The “sensed presence”: An epileptic aura with religious overtones

@article{Landtblom2006TheP,  title={The “sensed presence”: An epileptic aura with religious overtones},  author={A-M. Landtblom},  journal={Epilepsy \& Behavior},  year={2006},  volume={9},  pages={186-188},  url={https://api.semanticscholar.org/CorpusID:42370342}}

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Is Ecstatic Aura a Kind of Religious Experience?

ABSTRACT The limbic marker hypothesis has become an influential neurological theory for explaining religious experience, arguing that religious and mystical experiences are the result of the limbic

Case report: A prototypical spontaneous ‘sensed presence’ of a sentient being and concomitant electroencephalographic activity in the clinical laboratory

This case illustrates that many sensed presences might be similar to ‘epileptic auras’ for patients who also display elevated complex partial epileptic-like experiences following closed head injuries and that close attention to typically ignored electroencephalographic ‘transients’ may be helpful indicators.

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Using epilepsy as a model to explain spiritual experiences is controversial, however, temporal lobe epilepsy has probably influenced the authors' religious and literary history more than has been previously acknowledged.

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“Phobia of the supernatural” must actively be sought for in patients complaining of poor sleep and daytime somnolence, and in patients with other types of phobia, as well as the possible benefit of different modalities of pharmacological and psychological treatment.

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The clinical case of a patient with an astrocytoma in the right prefrontal region, with apparent inflammatory involvement of the right temporal lobe, is presented, with possible pathophysiological mechanisms proposed.

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