Taking A Look At Mental Telepathy

‘Mental telepathy’ can be a broad term that encompasses numerous things. It typically means reading the thoughts between people without using normal senses. The difference is a huge between having an intuitive gut feeling and knowing information that could only be gathered by reading somebody’s mind. Very basic skills can be construed as mental telepathy but so can very complex. Different levels of mental telepathy can be summarized in this article.

NON VERBAL COMMUNICATION:

Kinesics, or non-verbal communication, occurs whenever two people communicate without speaking, using their eyes, body language, and facial expressions instead. This can range from simple messages like ‘go away’ to entire conversations. Any parent who has tried to communicate something to their spouse that they don’t want their children to hear has experienced this. Non-verbal communication is achieved easiest and most accurately between people who know each other well”siblings, parents and children, husbands and wives, and close friends.

Some can argue (with good reason) that this doesn’t count as mental telepathy, as the two people are using their senses to communicate (just not with sounds). Technically, this is correct. This doesn’t mean, however, that mental telepathy does not play a role. The fact that non-verbal communication occurs most successfully between people who are related (like family), or who have lived together for extended periods of time (like spouses) implies that their minds might be more attuned to each other than to strangers. On the other hand, one could argue that this merely means the two people know each other well enough to understand each others more subtle body language, or have created agreed-upon nonverbal signals to communicate.

EMPATHY:

Through empathy it is possible to directly experience the emotions of others or connect on an emotional level. Putting yourself in another’s shoes’ and understanding how they feel is not something everybody is able to do. Training and practice can increase empathy. Imitating the emotions of others, even to the point of spontaneously laughing or crying is something actors and sociopaths can do everyday.

‘Sympathetic pain’”feeling another person’s pain as if it were your own is something expectant fathers mention, some claiming they can feel the mother’s labor pains at the same time she is experiencing them. If someone close to you is experiencing an overwhelming emotion, you may feel an echo of the same emotion inside you, and mothers often describe this uneasy feeling when their child has been injured. The phenomena of long distance empathy, where a person suddenly feels that someone close to them is in danger, even though they are not near the person at the time is common in other relationships, as well.

Psychologists write off such empathetic phenomena as a simple trick of an overactive imagination. At the very least, they do have a point that other senses are being used. Would we be able to feel the sympathetic pain of a broken arm, for example, if we could not actually see the injury? This does not explain, however, the phenomena of long-distance empathy.

CONCRETE CONCEPTS

Thought transference of symbols, numbers, or names of objects between two minds is beyond the regular five senses in communication. A designated sender and receiver, intense concentration, training, and practice are often involved in this type of mental telepathy, such as a mind reader or physic with a television audience, who is able to guess the names of loved ones or what card a person is holding in their hand.

It is easier to communicate through thought alone if it is a simple symbol or object than more complex thoughts. A color may be easier to convey than an animal or a general shape easier to communicate than a person’s name.

Zener cards often used in mental telepathy test are an example of this principle. Simple, concrete black-and-white symbols (a circle, square, star, plus sign, and three wavy lines), gives even a random guess a 20% chance of being right. On the other hand, a shared, known, limited set of concrete symbols may increase the coordination of the thoughts between sender and receiver. A success rate of 50% or higher (which have happened) can not be explained away by simple statistics, but may indicate a level of mental telepathy, instead.

ABSTRACT CONCEPTS:

Mental telepathy at this level goes beyond simple colors and shapes to more abstract concepts like ideas, actions, or values. It is rare and difficult for telepaths to achieve this level, and experiments have shown that they have a lower success rate.

Some animals appear to communicate, and science is not able to explain how. Telepathy shouldn’t be ruled out. At this level, such animals would be using abstract concepts, albeit very basic concepts. Due to the nature of animal brains lacking prefrontal lobes, such ideas would probably not go beyond simplistic impulses like ‘hungry’, ‘thirsty’, ‘horny’, or ‘danger!’

While humans may have once been capable of telepathy, as the species evolved and developed language, it was no longer needed as a form of communication. With the right stimulation humans may be able to call upon this dormant ability that includes abstract communication of ideas. Mental telepathy could be used to communicate, without the need for the use of the five senses.

If enough people can develop these powers, theoretically all humans in the future could use mental telepathy to communicate, according to some scientific beliefs.