• We have updated the guidelines regarding posting political content: please see the stickied thread on Website Issues.

A Psychic Experiment.

gattino

Justified & Ancient
Joined
Jul 30, 2003
Messages
2,517
As some regular visitors to these boards will know I've had a fixation in recent months with apparently precognitive dreams, many of which I've reported on here.

In relation to this I've recently read a few books by dream diarists who claim the same thing...albeit in more spectacular and controlled fashion than me. And yesterday started the much mentioned Experiment With Time by JW Dunne in whom I find my own views, experiences and observations mirrored straight back at me.

We'll skip all the theory. The point of all this is that reading this stuff and coming to some conclusions as to how it works, this mornign at 6am while lying in bed and after reporting what was left of last night's dreams into a digital recorder to see if any of it turned up in real life, a better idea occurred to me. Why not combine the relaxed mental state of sleep with the directed purposeful "viewing" of wide awake conscious experiments? Could I, by doing it in those early morning eyes-still-closed moments, direct my attention to try and predict a specific target, without the confusing plotline of a dream or the mental distractions of being fully awake?

Here's is the transcript of my 6am recording:

"I've tried to foresee page 5 of the Sunday Mirror..or rather random images than come into my mind when I thought of page 5 of the Sunday Mirror...The first thing that came to mind was the word "hunger" or "Hungary"...by association anorexia came to mind...Jim'll Fix It..maybe its the "x" thing, but something about Jimmy Saville...erm...think that's about it really."


Here is what turned out to be on Page 5 of today's Sunday Mirror (I chose page 5 btw to avoid any headline being predictable by normal means, ie a story that featured on tv news last night)

1001702_10152115359298572_1219620373_n.jpg



[A devoted sceptic will of course ignore the monumental hit and immediately hone in on the few words I said that weren't related to jimmy saville or on the page...hunger/Hungary and anorexia...which is to misunderstand entirely what's going on. They were not offered as predictions, but are a series of random thoughts allowed to enter my mind, and following a chain of association towards the target. The clue to this is contained in my own words "maybe its the x thing"... I was noting the X sound in anorexia might have lead my mind on to the word jim'llfixit with its own central X. This is in fact how I believe all concidences between thoughts...waking or dreaming..come about... a chain of word or image associations leading the mind from the trigger or starting point towards the future event or encounter]

Anyway I'll leave you to judge whether this was a success or not. I'll obviously try it again. But better still, why don't you? :)
 
For what it's worth, the Hungarian Grand Prix took place today, at the Hungaroring circuit. Your mind might well have picked up some media references to this over the last few days, as well as today. Any mention on P.5?
 
It's possible but I don't think its necessary to speculate such a connection as in this case it wasn't a dream. Hungary I think was just a clear messing around with the word hungry to cover all bases. What I mean in trying to recount what I'd just had floating through my head a few moments before I've mostly likely gone hunger..hungry...or is it Hungary? (as a kind of aside just in case)

As for why start with hunger? It wasjut the first though in my head and I do recall feeling the pangs of hunger at the time, so likely that. As the first thought and starting point a very very brief wordchain then formed to link it to my goal...page 5 of the sunday mirror. Hunger...hungry..anorexic..jim'llfixit...jimmy saville.

That sounds still a little bizarre I know but its something I've long ago noticed is the origin of day time correspondences between my thoughts and subsequent events..a chain of free association in my wandering mind from an initial trigger towards the near future encounter. You may remember my oft reported ted heath/cliff richard thing on here!
 
Obviously I've tried it again...

Day two seemed to be a complete failure. There was a hint of success, but it relied on saying "I was going to say that...and this thing is a little bit like that other thing" etc, which no one would take seriously. But the hint of success was the first thing that popped randomly into my mind.. Robert Maxwell and a boat. Because I felt I'd had the Maxwell image in my head the night before, and because of his obvious association with the paper itself, I mentioned it in to the tape but then dismissed it and set my mind searching for a whole load of other random images or words....and none of them appeared on page 5 of yesterdays paper or anywhere else. However on page 7 there was a full page follow up story on the canoe man who faked his death at sea for the insurance. You can obviously see how it can be associated with Maxwell and a boat but I had to count it as a failure.

Day Three, today...
This felt a lot more like the first day: a truly random image and a very short chain of word associations. So I went to get the paper feeling confident. None of the words were on page 5 or elsewhere in the paper. But here's the main thing I said in to the tape:

"Ok...once again an attempt to foresee Page 5 of the Daily Mirror. First thing that popped into my head as soon as I pictured myself picking up the Daily Mirror..in my minds eye IT WAS ON THE COVER, but it was the first thing that popped into my head, was, um, Brian Tilsley from Coronation Street, or the actor who played him. I saw his face and his hair, that sort of midlength fair hair, SOMEONE WHO LOOKS VERY MUCH LIKE HIM or him. It was very persistent and rather random, therefore may have significance..."



[For those too young or overseas, Brian Tilsley was a character in the soap opera Coronation street in the 1980s, noted for his naff 80s haircut and fancying himself as a ladies man. A description whose aptness to what follows only hit me after I started typing it!]

Lucky I emphasised the hair thing and said someone who looks like him, because, though I didn't buy the connection at first, the more I looked and thought about it, the image at the top of the COVER of the paper was very intriguing. It was of Harry Styles. Below is the exact picture that appears n the front page of the paper next to the classic image of Brian.


968850_10152120496603572_604213800_n.jpg




Hit or miss? I must quickly edit this posting to point out I'm not for one passing second suggesting the two individuals bear even a passing facial resemblance! The association is between images...a flashing impression in the minds eye which the brain attempts to identify.



If we count it as a hit, there's a pattern emerging. Because the Jimmy Saville story was on page 5 as I'd been aiming for I assumed I was able to accurately choose the page. But the story had also been trailed on the front cover of the paper as being inside. The canoe man story was on page 7 of the next day's paper but was also trailed on the front cover. And the Harry Styles story was also way inside the paper but trailed on the front cover. And in the latter two cases the apparent hit, while not as direct as Jimmy Saville, was the very first thing that popped into my mind's eye, with all the subsequent "guesses" being meaningless.
 
I'm not sure about this one. A hit maybe but then again any male with lots of hair would have done it. Keep up the good work,
 
It hadn't escaped my thoughts that if I'd actual "seen" and aaid Harry Styles directly it would not be considered any more successful by even the most open minded person....because the response would, quite fairly, be that the little **** is in every tabloid every day. So in a sense it would be impossible to have success if he was indeed the "target".

I've of course done the test again today but not yet been for the paper. But it has allowed me to notice another part of the pattern....

Today as on all the other days, the random unbidden image that has popped into my minds eye first has been a celebrity from the past, from the 70s or 80s...why that should be even if there's nothing "pscyhic" going on at all is curious. But at any rate let's suppose that is the pattern...that in reaching for the future my mind is finding correlates wit faces from the past. That's to say I'm seeing people from a past era who have some associative connection to the more recent/modern equivalent. Jimmy Saville on this hypothesis was so successful only because of the sheer dumb luck of him also being current/recent news. I guess this theory will be confirmed one way or another thsi morning when I get the paper....
 
Well I can now say the principle/first image this morning was Muhammad Ali (followed by a brief reference to John Travolta) and that there was absolutely nothing anywhere in the newspaper that could be linked to him/them by even the most far fetched association.

This perhaps lends weight to the likelihood days 2 and 3 were simply triumphs of the imagination.

If so that leaves Sunday and the original jimmy saville hit in splendid isolation.

Whether it was an incredible coincidence or single genuine success in specific circumstances its impossible to define or replicate is anyone's guess.

I'll continue the experiment for the rest of the week but only report back if there's anything impressive.
 
I had a little go at this on Tuesday as I arrived for a hospital appointment way too early and there were papers for sale in the hospital shop, thought up some stuff and looked at page 5 of the Sun (I thought you were doing the Sun not the Mirror) and it was a full page story relating to Coronation Street so maybe you were looking in the wrong paper! Nothing related to what I predicted by the way.
 
Back
Top