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jlustick's picture

Thursday's discussion on

Thursday's discussion on extra-sensory perceptions, specifically pheromones, led me to think about what other examples occur in daily life. One question I have is whether danger is at least partially an extra-sensory perception. Let's take an infant or very young child for example who typically responds to fear by crying. Some infants may cry when any stranger enters the room, but others only cry when the person appears particularly "scary," the sort that might even instill trepidation in an adult. Is this fear socialized? Has the child, at such a young age, been trained to recognized certain aspects of one's appearance/body language as dangerous? Or is there something else allowing the infant to sense danger? Do dangerous individuals emit some sort of pheromone? In general, I guess I'm wondering whether individual's determination of a situation as dangerous is due more to extra-sensory perceptions or socialization. Is the "gut" feeling that people get due to such perceptions?

I also wonder if people, like animals, can smell fear. Dogs, for example, are often said to be able to sense fear in humans, and this supposedly explains why they will bark/lurch at people who are scared of them. I wonder if this capacity to detect fear helps a predator find prey and then attack that prey. 

Finally, what are other extra-sensory perceptions and how are they connected to our unconscious? 

 

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