See Without Measuring
Science has found that when you listen to a phrase that makes no, or strange, sense, certain language-comprehension areas of the brain are active. But when that phrase happens to be a joke or a pun, a whole bunch of other areas light up, involving meaning and pleasure and so on.
Well, I would compare that to the experience of COINCIDENCE. Normal and strange things happen, but it isn't until a coincidence - like a joke - happens, that your whole brain lights up and you're focusing your personal SELF on it, sorting out meanings and potentials, and so on. There are deeper experiences of COINCIDENCE, where DEJA VOUS and SYNCHRONICITY happen - these are more psychic and/or superstitious, and have their own profile, where the experience is even more "magical" or "meaningful" or "crazy".
But I am not concerned with the latter two, right now. I want to convey that the experience of a general PSYCHIC sense - an "awareness" that something is happening elsewhere, that you are somehow "aware of", FEELS a lot like the experience of a coincidence, (and sometimes more: like deja vous or synchronicity).
You can think about someone, and that's simply you thinking about someone. It often has some logical or consequential point to it, but it can be out of the blue. But when it comes out of the blue and is filled with this feeling similar to the feeling of COINCIDENCE, then THAT is when you pay attention to it - it may mean that that person is simultaneously thinking of you, or that something significant is happening to that person. Sometimes, an image will accompany this feeling, and this image may be an approximation of their situation, or it may go so far as to be a rendering of their situation via TELEPATHY or REMOTE VIEWING.
HOWEVER, the caveat is this: In my opinion, "psychic" phenomena and experiences are always 50/50 - real and yet not - you can take them or leave them - JUST LIKE QUANTUM PHENOMENA AS EXPLAINED VIA THE EXAMPLE OF "SCHROEDINGER'S CAT". On the one hand, the experience is of a coincidence where you only have ONE side of the incidence - and you lack the "co" - you may think of the person but you have NO EVIDENCE the other person is thinking of you, none whatsoever. And yet you have this strong SENSE to the contrary. You may either dismiss this as silly, or you may attend to it, either way without much immediate consequence in your REAL, or local, WORLD.
However, on the other hand, your brain MAY IN FACT be receiving sufficient information from the "co" side of the equation, via QUANTUM CHAOS, from far away and from beyond time, to make the CO-incidence valid - and this is why it FEELS like a coincidence, (or more), and could be suspected as being a psychic sense. OR - it may be complete nonsense - superstitious magical thinking in a twisted mind. The odd thing which Western science, and people, find so difficult to separate out, though, is that there is no clear dividing line between imagination, and/or mental illness, and mental thought which is "truly representing the state of REALITY". No clear difference between crazy and real.
A theme I was thinking of posting about is this, for example: There are different realities for each person according to his/her own illness, or perception. This isn't just Castanada mumbo-jumbo. Reality, in subtle ways, indeed alters, and influences, depending on if you are schizophrenic, or OCD, or CFS, or "normal", or authoritarian, or Republican, or Progressive, or Canadian... But sorting out those discrete differences, which sometimes can have butterfly effects, is beyond the dull sensitivities of science to measure, and are certainly beyond the capacities of dull people who are challenged in empathy or imagination to entertain as possible. And, each individual is the judge of what is real or psychic or coincidental or nonsense. To each his own.
Instead of judging each other, though, I have found that it is a wonderful thing to entertain the POSSIBILITY of other people's "nonsense" - to allow other individuals to act as alternate information processors, in parallel. To allow that they are unique and real universes unto themselves, with their own hearts and souls. But, those who choose otherwise, those who judge and persecute, they exist as well. And things can be learnt from their doings and their accidents.
Enough of that. I've had a few psychic senses lately, but I mainly just wanted to mention a few common coincidences... I listened to a CD mix of mine which happened to have a song by Cat Stevens on it - a rare song from a CD I had taken out from the library. It ended up being the main song sticking in my head. And then, a day later, that same song is playing as background music to an NPR announcer... "I'm listening to the wind, to the wind of my soul...."
http://www.lyricsreg.com/lyrics/cat+stevens/The+Wind/
I've been having strong psychic sense about a certain LJ friend. And so, coincidences surround this person in my mind. She was assaulted on the same day I saw a girl being assaulted. Her dog was scrapping at a door, during the crisis, and I'm talking to the Realtor about the possibility of my dog scraping at a door. I get a strong sense and suddenly see the LJ friend has simultaneously commented. This has happened a lot - but also, we go for a long time without posting, and often then post at exactly the same time, or within a few minutes.
Last night I dreamt that a city inspector was out looking at each long blade of grass on our property and he starts talking to me about his headaches, etc. But he's a small animal - a marmoset? - and his head has the size and look of a FERRET'S head. Well, this LJ friend creates a new LJ, puts up a post in a add-me community, and there's a pic there, of her holding her ferret - you can mainly only see the ferret's head.
I pay attention to coincidences. This exercises the mind's powers of free-association, if nothing more. And god knows I need to do that or my brain will turn to stone. I believe that studying one's coincidences, dreams, psychic senses, superstition, fears - it is all very important. But not so important as to make one sell all of one's possessions and expect to fly away on a spaceship just because some theocratic profiteer says that JUDGMENT DAY is coming. Judgment day.
The personal dynamics I describe may also culminate into social dynamics which fuel RELIGIONS and their politics. Trust. Magical thinking. Self-importance. Spirituality. Truth. Judgment. The reality of a wiccan may somewhat conform to the mind of the wiccan, and meanwhile certainly be manipulated by the minds of anti-wiccans into being a force which ultimately hangs her as a witch. This is how we manage the reality we share, called "time". Often no better than a haggle of billiard balls.
I forgot the other coincidences I was going to mention. I have been recovering from Friday - and also trying to use beer/meditation to, rather than increase the "underlying" dangerous symptoms of the CFS, but to arrange brain blood pressure so that those problems MIGHT be moved back or at least checked. Beer is normally very bad for those symptoms. I call them symptoms but they may be an aneurism or a tumour or something. So, now I am looking at returning to my house work. If you had THREE full time jobs, with the need to also cook, clean, keep sane, sleep, take care of dog, etc., and they told you you must clear a 6-bdrm, 3-bathroom house, with a basement, porch, garage and attic, where all of your stuff was everywhere, do you think you could do it in a few weeks or months? Nope. My CFS is three full-time jobs. And when I WORK, on GOOD days, it's like I'm pulling a truck behind me. I'll do this rant some other time...
CFS Report (ignore): I also found a way of describing the deep "dizziness" which I get when things get very bad. If you have a fear of heights, you know that giant gripping feeling you get when you approach the edge of a building - it almost distorts reality. It isn't so much fear as some weird thing in the brain. Well, take that and multiply it by a hundred - or thousand - times, and that is the "vertigo" I feel from the worse "CFS" dizziness, except it involves real dizziness and real spinning and real blacking-out. That's the symptom I struggle to avoid, in everything I do.
Can you hold on to your ego
and still stay focused on Tao?
Can you relax your mind and body
and brace yourself for a new life?
Can you check yourself
and see past
what's in front of your eyes?
Can you be a leader
and not try to prove you're in charge?
Can you deal with what's happening
and let it happen?
Can you forget what you know
and understand what's real?
Start a job and see it through.
Have things
without holding on to them.
Do the job
without expectation of reward.
Lead people
without giving orders.
That's the way you do it.
- from the Beatrice Tao.