Wednesday, June 11, 2008

ESP or Mere Coincidence?

I've always been agnostic when it comes to ESP and psychic phenomena in general. For not only have I never had any definitive psychic experiences of my own, but it's also always seemed to me that if if there were people with psychic abilities, some of them would be strong enough in those abilities to unequivocally demonstrate that they exist. So far as I know, such proof has never been offered. Thus, I remain skeptical.

Yet, something happened at work last week that has shaken that skepticism a little. As I headed back to work after my dinner break, I saw my supervisor sitting in his office in front of his computer monitor. However, he didn't appear to be looking at it. I had the impression that he was staring into space thinking about something. And the peculiar thing is, even though I've seen him do this countless times and never thought for a moment that he was thinking about me, it was different this time. I had the strong sense that he was contemplating what he was going to say to me.

Of course, my rational mind dismissed this as nonsense, but it had no sooner done this when my supervisor walked up to me and said he wanted to talk with me in his office. I was stunned by this and followed him to his office wondering not only if I'd just had a genuinely psychic precognition, but also if he was going to give me bad news of some kind.

Fortunately, he was calling me in for a review that turned out to be very positive. But what I wondered then and now is why I'd had such a powerful sense, for no discernible reason, that he was going to call me into his office for a private talk when that was exactly what ended up happening.

If I frequently had this impression and/or he frequently did this with me or others, it wouldn't be so difficult to explain. But this is one of the very few times he called me into his office to talk with me, and the only time out of literally hundreds when I've seen him staring at his monitor and/or into space and thought, much less had a powerful sense, that he was getting ready to call me (or anyone else) into his office for a private chat.

This experience isn't enough to convince me that ESP is real. But it is enough to open my mind a little more to the possibility that it is.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

My guess is that since you are constantly self focused on yourself, you just happened to "get it right" this one time out of ten million, two hundred and fifty thousand, five hundred and eighty eight self focuses.

Unknown said...

I think you're right to stay agnostic on the ESP issue. My position on the matter, and experiences, are similar to yours.

It seems more common than random or coincidental that I perceive something weird/unusual that turns out to be true, but the instances aren't consistant or convincing quite enough to make a dedicated ESP believer out of me.

AND when there is an ESP-like experience, I don't know quite what to make out of its meaning.