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Staring at the eyes of someone you love gives you a feeling of connection and intimacy. However, a new study showed that staring at someone’s eyes for 10 minutes may have an unexpected effect.
A study conducted by researchers from the University of Urbino in Italy claims that staring at someone’s eyes for 10 minutes can cause hallucinations and altered state of consciousness. In some cases, some saw distorted faces and even monsters.
For the study, Dr. Giovanni Caputo asked 20 volunteers to stare into each other’s eyes continuously for 10 minutes in a dimly-lighted room. Meanwhile, 20 other volunteers were asked to stare into a black wall in the same room for 10 minutes to serve as the control in the study. The purpose of the study was not revealed to the participants.
The participants were then asked to answer a questionnaire about their experience after the activity.
It was found that participants who engaged in interpersonal staring were likely to experience a loss of connection with reality, changes in color and sound perception, as well as feeling of time dragging on.
Moreover, 90% of the participants involved in interpersonal staring experienced hallucinations and saw changes and distortions to the person’s face. For instance, some claimed that the face of the person they were staring at morphed into an animal, monster, or into the face of a relative or a friend.
On the other hand, participants who served as controls did not have hallucinations but had feelings of dissociation.
According to Dr. Caputo, staring into someone’s eyes has an intense effect on a person’s mental state and perception.
Dr. Caputo explained: “These results indicate that dissociative symptoms and hallucinatory phenomena during interpersonal-gazing under low illumination can involve different processes.”
The results of the study can possibly be used for further research about people with schizophrenia experiencing hallucinations.
“Disconnected parts of the self — which are usually projected during delirium — may be integrated into consciousness . This integration may be helpful during very early stages of schizophreny, since the individual might avoid the pathological circle of confirming into its ‘reality’ what is exclusively an unconscious projection,” Dr. Caputo said.
