How do clairvoyants know things??

While in the depths of postnatal sleep deprivation, I had an incidence of sleep paralysis. It was absolutely terrifying. I woke to find I couldn't move, like something was sitting on me, and I could sense an evil black presence to my left, looking at me. As weird coincidence had it, I'd read something about SP not long before, and I remembered that you could sync your brain and body back to normality by moving your eyes left and right. I did this and the awful sensation disappeared. But If I hadn't already known what it was, I'd absolutely have believed that something otherworldly had come to terrorise me.

A guy really freaked out once because I said he was a computer programmer and was spot on. His hands, his hobbies, his manner, the way he dressed, his glasses it was all such a give away.

Ah, @PensionMention was this around 1985ish in the Southeast of England? May have been my DH, if so! He was the archetypal geeky nerd, way before it was cool.
Rubbish dresser, glasses, the lot. Computer whizz.
He had that exact experience with a pub psychic. His friends had to point out that it really wasn’t a difficult call!

My own experience was even less impressive. White Feathers psychic centre in Edinburgh, 1992. The medium was very pleased with herself telling me I was pregnant… I was nine months gone!
I nearly cringed myself inside out when she then went on to throw all sorts of stuff at me, none of which was relevant or familiar.

@OctopusFriend My Mother was very superstitious and she and I are very similar as is one of my sisters. Just good at reading people. She said never use your intuition for bad things as it’s wrong.

I don't disagree with you ....and it may well not be supernatural in that case..... but I just really hope it was :) :) lol

I don't think anyone is trying to dismiss your experience, but to explain it.

Something weird happened. You heard a man's voice and there wasn't anyone there. It was real. You felt it. I 100% believe this happened.

I don't think either you or I know why it happened, though. I believe there will be a rational explanation, but I can't prove there will be.

It's not open-minded, though (and I'm not accusing you of this) to believe it must be otherworldly or psychic or supernatural before completely interrogating the rational explanations for it. If there are many recorded examples of hearing voices in a medical context, especially in a meditative or waking state, then that's surely the most likely explanation.

It's still weird and powerful and profound. And it wasn't a dream. But how would the experience of an auditory hallucination in your brain feel different to a spooky voice calling you?

Also remember that over time, if you want to believe, you'll change your recollection without even realising it. I saw this happen in real time on here once. A woman was convinced she had entered a time slip on her way back to her holiday let and as the conversation went on, she started changing various details that suggested she actually just got a bit lost in an unfamiliar area. Stuff like: the first time she told the story, she said she'd made that journey at least once before. A couple of pages later, as people suggested she just hadn't known the area very well, she started saying that she'd actually made the journey every day of thr holiday prior to that. The complexity of the journey and other things changed and eventually even when someone put contradicting lines she'd written right by each other, she just refused to accept it. I don't think she was intentionally lying, she just really wanted to believe she entered a time slip rather than just got a bit lost on holiday.

There really is a reason all these stories about unbelievably accurate and specific readings that couldn't possibly be coincidence happened in the distant past, and people don't recall the 500 wrong or very ambiguous predictions that were made as well.

The majority of them are nonsense however i went to one who was spookily accurate. A lot of folk are too small minded to even consider that something exists that we have no concept of though.

Yes, once we thought the Earth was flat and now we are 100% certain it isn't. Anyone who now insists the earth is flat doesn't have an open mind, they have a non-functioning mind.

We don't know all the secrets of the Universe, but we know what sound waves are. You don't need to have an open mind about sound waves.

Facebook / Instagram / etc.. A good online stalker can know more about you than you can know about yourself. These days it's ALL online, makes it easier for the shills to part you from your money.

That's a relief 😄!

Thanks, that's interesting - you never know what a myth is, in these cases.

A thousand years ago we didn't have a clue about sound waves. Even now we think we know about them, whose to say we have everything right, especially as we can't even see them. For many years we thought the earth was flat.
It's important to keep an open mind.

Ah okay @moggerhanger damn I hoped that was true, especially the elephants huddling together in an open space! You husband sounds interesting, I love all that stuff

DH (who knows about this stuff) says the animals detecting earthquakes thing is a nope. In some cases they might detect P-waves but only a few seconds before the main tremor. Everything else is anecdote with lots of confirmation bias.

I’m good at reading people, always have been, I’m not psychic. There are just many clues and I have an eye for detail that many don’t have. I also feel a bit of a vibe off of people, it doesn’t mean anything at all. A bit of a party trick was guessing what people did for a living, have done it in pubs when younger. A guy really freaked out once because I said he was a computer programmer and was spot on. His hands, his hobbies, his manner, the way he dressed, his glasses it was all such a give away. You can lead people with statements and they don’t realise they are doing it. It’s also the way you say it. Needless to say as a human if I’m honest I have been able to subtly manipulate many people to do what I want all my life. Fortunately I’m not an especially awful person.

Yes, they can, they're very sensitive. As such they can be incredibly useful.

Or like those support dogs who can help their humans detect when they're about to have a seizure, I find all that fascinating

Can't animals detect earthquakes are coming a little bit before they actually do too?

That sounds really fascinating. Talking of science and the Soham murders (qv), the work of forensic botanist Patricia Wiltshire is amazing. Literally matching plant pollen to the murderer.
Thus securing a conviction.

Some of the claims on here for the powers of clairvoyants are certainly extraordinary.

A while back I started listening to the Uncanny podcasts, as I love a ghost story. I ended up being far more interested in the analysis of the events, with the likes of Ciaran O'Keefe. I've also attended a couple of Skeptics In The Pub talks from Chris French and Brian Sharpless. I've ended up absolutely fascinated by just how glitchy and unreliable the human brain is, and how we persuade ourselves that supernatural things must be real.

Prof French's book "The Science Of Weird Shit" is a must-read.

Right.

Actually, the girls' deposition site was found by accident by a local gamekeeper investigating a suspicious smell/fire. The same day, witness statements and clothing finds enabled the initial arrest of Huntley and Carr. Forensics and witness statements were later used as part of the prosecution case.

My comment, as I am sure you realise, was simply to show how the victim of a serious crime can sometimes make sense of things with the help of a medium, and the limits and perceptions of this are made clear in Kevin's book, where he also discusses the police response to the medium's remarks.

When I was younger and more gullible I visited supposed clairvoyants - they were all charlatans and full of shit. Once you see them guessing and trying to cold call it’s pretty obvious that’s how they work.

Auditory hallucinations, when in a relaxed state or on the verge of sleep, are super common. I sometimes hear music, or think I've heard a loud crash. More here: https://my.clevelandclinic.org/health/symptoms/23233-auditory-hallucinations

I do know what you mean. I've been a teacher for many, many years and know how to handle teenagers, there's nothing I haven't dealt with. I always know when someone is lying, or troubled, or covering something up, usually before the parents do. I'm sorting out issues every day and I can just work it out, as you do, from various clues.