Auras in mysticism and synaesthesia: a comparison - PubMed

Comparative Study

Auras in mysticism and synaesthesia: a comparison

E G Milán et al. Conscious Cogn. 2012 Mar.

Abstract

In a variety of synaesthesia, photisms result from affect-laden stimuli as emotional words, or faces of familiar people. For R, who participated in this study, the sight of a familiar person triggers a mental image of "a human silhouette filled with colour". Subjective descriptions of synaesthetic experiences induced by the visual perception of people's figures and faces show similarities with the reports of those who claim to possess the ability to see the aura. It has been proposed that the purported auric perception may be easily explained by the presence of a specific subtype of cross-modal perception. We analyse the subjective reports of four synaesthetes who experience colours in response to human faces and figures. These reports are compared with descriptions of alleged auric phenomena found in the literature and with claims made by experts in esoteric spheres. The discrepancies found suggest that both phenomena are phenomenologically and behaviourally dissimilar.

Comment in

• On the need to compare anomalous experiences carefully: commentary on Milán et al.'s Auras in mysticism and synaesthesia: a comparison.

  Cardeña E, Marcusson-Clavertz D. Cardeña E, et al. Conscious Cogn. 2012 Jun;21(2):1068-9. doi: 10.1016/j.concog.2012.02.003. Epub 2012 Mar 7. Conscious Cogn. 2012. PMID: 22402279 No abstract available.

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