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Things I think I know about the mechanism of Psi.

gattino

Justified & Ancient
Joined
Jul 30, 2003
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Nothing I'm about to write is new. I've written each of them before, including the real life examples on different threads of this forum I just for my own clarity of mind thought for the first time I'd gather my own observations together in one place. Any thoughts or additions would be welcome.

I experience "psi" all the time. But I can't stop putting it and "psychic" in quotation marks. Because I distinguish myself from a self proclaimed psychic by the fact, for me, its so consistently trivial, pointless and not something I can make any actual use of whatever. But it occurred to me that I have over the years come to 3 conclusions about what the mechanism at work is when these things happen.

The three mechanisms are variations on one principle. That in certain mental state (eg daydreaming) the individual mind can access both its own future and the minds of other individuals. The connection between two conscious minds is presumably a shared unconscious.

1) In the dreaming and daydreaming state, a chain of associative thoughts will lead the mind on to a subject or association which it finds nearest in time to the thought or experience which triggered the chain.When you see someone you know, you recognise them by association with past encounters with them. That's memory. If the nearest connection in time to the new experience however is an event in the near future rather than a remembered past event, your mind will join the dots and wander on to that future event.

Example: Someone on television mentions Ted Heath. My mind unconsciously and instantly seeks out associations in its "files", which includes both memory and access to the near future. It finds the nearest link, by simple word association, is an experience I will have in the coming hours....and goes wandering consciously this time along that chain of association from Ted Heath, to Heathcliff, to Cliff Richard. Suddenly I find I'm thinking about Cliff Richard and wonder why he "popped" into my head, when he did nothing of the sort. I go and buy the morning newspaper and there's a front page story about Cliff Richard. I think that's weird.. I was just thinking about him.... My mind, in short found the nearest temporal association to the name Ted Heath not in a memory of the man but in the name of Cliff Richard which I'm about to encounter later that morning and so takes my mind involuntarily on a short wander to thinking of Cliff before he actually turns up.

This explains synchronicity between thoughts and events (though not between events and events), precognitive dreams and premonitions of disaster. The people who didn't get on the plane that crashed because they had a "bad feeling" were simply those passengers who happened to read/see/hear or encounter something that their mind was able to associate with the upcoming crash, thus leading them to think about planes crashing. Such thoughts before boarding a plane will put the more nervous or superstitious off their journey. The other passengers had no such lucky encounter. It also explains my own frequent experience of what I call "premature recognition"...mistaking a semi-lookalike for a half familiar stranger or friend-of-a-friend who you've not seen around for a long time, only to then encounter the real person you mistook the first chap for, half an hour later.

2) Dreams frequently are precognitive. We don't recognise that they happen so often because dreams are usually instantly forgotten and are largely symbolic. Recording your dreams through the night causes you to notice the connection between the dream imagery and subsequent real life events when played back later. The mechanism is probably the same as in 1) - the dream state being conducive to free moving mental association.

This explains Deja Vu - a precognitive dream which, like most dreams, has been forgotten. But when the real event subsequently occurs in waking life the sense of familiarity comes over you, but you can't place how or why you've seen this before. The reason Deja Vu is comparatively rare when precognitive dreams are relatively common is that its not enough for the dream to have been forgotten, it must also have been a quite literal pre-enactment of the real life event...whereas the majority of dreams are jumbled up and symbolic, so the sense of familiarity when the real life events happen is less likely to occur with 'regular' precognitive dreams.

3) Telepathy is triggered by unfulfilled intention between people with some emotional bond or at least on the same wavelength at the time. You intend to say or mention something to an individual or simply to contact them. But the fulfillment of the intention is either cancelled, thwarted or delayed. The thought you intended to convey to them bubbles up from their unconscious before your spoken or written words are conveyed. If you say or write the thing you intended, they don't notice..its naturally assumed their thoughts are triggered by the written or spoken communication. But if there is a delay the arrival via the unconscious of the intended message bubbles to the surface of their conscious mind before or without the actual message being said or sent..provided they are in the relaxed, day dreamy state at the time.

Examples are two people watching or listening to a TV show, or sitting reading books, one finally speaks and the other gasps "I was just thinking that!" " I was about to say the same to you!" "We must be psychic!". My brother asks me by text if I want anything from the supermarket as he's on his way to the house. I ask for kitchen roll and tinfoil. Just before sending I decide its too much of a shopping list so delete the tinfoil request and send the edited text. He turns up at the house with the kitchen roll as requested but asks to be sure that was what I asked for as for some reason he kept thinking the text had said tinfoil..His mind, while wandering along distractedly doing the shopping, received my intended request before I cancelled it...and it bubbled to the conscious surface, causing him to question the edited request which he'd read with his own eyes.

This explains the "I was just thinking of them before they rang" scenario. The person doing the ringing had the intention to make contact before going through with it. The gap or delay, provided the person on the receiving end is in the right relaxed state of mind, caused them to receive the intention and the thought of contact just before it actually happens. (And if the gap is long enough they may also take it on themselves to make the first move thus calling someone who'd been thinking of calling them)

The reason its so difficult to turn any of these observations to practical use for those of us who don't label ourselves "psychic" (that is, by implication, people who believe themselves to have some control over a "power") is that daydreaming/relaxed/dreaming state that appears to be necessary for any of these things. Because that state almost by definition is a state of not paying attention. Any conscious effort, even if it's to just take note of your own thoughts, is to not be in that necessary state.


Anyone want to add to or alter any of this based on their own experiences?
Or am I talking complete gibberish?
 
This gave me déjà-vu. Ted Heath is not much mentioned these days. Last time I thought of him was:

Reading this thread

I'm not sure why collecting your thoughts needs to be out-sourced this way. But I hope this is helpful. :)
 
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