Do you have a weird kind of empathy... impressionability?

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If psychic powers are real then why aren't they all rich from a) winning the lottery and b) successfully completing James Randi's Million Dollar Challenge?

Psychics have managed to fool some scientists into believing their powers are real, only to be exposed as frauds by people like James Randi, who are trained in the art of deception ( i.e he was a magician).

Also, believers in paranormal activity and other forms of "woo" tend to appeal to science to give their beliefs some credibility. Referring to energy and quantum physics seems to be a common...

Heheheheh. The reason we aren't all rich from winning the lottery is that psychic ability varies as much as musical talent does, and likewise needs training -- which is hard to come by. Also, very little is known about psychic ability, so "psionics" is still at the stage of being an art, not a science.

The reason why nobody has won The Amazing Randi's challenge is that, frankly, he cheats. I'd recommend a documentary (aired on either PBS or Discovery, IIRC) that followed a little Ukrainian girl who has a remarkable talent for medical diagnosis; she could look at a person -- from a distance of 6-10 feet -- and tell which of his/her organs was "inflamed". She wanted to raise money to go to medical school and become a doctor, so the film crew took her to America to try for the Randi Prize. What Randi & Co. did was, knowing that the girl had no more medical training than she could find in the library of a small back-country Russian village, present her with cases where the major symptoms occurred in one organ but had their source in another. And why did they do this? Because Randi himself said: "If ESP is real, then all of science is wrong" -- which is an incredibly bigoted statement, and reveals his agenda.

BTW, another scientist decades ago commented, in a rare moment of honesty: "On any other subject, one-tenth of the evidence would have convinced me. On this one, ten times the evidence wouldn't convince me." Now is that blatant bias, or what?

Yes, there are a lot of con-men and women who fake being psychic to inveigle money out of people. Well, so what? There are a lot of cheats and con-men in every business -- as the state of our economy shows. And don't get me started on politicians!

But, as I keep saying, check out the half-century's worth of lab-experimental data gathered by the Rhine Institute. Even The Appraising Randi, after studying their data and procedures, was reduced to wailing that "they *must* be cheating somehow" -- even though he couldn't discover any way that could happen, despite his best efforts.

Although the study of psychic phenomena is in about the state that the study of chemistry was in the middle ages -- when it was called Alchemy -- the solid evidence is slowly mounting up. Psychic phenomena are real. What concerns me here is the relationship between psychic ability and Autism/Aspergers conditions. Is there more psychic ability among A/As than NTs, or less? If more, then is it a result of the condition (as in other sensory compensations, such as the blind developing exceptional hearing), or a contributing factor?

--Leslie <;)))><

I'm not sure if this is what you mean or not but, if I am around people who are sad or angry I internalize that emotion and start to feel the same way! For no damn reason at all! Suddenly I am crying or screaming over the same things as those people. It takes me a while to get over it too.

Wow, this is a fascinating thread!

I fear that I am different though. Sometimes I do think I´m picking up on someone´s mood; however, I´ve learned from experience that I am so often wrong about what I think I´m picking up, that I just disregard these things now. I am afraid that I don´t really know what´s going on much of the time, so I just try to be neutral. It feels like guesswork.

(Unless, of course, it´s obvious, and someone is showing clear visual signs of their mood).

Oddly enough though, I have had a few psychic experiences, but they never seem to be emotional experiences based on picking up the feelings of others. Rather, they seem to be thoughts or ideas that just come to me, out of the blue; as if a thought were just handed to me, externally, from somewhere. I´ve also had pre-cognitive dreams.

I guess my way of "figuring people out" has mostly been through reading a lot about psychology, learning the protocol for acting in each situation, and "typing" people.

Hi, Kiseki. Yes, that's exactly what I mean by the effects of psychic empathy ("telempathy" for short). Yes, this shows that you do have psychic talent, and should train it -- at least enough to give yourself effective shields.

Alas, I was wrong: the Rhine Institute does not recommend psychic training organizations; they only test anyone who walks through their doors. This leaves you with a long search ahead for a good training system. I'd still recommend the Silva Mind Control group, or any of the reputable eclectic Yoga schools.

Hi, Morgana. If you pick up distinct thoughts and images, then what you have is properly defined as "telepathy". Pre-cognitive ability may or may not be related to this; if anything, it's more closely related to "clairvoyance" -- knowing facts at a distance. "Precognition", as far as we know, seems to be a psychic perception of patterns -- in nature and society -- so as to understand where they interact. If you can train it further, this could be an invaluable tool.

We're still left with the massive question of the relationship between A/As and psychic talent. All I can think to do at this point is to ask as many A/As as we can find to tell us if they've ever -- let alone repeatedly -- had psychic experiences.

Good hunting, all.

--Leslie <;)))>< )O(

Wow! Wicked! I HAVE actually had psychic experiences before. I once went to a restaurant with my friends and managed to guess the server's exact age, sign, birthdate. It just popped into my head and I had no control over it but it freaked him out. I'v had some weird psychic dreams before as well. And I generally know what people are like just by looking at them. We had this well creepy and terrible boss at my previous work. From the get-go, I was telling all my co-workers how awful he was and not to trust him. They all said "No, no, give him a chance." But in the end I was proven right and they had to tell me so.

I always thought this meant I was good at reading people and therefore couldn't have AS.

Morphing into the personality and mannerisms of who ever you are around is a sign of a personality disorder, mainly borderline personality disorder. It is caused sometimes by early childhood trauma and sometimes genetics. The personality of a person with boderline personality disorder is under-developed thus adopting the personality of those around him/her.
People with BPD often have a feeling an "emptiness" within, sudden mood changes, and often feeling victimized by others whether or not that is the other person's intentions. Often personal relationships can be turbulent because of the person with BPD's deep fear of abanonment.
Medication is often given for mood swings, but there is not much treatment for the perception aspects of the disorder as of today

On psychic abilities

realize that you are not yourself. What you perceive as yourself is really a small grouping of atoms interacting inside of a larger grouping of atoms interacting inside a larger grouping of atoms. Nothing separates you from the air. So why would perception stop where the body appears to stop?

This thread is wierd. I do the same thing. I take on the personalities of people and interact with those personalities to give myself a third person perspective of whatever Im thinking about. People never surprise me so Id say my perceptions are fairly accurate.

I spent about 3 years under the guidance of a sociopath. I didn't realize he was one until he decided to start drinking and revealed his manipulative tendencies. before that I didn't realize these people existed. Since then Ive been hyper vigilant about everyone. I always got this dark feeling around him. Even though he was able to fool my logical brain he was not able to fool my 'psychic' brain or whatever but I wasn't willing to listen to that part of me. I always gave him the benefit of the doubt.

He left his mark on me. He brought out the bitterness and hatred which I had rejected from my life. This is apparently pretty common with sociopathic narcissistic types. Energy vampires

Mimicry or mirroring is common in those with weak internal structure of their own psyche, or when you wish to get on the same vibe/level of another person, usually a friend or lover.

Typically this can be seen at a meeting of two sexually attracted people, usually one or sometimes both people will copy the other persons mannerisms and be so close to the other, as to 'feel' what they are feeling. Once this bond is established, its intimacy time! Prolly why aspies miss out on easy sex.

However, being there for the other, when the other is a sociopath, means absorbing much undigested feeling from the other.

Like the saying 'walk a mile in my shoes'...after that mile walk, the experience of another person can be shattering. Best to keep your forcefield's strong, especially with so many meth addicts and such, carrying such a karmic buden from bad deeds.

No infections! I am strong and stable in my own internal mental landscape!

The only one whose mood I pick up, is my mother's and usually my pets. Never anyone else. I can to some degree predict her reactions due to knowing her well and having seen her in action for years.

I'm very glad I'm not an empathic sponge - it seems exhausting.

Have you ever read any of William Stillman´s books, like "Autism and the God Connection"? He writes about spiritual experiences of people on all parts of the spectrum, giving personal examples of many of them. (He himself has AS, and also has psychic awareness). I think that there *is* a connection: actually, come to think of it, my own theory is that there are different types of giftedness in autistic people: one of them being intellectual genius (the savant)- the stereotype everyone knows about- another would be the creative, artistic visionary (like Vincent van Gogh), and another would be psychic talent. Maybe there are more that I haven´t thought of. It would make sense to me that since autistic people don´t "think like other people", our brains would be set up to focus on other, different things.

I'm going to look that book up. It sounds interesting. Thanks.

You´re welcome! He´s written other books, too. I enjoyed them. I was even thinking of trying to contact him sometime. Maybe he´s even here on Wrong Planet, who knows?

Remarkable! So far we've had several respondents post that, yes, they've had psychic experiences -- and some interesting comments about the difficulty of "holding off" other people's emotions/thoughts/etc. Considering the comments about Borderline Personality Disorder, I have to wonder how much of BPD is caused by insufficient psychic shielding. I can only repeat my earlier suggestions for psychic training.

Now the question is, how many posters here on this blog have *not* had psychic experiences? Let's compare numbers and see if we can find any sort of pattern here.


--Leslie <;)))><

I just joined here and didn't see this discussion until this morning, but I'd like to answer your previous question, if that is alright.

I've had quite a few experiences where I've been able to feel what another person is feeling, whether by talking to them or knowing that something was wrong with a friend from a few states away. There are a lot of times when I can feel what someone is experiencing when they're writing and if I can feel it, then I tend to accept those emotions as my own, just as readily as I would accept thoughts and emotions that clearly don't come from elsewhere as mine. It's not at all uncommon for me to take on traits and quirks of someone if I spend any amount of time around them or if I'm thinking about them. Oftentimes, my handwriting will change <_<

I've known things before about people that I've only just met (or people that I haven't even met) and when it comes up in conversation, I continue to find myself taken aback. Oftentimes, I'm able to tell what a person is going to say before he or she says it or I'll be thinking about a specific person and they'll call. I frequently go into a room where students have just taken an exam and I suddenly feel really sick, like I need to get out of the area immediately and go throw up.

I don't know if this is significant or anything... I feel like I have a fairly strong sense of personality... it's just that my personality happens to be that of a chameleon.

Knowing things about total strangers, or at a distance, with nobody telling you? That's pretty definitely psychic input -- telempathy or clairvoyance. I'm really intrigued by the number of people on this thread who have had genuine psychic experiences.

--Leslie <;)))><