# Any crazy psychic experiences?



## Adcandour (Apr 21, 2013)

My wife and sister just went to one. It was a group thing where everyone goes to a host's house - chips, dip, psychic reading. 

The psychic didn't know they were in-laws and she said the same thing to both of them about me. Weird.


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## Milkman (Feb 2, 2006)

LOL

Maybe this thread shpuld he placed among those that are religious in nature.

Same level of credibility and under the same burden of proof.


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## 10409 (Dec 11, 2011)

the only vague and mostly inaccurate predictions i ever pay attention to come from the weather man


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## bluesguitar1972 (Jul 16, 2011)

My personal favorites are all on the Enviro-Can site - "40% (or 60%) chance of precipitation" 
Really, 40%? So what you're saying is "it may or may not rain" - like I needed a meteorologist to figure that out. There's 4 years well spent getting your degree. lol




mike_oxbig said:


> the only vague and mostly inaccurate predictions i ever pay attention to come from the weather man


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## Guest (Jun 2, 2013)

I've yet to read about a psychic winning the lottery.
That's my first priority if I had the 'gift'.


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## Mooh (Mar 7, 2007)

Not really psychic so much as weird co-incidence...I woke up one morning and the celtic cross on a chain that I was wearing around my neck fell to the floor. (My Dad had a similar one he wore in his work as a clergyman.) I said to my wife that it seemed ominous. A little while later my Mum phoned to tell me that Dad had just died.

Peace, Mooh.


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## Milkman (Feb 2, 2006)

Once while driving to the airport for an early morning flght, I happened to look down at the trip odometer of my car and noticed that it clicked over to 444.

I looked over at the clock and saw that it was precisely 4:44 AM.

I had not set the trip odometer. It just happened to hit 444 at exactly 4:44 AM.

Had I taken a minute more or less brushing my teeth it would not have happened.

Weird? Sure


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## 4345567 (Jun 26, 2008)

__________


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## Adcandour (Apr 21, 2013)

nkjanssen said:


> Once I dreamed that I was going to have fish for dinner, and then I did!
> 
> Weird.


At least it's not recurring.


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## smorgdonkey (Jun 23, 2008)

laristotle said:


> I've yet to read about a psychic winning the lottery.
> That's my first priority if I had the 'gift'.


There was a lady who had a dream of the lottery numbers so she bought the ticket - twice. She then got 2/3 of the split with another winning ticket.

I have had dreams of completely inconsequential things that have materialized. One was so random that the entire family was freaked out by it.


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## cheezyridr (Jun 8, 2009)

back in the 90's i used to hang out with these guys, one of them was a guy we called gypsy rick, because he claimed to be a gypsy from romania or somewhere. his wife was a psychic. she supported him pretty well. i still remember seeing them led from their house in cuffs by the fbi when it turned out the defrauded some old folks out of a couple million bucks. ahh yas....the good 'ol days


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## mhammer (Nov 30, 2007)

Forty-plus years ago, back in CEGEP, our English prof (who ended up being an editor of National Lampoon, and eventually head writer for kids show _Shining Time Station http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sean_Kelly_(writer)_) told us he wanted to do an experiment in class. He came in with a book of fine art prints - some museum's collection, I gather - and he would select a student in class, and ask them to select a page at random and "project with their mind" what they were looking at, without showing us. Our role was to concentrate and offer up what we were "receiving".

I have to say that the student picked was VERY androgenous, and between the big floppy hat and the long coat, it took me damn near until late November of that semester to figure out if they were male or female...and this was in a class that couldn't have been much more than 24 students, so it's not like they were sitting 30 yards from me in a big lecture hall. There was no collusion, or degree of familiarity, and this student (whom I found out was female) had a rather expressionless face - no scowl or beaming smile.

In any event, I rolled my eyes and thought I'd play along. The book of prints covered a broad array of historical periods, so we had nothing to tip us off that it would be of paintings like this or like that (e.g., landscapes or portaits). Within seconds, my hand shot up, and I blithely (and almost sarcastically) pronounced to the class "It's black, with diagonal movement, mostly yellow, from the upper left to the lower right, and red in the middle". The student turned the book around, and to my and our collective amazement it was a modern abstract painting that WAS a black background, with a huge jagged yellow stripe, going from the upper left to the lower right corner, and a big splotch of red in the middle. You would have thought I was staring right at the painting, telling someone over the phone what it looks like.

Pretty freaky, huh? Only time in my life something like that has ever happened.


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## mrmatt1972 (Apr 3, 2008)

Interesting coincidences are just that. To be properly considered "psychic" I think there has to be some degree of consistency. I've had deja vu, sometimes really really accurate deja vu, but usually those "prescient" experiences turn out to be wrong.


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## Option1 (May 26, 2012)

Closely related to the psychic is the astrologer. I love this James Randi experiment (source: http://humanism.su/en/articles.phtml?num=000044 ):



> Recently famous American skeptic and rationalist James Randi conducted a very simple experiment. He came into a classroom where the teacher introduced him to the kids as a famous astrologer. Randi offered all the students their free personal horoscope. Each student placed a sheet of paper with their date and place of birth in a separate envelope and some time later everyone received their envelopes with the horoscopes inserted into them. Randi asked the kids to read and evaluate the accuracy of [their] horoscope. The majority evaluated the horoscopes as quite accurate. Then Randi asked each student to pass his horoscope to the student sitting in front of him and those in the first row to pass their horoscope to the last row. The class found to its surprise that the same text had been inserted in all the envelopes! They contained the standard phrases like: "You would like to be smarter" or "You like to get signs of attention from those around you". Of course, who doesn't? Thus J. Randi demonstrated a simple means which astrologers use to convince credulous people of the power of their guesses.


Neil


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## mhammer (Nov 30, 2007)

nkjanssen said:


> Once I dreamed that I was going to have fish for dinner, and then I did!
> 
> Weird.


Wait a sec, isn't that a Mitch Hedberg line?


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## bolero (Oct 11, 2006)

the gypsy woman told my mother, before I was born...


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## Bubb (Jan 16, 2008)

bluesguitar1972 said:


> My personal favorites are all on the Enviro-Can site - "40% (or 60%) chance of precipitation"
> Really, 40%? So what you're saying is "it may or may not rain" - like I needed a meteorologist to figure that out. There's 4 years well spent getting your degree. lol


Variable skies !!!!!


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## bluesmostly (Feb 10, 2006)

I've had lots of deja vu gigs, and sometimes incredibly detailed. I would love to know what that is all about. I can be sitting there in a social situation for example and realize that I have had the experience before and I will even know what is going to happen next sometimes. Like, 'the phone is going to ring and it will be so and so'... 

what is with that?

also, it is always during the most mundane and uneventful activities, never a big revelation, or prophesy or dramatic event. WTF?


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## mhammer (Nov 30, 2007)

Ever had a "jamais vu"? Look them up. Its a real thing.


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## butterknucket (Feb 5, 2006)

While not wanting to use the word psychic, I think there are some people who can receive information, but I also think that once you cross that line it can be quite dangerous.


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## bluesmostly (Feb 10, 2006)

butterknucket said:


> While not wanting to use the word psychic, I think there are some people who can receive information, but I also think that once you cross that line it can be quite dangerous.


in what way?


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## 4345567 (Jun 26, 2008)

__________


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## Sneaky (Feb 14, 2006)

mhammer said:


> Ever had a "jamais vu"? Look them up. Its a real thing.


Yes. I also often experience déjà déjà vu, that is, when I have a déjà vu it's like, "hey, I have had this déjà vu before".


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## Adcandour (Apr 21, 2013)

When I was younger I suffered some serious brain damage from Drugs. One of the side effects would be very frequent feelings of déjà vu. 

It was very depressing, because I was in a pretty rough state and I didn't like the idea that I may be living this life over infinitely (déjà déjà vu - I quote). 

Anyhow, it turns out that déjà vu is when your mind secretes the chemicals/ fires the neurons associated with drawing up a memory - the only difference is that the memory it brings to the forefront of the brain is what you're actually seeing/experiencing at the time. That is why it is so convincing. 

I believe the resources I got this from was a paper in college called, "Dr Edelman's Brain", if anyone wants to look into it further. 

But, you've probably already read it. Tee Hee.


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## Percy (Feb 18, 2013)

I once dreamed i had my arm stuck up an elephants azz................


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## Adcandour (Apr 21, 2013)

Percy said:


> I once dreamed i had my arm stuck up an elephants azz................


A premonition probably.


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## mhammer (Nov 30, 2007)

nkjanssen said:


> I think I stole it from an old SCTV sketch. It was a commercial for pyramid hats.


Now that you mention it, that sounds familiar.

RE: déja and jamais vu experiences.

All memories have multiple components. One of the things we encode and store about experiences, automatically, is that they have happened, that we have experienced them. When a memory is recalld, one of its attributes will be that it was known or familiar to us, or perhaps minimally known and unfamiliar to us.

Think of it this way. In your pocket you have a bunch of loose change and a bunch of keys. You go to pay for something, and the keys get in the way of being able to fish ALL the coins from your pocket (unless you work really hard and dump everything on the counter). Sometimes, that nickel you thought was in there shows up, but sometimes it doesn't. Sometimes only the big things - loonies and toonies - come out.

Déja vu experiences are those where a memory is activated but the only part that comes to consciousness is the fact that you knopw it and it has happened. Misdsing is all the contextual information like when it happened to you, where it happened, how it is connected to other memories, etc. Now you're like the guy who fishes in his pocket for change, and only comes up with a couple dimes, even though there may well be twoonies in there hiding behind the keys.

Jamais vu experiences are the inverse, where a great deal of the memory is activated, but information about the fact that it is known and familiar is missing. Here, the twoonies, loonies, quarters and nickels come out of the pocket, but some pennies and dimes are hiding in the corner.

I reember one jamias vu experience I had very well. My old university room-mate and I were living off St. Denis in Montreal in a 3-storey flat. We went to school and came back the same way every day. We went grocery shopping and to the laundromat the same way too. In fact, we had never really had a reason to leave or return to our flat from the "other" direction. Then, there was a fire at our usual laundromat and we had to use a different one. Coming back from that laundromat with my clothes, I approached and entered our flat from a different direction for the very first time ever. Understand that this had been preceded by entering from the standard direction many hundreds of times, such that, without being consciously aware of it, what allowed the flat to feel familiar was the "setup" prior to entering, including the walk up the street. As I entered our flat from the "wrong" direction the first time, I was struck by the way that NOTHING looked familiar, the layout, all our furniture, all my stuff, felt like I had just walked into the wrong place. In a sense I "knew" it was our place and our stuff but it didn't *feel* like I knew it, that it was something "known".

I find people often have jamais vu experiences with language as well. There will be times where you're staring at a word that employs perhaps an unusual letter combination and it just looks...weird. I get this with "wh" words, like where, what, why, while. You look at them, perhaps after having written them, and you can't think of any other way to write the word, but for some reason it just doesn't look "word-like". It's a brief block of the little teeny bit of "familiarity" information that would otherwise allow you to look at information yo already know, and know that you know it...just like my confusion upon entering our flat.

Of course, the constant manner in which we monitor the knowability and familiarity of our knowledge, moment by moment, all day long (and this is an essential part of how we allocate our attention to the myriad of things around us - the unknown gets more attention than the known, so we judge "known-ness" to make that allocation), when making judgments about things and processing, is so fundamental to our thinking and recall, that when all we have is "known-ness" without content (déja vu) or content without known-ness (jamais vu), we are as struck by it as we would be by running into a giraffe at Loblaws; it kind of gets your attention.


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