I’m going to give you the best method to become telepathic. This is a big secret, so please don’t tell anyone :-P.
The ability to read someone else’s mind is the same ability as reading your own mind. To read someone else’s mind, you need to simply read your own.
Now this might not make sense at first. You might argue, “That’s stupid, I’m thinking about things all the time, yet I can’t read anyone else’s mind.” Well, there is a difference between “thinking” and “reading your own mind”.
We all think. Thinking is easy. To read your own mind, it’s a question of: what are you thinking about right now? And why?
The degree to which you can answer those questions correctly is the degree to which you are consciously telepathic.
Please don’t discount this idea. I know it might seem simple on the surface. But it’s actually much more difficult than you might originally think. What are you thinking about right now? Have you ever looked?
Right now, I’m thinking about 100,000 different things, all at once. And so are you. What we’re immediately aware of is just scratching the surface. I’m thinking about my family, my job, females, food, money, the future, the past, my possessions, the time, my toe, this post… I’m planning, organizing, digging, covering up, learning, teaching, breathing, slouching. In an instant.
This is what meditation is all about. Or at least - one aspect of meditation. Sit down and look inside your own head. Look at what you’re thinking about. Trace it back. Why are you thinking about that? What is it connected to? What sparked your current train of thought? And what sparked the spark? Can you keep your mind quiet? Can you stop all thought? Probably not for long - so why not? What thoughts arise to fill the void?
After doing this for a long time, you start to get a hang for how your mind works. The surprising thing is that everyones mind is exactly the same. The people you hate and the people you love are all using the same mind. It’s the very mind that you use. It’s my mind as well.
Practice this if telepathy interests you. You’ll begin to see other people think inside your own mind. You’ll see their eyes, and your thoughts will be their thoughts. You’ll start seeing the future. Not because you’re “psychic” or anything like that - simply because you are aware.
On the down side, reality can become boring when you know what’s going to happen. It’s like watching a movie in slow motion. Seeing a sentence form in someone’s mind, only to hear them start to speak it; waiting patiently for them to finish what you’ve already seen. Doing something before you’re “suppose” to do it. Throwing off the natural order of events, and confusing people. Becoming offended by people’s thoughts, and them having no clue why you’re so pissed off at them. Becoming annoyed before an annoying person starts to annoy you - and then becoming even more annoyed when they do exactly what you knew they were going to do :-P.
On the plus side, there is a lot less worry. If something fails, you see it fail before it does… and you may see it succeed even further down the line. While everyone else is coming to terms with the failure, you already see the solution manifesting in the future, so it’s easy to stay positive. Now you just have to wait around for the present to catch up :-P.
Ironically, Jesse just e-mailed me the following news article: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/19875410/site/newsweek/
Happy reading :-).
July 24th, 2007 at 6:28 pm
I knew you were going to say that.
Looking at it from a perspective of Steve Pavlina’s subjective reality blog posts, we create everyone else around us anyway, including their thoughts, so you’re not really reading someone’s mind but anticipating your own mind projecting the thoughts.
Or not.
-Jesse
July 24th, 2007 at 7:58 pm
I don’t think that quite what Steve means. I think he means we are all part of one consciousness- lets call it the god consciousness. All we and others are, are the thoughts of the one consciousness. So, because I am both me and the god consciousness then I create you- however you also create me.
In SR we create each other.
Anyway, I’ll try out your suggestion peebs.
July 24th, 2007 at 9:07 pm
Yay, something else to try! ;^.^
Nice explanation…you got me thinking of random things, say, bananas, and connecting them to something else…like…computers.
No matter what I think of, I can ALWAYS find a connection, even if it takes about 15 steps to do it. (banana -> monkey -> human -> computer, for a very crude example)
It’s not really the way to do what you described, but it’s fun!
-ARK-
July 24th, 2007 at 9:51 pm
From Steve Pavlina’s Subjective Reality Q & A: http://www.stevepavlina.com/blog/2006/05/subjective-reality-qa/
“So is everyone else just a projection of myself — my spouse, children, etc?
Yes. Within a subjective belief system, EVERYTHING is a projection of consciousness.”
Some people can take this more literally than others, but it is a very interesting way to look at things.
-Jesse
July 24th, 2007 at 11:56 pm
Interesting..
I’m sort of confused though.
If you understand your own thinking process well, it makes sense that you could understand other people’s thinking process (although to the point of telepathy seems hard to comprehend). But you talk about being able to sense the future. Could you elaborate how thats linked to being aware of yourself?
July 25th, 2007 at 3:30 am
The bit on the future threw me off a bit. While certainly related to mind, it brings me a bad feeling in the pit of my stomach, because of my constant conflict with whether or not free will exists.
My personal belief is that my thoughts were just “created” by me, and that it was just that simple, but now that I’ve been more exposed to the scientific world and see that even our minds can be explained by science, I feel my sense of free will fading away.
I find that all my thoughts are linked to something else in a very direct way, like having seen something earlier. I think my ADD tendencies helped avoid that sort of thought at an earlier time, but because I’m becoming more focused, it’s becoming more of a problem.
It seems to me like one of the most assumed concepts, free will, is a supernatural idea. and that scares me.
July 25th, 2007 at 9:25 am
I had these same thoughts at first. After all, if you can “tell the future,” that means that the future is already written.
Doc Brown would advise otherwise.
Sean’s method is not telling the future, even though it may appear to others that way. What it is is perceiving the choices others are making. You are not perceiving a definite outcome in the future, you are perceiving others choices and their exercises in free will. Since their thoughts are formed before they verbalize them, sometimes long before, then you can beat them to the punch
Taking it a step further, through the lens of SR, there are no other people, only your single consciousness. However, free will and choice are still the backbone of the idea. “You” are choosing what both “you” and “others” are doing, because there is really no difference. The only thing that exists is free will.
Correct me if I’m wrong, Sean, I don’t want to put words in your mouth.
-Jesse
July 25th, 2007 at 10:00 am
That is my current belief, yes Jesse.
There is no conflict between free will and determinism. I outline an example in the “Lottery Project” page, under the section “The Philosophy”. http://alittleweird.com/the-lottery-project/
Ultimately, it is impossible to predict the future (according to my current understanding). The act of prediction means that the world IS deterministic. But if I “predict” that I’m going to shower in 20 minutes, and then I actually go shower in 20 minutes - is that a real prediction? You would argue: no, of course not. Why not? Because I made a choice to shower. We can’t predict the future, but we create the future with our choices, so it can look like prediction. And we can make intelligent guesses as to what choices we’re going to make to give the illusion of prediction.
If I know where you are, and I know where you’ve been, and I know the direction you’re facing - I can make a pretty damn good prediction on where you’re going to be. And I can be correct 99% of the time. Ultimately, I can’t know 100% though, because it’s your decision.
~Sean
July 25th, 2007 at 10:19 am
There’s an episode of Futurama where Bender meets God (or the remains of a space probe that crashed into God)…
Bender: Do you know what I’m going to do before I do it?
God: Yes
Bender: What if I do something different?
God: Then I don’t know that.
…
I love that episode.
July 25th, 2007 at 10:32 am
http://youtube.com/watch?v=2u8clU9QejU
Lol.
July 25th, 2007 at 12:33 pm
So… let me see if I’m getting this. My understanding is that this belief is not telepathy in the “popular” or “occult” sense of the word (I’m the last person that should define the occult sense of the word telepathy, but I guess if I had it it would be communication without any of the five basic human senses. Like I said, I could be way off).
Anyway, It sounds to me like this belief is more along the lines of the use of careful observation and empathy to forecast another’s actions. In other words, if I can place myself in your exact position, including knowledge of past events, then the thoughts regarding the future that are generated by MY mind should be similar to the thoughts generated by YOURS.
Additionally, you’re saying that while our minds are essentially the same in generating thoughts, free will still exists. So while thoughts generated by my mind should resemble yours, I may perhaps choose one path while you would choose another, depending on our will.
If I have all of this right, then my question is this: Is my will determined by my experiences? In other words, in the above example where you and I would choose different paths based on our different wills, is this because I only empathized with your position and did not actually experience it? Had I experienced your past first-hand, would I in fact choose the same path as you, or is there another factor that affects our decision making? Our individual “souls” perhaps?
It’s a monster of a question. Are we all a part of one conglomerate consciousness where our differences are all just a matter of environment and experience? Or (obviously hypothetically) if each of us were born and raised under exactly identical conditions (same environment, same genetic make up, same influences), would there be originality? Just curious I guess…
July 25th, 2007 at 2:07 pm
It is my opinion that our will is not DETERMINED by our experiences. Certainly our experiences have a huge factor. But there is a thread of pure original consciousness that only you have. Now how often do we actually exercise this pure original thread of consciousness? The older we get, the less we use it, and the more we become programmed and scripted by our habits and experiences. But it still exists.
Just my opinion on the subject. I’m no authority on how reality functions. Reality may or may not agree with me :-P.
July 25th, 2007 at 3:06 pm
@Whitehat
It seems that you are touching on some debates inside of existentialism and transcendentalism. These are very fascinating subjects and have been the topic of debate for hundreds of years, if not longer.
This is the underlying idea behind this telepathy post (again, correct me if I’m wrong, Sean):
There is an energy in the world that is mostly invisible. Some cultures call it Chi, or Psi, or something else. This energy flows through everyone and everything, as we are all ultimately “made” of the same physical atomic material. This energy can be used to transfer ideas, can be physically manipulated, etc.
Some people perceive this energy more than others. Some are too programmed to not accept this as a possibility. Some are born with it, others learn it later.
Sean’s example in this post plays off of this energy, in getting in tune with the energy and thoughts around you.
July 25th, 2007 at 3:28 pm
Is it just me, or has anyone else been humming “Freewill” by Rush a lot lately?