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Telepathy & Kids

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Pete Younger

Venerable and Missed
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TELEPATHY & KIDS

What do you all think about telepathy, is it real or imagination, do you think it is more apparent in young children, I have a four year old grandson who seems to anticipate what I am about to talk about with uncany accuracy.
 
I found some old teaching-notes last week in which
I expressed my amazement at the way some children would
read my mind.

Often it was occasioned by the twenty questions game. On
several occasions girls - it was always girls - dispensed with
the animal, vegetable, mineral crap and went straight for the kill.

OK, so maybe "Charles Dickens" was an obvious thing for an
English teacher to be thinking of. But "Soot", "Palm Tree" and
"Mammoth" ?

It was a bit lame telling them that A, they were correct and B,
they would not get any credit because witchcraft was against
the school rules.

Children are weird. :eek:
 
Yeah, cool, I just had a long discussion about this with a friend last night.

My theory (and I have a 4-year-old who is uncanny in her ability to read me): all kids or at least most have this ability. As with any talent, invalidating it will quash the budding or native talent. Pooh-pooh a child when she or he tells you that the plant does NOT like it by the dining room table, it wants to be by the door. Very shortly you will no longer get updates on how your plants feel. Tell her to shush, it's not polite to say Gramma's really dark today, and you will no longer know the state of your Mom's aura (which, BTW, you can't see!) Contradict them when they describe how their playmates view them (e.g. clumsy, show-off-ish, babyish), and they will learn to mistrust their own ability to read people's (to them) crystal-clear but utterly unspoken attitudes.

As with any talent one posesses, faith in that ability needs to be nurtured by those we love and trust. And a child's love and trust in their parents, grandparents, and loving caregivers is a boundless thing.
 
We are educated out of so many things. Maybe
developing the imagination is the "light of common day"
allowed?
 
personally...

On the subject of children and telepathy, I was particularly struck by the post that talked about Gramma being very dark, and how plants feel etc. And I agree that you should nurture your child when they say things like that. I, as a child, was like that, and was humored in what I said about things, but my parents didnt believe me or anything. As a kid, you think its normal to say things like that, because you feel it (maybe its not all kids, but at least for me) and you dont know that others dont. My parents didnt shush me, exactly, they were just like "That's nice," so I suppose that's why this hasnt gone away since I was little.

Its theorized that all children have the ability to sense things that adults may not, in whatever sense that may be, but then it is taught out of them. My little brother never posessed this ability, oddly enough, and it seems to me that I'm still the only one in my family that has it. It's harsh going through school, and going to as many historical places as my parents took me to, and sensing things that no one else does, and then talking about it as if its the most normal thing in the world, and the listener looking at you like you should be institutionalized. (And that does still happen). More adults would probably have this ability, if they were nurtured in it, or at the very least, humored, as a child. If it's real or just imagination, you'll see soon enough.
 
Re: personally...

lostgirl said:
On the subject of children and telepathy, I was particularly struck by the post that talked about Gramma being very dark, and how plants feel etc. And I agree that you should nurture your child when they say things like that. I, as a child, was like that, and was humored in what I said about things, but my parents didnt believe me or anything. As a kid, you think its normal to say things like that, because you feel it (maybe its not all kids, but at least for me) and you dont know that others dont. My parents didnt shush me, exactly, they were just like "That's nice," so I suppose that's why this hasnt gone away since I was little.

Its theorized that all children have the ability to sense things that adults may not, in whatever sense that may be, but then it is taught out of them. My little brother never posessed this ability, oddly enough, and it seems to me that I'm still the only one in my family that has it. It's harsh going through school, and going to as many historical places as my parents took me to, and sensing things that no one else does, and then talking about it as if its the most normal thing in the world, and the listener looking at you like you should be institutionalized. (And that does still happen). More adults would probably have this ability, if they were nurtured in it, or at the very least, humored, as a child. If it's real or just imagination, you'll see soon enough.
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Your reply really hits the spot for me, I know exactly what you mean, sadly though although my kids showed this ability and were encouraged to talk about it they still lost the ability when they grew up.
 
Bearing in mind the previous posts attributing telepathy mainly to children and girls, I find it somewhat embarrasing to admit, as a twentysomething male, that I occasionally suffer from minor telepathy.

It's nothing that could in any eay said to be either a) useful or b)provable, relating as it does almost entirely around my mother and her desire for tea.

Many is the time when I have suddenly been overcome with a desire for tea, a drink which I normally avoid, and turned the kettle on, only for my mother, a notorious consumer of large quantities of this beverage, to appear at the door.

I also remember an occasion, when I ws much younger, in which I was playing Pictionary. My sister was my partner, and we managed to guess answers correctly from the most bizzare of scribblings. However, I'm not sure whether that actually counts as telepathy, or if it could be due to the fact that, as siblings, we would naturally tend to think along the same lines and attribute similar meanings to visual symbols.

Any thoughts? Any suggestions on how to keep my mother out of my head (short of wearing a tinfoil hat) would be most appreciated!

;)
 
Why would you want to keep your mother out of your head, their the best friend you'll ever have, wish mine was still around to confide in.:(
 
I think most of us are telepathic to a greater or lesser degree, especially with people they are close to. Everyone has had that feeling when the phone rings that they just 'know' who it is and they're often right. My husband works abroad and we communicate by phone and email when he's away. He often says or writes something that I was about to say and vice versa. And the same thing happens with my mum and my kids, a thought will enter my mind, I'll put it into words and one of them will say "I was just about to say that!"

Carole

Unfortunately my 'telepathic' ability does not extend to my boss, who really does expect me to be able to read his mind!:confused:
 
My four kids are certainly telepathic and lots more besides. If anyone's read Cassandra Eason's 'The Psychic Power of Children' they'll have come across my daughter Layla and son Dylan who constantly read minds, see Dead Deople and have OBEs! None of which went down at all well with their professional scientist dad.
:hmph:
 
If Telepathy is possible then I would expect it to exist within a family, or to be much stronger in that context. For a piece of A-level statistics courswork I had to do a Telepathy experiment (guess which suit the card someone on the other side of the room was looking at was) and the only person around when I actually got around to doing it was my kid brother.

I was amazed when I scored over 70% accuracy on the first 25 card test. I dismissed it as anomalous and tried again. Over 500 cards I scored an average of 71% accuracy, rather than 25%, which is what you would expect. Both my brother and I were very freaked out by this (although I have never been sure he wasn't deliberately messing up my results because he's my brother...) and I had to hand in a piece of coursework saying that Telepathy was possible. Fortunately my analysis was good, so I still got the marks for the maths...

From an evolutionary point of view it seems to me that if telepathy is possible then it should occur in nature (makes me think of pack hunters) but possibly is weaker in humans because language has overcome our need for it.
 
How's this for telepathy?
This morning when I was looking on here I decided to send my mate a daft anonymous text message. So I sent, 'Put that sausage down, you don't know where it's been!' She rang me just now. She'd been at work eating a sausage bap and had nearly choked to death craning her neck round to see who was watching her! It really scared her. I bet I can't do that again!:D
 
Some years ago, recently domiciled in Essex, we went on a family visit to Harwich - none of us had been there before. But as we walked around, my daughter, then aged 5 or 6, said: "There's a castle here!" Imagine our surprise when we turned a corner and found ourselves in Castle Street!

(There is no castle in Harwich now, but presumably there once was, guarding the harbour entrance.)

I had a few notes once on similar happenings, but I've lost them.
 
Breakfast - or anyone else - do you want to have a quick bash at the RetroPsychoKinesis experiment?

http://www.fourmilab.ch/rpkp/

I cannot even fathom how those results could be possible. It's gotta be a hoax. Hasn't it?
 
Does anyone know the probability of guessing 75% of 500 cards correctly (see Breakfast's post) by sheer luck? It must be pretty low.

You ought to watch out, Breakfast - the CIA will by out for you if you don't keep a low profile. ;)
 
Oops sorry - bad statistical theory - the question we should be asking is the probability of guessing 75% OR MORE cards correctly? Not that it probably makes much difference in this particular case.
 
I don't actually remember the exact result (I believe I burned my notes after my A-levels finished) but I remember it was very significantly outside the normal for this kind of experiment.

Thing is, there is very little to indicate that I have any psychic abilities, but my brother is another matter...
 
Fallen Angel said:
Contradict them when they describe how their playmates view them (e.g. clumsy, show-off-ish, babyish), and they will learn to mistrust their own ability to read people's (to them) crystal-clear but utterly unspoken attitudes.
Click to expand...

Their self-esteem, on the other hand, may never recover.
 
Telepathy - proven yet?

I seem to remember a while back there was this guy who was going to tell us that he could prove that telepathy worked and how it worked and he'd be presenting this paper very soon. I think it was one of the staff at the Edinburgh University paranormal department.

It looked as though they'd done some good science and sounded like they had good results and I was intrigued.

Does anyone know whether they presented it yet, and if so what they said?
 
Perhaps he has told us already, telepathically...? ;)
 
An experiment anyone can do - a friend and I wanted to test out the possibility, as we were both very sceptical - so over a period of several months we alternated 'sending' a message to each other at an agreed time each day. The sender and the receiver each wrote down the message and at the end of each week, we would look at the messages together - then we would log the accuracy by the percentage of identical words/synonyms/nearmisses,etc.

After about a month a pattern emerged and lasted throughout the rest of the experiment:-
he was better at sending/ I was better at receiving = 30% - 25%accuracy.

When I sent/he receiving = 20% -15% accuracy.

We had to be honest, i.e. noting 'guesses' and 'receiving nothing', but a message was always sent. There was often a lot of scepticism about 'common interests', etc., but occasionally we could be totally shocked by the accuracy of an unusual message.

To test it scientifically obviously would take a large number of people (statistical sample if you wanted to extrapolate it to a whole population or age group, etc.) But it could be done and make for a good thesis, if it hasn't already been covered.

Heather.
 
Identical Twins ESP and Genetics.

It's stories and research about identical twins that swing it for me.

Tales of the amazing similarities in the lives of monozygotic, or identical twins, especially of pairs separated at birth, are well known and have often featured in the FT, as well as in research crucial to the nature, or nurture debate.

Pairs who married partners with the same name, suffered the same illnesses, chose similiar careers, had similiar accidents, etc. Scientists, like , whose work on the inheritability of I.Q was later discredited, Cyril Burt and Professor Thomas Bouchard , have used case studies of identical twins to put forward the case for genetic inheritabilty of such factors.

Using similiar evidence the case has also been made for Astrology and ESP. I don't know enough about the astrology arguement, to comment. But, if it wasn't for the fact that science has no conclusive tests for, or evidence of, Extra Sensory Perception and that the official position, or paradigm is that ESP does not exist, then wouldn't it be a more reasonable explanation for twins (unaware of each others existence), both marrying people with the same first name, or both becoming house painters, or whatever?

Thinking about it recently, I began to wonder if telepathy was all that was going on. Is there some deeper level of reality that connects us all and shows itself most strongly with identical twins. Are the bodies, brains and, yes, even the DNA of these twins so similiar that on some quantum level they resonate like the tines of a tuning fork, even though they may be seperated by considerable physical distances?

Perhaps, for people who aren't identical twins, `ESP' works best when participants are emotionally involved? An emotional bond seems to act as a catalyst, especially when linked to some emotional situation.

I wonder, do we sometimes see, illuminated by seemingly flukey bursts of, apparent extra sensory perception and intuition, like flashes of lightning in the dark, a hidden landscape. That of the real connections and bonds between us and our universe? Do they always make logical sense? Do dreams? Does our subconscious?
 
Perhaps, for people who aren't identical twins, `ESP' works best when participants are emotionally involved? An emotional bond seems to act as a catalyst, especially when linked to some emotional situation.
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Perhaps, all that's required is for groups of people to have something to act as a strong emotional focus. A religion, a totem, a rock band, or star. Or, a Message Board. Have you ever been able to communicate ideas better, anywhere else?
 
I had an A-level statistics study which was "are you psychic" where you had to guess the suit of the card your broadcaster was looking at, using the results for statistical analysis of various types. The only person I could find to do the "broadcasting" role was my kid brother. It was far from laboratory conditions but the expected result would have been 25% correct and my average over 500 tests was closer to 70%.

It was quite embarrassing to hand in this project saying that I had statistically proven that either I or my brother was telepathic.
 
Not sure if you'd call it telepathy as such, but whenever I talk to a couple of my friends over the computer, I keep answering their questions before they ask them. It happens so often, it's spooky.
(Trying to live up to my name ;))
 
Breakfast said:
It was far from laboratory conditions but the expected result would have been 25% correct and my average over 500 tests was closer to 70%.
Click to expand...
I posted on some other thread (and many moons) ago how I tried card guessing with my bother and got above average results. But then I realised that my tone of voice was giving him cues, and by deliberately changing my style I was able to get the results down below average!

I guess that with family members there are all sorts of subtle clues from body language and tone of voice that mimic telepathy.
 
I guess that with family members there are all sorts of subtle clues from body language and tone of voice that mimic telepathy.
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And it's very useful for playing Bridge!

I still think trying to force a telepathic connection is a bit like using the wrong muscles to lift a bag of cement. you can end up with a hernia.

It's like the story about the poor farmer, promised a fortune when he gets home as long as he doesn't think about the tail on his donkey.

Maybe, ESP comes from somewhere deep, perhaps it's there in that old, primitive, back brain, where logic is not. Probably something to do with reading Arthur Koestler on the `third eye,' years ago. Lots of supposition, I know.
 
My feeling is that if Telepathy is possible then it would occur naturally because it gives such an evolutionary advantage. If it had evolved then it would give an advantage to the telepathic phenotype so you would expect it to occur within family groupings as a way of keeping that family's genes going.
 
Of course then there would be natural advantages NOT to be telepathic, from giving away your own intentions when you dont want to (assuming you dont have to always "will" it to happen) an others picking it up, to protecting your mind against other people "reading" your intentions.

*I'm sneaking up ready to bash him on the head*
"Huh, I suddenly feel like somebody wants to bash me on the head"
"By Jove, I turned around just in the nick of time, have at you you cad!!".
 
My feeling is that if Telepathy is possible then it would occur naturally because it gives such an evolutionary advantage. If it had evolved then it would give an advantage to the telepathic phenotype so you would expect it to occur within family groupings as a way of keeping that family's genes going.
Click to expand...
I remember an article, by Isaac Asimov, that said something very similiar. He reckoned telepathy, as an advantage, would have meant that humans with it would eventually have become the dominant group on the planet. Fair enough.

However, supposing it is so integrated that usually we just don't notice it? An early warning system, a gut reaction, a way of keeping in contact, emotionally if not consciously, over vast distances. Only called into serious play in times of need, like the ability of a mother to lift a car off her trapped child in an emergency.

Perhaps we only think it would give a huge advantage, because we've read too much SF.
 
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