It’s pretty common in movies, that kind of “sixth sense” where people can feel a presence around them, that may be observing or following them.
It actually happened to me in real life a couple times, where I was right about that guess.
Do humans have a “sixth sense” in real life, is it just a placebo or are we just really lucky figuring it out?
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From what I’m seeing, the scientific consensus as to whether or not this is a real “sixth sense” is still inconclusive, but has been leaning toward “debunked” since the early experiments by Edward B. Titchener in 1898.
As AlishaV mentioned, there has been [research](https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20170512-what-causes-that-feeling-of-being-watched) that suggests that we might be subconsciously more aware of our surroundings than we perceive (known as blindsight), however, we should also beware of [potential bias](https://www.cell.com/current-biology/fulltext/S0960-9822(13)00332-1).
For people we can see, gaze detection or peripheral vision can come into play, but for those we cannot, evidence is not strong that the detection is more than chance.
It sounds like you are thinking of Psychic Staring Effect (sometimes called scopaesthesia) and what most people have concluded is that feeling a strange sensation and thus turning to look at someone actually makes that person turn to look at you even if they had not been already. Sort of a self-fulfilling sort of issue. Another explanation is that we see more than we are aware of, meaning that we see someone looking at us even if our conscious mind doesn’t notice. Personally (without information to back it up at this time), I feel like animals have developed a sense of being watched because staring is a precursor to attacks.
Oh, and humans have a lot more senses than just the five typically mentioned, so there is a sixth sense, seventh, etc. Humans have at minimum nine senses, but probably many more.
You can’t. Numerous studies have been done, an the results are pretty solid: you may as well flip a coin. Same chance of being right as just straight up guessing.
The reason it seems like you do is due to a sort of bias: If you think you’re being followed and it turns out you’re not, then your brain discards that information as useless.
But if you thought you were being followed and it turns out right? You’ll remember that. So you remember the times it happened and not not the times it didn’t happen because there’s no point in remembering something that didn’t happen.
I wonder if the research into mirror cells could provide some insight into that? [evidence for Mirror systems in emotions](Www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2865077/)
Www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2865077/
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