The feeling of a presence and verbal meaningfulness in context of temporal lobe function: factor analytic...

We hypothesized that the feeling of a presence, particularly during periods of profound verbal creativity (reading or writing prose or poetry), is an endemic cognitive phenomenon. Factor analyses of 12 clusters of phenomenological experiences from 348 men and 520 women supported the hypothesis. We conclude that periods of intense meaningfulness (a likely correlate of enhanced burst-firing in the left hippocampal-amygdaloid complex and temporal lobe) allow access to nonverbal representations that are the right hemispheric equivalents of the sense of self; they are perceived as "a presence." The relevance of our results to the theories of Jaynes, Bear, Edelman, and MacLean is discussed.