Presence | Free Book
A psychologist's journey to understand one of the most unusual
experiences known to humankind: the universal, disturbing feeling
that someone or something is there when we are alone.
These experiences of sensing a Presence when no
one else is there have been given many names—the Third Man, guardian
angels, shadow figures, “social” hallucinations—and they have
inspired, unsettled, and confounded in equal measure.
While
the contexts in which they occur are diverse, they are united by a
distinct and uncanny feeling of visitation by another. But what does
this feeling mean, and where does it come from? When and why do
presences emerge? And how can we even begin to understand a
phenomenon that can be transformative for those who experience it,
and yet so hard to put into words?
The answers to these
questions lie in this tour-de-force through contemporary psychology,
psychiatry, neuroscience, and philosophy. Presence follows
Ben Alderson-Day's attempts—as a psychologist and a researcher—to
understand how this experience is possible. What is a voice when it
isn’t heard, and how otherwise do we know or feel that someone is in
our presence? Is it a hallucination connected to psychosis, a change
in the working of the brain, or something else?
The
journey to understand takes us to meet explorers, mediums, and
robots, and step through real, imagined, and virtual worlds.
Presence is the story of who we carry with us, at all times,
as parts of ourselves.
In The Press
"Drawing on first-person accounts, interviews, and research in various
fields such as psychiatry, neuroscience, philosophy, and psychology,
the author presents a robust investigation into the phenomenon." -
Library Journal (starred review)
"Alderson-Day
offers a thrilling and erudite survey of the experience of "felt
presence" - where one has the strong feeling that someone, or
something, is there, but without any input from our traditional
senses. The book brings together rich testimonies of this core human
experience, with the insights of myth, history, philosophy,
psychology, neuroscience, and psychiatry. Reading it leaves one with
an enriched appreciation of what we are and how much more we have yet
to understand about ourselves.'" - Matthew Broome, Professor of
Psychiatry and Youth Mental Health and Director of the Institute for
Mental Health, University of Birmingham
"The sense that you
are not alone - that someone or something is "there" - is a
fascinating topic and this marvellous book draws across many different
kinds of experiences to give a coherent account of the kinds of
processes that underlie this feeling." - Sophie Scott, Director of the
Institute of Cognitive Neuroscience, University College London
- Title: Presence | Free Book
- Author: Steven
- Created at : 2024-10-25 03:38:27
- Updated at : 2024-10-26 18:56:24
- Link: https://novels-ebooks.techidaily.com/210545550-9781250278265-presence/
- License: This work is licensed under CC BY-NC-SA 4.0.