Robrob
Philosopher
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- Aug 29, 2011
- Messages
- 5,497
My experience with telekinesis
- Thread starter showerhead123
- Start date
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- Tags
- psi wheels telekinesis
Okay, I'm going to treat the OP seriously.
First, I've seen "ghosts" too--in fact, I had one that showed up repeatedly at one place I lived. There are the phenomena of hypnogogic and hypnopompic hallucinations, where basically you are dreaming but also able to look at the real world. They occur as you are either going to sleep or waking up (this can be an interruption in night-time sleep as well as the start and end of your time in bed). I have seen a robed figure between me and the closet doors of my bedroom; I've had this figure place its skeletal hand over my face. And I REALLY woke up, screaming like someone who was terrified (which I was) and shaking with very real adrenaline. My astronaut/high altitude aviator with his head still in the helmet he had under his arm was not nearly so scary; but he was interesting because I saw him probably three or four times. Eventually, I noticed that the light fixture that would be just barely, partially visible in a dark room (I have excellent night vision) was the source of the helmet shape...but I will not say I didn't see it. I did! The experience was as real as seeing a friend down the corridor at the mall.
And that's the point, really: the reality we experience is a synthesis our brain performs, combining sensory experience--some of which is kept, some of which is discarded--and our mental assessment, our expectations, knitted together to fill in the gaps and give us the experience of a continuous, multi-sensory harmonious sensible existance. But it is actually a creation of our brain. We experience things that aren't real all the time, and we fail to experience things that are real, all the time: It's just that mostly they are not important differences. You can find a number of good books discussing this very issue--our knowledge of the interface between sensory neural input and perception is growing quite a lot at this time.
Then we have the additional complication of memory. Our memory is not a tape recorder, it's not a reliable process for recording facts. We edit what goes in, and we edit it every time we recall it. There has been a lot of research on this, and it's not hard to find. Dr. Elizabeth Loftus has done some good work that is pretty readable to the lay person.
Your experience was real; but that does not mean that it reflected what was objectively going on. The only way to test that is to have non-subjective witnesses; to try to remove the ways by which perception can be distorted. If you do, in fact, have any kind of telekinetic ability, then you will be able to turn the whole world on to an aspect of reality that has never been documented.
But I am not going to believe that until and unless you take the steps to prove it.
It's a scary thing, to test one's special abilities under circumstances that might show that it doesn't really exist. I understand this, too: I was a dowser once. But when no one who knew where the object was hidden was in the room, my ability didn't work. Ever. Ergo, it didn't actually exist. Instead, I had a really well developed ability to read people's non verbal clues and derive which way to move; and, like everyone, was subject to what is called the "ideomotor effect". You can look that up, too--basically, movement can occur without you consciously willing it to do so. It's how Ouija boards work, among other things.
I hope you bring a genuine curiosity to discover the truth of your experience's relationship to objective reality. Odds overwhelmingly favor that a camera would not have recorded things moving; or that a foot shook a floorboard, or a car drove by, or there was a movement of air. But if you truly have telekinetic powers, you can work with the people in this Forum to design some simple tests, and work your way up to winning a million dollars and--more importantly--proving something people have dreamed about for centuries.
But to test something means to try to disprove, as well as to prove, the theory.
I wish you good luck, and all honesty, in your explorations. Miss_Kitt
First, I've seen "ghosts" too--in fact, I had one that showed up repeatedly at one place I lived. There are the phenomena of hypnogogic and hypnopompic hallucinations, where basically you are dreaming but also able to look at the real world. They occur as you are either going to sleep or waking up (this can be an interruption in night-time sleep as well as the start and end of your time in bed). I have seen a robed figure between me and the closet doors of my bedroom; I've had this figure place its skeletal hand over my face. And I REALLY woke up, screaming like someone who was terrified (which I was) and shaking with very real adrenaline. My astronaut/high altitude aviator with his head still in the helmet he had under his arm was not nearly so scary; but he was interesting because I saw him probably three or four times. Eventually, I noticed that the light fixture that would be just barely, partially visible in a dark room (I have excellent night vision) was the source of the helmet shape...but I will not say I didn't see it. I did! The experience was as real as seeing a friend down the corridor at the mall.
And that's the point, really: the reality we experience is a synthesis our brain performs, combining sensory experience--some of which is kept, some of which is discarded--and our mental assessment, our expectations, knitted together to fill in the gaps and give us the experience of a continuous, multi-sensory harmonious sensible existance. But it is actually a creation of our brain. We experience things that aren't real all the time, and we fail to experience things that are real, all the time: It's just that mostly they are not important differences. You can find a number of good books discussing this very issue--our knowledge of the interface between sensory neural input and perception is growing quite a lot at this time.
Then we have the additional complication of memory. Our memory is not a tape recorder, it's not a reliable process for recording facts. We edit what goes in, and we edit it every time we recall it. There has been a lot of research on this, and it's not hard to find. Dr. Elizabeth Loftus has done some good work that is pretty readable to the lay person.
Your experience was real; but that does not mean that it reflected what was objectively going on. The only way to test that is to have non-subjective witnesses; to try to remove the ways by which perception can be distorted. If you do, in fact, have any kind of telekinetic ability, then you will be able to turn the whole world on to an aspect of reality that has never been documented.
But I am not going to believe that until and unless you take the steps to prove it.
It's a scary thing, to test one's special abilities under circumstances that might show that it doesn't really exist. I understand this, too: I was a dowser once. But when no one who knew where the object was hidden was in the room, my ability didn't work. Ever. Ergo, it didn't actually exist. Instead, I had a really well developed ability to read people's non verbal clues and derive which way to move; and, like everyone, was subject to what is called the "ideomotor effect". You can look that up, too--basically, movement can occur without you consciously willing it to do so. It's how Ouija boards work, among other things.
I hope you bring a genuine curiosity to discover the truth of your experience's relationship to objective reality. Odds overwhelmingly favor that a camera would not have recorded things moving; or that a foot shook a floorboard, or a car drove by, or there was a movement of air. But if you truly have telekinetic powers, you can work with the people in this Forum to design some simple tests, and work your way up to winning a million dollars and--more importantly--proving something people have dreamed about for centuries.
But to test something means to try to disprove, as well as to prove, the theory.
I wish you good luck, and all honesty, in your explorations. Miss_Kitt
Explorer
Graduate Poster
- Joined
- Jun 22, 2003
- Messages
- 1,516
Try some experiments next time you think you can move an object, and put down some physical markers to see whether or not the object moved in reality, to eliminate the possibility of hallucination, or wishful thinking.
As someone said above, we have all tried telekinesis at some time in our lives in a bored moment, and it has failed.
The psi ball is total rubbish, and feeling the onset of heat in one's hands is a common and natural phenomena. I can remember cycling home from work on a very cold day in my youth, and my hands and fingers were going numb, even with woolen gloves on. I focused on my hands and fingers mentally, wishing the blood would circulate more efficiently through them. Within ten minutes my hands and fingers were really warm again and the numbness was gone.
They may have got warmer anyway, remember I was cycling and generating heat throughout my entire body, but this had not happened before, and there is a genetical disposition in my family for poor circulation in our hands and fingers. However, this was a mind over my own body in this instance, so your psi ball "heat" experience could have been quite natural and expected.
As someone said above, we have all tried telekinesis at some time in our lives in a bored moment, and it has failed.
The psi ball is total rubbish, and feeling the onset of heat in one's hands is a common and natural phenomena. I can remember cycling home from work on a very cold day in my youth, and my hands and fingers were going numb, even with woolen gloves on. I focused on my hands and fingers mentally, wishing the blood would circulate more efficiently through them. Within ten minutes my hands and fingers were really warm again and the numbness was gone.
They may have got warmer anyway, remember I was cycling and generating heat throughout my entire body, but this had not happened before, and there is a genetical disposition in my family for poor circulation in our hands and fingers. However, this was a mind over my own body in this instance, so your psi ball "heat" experience could have been quite natural and expected.
Marduk
Banned
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- Apr 26, 2009
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- 10,183
DevilsAdvocate
Philosopher
- Joined
- Nov 18, 2004
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- 7,686
YOU have won a slower heart. Use it wisely.
arthwollipot
Observer of Phenomena, Pronouns: he/him
First, demonstrate conclusively under controlled conditions that this phenomenon indeed occurs. Only then can you investigate what causes it.
Here's the first step to becoming a millionaire. State your ability clearly and concisely. "I can make x do y." State clearly the conditions under which you can make this occur, and ensure that there are no other reasons why x might do y. In the case of psychokinesis - which is usually defined as making things move by mental power - causing a non-ferrous object to move while under a glass jar would be sufficient.
Donn
Philosopher
This is admirable and worth keeping in the front of your mind.
Faith and lack of doubt are the same as believing before it manifests.
Your act of belief that the pen would move is faith. They are the same.
And yet you don't like that idea:
I hope you get some time to think about what faith is.
That sounds exactly like what you are doing. No snark intended, hallucinations happen when you stare at something for long enough (or when you blank your mind (e.g faith), or hum a monotone, and so on.)
Exactly.
Last edited:
Crossbow
Seeking Honesty and Sanity
Well, since your powers have not been adequately demonstrated, then one cannot tell you how these powers work.
Therefore, if you want people to explain how your powers work, then I suggest that you show people how your powers work.
arthwollipot
Observer of Phenomena, Pronouns: he/him
Correction - I suggest that you show people that your powers work.
Donn
Philosopher
arthwollipot took the correction right out of my brain!
Crossbow
Seeking Honesty and Sanity
Well, since your powers have not been adequately demonstrated, then one cannot tell you how these powers work.
Therefore, if you want people to explain how your powers work, then I suggest that you show people that your powers work.
P.S.: thanks much to 'arthwollipot' for the syntax correction!
Pixel42
Schrödinger's cat
I'm afraid you're not going to get them. There's no way anyone, including you, can reliably determine whether what you're remembering really happened, let alone whether it was paranormal. Even if you weren't hallucinating and your memory is 100% accurate there could be many possible explanations, and there's no way to eliminate the mundane ones after the event.
The best we can do is help you design a suitable test protocol so that if you ever start thinking you can make things move with your mind again you can find out if you're right. There's a thread in the MDC subforum where a test protocol for telekenesis is discussed (though the applicant who prompted it didn't get as far as actually taking the challenge) which would be a good starting point:
http://www.internationalskeptics.com/forums/showthread.php?t=97889
wardenclyffe
Master Poster
- Joined
- Dec 9, 2008
- Messages
- 2,333
I disagree. I think a nice, clear video is a nice first step down the road to convincing skeptics. If it's a video that's full of shenanigans and camera tricks, etc., then it will do nothing. In either case, a video would give us more information about what might be going on. I encourage showerhead123 to videotape the phenomenon.
Ward
RobDegraves
Muse
- Joined
- Mar 31, 2009
- Messages
- 787
From the description in the OP (assuming that it is genuine), my guess would be that Showerhead went through an accidental process of self hypnosis or auto suggestion. Visualization and repetition are both important components of suggestion and it would not be surprising to genuinely see things that didn't happen when practicing that sort of thing without the associated knowledge. As far as the friend is concerned, again a basic form of suggestion is the most likely explanation. In the absence of any other form of verification, that should be what Showerhead should also conclude... unless he has a vested interest in maintaining his belief.
Almo
Masterblazer
Take the advice here. A lot of people here have been through this, and know what they're talking about.
I Ratant
Penultimate Amazing
- Joined
- Apr 8, 2008
- Messages
- 19,258
.
All those on the forum with telekinetic powers, raise my hand.
JoeyDonuts
Frequencies Not Known To Normals
- Joined
- Sep 11, 2008
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100 Quatloos on the newcomer
I'll see that and raise you 50 Schrute Bucks.