Some studies have found that up to 94% of people report that they have experienced the feeling of eyes upon them and turned around to find out they were indeed being watched.
Social anxiety can make individuals prone to constantly worrying about being watched — but typically only when they're in public. However, for those, like me, who feel watched even when they're alone, the perpetual fear might be a result of formative childhood experiences.
The sensations accompanying this phenomenon can sometimes feel almost paranormal —it's as if you can physically feel the eyes of others boring into you, even without looking, or like you have a second pair of eyes on the back of your head.
The feeling of being watched can be caused by many things such as a traumatic experience or other underlying social phobias. It can be caused by anxiety, fear, or even just the feeling of being alone. Whatever the cause, it is important to find a way to deal with it.
Paranoia is the irrational and persistent feeling that people are 'out to get you'. The three main types of paranoia include paranoid personality disorder, delusional (formerly paranoid) disorder and paranoid schizophrenia.
Scopophobia is a type of specific phobia in which people have an excessive fear of being watched or looked at. They may be overwhelmed by a sense of danger and the need to escape. Anxiety disorders are the most common form of mental illness.
Ghostly presences – the feeling of someone near you when there's no one there – could be down to your brain trying to make sense of conflicting information. For the first time, the brain regions involved in such hallucinations have been identified – and a ghost presence induced in healthy people.
If you are regularly waking up at 3 am, then it may be due to a lack of sleep. This can manifest itself in the form of nightmares that cause you to wake up in fear, which often causes people to wake up feeling very disorientated, confused, and feel as if someone is watching them.
Scopophobia or Scoptophobia is the fear of being watched or stared at. It originates from the Greek word 'skopein' which means “to look or to examine” and phobos meaning “deep dread or aversion”.
Social anxiety disorder is an intense, persistent fear of being watched and judged by others. This fear can affect work, school, and other daily activities. It can even make it hard to make and keep friends.
Unconscious Vision
According to all the evidence, Shrira says, “the feeling of being watched originates in the visual system.” Even if sound can alert us to someone's presence, there's no evidence that auditory cues could tell us whether that person was looking at us.
Sometimes people sense that another person is in the room, even when no one is present. This sensory hallucination is commonly associated with sleep paralysis, which can co-occur with hypnagogic hallucinations.
1. Arachibutyrophobia (Fear of peanut butter sticking to the roof of your mouth) Arachibutyrophobia is the fear of peanut butter sticking to the roof of your mouth.
The biological phenomenon is known as “gaze detection” or “gaze perception.” Neurological studies have found that the brain cells that initiate this response are very precise. If someone turns their gaze off of you by turning just a few degrees to their left or right, that eerie feeling quickly fades.
Core body temperature starts to rise, sleep drive is reducing (because we've had a chunk of sleep), secretion of melatonin (the sleep hormone) has peaked, and levels of cortisol (a stress hormone) are increasing as the body prepares to launch us into the day.
Tactile hallucination is the experience of feeling like you're being touched when you're not. It's one of the most common aspects of sleep paralysis. Many people say they feel pressure or contact. It's like something or someone is holding them down.
Recap. Common symptoms of sleep paralysis are the feeling that you're not able to move or speak, the presence of something or someone else in the room, hearing noises or voices that aren't there, or feeling like someone is touching you.