How many of you have ever had a psychic experience?

[wyst]

Ever had something happen that at least seemed like a psychic/esp type episode?

I was thinking about this after reading some old journals. When I was a teenager, I used to have dreams that sometimes came true. I also, more weirdly, used to have dreams where the situation in the dream happened, but the outcome was nearly always different. In the dream, the outcome was usually horrible. Death, gore, fights, accidents, whatever. And the weird thing was that it wasn't situations that I could have known would occur -- like a test I was worried about or whatever.

Haven't had this happen in a long time, though.

And, keep in mind, I'm not saying it was a psychic thing, necessarily. But it was weird.

Anybody else have this or other things that they wondered about happen to them -- psychic, or psychic seeming?

Wyst

 

[Steroid_Virgin]

You already know what Im going to say, so why should I say it??

 

[HappyScrappy]

two things:

1) A Demon Haunted World

2) the human brain has evolved over time to be very good at recognizing patterns and discarding data that doesn't reinforce these patterns.

 

[wyst]

You already know what Im going to say, so why should I say it??

Actually, I don't know what you're going to say.

Keep in mind, I'm not saying that it *was* a psychic experience -- I pretty much don't believe in such things. Yet it was freaky. Didn't feel like deja vu at all.

Wyst

 

[wyst]

two things:

1) A Demon Haunted World

2) the human brain has evolved over time to be very good at recognizing patterns and discarding data that doesn't reinforce these patterns.

1 -- I like it. It would explain a lot of random shit that happens to me.

2 -- So this would mean what in my example? Be patient, I'm trying to quit coffee and my head hurts. I'm usually pretty good at connecting the dots, but...

Wyst

 

[the nature boy]

I used to get feelings of Deja Vu all the time. like once a month when I was in highschool/college. Now I only get em a few times a year.

 

[wyst]

I still get deja vu a lot too, but also much less than I used to. But this felt different, and I could remember the dreams. You know how with deja vu you feel like it happened but you can't remember when? This was like "this feels just like my dream."

I wonder why this stuff happens less as you get older?

 

[HappyScrappy]

A Demon Haunted World is a book by Carl Sagan - he talks of these things among other stuff.

as for number 2 up there:
if we are "designed" to see patterns in order to save our lives - then it is in our best interest to error on the side of seeing patterns where they aren't there. but as a result of that, we think somethings are occurring that aren't really - or not in the way that we think they are.
for instance - you have how many thoughts regularly that don't happen? dreams that don't come true? how many?? a lot....
but you can probably count 20 max times you were "psychic"....

so what I'm saying is that if the mind is going through the data it processes every day and makes some connections - a lot of times it will make them and then you will dream based on this - if the dream doesn't happen - you don't think anything of it and you don't make note of it.
but if it does happen or something strikingly similar happens - then you will surely note that and it stands out in your mind - when in reality it is just noise in the data that happens everyday as your mind processes it - but it is seeing a pattern there b/c pattern recognition is what it is good at.

 

[HappyScrappy]

my stepmother... or rather ex-stepmother felt she was psychic.
she also thought she could teleport and turn objects from one state to another - say a bench to a banana.

she listed psychic experiences that she had throughout her life and then said that she felt that it was because her brain has an evolved portion of it that could sense these things and communicate to others that had it.

we all want to be special - religion, psychic powers, whatever does it....
too bad she never could harness that stuff to win the lottery or rob banks.

 

[HappyScrappy]

all that said - yes, I've had dreams that have "come true" or the weird feeling of deja vu.
if you read that Sagan book he does a much better job of explaining the logical reasoning than I do here.

I just want to sleep.