Saturday, January 20, 2007

A Neurobiology of Sensitivity? Sentience as the Foundation for Unusual Conscious Perception

Evidence is steadily accruing across the sciences that certain individuals are, from birth onward, disposed to a number of conditions, illnesses, and perceptions that, in novelty as well as intensity, distinguish them from the general population. If this is indeed the case, anomalous experience may have a bona fide neurobiological basis that (finally) makes it accessible to scientific inquiry.

(Via The Anomalist.)


This article inadvertently poses some disturbing questions about the role of consciousness in a world out of balance. I would argue that some so-called "psychic" abilities are a symptom of the human species adapting to new evolutionary pressures.

I also find it noteworthy that of the eight candidate criteria proposed by the author, I easily fulfill four (being a first-born or only child, being single, appraising oneself as imaginative, and appraising oneself as introverted) and arguably another (maintaining that one affects -- or is affected by -- lights, computers, and other electrical appliances in an unusual way).

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

My fiance has a lot of psychic potential, and we've been working on developing it. She will routinely hear my thoughts and repeat them back to me, she can see spirits and even spoke to one at one point, and her sense for energies and vibrations is uncanny. She's like a Jedi.

And I'm a blundering novice.

Anonymous said...

I've found from my own experience and a lot of people I've talked to that these sorts of experiences tend to come in clusters. I had a spate of them in adolescence, then nothing in my 20's and early 30's. Another huge spike in my mid to late 30's, then nothing. The intervals of relative non-sensitivity always seem to be just long enough to make you doubt the validity of the experiences you had in the spikes.

I'd say body chemistry/hormonal balance can definitely make people more sensitive to certain types of perceptions. Periods of emotional stress can be a trigger too.

Mac said...

Chris--

I went through a spooky "precog" phase in adolescence. Sometimes it was so pronounced it was burdensome.