James Gabbard

Psychics and the sixth sense

July 24, 2011 |  8 comments
Image Credit: stockxpert We've all seen late night commercials telling us to call to see our future. Only $19.99 for three whole minutes! What a bargain. I can prepare for the worst with that kind of information. Except, we all know- or should know- that these people aren't psychic. No one can read our minds, no one really knows the future, and if they can they haven't come out to the rest of the world. Yet, in my own experience I've had strange occurrences that just don't make sense. I've predicted the future, seen it flash before my eyes then saw it happen in real life a minute later. If psychics don't exist, can there be a reasonable explanation for what some people are actually experiencing?

Cold Reading

Majority of psychics will use one of two methods. The first is called cold reading. It's a deceptive use to get information out of people, then make it look like the person knew that information all along. These deceptive practices are popular among people who claim to talk to the dead, or attempt to predict something with a big audience. If I said “I see the letter M...does anyone here have a relative with the letter M that has passed on?” You might be thinking of your Uncle Matt. I then say something like “Uncle Matt, yes he is here talking to me now. I feel like he died of some type of blood issue. Was there some blood issue?” “Oh yes he died of a heart attack!” “OK yes, I see that now. Do you have anything you'd like to say to him?” “Well, I miss him. And his kids miss him. Is he OK?” “He's fine, he misses you all as well.”

Now, someone out there that's reading this maybe just got freaked out a little bit. But it's OK, I didn't just predict a conversation with your dead Uncle Matt (may he rest in peace). I wasn't even talking to him. It's simply cold calling.

The second way is also known as cold calling: using vague coverall terms to describe something in someone's past. For example: “I feel like you're usually cheery, but there has been an event that has made you unhappy.” People will latch on to something bad that's happened recently and say “Oh yes! I was so angry at my dog and I'm just so unhappy about his potty training.” Or something along those lines. It's the exact same thing fortune cookies, tarot cards and horoscopes do. They make the person read into them, and apply their own life. In reality, they can apply to numerous people in numerous situations.

The Brain is Faster Than We Think

I've seen the future myself, and have predicted strange things. The first time I went to a friend's house, knocked on his door to see if he was home. No one. I got a flash in my head of his mom's car driving down the road, him in the passenger seat. I walked away, and as I walked down the steps I looked up. The exact images I had seen before in my head were replaying in real life. How could this be?

For years I called myself psychic. I once sat at a diner with people I hadn't seen in ages. I told a friend of mine exactly how her sister killed herself. I somehow was able to tell her the color of her bed sheets.

So what would be a good explanation for seeing our futures? Can we really and truly be psychic? Of course not. I've made predictions that went no where. I've tried talking to the dead and wound up wrong on many circumstances.

Our nature of being able to sense things comes down to our brains.

We still don't entirely understand the purpose of every single gland, but studies have shown humans being able to react to images five seconds before they come into a flashing screen. On top of that, there are many instances in which disasters are missed by numerous people- trains that crash typically have less than an average amount of people on them.

The idea here is that our minds are faster than we are able to realize, and sometimes cope with. We know how certain things will happen or can give all the results of on incidence. If someone said, sticking your hand out of a window of a moving car would get your hand cut off- would you believe it? This is where foresight comes in, where we know something might happen- but probability says it won't.

We know humans can read each other as well- but there are no experiments that check to see if we're able to quickly know the atmosphere of an entire room. Typically crashes of trains and planes occur due to an error on someone's part. Could that person walking through give off the idea they're going to fail? Could we then be perceiving the feelings of others' uncertainties from that one person?

My theory is that this is exactly how psychics work. Our brains very quickly analyze a situation, and our bodies react to that situation. Some people can do it faster, some people can't. But what about predictions people have made way into the future? Some of us likely are able to play on the idea of probability, without even realizing it.

As for being able to see what color the bed sheet was of my friend's suicidal sister? Our memories aren't as good as we think. I gave a very probable answer to what the bed sheet was. The girl killed herself with a handgun, but I had stated she had done so with pills first. Even I was wrong, though I explained my being wrong because the girl had attempted to kill herself with pills before. Typical behavior of suicidal people, and thus a good guess as to what happened.

And the scene with the car? Maybe I heard the car in the background faintly, and my brain created images of what I was expecting to see before I saw it. Just like in the five second experiment, their brains were able to quickly analyze how they should be feeling before they should.

Or hey, maybe there is something more to it than simply our brains being faster than we can think and analyze. But until science does experiments that can be thoroughly tested and re-tested, it's anyone's guess. I just wouldn't be asking Miss Cleo about the right answer if I were you.[!gad]We've all seen late night commercials telling us to call to see our future. Only $19.99 for three whole minutes! What a bargain. I can prepare for the worst with that kind of information. Except, we all know- or should know- that these people aren't psychic. No one can read our minds, no one really knows the future, and if they can they haven't come out to the rest of the world. Yet, in my own experience I've had strange occurrences that just don't make sense. I've predicted the future, seen it flash before my eyes then saw it happen in real life a minute later. If psychics don't exist, can there be a reasonable explanation for what some people are actually experiencing?

Cold Reading

Majority of psychics will use one of two methods. The first is called cold reading. It's a deceptive use to get information out of people, then make it look like the person knew that information all along. These deceptive practices are popular among people who claim to talk to the dead, or attempt to predict something with a big audience. If I said “I see the letter M...does anyone here have a relative with the letter M that has passed on?” You might be thinking of your Uncle Matt. I then say something like “Uncle Matt, yes he is here talking to me now. I feel like he died of some type of blood issue. Was there some blood issue?” “Oh yes he died of a heart attack!” “OK yes, I see that now. Do you have anything you'd like to say to him?” “Well, I miss him. And his kids miss him. Is he OK?” “He's fine, he misses you all as well.”

Now, someone out there that's reading this maybe just got freaked out a little bit. But it's OK, I didn't just predict a conversation with your dead Uncle Matt (may he rest in peace). I wasn't even talking to him. It's simply cold calling.

The second way is also known as cold calling: using vague coverall terms to describe something in someone's past. For example: “I feel like you're usually cheery, but there has been an event that has made you unhappy.” People will latch on to something bad that's happened recently and say “Oh yes! I was so angry at my dog and I'm just so unhappy about his potty training.” Or something along those lines. It's the exact same thing fortune cookies, tarot cards and horoscopes do. They make the person read into them, and apply their own life. In reality, they can apply to numerous people in numerous situations.

The Brain is Faster Than We Think

I've seen the future myself, and have predicted strange things. The first time I went to a friend's house, knocked on his door to see if he was home. No one. I got a flash in my head of his mom's car driving down the road, him in the passenger seat. I walked away, and as I walked down the steps I looked up. The exact images I had seen before in my head were replaying in real life. How could this be?

For years I called myself psychic. I once sat at a diner with people I hadn't seen in ages. I told a friend of mine exactly how her sister killed herself. I somehow was able to tell her the color of her bed sheets.

So what would be a good explanation for seeing our futures? Can we really and truly be psychic? Of course not. I've made predictions that went no where. I've tried talking to the dead and wound up wrong on many circumstances.

Our nature of being able to sense things comes down to our brains.

We still don't entirely understand the purpose of every single gland, but studies have shown humans being able to react to images five seconds before they come into a flashing screen. On top of that, there are many instances in which disasters are missed by numerous people- trains that crash typically have less than an average amount of people on them.

The idea here is that our minds are faster than we are able to realize, and sometimes cope with. We know how certain things will happen or can give all the results of on incidence. If someone said, sticking your hand out of a window of a moving car would get your hand cut off- would you believe it? This is where foresight comes in, where we know something might happen- but probability says it won't.

We know humans can read each other as well- but there are no experiments that check to see if we're able to quickly know the atmosphere of an entire room. Typically crashes of trains and planes occur due to an error on someone's part. Could that person walking through give off the idea they're going to fail? Could we then be perceiving the feelings of others' uncertainties from that one person?

My theory is that this is exactly how psychics work. Our brains very quickly analyze a situation, and our bodies react to that situation. Some people can do it faster, some people can't. But what about predictions people have made way into the future? Some of us likely are able to play on the idea of probability, without even realizing it.

As for being able to see what color the bed sheet was of my friend's suicidal sister? Our memories aren't as good as we think. I gave a very probable answer to what the bed sheet was. The girl killed herself with a handgun, but I had stated she had done so with pills first. Even I was wrong, though I explained my being wrong because the girl had attempted to kill herself with pills before. Typical behavior of suicidal people, and thus a good guess as to what happened.

And the scene with the car? Maybe I heard the car in the background faintly, and my brain created images of what I was expecting to see before I saw it. Just like in the five second experiment, their brains were able to quickly analyze how they should be feeling before they should.

Or hey, maybe there is something more to it than simply our brains being faster than we can think and analyze. But until science does experiments that can be thoroughly tested and re-tested, it's anyone's guess. I just wouldn't be asking Miss Cleo about the right answer if I were you. Comments (8)

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