Abstract
BackgroundThe experience of ‘sensed presence’—a feeling or sense that another entity, individual or being is present despite no clear sensory or perceptual evidence—is known to occur in the general population, appears more frequently in religious or spiritual contexts, and seems to be prominent in certain psychiatric or neurological conditions and may reflect specific functions of social cognition or body-image representation systems in the brain. Previous research has relied on ad-hoc measures of the experience and no specific psychometric scale to measure the experience exists to date.MethodsBased on phenomenological description in the literature, we created the 16-item Sensed Presence Questionnaire (SenPQ). We recruited participants from (i) a general population sample, and; (ii) a sample including specific selection for religious affiliation, to complete the SenPQ and additional measures of well-being, schizotypy, social anxiety, social imagery, and spiritual experience. We completed an analysis to test internal reliability, the ability of the SenPQ to distinguish between religious and non-religious participants, and whether the SenPQ was specifically related to positive schizotypical experiences and social imagery. A factor analysis was also conducted to examine underlying latent variables.ResultsThe SenPQ was found to be reliable and valid, with religious participants significantly endorsing more items than non-religious participants, and the scale showing a selective relationship with construct relevant measures. Principal components analysis indicates two potential underlying factors interpreted as reflecting ‘benign’ and ‘malign’ sensed presence experiences.DiscussionThe SenPQ appears to be a reliable and valid measure of sensed presence experience although further validation in neurological and psychiatric conditions is warranted.
Highlights
James (1902) first attempted to understand the sensed presence experience psychologically, describing the experience ‘‘as if there were in the human consciousness a sense of reality, a feeling of objective presence, a perception of what we may call ‘‘something there’’
The questionnaire requests that respondents refer to experiences from the last month only when rating the items, and not to record any perceptions associated with drug-induced experiences
This measure has been previously used to measure an aspect of the sensed presence experience, and we predicted that it would correlate with Sensed Presence Questionnaire (SenPQ) scores, indicating convergent validity
Summary
James (1902) first attempted to understand the sensed presence experience psychologically, describing the experience ‘‘as if there were in the human consciousness a sense of reality, a feeling of objective presence, a perception of what we may call ‘‘something there’’. Contemporary researchers define the experience of sensed presence, sometimes called ‘feeling of presence’ or ‘felt presence,’ as the subjective experience of the presence of an external entity, being, or individual despite no clear sensory or perceptual evidence (Thompson, 1982; Cheyne, 2001; Blom, 2010; Luhrmann, 2012; Luhrmann, 2013; AldersonDay, 2016) This more recent research has reported that it is prevalent in certain contexts and psychological states. Given the potential for sensed presence experiences to provide a window into neuropsychological mechanisms for body representation or social cognition, clearly, a robust and validated measure of the phenomena is needed With this in mind, we created and investigated the reliability and validity of a new scale, called the ‘Sensed Presence Questionnaire’ (SenPQ), designed to capture the experience of ‘sensed presence’ in a psychometrically robust manner. We predicted that the SenPQ would selectively correlate with measures of unusual perceptual experiences but no other aspects of schizotypy, as well as correlating with measures of social imagery and daily spiritual experience
Sign-in/Register to view highlights & summary Sign-in/Register to access full text options 
Free) 
Talk to us
Join us for a 30 min session where you can share your feedback and ask us any queries you have
Schedule a call
