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The Sense of Being Stared At: And Other Unexplained Powers of Human Minds

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Most of us know it well--the almost physical sensation that we are the object of someone’s attention. Is the feeling all in our heads? What about related phenomena, such as telepathy and premonitions? Are they merely subjective beliefs? In The Sense of Being Stared At, renowned biologist Rupert Sheldrake explores the intricacies of the mind and discovers that our perceptive abilities are stronger than most of us could have imagined.

Sheldrake argues persuasively in this compelling book that such phenomena are, in fact, real. He rejects the label of "paranormal" and shows how these psychic occurrences are in fact a normal part of human nature. Combining the tradition of pragmatic experimentation with a refusal to accept the conventional answers to explain such phenomena, Sheldrake pioneers an intriguing new inquiry into the mysteries of our deepest nature. Rigorously researched yet completely accessible, this groundbreaking book provides a refreshing new way of thinking about ourselves and our relationships with other people, animals, and the world around us.

There are 4 parts:
Part 1: Telepathy
Part 2: The Power of Attention
Part 3: Remote Viewing and Foreshadowings of the Future
Part 4: How does the 7th Sense Work?

The book begins by explaining how the "Sixth Sense" has already been claimed by biologists working on the electrical and magnetic senses of animals. Eels use electrical fields to sense objects around them, sharks and rays use similar fields to hunt, migratory birds and fish have a magnetic senses (biological compass), snakes have heat-sensing abilities, spiders detect web vibrations, etc.

Mr. Sheldrake explains how the 7th sense is biological, not supernatural. It extends beyond the body, though how is not exactly known. "To brush aside what people have experienced is not to be scientific, but unscientific. Science is founded on empirical method..." (experience and observation). "But despite an impresssive accumulation of evidence, psychic research has never been accepted within institutional sciences. It has been kept on the margins as a result of powerful taboos against the "paranormal."

"In the background lurks the archaic fear of witchcraft."

400 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2003

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1814 people want to read

About the author

Rupert Sheldrake

62 books679 followers
Rupert Sheldrake is a biologist and author of more than 80 scientific papers and ten books. A former Research Fellow of the Royal Society, he studied natural sciences at Cambridge University, where he was a Scholar of Clare College, took a double first class honours degree and was awarded the University Botany Prize. He then studied philosophy and history of science at Harvard University, where he was a Frank Knox Fellow, before returning to Cambridge, where he took a Ph.D. in biochemistry. He was a Fellow of Clare College, Cambridge, where he was Director of Studies in biochemistry and cell biology. As the Rosenheim Research Fellow of the Royal Society, he carried out research on the development of plants and the ageing of cells in the Department of Biochemistry at Cambridge University.

Recently, drawing on the work of French philosopher Henri Bergson, he developed the theory of morphic resonance, which makes use of the older notion of morphogenetic fields. He has researched and written on topics such as animal and plant development and behaviour, telepathy, perception and metaphysics.

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Displaying 1 - 30 of 53 reviews
Profile Image for Kathrynn.
1,184 reviews
March 7, 2008
Wonderful book. There are 4 parts:
Part 1: Telepathy
Part 2: The Power of Attention
Part 3: Remote Viewing and Foreshadowings of the Future
Part 4: How does the 7th Sense Work?

The book begins by explaining how the "Sixth Sense" has already been claimed by biologists working on the electrical and magnetic senses of animals. Eels use electrical fields to sense objects around them, sharks and rays use similar fields to hunt, migratory birds and fish have a magnetic senses (biological compass), snakes have heat-sensing abilities, spiders detect web vibrations, etc.

Mr. Sheldrake explains how the 7th sense is biological, not supernatural. It extends beyond the body, though how is not exactly known. "To brush aside what people have experienced is not to be scientific, but unscientific. Science is founded on empirical method..." (experience and observation). "But despite an impresssive accumulation of evidence, psychic research has never been accepted within institutional sciences. It has been kept on the margins as a result of powerful taboos against the "paranormal."

"In the background lurks the archaic fear of witchcraft."

I agree that it is more scientific to explore phenomena we don't understand than to pretend it doesn't exist.

I enjoyed reading the short accounts people shared of their own experiences with various forms of the 7th sense. There are many animal stories in this book: dogs, cats, parrots sensing when their owners are coming home, wonderful account of an African Grey (parrot) that displayed telepathic abilities, animal to animal telephathy, soldiers and police officers that develop the ability to "sense" danger, thinking about someone close to you and then they call, sensing when someone close to you is in trouble or harmed, parents and children, nursing mothers and infants, martial arts, etc.

I found it very interesting and have experienced similar sense stories of my own with people close to me and animals.

This is an excellent book for animal trainers: dogs, cats, horses, parrots and people interested in learning more on this subject.

The end of the book (about 1/4") has information on how to document your own accounts of various 7th sense abilities and where to submit to the author.
Profile Image for Spencer Rich.
195 reviews22 followers
February 23, 2016
If you write a book about the afterlife or psychic abilities or anything considered "suspect" by a majority of scientists, you have to walk a narrow line. Either you end up being too scientific and overly dry or you write a nice piece of light reading that's mostly fluff. Sheldrake fails all around. The science is lousy and it's the most boring book you could ever read about telepathy. It's basically "I asked 50 people if they had ever felt like someone was looking at them from behind and 35 of them responded in the affirmative. As I mentioned in Chapter 2, one woman was sitting in class and felt that her boyfriend had entered the room and was looking in her direction. She turned around and he was." And so on and so on for page after page. I hate to review a book that I could only get through half of, but sometimes you just don't need to plow through a whole field of crap to know that your plow is in crap.
Profile Image for Katja Vartiainen.
Author 41 books126 followers
September 2, 2017
I enjoyed the book. IT is well written, a bit dry at times, but if you need to prove a point in scientific matters, that's what you get.I have listened to Sheldrake's interviews and talk, s I know his theories, which could be true for sure. These subjects are the things I remember foaming about in my 20´s. Why was there no explanation to this phenomenon that almost everybody experienced. The 'staring at somebody's back' experiment anyone can easily try. Interesting. Maybe we can really use all this for good? The emotional connections seems to be very important. I hope research continues.
Profile Image for Brett.
72 reviews
July 15, 2012
The theories Dr. Sheldrake puts forward are interesting, and carry credibility thanks to the fine line he walks between open-mindedness and skepticism. He does a good job of discussing explanations other than his "seventh sight" as he calls it.

I felt however that the book was a bit too long. Too rambling. It could have done with some editing to tighten it up. Possibly paring down the anecdotes that, while interesting, began to run together after a while.
Profile Image for Francois.
26 reviews
September 11, 2015
Lots of statistics at first and obviously can't prove anything scientifically. But does a great job at conducting surveys and reviewing studies (recent and 100+ years old). The second part of the book gets more philosophical, and his perspective (biology) was enlightening for me. So I didn't think I'd get through it at first and skipped many paragraphs, but glad I stuck to it until the end.
Profile Image for Jacca.
242 reviews5 followers
January 13, 2023
Sheldrake reminds me a bit of Graham Hancock. He says things which seem exciting and potentially groundbreaking because they eschew the general experts’ consensus on the areas they discuss. The reason they can take this “unique” angle however is exactly because they rely on eschewing the scientific bases of knowledge in what they talk about. They are both then able to criticise the scientific community for narrow mindedness and accusations thrown at them only drive to further their view that the community are unwilling to explore or accept what they’re exploring.

This book is really frustrating. It’s so tangential that even when I was engaged and scratching my mental chin with genuine curiosity I’d eventually wind up losing interest as the chapter moved into another area of conjecture. And that’s largely the issue here. It’s mostly a book of conjecture, filled with anecdotes we are supposed to take seriously for some reason and data which I feel uneasy about how it’s been presented.

The anecdotes can be interesting and there are plenty of stories that do make you scratch your head but Sheldrake doesn’t really provide anything that feels like an answer, paranormal or otherwise.

Sheldrake has a clear bias and that shows in how he presents his points, most of which he actually - to give him his due - concludes could be coincidence, something else to what he is positing, or that there simply isn’t data to say one way about. But in that case, why are you writing this entire book?? To take poor, curious readers who DO think it’s interesting how we all have stories of sensing being stared at or waking right before an alarm on your rambling hypotheses that are rarely backed up by anything poignant?

There is a fair amount of data Sheldrake does share in relation to his topics like telepathy and blind awareness of vision with remarkable results but I just can’t take it seriously when it’s surrounded by waffle and I find the data hard to trust when it comes from a is evidently biased author.

To sum it up: I tried staring with intent at tens of people in Glasgow yesterday. Not one of them turned around.
Profile Image for Chrissy.
10 reviews
Read
November 29, 2012
This was the first time I've read this kind of formatted book and I really enjoyed it. It's all about the sixth sense and some of the stories and theories are really interesting. There were interesting stories about peoples senses and connections with their pets and family members.
The book is split into four parts Telepathy, The Power of Attention, Remote Viewing and Foreshadowings of the Future and How does the 7th Sense Work? Some parts of the stories dragged on a little bit and didn't appeal to me but I really got through the parts I enjoyed quickly. I really recommend this book even though it's a bit long but a great read and you learn new interesting things!
2,101 reviews58 followers
February 23, 2017
I am plagued by a fear of death. I am also very jaded/skeptical.
As such I read many books like this and very much want to believe what they say, but write off much of it due to cognitive biases of the reporters.

This book is one of the more critical books on this topic.
It is not perfect and sometimes accepts things that I'd write off (like how dreaming about snow in NYC just prior to 911 means that the dreamer predicted the attack).
This also rehashes similar experiences contained in other books.
On the other hand, there were some new material that was hard to explain away.

Profile Image for Marcia.
47 reviews1 follower
July 3, 2017
If you're fascinated by psychic phenomenon, you will enjoy this book. Rupert is a scientist who tries to straddle the line between writing for a scientific audience and the lay person. As a lay person, I can definitely say he succeeds on that count. This book is not just anecdotes, but is backed up by plenty of research. It includes telepathy, remote viewing, and much more. Equally enjoyable is his book: Dogs That Know When Their Owners Are Coming Home, about animal psychic phenomenon, although it does cover some of the same territory as this book.
Profile Image for Kimberly.
29 reviews7 followers
i-give-up
December 10, 2007
Example upon example of people being able to detect and communicate without speaking with brothers, sisters, loved ones far away, dogs, cats, etc. That's great, I know it happens. That's why I picked this book up at the library. But I really wanted to know why it happens, that is, if anyone could figure that out. I gave up on this before I had any answers...
Profile Image for Bruce.
262 reviews40 followers
September 2, 2010
This Sheldrake book differs from New Science of Life and Presence of the Past in that it is less technical and more accessible. But I did not like it as much.

I am already familiar with the extensive (but poorly publicized) rigorously scientific evidence for extrasensory perception, so the very readable but lengthy description of psychic phenomena was a bit boring for me. In addition, I don’t agree with Sheldrake’s view of consciousness.

One notable new tidbit for me—since the 1970’s the Chinese government has encouraged people to report unusual animal behaviour, and used this to evacuate cites before they experience devastating earthquakes, SAVING TENS OF THOUSANDS OF LIVES.

For all you that live in earthquake prone regions, you should be asking, why doesn’t my government do this for us?

In this book the most exciting part, which I am finding is typical of his books, are the very last few pages where he loosens his focus slightly and talks about the wider theoretical possibilities. But this section is woefully brief—to please a more general audience? To please thinkers more grounded in the current reductionist materialist worldview?

As he says, “…the sense of being stared at must depend on an influence of the looker on the person being looked at…” I agree. But in the second half of this sentence he says, on a projection of influences outwards.” Here I disagree. In fact, his model is that one perceives incoming data, and then reprojects the image outwards onto the subject.

This just rings wrong for me. I think it is because he is trying to take his valid findings that are beyond our current scientific theoretical underpinnings, and then shoehorn them back into the whole 3-4 dimension spacetime model.

In his footnotes he admits, “Maybe, at some time in the future, new ways of thinking about interactions at a distance will be possible.” I agree. Let us start thinking of these ways now, along with the data he has done such a good job in assembling.

What does ring true for me is his description of arabian scientist Al-Kindi—“In an astonishing vision of interconnectedness, he thought that radiation bound the world into a vast network in which everything acted on everything else to produce natural effects.”

Having made a case for the “extended mind,” why confine it?
Profile Image for Mark.
24 reviews
January 10, 2012
This is my 1st exposure to Sheldrake, thoroughly enjoyed it. Really like his attitude that anything is possible until experimentally proven otherwise.

After reading his numerous rigourous studies of the power of the extended mind in both Humans and Animals, you can't help but feel that these extended powers are all real, prevalent and a normal capability of our own existence. I could certainly corroborate many of his cases from my own experiences.

Some theories I am leaning towards after reading the book.

Subconscious Mind & Evolution. Given how sharp the extended senses are with some animals, particularly dogs when compared to humans, I can't help but feel that we might have lost that as a part of evolution when the conscious (monkey) mind gained dominance. And with the rise of human society and the self-ego the subconscious is no doubt pushed further back. I claim without proof that fervent deniers of ESP are no doubt equally fervent ego-centric.

Theory of Vision. I've long been rather unconvinced about the current "correct" inbound only theory of vision. To me it is a two way process. Light flows into the eyes and as we focus, attention is directed out. This attention generates an energy at that area of focus, call it qi or whatever. As you squirt your eyes to focus you could certainly feel something flowing out! particularly when you're tired!

Precognition. The idea that precognition is not a prediction of the future, but future experiences being leaked back into the present has interesting implications for me about Machine Learning and Artificial Intelligence. Human learning maybe just us heeding information that is send from the future, something machines could never replicate!

Profile Image for Anton .
64 reviews7 followers
January 9, 2021


Rupert Sheldrake has a fascinating Website. Just Google Rupert Sheldrake. ...I like his name by the way. Sheldrake is the name of a duck popular with hunters in the Northeast, where I'm from. I also like the subject. Of course, I would take offense at being called a wacko believer in telepathy. I don't believe in it, I just find it possible. I Believe, in another topic covered in the book, precognition. I experience that all the time, in this way. I'll dream about something, like a small dog, or a wallet, or a person I haven't thought of, and the person place or thing will come up in some way usually right after I wake up or during the day.
The other aspect of his book that I've been interested in for years is the idea of, well, he discusses it in a chapter called, The Extended mind and Modern Physics. it's really just, well not just, but the idea that the mind goes out beyond the wet part.
This book is neither a fast, sexy read, nor a difficult exposition. It's in between. The recitation of the experiments slowed me down a bit but not much because I like the subject and his writing is decent.
I first became open to this idea of the extended mind about 40 years ago on reading Steps to an Ecology of Mind, by Gregory Bateson. Bateson was the husband of the renowned anthropologist and skirt chaser, Margaret Mead. Their daughter, Mary Catherine Bateson, wrote a book about growing up in the Bateson - Mead household, a book that's been on my to-read list for years; too long.

P.S. My mother and I met Mead once in an elevator while wandering around the New York Museum of Natural History. For me it was particularly uneventful, since I was about ten.




Profile Image for Cathy.
270 reviews3 followers
September 20, 2008
I like books that have a lot of stories to go along with their theories and I think that's why I enjoyed this book so much. Stories of mothers who knew when their children were in danger some distance away, dogs who know when their owners are coming home, the psychic parrot, this book kinda covers a lot of phenomona. Since I was already a believer, I didn't have to sit and wonder if any of it was true. I've always meant to pick up more by this author as he writes on similar subjects.
Profile Image for Blair.
47 reviews1 follower
January 28, 2017
While this book had promising sections, overall it was simply dull and unable to draw me in. Throughout the book the author would introduce interesting themes and then spiral off on a tangent that seemed completely unrelated, repeating earlier facts that made reading through it more of a task than a joy.
Profile Image for Irma Walter.
141 reviews5 followers
September 10, 2017
The examples and evidence given are sometimes tedious as many of us lay people still usually go by their inner beliefs or convictions. As a result, some will think Sheldrake's theories rubbish, and others will feel enlightened. I often wonder, if the best we can do is develop the very kind of imagery about ourselves which serves us best. In this sense, Sheldrake's ideas are amazingly meaningful.
Profile Image for Jamie.
33 reviews
January 8, 2008
This was a fascinating book and a different portrayal of associations of psychology. The chapters were a little choppy and some were dry but if you are interested in unexplained happenings, it’s a fun one.
Profile Image for Brandon.
128 reviews9 followers
June 17, 2012
Fascinating, plain and simple. His ideas about morphic fields I find sensible and at least worth exploring. The science seems mostly valid, and I even found myself doing some of his experiments with my dog. Seemed to work sometimes, but I wasn't consistent with it, so who knows.
Profile Image for Emily.
112 reviews
September 13, 2012
This book didn't get interesting until near the ending. The first three quarters are mostly antedotes. I like Rupert Sheldrake and his research, but the book was easily put-downable, hence the reason it took so long to read.
Profile Image for Stacy.
791 reviews
January 19, 2016
A big dissappointment - it read too much like a textbook - not fun for recreational reading. I found it repetative, especially the way the author kept pitching his other books. It make me wonder why I was bothering with this one, when he so often referred to the others.
Profile Image for elita.
67 reviews26 followers
March 25, 2007
Not something you can read through from beginning to end, but lots of interesting anecdotes. I liked the sections about the psychic connections between pets and their owners the best.
Profile Image for Erin.
3 reviews2 followers
February 22, 2008
telepathy isn't all that strange. "i was just thinking of you right before you called..."
animals can also read our minds sometimes, especially parrots.
Profile Image for Patrick\.
554 reviews15 followers
April 22, 2008
Sheldrake brings up real phenomena ignored by real science in challenging ways. Not to be ignored, and, because of Sheldrake, is not. Good read.
Profile Image for Joelle.
2 reviews1 follower
May 7, 2008
I saw this book at the store, bought and read it. It was an interesting read because of the various phenomenons that we all experience.
Profile Image for Michael.
32 reviews3 followers
November 11, 2008
Sheldrake falls on the Believer side of the divide, but this is a stimulating read. The premise: You can feel eyes on the back of your neck... action at a distance?
Profile Image for Becky.
659 reviews36 followers
March 26, 2011
I remember reading this in high school. Parts of it I found amazing, but later parts seemed downright quackish. It would be interesting to see what I think of it now.
Profile Image for Daniel Noventa.
322 reviews1 follower
August 10, 2011
It was well written, but didn't have a lot of scientific backing. Mostly feeding off of our skepticism. It does make a good attempt at explaining some phenomenons.
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