title: Evidence for a communal consciousness.
abstract: Recently described social network phenomena show that emotionally connected people come to share certain traits, including obesity, happiness, and loneliness. These do not appear to be mediated by face-to-face contact. Other examples of groups with a common connection that act in unison are mass hysteria, menstrual synchrony, and the ability of a group to guess the number of jelly beans in a jar. The animal kingdom abounds with examples of groups functioning as a single whole: fish school, birds flock, hoofed animals herd, ant and bee colonies work as a single organism. Try as they might, neuroscientists have been unable to find an anatomical seat of consciousness within the brain. C.G. Jung's realization of a collective unconscious began with an observation of a patient whose thoughts matched previous writings that the patient had never seen. The "emotional telepathy" of social network phenomena suggests a collective/communal consciousness as well.
authors: Department of Family Medicine, Stony Brook University, Stony Brook, NY, USA. rbobrow@notes.cc.sunysb.edu
authors: Robert S
authors: RS
authors: Bobrow
mesh_terms: D000818:Animals; D003243:Consciousness; D004644:Emotions; D006801:Humans; D007398:Interpersonal Relations; D007602:Jungian Theory; D019222:Mind-Body Relations, Metaphysical; D012111:Residence Characteristics; D012944:Social Support; D013688:Telepathy; D014473:Unconscious, Psychology