Believe it or Not

Do you think anything to do with the paranormal is nonsense because there’s no empirical, verifiable proof it exists.

But empirical means observed so when people insist they’ve already been there and done that despite not having a handle on how it all works surely it counts for something?

Not to skeptics who only accept empirical proof in the practice of science where they’re forced to rely on the first-hand findings of others.

Although we’re conditioned to be cynical about any mention of the ‘weird’ that alone doesn’t invalidate people’s experiences.

Now Neuroscience Focuses on Psychic Phenomena

The field of Neuroscience has undergone considerably changes over the past Fifteen years plus with special emphasis on the study of the mystical.

One reason for this has been the influence of the Dalai Lama — Yes, you read right — when neuroscientist Richard Davidson visited him in the 1990’s and was challenged with the words; you use the tools of modern neuroscience to study depression, anxiety and fear but why not use these same tools to study kindness and compassion.

As the story goes some Buddhist monks were then brought into the lab for a few hours to have their brains scanned by an MRI machine.

Nevertheless this was only the beginning of the spiritual revolution in Neuroscience.

According to Buddhist belief consciousness informs life so the universe itself is a collectively conscious thing with neuroscience now agreeing with the basic principles of Zen Buddhism.

Dr Julia Mossbridge studied precognition for Fifteen years and recently published a book about premonitions.

She also reveals how a premonition saved her family from a dangerous house fire — mentioning her many other premonitory experiences and also recording the experiences of others.

One example was that of Krysia Newman who after experiencing a reoccurring dream of being attacked by a dog took precautions but the fourth time she had the dream she heard herself screaming while a dog snarled.

The next day her dream came true when a Rottweiler jumped out at her from behind a hedge but in retrospect she claimed her dream helped her prepare for the eventuality — in a forewarned is forearmed type way — and she managed to calm the dog until help arrived.

Haley Grinnell dreamed her friend won 500 Pounds, the next day her friend’s wife won the exact amount at Bingo.

The ‘Science’ Behind Premonitions

Okay so we don’t need science to tell us premonitions serve as a warning and might help us prepare for a specific event — but can it shed more light on the phenomenon?

Dr Julia elaborates; in many ways precognition makes logical sense because predicting the future is an essential function of the nervous system.

For example if while out walking we hear a dog barking it’s not precognitive but we still “predict” we may see a dog around the corner.

In studies she headed a team with questions like; do our bodies give different unconscious signals to a picture of someone pointing a gun versus one of a flower and the answer was yes.

So the body goes through changes in advance of future important events alerting our non- conscious minds to what is likely to happen.

Other studies — also impressive and repeatable — showed that some rare people can successfully perform mental prediction for randomly selected events, days, weeks, or months in the future.

This is often called ‘precognitive remote viewing’. Or you could call it ‘controlled precognition’ because it is a conscious effort to gather information about future events.

But the burning question is; if precognition exists, how does it work? The idea that the future may be glimpsed in the now sounds laughable — surely the definition of time is that it’s a ‘flow’ of events from the past into the future.

Physicists don’t agree whether this simple flow of time exists. In most physics equations, for example, time can go forward or backwards.

Our concept of time flowing in one direction exists because we believe that certain events cause other events — a phenomenon known as causality.

According to everyday experience, it seems like events in the past are the only things that can cause something to happen in the future — the cause always precedes the effect. But some experts believe there is good evidence that, if causality exists at all, future events can cause things in the past.

But science will have to get a better grip on space-time, dimensionality, gravity and electromagnetics to better understand how things work.

Can you feel the Magnetic Field?

A study of people’s brain waves when surrounded by different magnetic fields points to humans possessing a sixth sense for magnetism.

Birds, fish and other creatures can sense earth’s magnetic field and use it for navigation, now scientists have learned by exposing people to an earth-strength magnetic field pointed in different directions in the lab, distinct brain wave patterns occur in response to rotating the field in a certain way — proving people respond subconsciously to the earth’s magnetic field.

Of course why and how our brains use this information remains to be seen but studies continue.

Two Different Realities CAN Exist at the same Time

We might have to ditch the way we conduct science according to a new experiment which proves that two subjects with opposing observations can both be right- at least in the Quantum world.

The experiment involved two people observing the same thing- in this case a single Photon.

The photon is observed in either a horizontal or vertical state — but before the observation is made — it exists in a state of superposition — or both states at once.

Based on a thought experiment in 1961 known as Wigner’s Friend both observations and therefor both realities can be proven to be true simultaneously.

Using 6 entangled photons the scientists were able to replicate Wigner’s Friend.

When observed the photons existed in a state of polarization but when tested using an interference experiments it was concluded that the photons still existed in a state of superposition.

But just as important the study challenges the foundations of how observations are made and the implications for how we do science in the future.