Spatial aspects of felt presence and the phenomenon of childhood imaginary companions: Peripersonal space, embodied perspective, and continuity of agent propensity

Felt presence (FP), the sense that another agent is nearby without corresponding sensory evidence, occurs across neurological, psychiatric and non-clinical populations. Prior work links childhood imaginary companions (ICs) to anomalous and presence-related experience; we asked whether this link carries the spatial and perspectival signature predicted by a bodily self-consciousness (BSC) account. In 185 adults without psychiatric or neurological diagnoses (45 with and 140 without a childhood IC history), IC-positive participants retrospectively reported their companion's location, distance and perspective, and all participants completed the Sensed Presence Questionnaire (SenPQ) and a dissociation questionnaire. IC-positive adults scored significantly higher on the SenPQ, supporting the continuity prediction, whereas dissociation scores did not differ significantly between groups. Of the IC-positive participants, 88.9% (40 of 45) recalled their companion from a body-referenced (first-person or mixed first- and third-person) perspective. This offers tentative support for the perspective prediction, because three of the four response options were body-referenced. In 66.7% (76 of 114) of distance estimates for directions in which the companion had appeared, participants placed it within 70 cm of the body, our operational boundary of peripersonal space (PPS). This proportion significantly exceeded one half, offering moderate support for the peripersonal prediction. Companions were most often localized in front of and beside the body, unlike adult FP, which is typically experienced behind or beside the body. The findings provide partial evidence that the IC-presence link reflects the mechanisms proposed by a BSC account.