- If you have ever felt that someone is watching you, sending
prickles up your neck, it might not have been just your imagination.
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- Scientists have found evidence to suggest we do have
a sixth sense and can tell when we are being watched, even through CCTV.
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- This shows humans could have paranormal powers, say researchers
at Germany's Freiberg University.
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- Dr Stefan Schmidt and his team carried out two experiments
a thousand times and believe they have finally proved the reality of the
sixth sense.
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- The first, called "remote staring'', consisted of
a volunteer in a sealed room watching a second volunteer in another room
via CCTV.
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- The second volunteer was hooked up to electrodes which
recorded the ``prickle'' or electrical activity of the skin. This was compared
when the volunteer was or was not being watched.
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- In the second experiment, called ``direct mental interaction'',
the first volunteer concentrated on making the second feel uncomfortable
or relaxed from within the sealed cell.
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- The German team used a complex statistical scale to grade
the studies according to reliability and paranormal effect recorded.
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- In other experiments, the starer tried to make the other
feel either uncomfortable or relaxed. Again, the electronic monitor proved
repeatedly that it could be done.
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- In the British Journal of Psychology, Dr Schmidt noted
that the data was ambiguous but found that "for both data sets there
is a small but significant effect''.
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- While the findings will please believers in the paranormal,
they are not enough to convince the sceptics.
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- Psychology professor Richard Wiseman, of Hertfordshire
University, said: "The number of times you turn around and find someone
not looking at you far outnumber the times when you do but you only remember
the times you turned round to see someone looking.''
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- Back in the 1960s Czech psychologist Milan Ryzl did a
series of experiments with two supposedly telepathic people who were many
kilometres apart.
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- The ``sender'' was asked to try to make the ``receiver''
feel uncomfortable by imagining that he had been buried alive, and succeeded
in inducing a crippling attack of asthma.
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- Mr Ryzl was inspired by a colleague, Stepan Figar, who
had proved that when one person concentrates on another, it can actually
cause a measurable rise in blood pressure.
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- Tapping the paranormal * The 'sixth sense' - knowing
something without seeing or hearing it. * Dr Stefan Schmidt did more than
1000 experiments, involving two people in different rooms. * One of them
would observe the other over a CCTV monitor. * Electrodes were attached
to the skin of the volunteer being watched. * A meter registered 'prickling'
in the skin if he was being stared at.
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- Copyright 2004 News Limited. http://news.com.au/common/story_page/0,4057,10018130%255E13780,00.html
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