# "I must be psychic."



## JustRob (Dec 30, 2016)

What's this? Am I actually trying to be serious for once and writing non-fiction? Well, judge that for yourself. I am toying with the idea of documenting my surreal short writing career in a consolidated form, rather than in the fragmented way that it appears on my website. Below is the draft introduction to that piece of work. So, does it open up possibilities that readers might read on? Does it suggest that I might take a unique personal view on what is really a hackneyed subject? Of course, possibly being psychic, I can tell what you'll most likely say, but it's nice to be reassured ... that one actually is psychic, that is. By the way, the title is only that to the introduction, not the whole thing.
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"I must be psychic."​
We have probably all had occasion to say the words above at some time in our lives. It may have been when we encountered a reason for doing something after we did it or when we half expected something to happen before it did. How many of us wonder whether it is really true though? I have now reached a point in my life when I would have to admit that I _may_ be psychic. Taken literally the word simply means that one has a psyche or soul and the study of this is, or was, called psychology. However, psychologists have moved with the times and don’t mention the psyche any more, preferring to restrict their activities to the safer subject of the unconscious mind. This attitude seems in keeping with the idea that the mind is simply the manifestation of electrochemical actions within the brain, itself regarded as little more than a biological computer, albeit probably the most complex one known to exist. Psychologists’ abdication from studying the psyche just leaves pursuers of the paranormal to contemplate it, which returns us to the question of being psychic in modern terms. Of course the soul is primarily the domain of our religious advisers and therefore possibly a different issue entirely, but maybe not according to new age thinkers, so perhaps the word “psyche” is coming back into its own.

So, if the conscious mind is our perceived presence of mind and the unconscious mind is something similar without that sense of presence, where should we place the psyche? Perhaps to be consistent we could regard it as the _subconscious_ mind, something potentially more alien to us than either of the other two. That then is what I will do here although it should be borne in mind, exactly where being up to the reader, that words like “psyche”and “soul” may be just as appropriate. In fact I would also add the word “heart” in its old-fashioned sense as the root of our being rather than as that essential circulatory pump that governs our lives. Having said that the subconscious may be more alien than the other elements of mind I should offer some justification for that and, as I have no real credentials for presenting anything that I do here, it must be solely from my own experience.

Around the time that I attained the age of seventy I heard about research by Professor Adam Zeman and his team at Exeter University into a condition that they call “aphantasia”, an inability to visualise things within one’s mind’s eye. This was an eye-opener for me quite literally as I had never realised that it was actually possible to introduce imaginary or recalled images into the brain’s visual channel in this way. I had assumed that the “mind’s eye” was just a figure of speech describing the conceptualisation that occurs when one thinks about something primarily visual. After all, when a person speaks of knowing what is “in their heart” they aren’t referring to blood. It certainly explains shortcomings, such as my poor ability to recognise people, that have always been present in my life. Evidently I have always had this condition and yet after becoming consciously aware of it something in me seemed to change. I noticed that I was having genuinely visual dreams in remarkable detail. I still couldn’t consciously use the ability though. Perhaps not knowing that it existed I simply never learned to use it and therefore could not consciously control it, much like waggling my ears, which I also cannot do. At least, I am unaware that I can do the latter although for all I know my unconscious mind also experiments with that in my sleep, about which I would know nothing without asking my wife. I have not registered any conscious desire to be able to waggle my ears, so I assume that my subconscious has disregarded the possibility that I could do it, whereas the idea of being able to visualise scenes in what is apparently the conventional manner does appeal, provided that, like the television, I can turn it off and concentrate on other things when required. I do wonder whether those with the ability are distracted by it though as I have been told that my own ability to resolve more abstract problems is superior to that of many people. Maybe I should just be satisfied with using this new form of entertainment in my sleep to remain better focussed in my waking moments. I would not want to turn on any permanent ability that would detract from the life to which I have always been accustomed.

To be fair about my aphantasia, I was always astonished and entertained by the sight of a “mass of writhing multicoloured dragons”, the only description of the psychedelic visual experience that I can offer, which often accompanied my bouts of migraine in the past. It was the only aspect of a migraine that I was sad to lose when it ended. I have never taken mind-altering drugs but can understand the appeal of them if this was something similar in effect. By the way, note how that word “psychedelic” refers specifically to the psyche again in the context of something divisive within society. Is the psyche itself fated to be divisive by our very use of language? Anyway, my normal experience with aphantasia suggests that there must be abilities lodged somewhere within the mind which may not be used actively either consciously or unconsciously. My consistently poor ability to recognise people implies that. From whence did the ability spring within my dreams then after I discovered that it ought to exist simply for me to be like most other people? Is there some library of abilities hidden within the brain waiting to be summoned into use? If so, then where are they catalogued and what others are there in that catalogue? I for one would very much like to browse through it. Is this what lurks in the subconscious then, abilities which we do not know that we have and possibly couldn’t comprehend or control even if we did? Have I now at least made my personal case for regarding the subconscious as existing and being alien to its owner’s normal perception of life? I hope so.

To return to my original two examples of situations where we might consider ourselves to be psychic, they actually both amount to the same thing, an unrealised ability to recall or react to not only past experiences but also future ones. This is different from being able to anticipate future experiences based on past ones, which is just plain reasoning. Memory is the feature of the brain that provides us with knowledge of the past but knowledge of the future is conventionally considered impossible, so definitely alien enough to qualify only as a latent ability within the subconscious if it exists at all. That then is the subject that I intend to tackle but, as I mentioned previously, primarily within the context of my personal experience. Why should I be singled out as someone who might be psychic though? “Why me?” is another remark that we have occasion to make at times during our lives.  I must also consider that as well then and perhaps the answer will simply be that I was the one who dared seriously to ask the question “Could I _actually _be psychic or not?” Hopefully the experience will be something more than just the literally mentally blind leading the … just how do you see yourself, in your mind's eye?


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## Plasticweld (Dec 30, 2016)

A couple of things stick out for me.  It is a fascinating topic, framed well.  I would insert more of your personal experiences into the text and then go to the research, verses mentioning the research first.  I found I was much more captivated as a reader when you were sharing your personal experiences because it was something I could relate to. 


The other suggestion is to switch around the placement of this paragraph 

*So, if the conscious mind is our perceived presence of mind and the unconscious mind is something similar without that sense of presence, where should we place the psyche? Perhaps to be consistent we could regard it as the subconscious mind, something potentially more alien to us than either of the other two. That then is what I will do here although it should be borne in mind, exactly where being up to the reader, that words like “psyche”and “soul” may be just as appropriate. In fact I would also add the word “heart” in its old-fashioned sense as the root of our being rather than as that essential circulatory pump that governs our lives. Having said that the subconscious may be more alien than the other elements of mind I should offer some justification for that and, as I have no real credentials for presenting anything that I do here, it must be solely from my own experience.



*This seems to be more of a conclusion than an opening statement and is much easier to digest after more information rather than starting out with it.  While you are familiar with the topic most, me included have no real knowledge of the topic. 


Thanks for sharing, I have always enjoyed your unique perspective on life...


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## JustRob (Dec 31, 2016)

Thanks Bob. I take both your points. 

I was reticent to give examples of my experiences where I might myself have thought "I must be psychic" so soon because the simplest ones that could be mentioned briefly are also probably the least convincing. However, it would be reasonable to present unconvincing examples at the outset and then produce somewhat more convincing ones later in the work, so I may well do as you suggest.

Regarding the placement of conclusions before the arguments, the cart before the horse, that is very much a characteristic of the work as well as the subject that it describes. I mentioned that the title of this introduction is not that of the whole work. In fact my working title for the work is "In Particular No Order", reflecting the idea that some aspects of life do not seem to make any more sense chronologically than in any other order. Rather than addressing your observation about the order of the paragraphs by changing it I could use it as an opportunity to explain the title of the work and its whole nature, that there is no entirely logical order in which some information can be presented, to the reader. After all, if it is possible that nature itself does not present information to us in such a regular order as we glibly assume, then how can I do any better? 

In a way your second point about my problem with writing things in the "right" order is a personal experience of the type that you suggest I mention in your first. It is in fact a characteristic of all my writing. As an extreme example, the original draft of my novel written in 2011 opened with the words "THE END", which was a peculiar way for a novice writer to introduce his first work.

I gave some thought to the working title of the work without making any commitment to it, but I doubt that I will come up with any better than "In Particular No Order", plus an explanatory subtitle of course. Perhaps others would like to comment on it, especially if they are acquainted with my odd writing experiences.


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## JustRob (Jan 1, 2017)

I have now revised the opening to the introduction to incorporate Bob's suggestion about personal experiences but haven't got around to welding it onto the original yet. (Now what prompted me to use that particular word, I wonder.) I'm not sure that spouting poetry is actually a good way to open a piece of non-fictional prose, but I don't think this work will be particularly conventional in any respect. For example, the next section is likely to be entitled "I see ghosts", not that I do.

Here are the new opening paragraphs.

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"I must be psychic."
​
We have probably all had occasion to say the words above at some time in our lives. It may have been when we encountered a reason for doing something after we did it or when we half expected something to happen before it did. How many of us wonder whether it is really true though? I have now reached a point in my life when I would have to admit that I _may actually _be psychic. In fact when such events occur nowadays I tend to think "That happened because I'm psychic," and move on with my life. I would not claim to believe it though, just to accept the distinct possibility. I will illustrate my point with a couple of simple examples. 

One Saturday morning around the time of the four hundredth anniversary of the death of Shakespeare I was contemplating writing an email to a friend who is an enthusiastic expert on the bard, being a tutor in English literature at a university in America. I had no doubt that he would write to me on the subject and a little pre-empting by me would do no harm. However, for some inexplicable reason, instead of writing to him I felt the urge to write a poem and post it in an online poetry forum. As it was short I have included it here although I myself dislike poetry appearing within prose unless there is an exceptionally good reason for it. My limited ability as a poet is not a good reason, quite the opposite.
Tilting at Windmills

 I thought I’d write a little verse,
 It might be good but could be worse,
 But inspiration didn’t last,
 The opportunity had passed,
 I don’t suppose it matters much
 When what I write is double Dutch,
 I may as well give up the fight
 To reach this intellectual height,
 I’ll leave the task in better hands
 And use my skill in nether lands.
There's supposed to be a space here, you idiotic text editor!​Having posted the poem I never did get around to writing to my friend but on the following Monday I received a message from him not, as I'd anticipated, about the bard but about the Spanish being upset that the four hundredth anniversary of the death of Cervantes was being overshadowed by Shakespeare's. I knew nothing about Cervantes except that he wrote the novel _Don Quixote, _from which the expression "Tilting at windmills" originates. I have never even read that book but only seen the musical film based on it. Certainly I had no idea when the author died and wasn't even aware that my friend's interests extended to foreign ones. In retrospect it is evident that by writing that poem instead of an email I did pre-empt his message as I had intended, but in a way that one would not consider possible. There is another twist to this incident though. I have since read that Cervantes was influential in moving novel writing away from the earlier romantic themes towards more practical ones and he wrote _Don Quixote _specifically to encourage readers and writers to abandon old-fashioned romanticism. His character Don Quixote effectively represented outdated thinking to his mind. So, was this little party trick of mine actually a note to myself to be cautious about romantic notions and, if so, why did I apparently employ a psychic demonstration to do it? That seems counterproductive unless different aspects of my mind were debating the issue. Perhaps the words of the poem actually suggest that very thing. I will return to it in more detail later but for now will provide another example.

My wife writes many of our Christmas cards leaving me to write those specific to myself. In the same year that I wrote the poem I had just five cards to write, three to my relatives and two to families with whom I have the same special relationship in both cases. Retrospectively it is difficult then to imagine how I could have written and sent only four cards, entirely overlooking one of those two families but not the other. I didn't even realise that I had done so until shortly before Christmas when I received a card from the overlooked family which included a note to say that they had moved house the previous August, something of which I was quite unaware as we only correspond at Christmas nowadays. This left me just three hours to catch the last Christmas post to get my card to them at their new address in time, which I did. I had no conceivable reason for overlooking them so completely originally, but even had I not and my card had gone to their old address I doubt that it could have been redirected to them in time for Christmas. Hence waiting for them to send me the new address, which I didn't even know was necessary, was the correct action for me to take even though it would be cutting things incredibly fine. Of course, it could all have been a most remarkable coincidence arising from my being unable to remember just five recipients of my cards. Perhaps I'm getting so old now that I need to write a mailing list even that short. Psychologists will confirm that the unconscious mind is quite capable of overriding conscious thought when it conceives that circumstances demand it, so was it simply steering me away from a pointless action without providing its unfathomable reason for doing so? Had I been given the opportunity to rationalise the situation originally I would have sent the card then, but I wasn't. In fact I clearly remember counting the cards to verify that I had written and posted all _four, _not five. If that poem suggested that there are conflicting aspects within my mind then one can understand why one of them might take action without notifying the other, as appears to have happened here. There's clearly a difference between acting psychically and being consciously aware of doing it at the time. The latter would require belief in having the ability.


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## wainscottbl (Feb 21, 2017)

> We have probably all had occasion to say the words above at some time in our lives.



I find that a bad opening. It's just so shopworn. Scrap the whole first paragraph. The second paragraph is very good. The first line is strong. There's your opening.


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## JustRob (Feb 22, 2017)

wainscottbl said:


> I find that a bad opening. It's just so shopworn. Scrap the whole first paragraph. The second paragraph is very good. The first line is strong. There's your opening.



That's an interesting observation, but I wonder whether it is appropriate to a non-fiction subject. On the home page of my website I initially launch into a rather obtuse story instead of immediately explaining the purpose of the site and I have been criticised for doing this. How should one open a non-fictional work? In a fictional work one has to manufacture a reason within the reader's mind for them to continue reading, but in a work of non-fiction surely their reason for reading is their pre-existing interest in the subject itself. Hence I am inclined to agree with the critics of my website, that one should start by giving an idea of the purpose of the work, which is what I attempted in my first paragraph.  

Presenting reality is a shopworn process by definition, isn't it? My downbeat opening with an upbeat promise quickly following is meant to imply that reality isn't so tediously cut and dried as we may assume. Here's a fictional example of the same sort of thing occurring at the beginning of a chemistry class.

Teacher: "Today we will examine the rapid oxidation of phosphorus."  
(Groans from the students)

Teacher: "Yes, we are going to create a very big bang. I have warned my colleagues in the adjoining rooms not to panic."  
(Elation amongst the students)

Would that teacher have made more of an impact by omitting his first statement or did he enhance the subsequent elation by means of it?

In our fiction we play a cat and mouse game with the reader's thoughts, but in non-fiction we need to paint a far more organised picture even though that may take the edge off the "story". The trick is to balance the story-telling and fact-telling so that the reader accepts what is told in a way that fiction doesn't have to achieve. Reader's of a fictional work are required to suspend their disbelief for the duration of the work as a prerequisite, but they come to a work of non-fiction expecting to be convinced that it is factual and their disbelief is there for the writer to overcome. There is a whole spectrum of possible objectives in a work of this kind. Here are some potential ones within that.

1. A first person fictional story about a psychic.
2. A non-fictional work describing how the writer believes himself to be psychic.
3. A non-fictional work that conclusively demonstrates that the writer _is_ psychic.
4. A non-fictional work that persuades the reader that _they_ may well be psychic.

Building a framework within the reader's mind that will support all of these objectives is a different challenge from just fulfilling a couple of the earlier ones. I doubt that I am up to it, so have set this work aside and am currently focussing on other things. That said, today I found a quotation from Damon Runyon's stories of Broadway that might be an interesting introduction to the subject and I have noted it for future reference.



> "Of course nobody tells Dave the Dude about this, because they do not wish to get him excited. Not even Miss Missouri Martin tells him, which is most unusual because Miss Missouri Martin, who is sometimes called 'Mizzoo' for short, tells everything she knows as soon as she knows it, which is very often before it happens." (Romance in the Roaring Forties - Damon Runyon)



It isn't so much the remark about telling about things before they happen that appeals to me but Runyon's persistent style of using the present tense throughout regardless of whether events are past, present or future. My past attempts to explain my experiences have been hampered by the way that our language demands a chronological context and the correct use of tense, but Runyon demonstrated that one can put information across quite effectively without using tense at all. That is a state of mind that I need to induce in my reader, that there are no distinct past, present and future to constrain our perception of events but simply _now_.


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