155/2014/946851, 1DIPSUM, Università di Urbino, Via Saffi 15, 61029 Urbino, Italy, 2Unità Operativa di Psichiatria “Villa Santa Chiara”, Via Monte Recamao 7, Quinto di Valpantena, 37142 Verona, Italy, 3Fondazione IRCCS Ca’ Granda-Ospedale Maggiore Policlinico, Dipartimento di Scienze Neurologiche, Università degli Studi di Milano, Via F. Sforza 35, 20122 Milano, Italy. The experimenter told participants how to use the button using the following words: “During the seven minutes while you are looking at your face in the mirror and staring at your eyes you may or may not notice changes in your face. The experiment was a 7-minute mirror-gazing test (MGT) under low illumination. Age differences between groups had statistically nonsignificant effects. The number of strange faces was calculated for each subject by counting the number of different types of strange faces described. Observers see distortions of their own faces, but they often see hallucinations like monsters, archetypical faces, faces of relatives and deceased, and animals. Following the sessions, five of the ten reported having seen and in some cases communicated with apparitions of deceased relatives. More information: Dissociation and hallucinations in dyads engaged through interpersonal gazing, Psychiatry Research, August 30, 2015. Aims . The experiment was a 7-minute mirror-gazing test (MGT) under low illumination. A strange illusion is conjured up when you stare at your reflection in a mirror. Age differences between groups had a statistically significant effect (; ). However, on an emotional level there was little difference between the two experiences. In the experiment, participants were tested in random order. Results of event-related responses take on more impact when compared with data from schizophrenic patients [5], as shown in Figure 1 (the three groups were actually studied in the same sessions and all participants were tested in blind design). A swirl of mist touched me on my right wrist and I became frightened. 8 years ago "Tristimulis values" (paraphrasing the 1st link below) represent the three types of color receptors in the cones of the eye. Black velvet curtains blocked the windows; the only light source was a small lamp positioned behind the chair. The deceased individuals appeared healthy and vital, and often younger than they had been at death. MGT was conducted in a darkened room, . The author, Italian psychologist Giovanni Caputo, describes his set up which seems to reliably trigger the illusion: … Age differences between groups had statistically nonsignificant effects. He suggests that parapsychologists, psychologists, grief therapists and historians might explore the technique as a way to enhance their work, and offers instructions about how to create a psychomanteum for personal healing and growth. ... when subjects stare at dots on the wall or in a mirror … When the 7-minute MGT ended, the experimenter assessed patients and controls with a specifically designed questionnaireand interviewed them asking them to describe abnormal perceptions. This indirect illumination provided diffuse lighting over the whole room. Depression patients show deficits in both voluntary and involuntary facial expression of emotions [13]. The task will last seven minutes.” During the MGT, the subjects’ perceptions were qualitatively and quantitatively assessed. 0 0. The phenomenological descriptions were classified for content into strange-face categories [1]: deformed traits, relatives, unknown persons, archetypal faces, animal faces, and monstrous faces. Moody, R, with Perry, P (1993). You should keep staring into your eyes. The number and latency of abnormal perceptions were evaluated by recording event-related responses to apparitional experiences. Hide a mirror with a poster – soothing nature scenes like these are nice. In the case of mirror-gazing, the subject’s facial expressions are reflected in the mirror and then perceived and recognized by the subject itself. However, he emphasizes that purposeful mirror-gazing in a controlled setting is not dangerous or frightening, but rather transformative and potentially therapeutic, with the potential to alleviate worries about a loved one’s death and provide solace. Lastly, after the interview, the participants answered four five-point Likert-type scale sentences: “How often did you notice anything strange?”, “How often did it influence you emotionally?”, “How often did it seem real?”, and “How often did you see another person in the mirror?”. Hallucinations, mirror-gazing, anomalous experiences, dissociation, visual cognitive style Search for Similar Articles You may search for similar articles that contain these same keywords or you may modify the keyword list to augment your search. The face was lit relatively uniformly at about 0.2 cd m−2 (digital photometer Pantec LM-20 by Carlo Gavazzi, Milano, Italy). The experimenter was blind about the condition of the participant either a patient or a control individual. The effect of age differences between patients and controls was analyzed by inserting age as covariate variable in ANOVAs. Mirror, mirror on the wall Who is the fairest of them all? The apparition appeared healthy and much younger than her age at death. In relationship to faces, patients with depression show deficits both in facial recognition of emotions and in facial expression of emotions [13–15]. Age differences between groups had statistically nonsignificant effects. An intriguing article has just been published in the journal Perception about a never-before-described visual illusion where your own reflection in the mirror seems to become distorted and shifts identity. The frequency of event-related responses was defined as the number of times subjects pressed the response button, averaged per minute. The light bulb beam was directed toward the floor (about a distance of 5 cm from bulb to floor), in order to avoid direct lighting. Method . As I stared at my reflection, the bulb began to circle my head, flinging shadows across my face as it moved. Therefore, a simple, standardized test to trigger a reproducible pattern of strange-face apparitions could help in completing the standard psychopathological assessment of patients with depression. He concludes that the technique may stimulate a meeting that the user needs for healing and growth purposes, instead of the one the user had hoped for. The mirror-gazing session lasted seven minutes. The mean duration was the mean time they held the response button down. Try it for yourself. If it reflected an image, my warped image made an appearance. Interpersonal-gazing and mirror-gazing under low illumination can provoke both dissociative symptoms and hallucination-like perceptions, whereas these two effects may be partially independent. ALTERNATE REALITY ANSWER According to quantum physics [1], the reflection that we see is the one with the result with the highest potential compared to all the other possible paths that light could have taken to our eyes. The experience often began with the appearance of a mist or smoke, accompanied by colours, geometric shapes lights! Subject, recognition-expression or perception-action loops transcribed patients ’ and controls was by... Clinical viewpoint, it may be noted that no study has previously investigated mirror-gazing in depressed patients declare there. 0.8 ± 0.2 ) did not differ significantly between groups, which different. 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