Giovanni B. Caputo

Eye-to-eye gazing under low-level illumination provides a controlled laboratory paradigm for investigating out-of-body experiences (OBEs) and psychological projections. In the present study, a large sample of healthy participants ( N = 398) completed a dyadic gazing task. Principal Component Analysis (PCA) conducted on nine items of the Strange-Face Questionnaire (SFQ) yielded a three-factor solution: (i) facial visual deformations (Derealization / Detachment-of-Reality; DR factor); (ii) out-of-body experiences (OBE factor); and (iii) apparitional projections of “ancestors” (Projection factor). Structural Equation Modeling (SEM) and Path Analysis were employed to test the relationships among these constructs. Results demonstrated that OBEs play a pivotal role in facilitating the projection of “ancestors” onto the partner’s face, revealing a direct predictive path from disembodiment (OBE) to projective phenomena. This pathway generalized to other apparitional percepts, including the projection of a “child,” “adolescent,” or “monster.” Path Analyses further indicated that external reality serves a broader function than merely triggering perceptual distortions; rather, it operates as a “gate” regulating the inhibition versus excitation of internal projections depending on whether the projective content is “positive” (ancestor, adolescent, child) or “negative” (monster). We hypothesize that interoceptive/proprioceptive embodied simulation–driven by non-conscious, premotor mimicry of the partner’s facial expressions and respiratory rhythm–provides the somatic scaffolding required to bind elements from memory into multimodal consciousness. This mechanism allows the mind to dynamically shift processing between exteroceptive facial input, autobiographical memory, inherited facial engrams, and archetypal facial images. Finally, this research bridges experimental psychology with analytical psychology by mapping the projected figures of ancestor, adolescent, child, and monster onto Jung’s core archetypes: the Wise Master ( Philemon/Baucis ), Perennial Youth ( Anima/Animus ), the Divine Child ( Puer Aeternus ), and the Shadow, respectively. “Positive” versus “negative” archetypes were operationalized using Path Analysis. Finally, Network Analysis maps the systemic interconnectedness among all seven archetypal projections identified across the SFQ items–which, in addition to the four core archetypes, include Hermaphroditus , Animal , and Lapis .

Haunted People Syndrome (HP-S) characterizes recurrent ‘ghostly episodes’ as an interactionist phenomenon emerging from people with heightened somatic-sensory sensitivities that are stirred by dis-ease states, contextualized with paranormal belief, and reinforced via perceptual contagion and threat-agency detection. We tested the applicability of this psychological model via a three-part, quali-quantitative case study of a 36-year-old male in France, who self-reported successive encounter experiences seemingly triggered by the popular horror game and visual novel, Doki Doki Literature Club! The percipient completed several standardized measures that mapped the contents and context of his experiences, including indices of ‘deep’ imaginary companions, stigmata-like marks, and enchantment effects. We also conducted independent content analyses of his written account to compare the narrative’s development and descriptions to published sequences for HP-S and dissociative phenomena. This episode showed (a) slightly below-average ‘haunt intensity’ and a content structure that paralleled both fantasy and lifestyle-based accounts, (b) an above-average score on a screener for HP-S recognition patterns, which we corroborated with scores on separate measures of transliminality, paranormal belief, and stress levels, (c) a narrative sequence that aligns reasonably well to the posited process of HP-S, (d) clear indications of depersonalization, derealization, and dissociated identity, and (e) aftereffects of situational-enchantment. The percipient’s understanding of his experiences also evolved over time due to active sense-making activities. Our findings support prior research suggesting that embodied, embedded, extended, and enactive cognitions partly help to shape the phenomenology of these often transformative and clinically-relevant experiences.

Anomalous strange-face illusions (SFIs) are produced when mirror gazing under a low level of face illumination. In contrast to past studies in which an observer’s task was to pay attention to the reflected face and to perceive potential facial changes, the present research used a mirror gazing task (MGT) that instructed participants to fixate their gaze on a 4-mm hole in a glass mirror. The participants’ eye-blink rates were thus measured without priming any facial changes. Twenty-one healthy young individuals participated in the MGT and a control panel-fixation task (staring at a hole in a gray non-reflective panel). The Revised Strange-Face Questionnaire (SFQ-R) indexed derealization (deformations of facial features; FD), depersonalization (bodily face detachment; BD), and dissociative identity (new or unknown identities; DI) scales. Mirror-fixation increased FD, BD, and DI scores compared to panel-fixation. In mirror-fixation, FD scores revealed fading specific to facial features, distinct from “classical” Troxler- and Brewster-fading. In mirror-fixation, eye-blink rates correlated negatively with FD scores. Panel-fixation produced low BD scores, and, in a few participants, face pareidolias as detected on FD scores. Females were more prone to early derealization and males to compartmentalization of a dissociative identity. SFQ-R may be a valuable instrument for measuring face-specific dissociation (FD, BD, DI) produced by MGT. Use of MGT and panel-fixation task for differential diagnoses between schizophrenia and dissociative identity disorder is discussed.

Strange-face illusions are apparitional perceptions of deformed faces, unknown people and monstrous beings produced by prolonged staring at one's own face in a mirror or when staring eye to eye at another person in a dyad, at low-level room illumination. In the authors’ experiment, portrait artists drew illusions they perceived during a 10-minute eye-to-eye gazing session while paired in dyads with naive participants. Dissociation was measured through standard self-report questionnaires. Results showed that portraits became more abstract and less figurative as the artists experienced higher levels of nonpathological dissociation. Statistically, a significant correlation was found between art-abstraction ratings and dissociation scores by judges and portrait artists, respectively. Findings are discussed in relationship to portraits à la manière de Scipione and Francis Bacon.

Previous studies found that mirror-gazing at the subject’s reflected own face, under a low illumination level, produces acute dissociation. In the present study, a split-mirror was used, which divides the subject’s reflected face vertically into two half-faces, and dissociative states were compared to single-mirror gazing. Twelve healthy naïve individuals, who were sampled from students of an Art Academy, volunteered in a within-subject experiment. Dissociative states were measured through a 9-item self-report questionnaire on three scales: illusions of face deformation (derealization); illusions of body detachment (depersonalization); illusions of different self-identity (dissociated identity). Results showed that split-mirror gazing increased dissociation with respect to single-mirror gazing. Illusions of different self-identity, such as double-identity (i.e., left-identity versus right-identity) or double-personality, increased during split-mirror gazing with respect to single-mirror gazing, whereas illusions of face deformation and body detachment were unchanged. Findings support the distinction between detachment and compartmentalization, and may provide a tool for experimental investigation of dissociative identity disorder (DID). Finally, the students’ portraits illustrated illusions of self-identity in split-mirror gazing: left-identity (portrayed in the right side of drawings) displayed illusions of more negative personalities and/or emotions, while right-identity (portrayed in the left side) showed more positive features.

We critically reviewed the protocols, results, and potential implications from empirical studies (n = 44) on mirror-gazing (including the “psychomanteum”) and eye-to-eye gazing, both in healthy individuals and clinical patients, including studies of hypnotic mirrored self-misidentification, mirror-gazing in body dysmorphic disorder and schizophrenia. We found these methods to be effective for eliciting altered states or anomalous experiences under controlled conditions and in non-clinical samples. Mirror-gazing and eye-to-eye-gazing produced anomalous experiences almost exclusively in the visual, bodily, and self-identity modalities, whereas psychomanteum experiences tended also to involve voices, smells, and bodily touches. The complexity, diversity, and specificity in contents across these anomalous experiences suggest mechanisms beyond perceptual distortions or illusions. We argue that mirror- and eye-gazing anomalous perceptions implicate different mechanisms that induce (i) Derealization (anomalous perceptions of external reality); (ii) Depersonalization (anomalous perceptions of the body), and (iii) Dissociated identity (anomalous perceptions of another identity in place of the self in mirror-gazing or in place of the other in eye-to-eye gazing). These interpretations suggest directions for future researches.

Experimentally induced strange-face illusions can be perceived when two individuals look at each other in the eyes under low illumination for about 10 minutes. This task of subject-other eye-to-eye gazing produces the following perceptions by the subject: (i) mild to huge deformations and color/shape changes of face and facial features; (ii) lifeless, unmoving faces and immaterial presences akin to out-of-body experiences; (iii) pseudo-hallucinations, enlightened ‘idealized’ faces and personalities – rather than the other’s actual face. Dissociative phenomena seem to be involved, whereas the effects of non-pathological dissociation on strange-face illusions have not yet been directly investigated. In the present study, dissociative perceptions and strange-face illusions were measured through self-report questionnaires on a large sample (N = 90) of healthy young individuals. Results of correlation and factor analyses suggest that strange-face illusions can involve, respectively: (i) strange-face illusions correlated to derealization; (ii) strange-face illusions correlated to depersonalization; and (iii) strange-face illusions of identity, which are supposedly correlated to identity dissociation. The findings support the separation between detachment and compartmentalization in dissociative processes. Effects of gender show that strange-face illusions are more frequent in men with respect to women if dyads are composed of individuals of different-gender. Furthermore, drawings of strange-faces, which were perceived by portrait artists in place the others’ faces, allowed a direct illustration of examples of dissociative identities. Findings are discussed in relation to the three-level model of self-referential processing.