Sense of Being Stared At

In my current WIP, one of my protagonists is following someone, who keeps looking back, sure he is being followed and watched. I let my protangonist take that sense of being stared at for granted. Because for a long time, it was completely accepted that people could sense being watched, and that there was such a thing as the evil eye. My book, I better clarify, is set in the 16th century.

Today, however, in a world whose truths are set by science, the sense of being stared at is largely dismissed by the scientific community. Largely, but not totally. There is a scientist who has challenged the scientific taboo on research into the sense of being stared at, Rupert Sheldrake. Just because he was brave enough to risk ridicule and his colleagues’ scorn, he interested me, but his arguments are so reasonable, so open, I cannot really put his work down when I’m reading it.

He argues that there is as little evidence against the sense of being stared at as for it, and if we were really being scientific about it, rather than nervous that any proof of the sense of being stared at would subvert the scientific ‘truths’ which are now the established norm, then we would construct a scientific method of testing whether it is true or not. And he sets about doing just that. Mainstream science asserts that the mind is nothing more than the activity of the brain. To detect being stared at by someone would mean both the starer and the person being stared at were operating outside of the brain’s parameters, that there was such a thing as an extended mind.

Fascinating stuff. In my historical novel, I only touch on this in the way in which someone feels he is being watched, and the watcher accepting that his gaze has sparked the worry and nervousness in the person he is following. But plenty of commerical novels, particularly Urban Fantasy and Fantasy novels, take the idea of the extended mind much futher. To telepathy and beyond.

Sheldrake explains a number of ways in which everyone who is interested can take part in experiments into the extended mind. You can find out how to do them at his website: www.sheldrake.org. I personally have experienced the sense of being stared at. I’ve also experienced some of the telepathic phenomena Sheldrake discusses as occuring between family members, specifically with my daughter. But what about you? Do you think the idea of the extended mind is something that should be reserved for fiction, or have you had the sense of being stared at, ‘known’ inexplicably when something was wrong and acted on it, only to discover you were right, or thought of a tune, only to have your companion start singing it, or thought of a person, only to have them call? And if not, what is your favorite example of the extended mind in fiction?