14 DAY TRIAL // Giovanni Caputo, a psychologist in Italy, claims to have found one very simple way to trick people into cutting all ties with reality and entering an altered state of consciousness. Apparently, all it takes is staring into somebody's eyes.
In a paper published earlier this week in the journal Psychiatry Research, the psychologist argues that gazing deep into someone's eyes for just a few minutes can trigger bizarre perceptual experiences such as hallucinations, even memory loss and loss of touch with reality.
He's even put this theory to the test
Writing in the journal Psychiatry Research, Giovanni Caputo details how, in a series of experiments, he had 20 volunteers grouped in pairs stare into each other's eyes for 10 minutes while sitting in a dimly lit room.
Another 20 volunteers in a control group were made to stare at a wall while in a dimly lit room, also for 10 minutes. For accuracy, the study participants were told that the investigation was about researching a meditative experience.
Following these experiments, the volunteers who gazed into each others' eyes reported intense odd sensations such as reduced color intensity, sounds seeming quieter or louder than they really were and a distorted sense of time.
They also admitted to seeing the face of the person they were looking at deform before their very eyes. 75% said traits deformed to such an extent that they saw monsters, 50% said their own face appeared over their partner's.
“Results indicate dissociative symptoms, dysmorphic face perceptions, and hallucination-like strange-face apparitions. Dissociative symptoms and face dysmorphia were correlated,” the psychologist writes in his study.
You can get the same effects staring at yourself
In a previous study, Giovanni Caputo had people stare at their own face in a mirror, once again for 10 minutes on the clock and while in a dimly lit room.
Apparently, the study participants involved in this other research experienced similar dissociative states and even hallucinations. Luckily, neither of the study participants had any trouble returning to reality once the experiments were over.