To ask if anyone else has unexplained "physic" moments

[mellowheart]

I can't explain how this happens but my DH will often start singing a song that I've just suddenly thought of in my head. It's often a very obscure type song, definitely not one he's heard recently. It happens immediately after I've thought it. This has also happened with others but much more often with DH. It's like he's picking up my thoughts, itms. Anyone else get similar type things?

That's not the point though. The question is not why we both thought of that thing at the same time, but how we were both able to be absolutely confident that we had, without uttering a word.

Some of the long distance examples given can't be explained by simple familiarity with habits.

I performed numerous psychic readings for people in the past when I was doing my Psychology degree.

I was brilliant at it. Because the ones that believed in psychic abilities always said I was spot on when I probably wasn't that close sometimes but cognitive bias is powerful. Really powerful.

I even made predictions that came true and had people come back offering me money to read for them again (I didn't charge for my readings as I knew it wasn't true and I wasn't psychic!).

I made it all up. It was cold reading and with a background in MH and Psychology I know how to 'read people'. I was offered a job working for a very well known psychic because she'd heard of my 'abilities'.

Years later I still have family and friends think I'm psychic and I'm just refusing to acknowledge it despite me telling them I made it all up and often said the first thing that popped into my head.

While I was dabbling in it I met several 'professional psychics'. Most had had shit lives with huge amounts of trauma and pain and certainly weren't living successful and financially secure lives in happy relationships.

Oh, but I forgot - psychic abilities don't often work for the psychic themselves so they have a shit time they weren't able to predict but can predict for others.

It's a 'gift' that can't work for the psychic themselves and can't work/be proved under test conditions.

I'm open minded about things but psychic abilities are far more easily explained by non - paranormal events.

"Some of the long distance examples given can't be explained by simple familiarity with habits."

They "can" however, be explained by remembering that we think about people we love in the backs of our minds all the time, so it's not surprising that when they actually do ring or whatever, we remember that we were thinking about them just before the phone rang. We also retrofit memory. This is clearly illustrated when, for example, a recording is made of a psychic reading for the client to listen to later. They remember much more detail than was actually given at the time.

I mean, the simplest explanation for why the sun rises every morning, or why the days lengthen and shorten, if you take away the scientific knowledge that we have is "it's coincidence". Or why migratory birds are able to return to the same breeding ground each year "It's coincidence and confirmation bias - no one notices the ones that don't return".

Or if you start to understand Chaos Theory - the idea that apparently random events can be connected mathematically, may well explain the 'what' of the coincidence of these supposedly unconnected events, but the 'how' to explain two people having an understanding of what the other is thinking may just possibly involve our abilities to perceive patterns and information that is not obvious to us in the dimensions in which we are used to operating.

They "can" however, be explained by remembering that we think about people we love in the backs of our minds all the time, so it's not surprising that when they actually do ring or whatever, we remember that we were thinking about them just before the phone rang.

That and statistics. Think about the many many opportunities there are for a coincidence so astonishing it can only be down to psychic abilities to happen. There are basically infinite opportunities, really, and the coincidence can be absolutely anything, which brings the odds right down.

When you think about it like that magical coincidences are actually inevitable. And clearly not magic. We just forget all the times they didn't happen and focus on the times they do.

I mean, the simplest explanation for why the sun rises every morning, or why the days lengthen and shorten, if you take away the scientific knowledge that we have is "it's coincidence". Or why migratory birds are able to return to the same breeding ground each year "It's coincidence and confirmation bias - no one notices the ones that don't return".

That complete ignores the existence of the scientific method - observation and experiments.

You can observe as many psychic phenomena as you like, but they have yet to come through on the experiment part. You know, the bit where everyone who has submitted themselves to actual testing has 'coincidentally' been unable to produce their 'inexplicable' phenomenon at the key moment. Or at any moment actually recorded and observed under testing conditions.

What a vile thread. And I don't mean by the people who are sharing their stories.

That said I have a bit of a weird one. When I was about 18 (younger, I think. I was looking at work experience, so during my A-levels) I heard on the news that Arnold Swarczeneggar was going into politics. I wasn't really listening to it, but remember finding it amusing. I turned 18 in 2000, and afaik he didn't announce he was going into politics until 2003. (If I'm wrong about this, please let me know).

What a vile thread. And I don't mean by the people who are sharing their stories.

You're hurting my feelings. Could you maybe stop posting in this thread?

It seriously brings out very weird, troll-like behaviour. Like the Daily Mail comments section.

Knobbery. That's the word I'm looking for.

People having little patience for the use of claims of 'nastiness' and 'indecency' as a response to logical argument is 'troll-like behaviour', now? Is MN in the process of redefining 'troll' to mean 'someone who says things that make me feel stupid'?

Ah, 'knobbery' now. A much more solid argument than 'nasty', 'indecent' or 'troll-like'.

Loving your thread op.

True, but we have not been able to explain in laboratory testing how, for example, the monarch butterflies migrate to the exact same locations year after year, even though each generation makes the journey afresh. There is almost certainly a scientific explanation for how they do it, probably relying on signals and information that we as humans can't read (or don't know that we can read, having lost the evolutionary imperative to do so), but that does not mean that the patterns of their travel are random coincidence. It means that there is information and signals in this world that we don't understand and that are beyond our current understanding. Maybe some people are just better at picking up on these signals and information than others?

What have you said that's made me feel stupid?

I'm only remarking on some of the replies here, which seem to me like trollery knobbery (new phrase). I just don't get why people can't just share their experiences without others wanting to try and make them feel stupid, more like.

I find it's just easier to skip over those posts... any more stories? DH is away and I need something to read :)

Because if you post on a board like AIBU, there is no reason why people should not post explanations. I agree there is no need to be rude. But if someone posts about "unexplained" events, when the explanation is perfectly clear, then other people have a perfect right to post the obvious explanation.

I don't get why people can't introduce and discuss logical explanations on these kinds of threads on Mumsnet without being accused of trying to actively hurt people's feelings. While also being expected to fuck off and/or silently accept accusations of smugness and all the rest.

You are entitled to reject all the logical explanation you want. You don't get to reclassify largely non-emotive explanations as deliberately hurtful/provocative in an attempt to deflect perceived criticism of your opinions, though.

Good idea, bumbley. My mum had a weird one once...

My step-dad (let's call him "Roger") was an alcoholic. A really bad, drunk-driving idiot (she eventually left him...couldn't cope with it anymore). Anyway, a lot of Roger's issues stemmed from his first wife dying young (pregnant with his 1st baby ) in a tragic car accident.

Anyway, this happened years and years before he met my mum, so my mum never knew his first wife but had seen pictures of her.

One night my mum was in a deep sleep and she had a dream. In the dream it was my step-dad's 1st wife saying to my mum (let's call her "Betty"), "Betty, wake up. You need to wake up. Roger is in trouble." My mum woke up with a start and realised it was 2 AM and Roger wasn't in bed.

Literally 5 seconds later the telephone rings and it's the police calling to say he'd been in another accident. They said they had been trying to ring for over an hour but she must have been too deeply asleep to have heard it.

My mum is still adamant it was Roger's 1st wife trying to wake her up.

No Cactus, just ignoring the nastiness and fun sponges that have nothing to do with the 'spirit' (wooooooooo! :) ) of the thread.

I think it's fairly obvious on all of these threads that people aren't actually asking for your logical explanations, it's just a bunch of posters with a common 'woo' interest sharing stories.

So when sceptics stomp into the discussion and decide that everyone else needs to be corrected, it's bloody annoying.

I understand it's an online forum and people can post whatever they like (as I will undoubtedly be told) and of course discussions evolve but it never quite happens like that.

The stompers always feel the need to scoff at and mock everyone. It's completely unnecessary.