Photo: Viva Luna Studios, Unsplash
And Now For Something Completely Different! Seeing The Future:
Neurology & Psych researchers including Bill Murray and The Oracle At Delphi have been doing future-insight research for quite awhile now.
In the 90s, Professor Dean Radin at U. Nevada ran EEG experiments showing negative images caused subject’s reactions before they were even seen.
They were later replicated at least 30 times.
Professor Julia Mossbridge has been recording prophetic dreams since she was 7 and also believes most people are capable of something similar.
Their explanation? Time and information are non-linear and can move any direction via quantum mechanics.
-Which all sounds utterly-fascinating. Until you dig a little deeper…
The Short Answer:
- Researches like Dean Radin, Daryl Bem and Julia Mossbridge think foretelling the future is real.
- The institutes they belong to and their jobs have very “interesting” names.
- They claim this precognition works because of something like “The Quantum Realm” from Ant-Man.
- But large open-source trials with tight controls debunk their claims.
- The thing that is supported by evidence is Gut Instinct.
- This is basically your subconscious high-speed pattern-matching machine working on its vast library.
- It seems like a “Sixth Sense” because you don’t notice it and it’s literally as fast as lightning.
- Successful studies include 1) Identifying decks of bad cards, 2) Recognizing voices despite noise, 3) Higher Happiness, 4) Better Complex Decisions, and 5) Behavioral Analysis to name a few.
- All the precognition work is filled with cherry-picking, biases, and data-tampering.
- It would have to violate most of neurology and physics to actually work.
- Is the Jack of Diamonds the card you picked? -I KNEW IT!!!
- There are at least 8 great ways to reconnect with your intuition, including 30+ minutes of Mindfulness Meditation.
- We should all remember Peter Venkman’s ESP experiments in the classic film, “Ghostbusters”.
Read on to find out the details…
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The Precognition Folks Have Interesting Schools And Job-Titles:
…-Because Dean really only just passed through UNLV.
His main hangout? IONS. -Or the Institute of Noetic Sciences. -Similar to Julia Mossbridge who hangs out at The Center for the Future Mind and other places with interesting accreditation.
Her job title? Senior, Distinguished, !Fellow! in Human Potential at that center.
And Dean’s used to be even fancier before Chief “Scientist”. It was Professor of Integral and Transpersonal Psychology at the California Institute of Integral Studies. -Take that!
But their theory that information from multiple futures flows backwards through Ant-Man’s “Quantum Realm” while you sleep is Not That Far-Off!!!
-IF… you make one TEENY tiny little tweak and change it over to: Gut-Instinct while you’re awake!
It Turns Out Intuition Is The Thing With The Real Evidence:
That’s where things get interesting; -because there’s actual evidence there; from real, unadulterated studies.
From purchasing decisions, to tactical operations, to behavioral observation & forecasting, with clear data.
Many of them suggest something like 5% or “Tip of the iceberg”-territory is the amount of brain-processing that we even notice.
All the rest of it is “below the surface”, in no small part thanks to your brain’s Attention System (or RAS).
So Is Gut Instinct Just Probiotics, Gas, Or Indigestion?:
Intuition is a real-time high-speed pattern-matching system that uses at least 3 special brain pathways that are super-fast.
But it’s so fast, your brain will detect a threat in 30-60 milliseconds.
This is -literally- lightning-fast and quicker than you can blink your eyes.
Your conscious, analytical mind is left in the dust at about 10x slower than intuition.
It’s so fast, it even has time for a checking routine in there, too!
-That’s why it seems like it’s a Sixth Sense. Because it and the thousands of patterns you know is behind-the-scenes processing you almost never notice.
And because it’s not the same as step-by-step rational thought, it’s hard to verbalize which adds to the mystique.
A Few Examples Of Your Pattern-Matching Superfreak At Work:
For example, a chess grandmaster can access at least 50,000 patterns and come up with an answer for the next move in about 5 seconds.
Military operators and firemen often will act on intuition just seconds before things got worse.
Teachers have been able to predict students’ final grades after watching only a few seconds of video and noticing any of at-least 215 different behaviors & “tics”.
In experiments with voices and decks of cards:
Subjects’ skin conductance changed 8x faster when choosing bad cards vs. good cards from 4 decks than the time it took subjects to figure out which was which.
Subjects were played a series of voices so quickly and close together that they failed to tell the difference, but their skin-conductance went up when they heard their own voice.
Gut instincts also worked better for satisfaction with complex purchases like houses.
But weirdly, deliberate analysis and research worked better for satisfying purchases of simpler things like laptops.
Where Does Precognition Differ And Really Fall Apart?:
But where Intuition is based on at least 10 years of exposure to quick, accurate feedback,
And 4 or more brain regions all working in the background, while your conscious mind is just “the tip of the iceberg”.
Precognition is based on things that can’t be fact-checked and,
Multiple Biases like: Confirmation, Hindsight, Fudging Memories, and Poorly-recalled or recorded dreams.
Not to mention sketchy un-reproduceable “studies” violating decades or more evidence from psychology, neurology, thermodynamics, and physics.
And repurposing Quantum-Mechanics to suggest information and time can “Woo” their way backwards from multiple possible futures.
If that were even true and also clear enough to understand from all the 1,000,000,000,000 possibilities,
Like, wouldn’t there be some really conspicuous stock-trading billionaires with no training or experience, not named Stanley Druckenmiller?
But Wait! Fear Not! You Don’t Need “Woo-Woo” To Have A Spidey Sense!:
Here are a few things you can do to strengthen your own connection to Intuition:
1) Mindfulness Meditation
1a) It seems to clear-out a lot of “mind chatter”
2) Regular Journaling
2a) Ideas & Inspirations on paper or phone
2b) 5 minutes/day to help clear-out mind noise
2c) Track your “something’s off” feelings
3) Deliberate Alone-Time With No Inputs (like phone, computer, books, or music)
3a) Nature walks are particularly good for this
4) Professional Therapy
4a) Clear out mind-noise, judgment issues, or counterproductive habits
5) Flip A Coin During Decisions
5a) Helps to find a bias or hope toward one or the other
6) Play the “I Wonder” Game about.
6a) The first or next thing of any type you’ll see or hear
6b) Who might contact you next
6c) How many people are doing any specific action right now
6d) Who, or how many people might be doing the same thing as you
7) Body Awareness Scans
7a) Where does unease or anxiety tend to sit in your body?
8) Sleep On It For Big Decisions
8a) Just like the Buying A House study
Altered-States Will Not Turn You Into “Nostradamus”, Bro!:
So with all of that, just know that as freaky as it seems, there is a real scientific basis for your Intuition or Gut-Instinct.
And sadly, Precognition is looking like woo-woo science-repurposing BS.
Just like it was more than 2000 years ago at the Oracle At Delphi.
So if a highly-collaborative, open-source, mega-study in 2023 found lower than pure chance, coin-flip odds for Precog,
Then huffing volcano-farts or watching Avengers:Endgame is not going to change the idea of predicting the future from dreams or other altered-states.
End-Of-Article BONUS! A Few Personal Tips And Also Bill Murray!:
But Wait! There’s more!
Now, for everyone who made it to the end of the article.
1) Always trust your gut instinct when it comes to
a) Safety
b) Health Concerns
c) When you feel something is “off” in a relationship
d) What you feel you’re really capable of if you try, despite anxiety, impostor syndrome, haters, etc.
2) One of the best demonstrations of ESP we have. Dr. Peter Venkman and his Tarot Zener Cards from the classic film, “Ghostbusters”:
References & Links:
• Source Studies:
• Science – On making the right choice: the deliberation-without-attention effect
• Powerful people rely on internal body cues
• Science – The neural basis of intuitive best next-move generation in board game experts
• Emotion – Should I Go With My Gut? Investigating the Benefits of Emotion-Focused Decision Making
• EU.J.Sci.Rsrch – Trust Your Instincts: The Relationship Between Intuitive Decision Making And Happiness
• Science – [Iowa Gambling] Deciding Advantageously Before Knowing the Advantageous Strategy
• APAPsychNet – Self-deception: A concept in search of a phenomenon [hearing your own voice]
• RSC Open Sci – Raising the value of research studies in psychological science by increasing the credibility of research reports: the transparent Psi project [mega study debunking the 2011 original]
