"The doors of the many mansions of the mind open both ways. They can let you enter other states of consciousness – or they can allow something or someone to enter yours. You should open these doors with care and caution – but, first, you must know how to close them. And, above all, you must know which doors should be left unopened."
Michael Bentine, Doors of the Mind
There are amazing stories of people who suddenly andinexplicably become completely invisible - in their homes, at parties and even in crowded stores. Overturning the laws of physics, human beings leave the boundaries of three-dimensional space and go out of sight in front of their witnesses. The personality keeps its physical presence, the senses perceive the surrounding reality normally, but people cannot be heard or seen by others. This change occurs suddenly, often against the will and without the person noticing what is happening to him. That is an extremely strange and rare phenomenon called Human Spontaneous Involuntary Invisibility - HSII. The American leading specialist Donna Higbeein talked about that phenomenon in her study in 1994. She communicated with dozens of victims of the HSII in the U.S., UK, Europe, Australia, Puerto Rico and Brazil, and sought the opinion of prominent scientists in an attempt to define these extremely rare and strange cases. One of the first cases faced is that of Melanie from Ventura, California, which was struck by the phenomenon on the sofa in the living room as she stared thoughtfully at the opposite wall. At that time her husband was looking for her everywhere and in all rooms in the house, passing by her without noticing her. The incident lasted about ten minutes, then Melanie became visible again, to the amazement of her husband, who was convinced that she was hiding from him and refused to believe her version. Vera, a resident of the same city, with amazement noticed that she repeatedly became invisible (in a literal sense) to her friends in the post office, in department stores and other public places. Spontaneous invisibility today affects the life of Sheila Roanoke and Glenda from Fort Worth, Texas, the phenomenon occurring to them in cafes, cinemas, restaurants and airports. Janice from Minneapolis, Minnesota, also suffered a series of manifestations of the phenomenon, one of which lasted unusually long. As a teenager, together with her peers she attempted to steal something from a department store. The group was captured and taken to the police station. All participants were questioned but not Janice. Although she was taken to the police car by the officers and stood with the rest of the gang in the police station, neither the police, nor the staff and the guards paid some attention to her when she freely left the building. When Janice later discussed the incident with others, they did not remember her presence from the moment the police caught them in the store. The 37- year- old Peter, a resident of Gloucestershire, England was invited to a private party and decided to go to the restroom. A woman was waiting for her turn in front of the restroom. Once out of the there, Peter headed to the living room, went to his friends and started talking to them, but they never responded. He thought they are making fun of him, so Peter turned to his friend and asked her for a cigarette. It became obvious that she never saw nor heard him. Enraged by his friends' inappropriate "jokes", the victim decided to go back to the woman who waited for him to go out in front of the restroom. He found her in the same place and she looked startled, apparently sure that he was still in the shower. Peter came back to the celebration and everything was fine. When he asked his friends why they did not previously respond to his presence, they said that they never noticed him.
