Serious question about ESP (I don't mean psychic or anything silly)

[Kurn, son of Mogh]

I think this is similar to waking up just prior to the alarm going off. Your eyes are not closed 100% of the time you are asleep, and sensory input still enters though your ears, nose, etc.

Same thing. The brain processes sensory input irrespective of consciousness.

[baggins]

not to disagree with you, but in the case of waking up before your alarm clock goes off, what sensory input could you be processing subconsciously that could cause you to wake up just before it goes off?

at first i thought that your connection with the eyes not being 100% closed during sleep implied that perhaps you saw the time and it registered that it was time to wake up in your brain. but sometimes you can't see the alarm clock from where you are or the position you are sleeping in. are there other sensory clues to it being 'time to wake up?'

this is a fascinating thread, BTW.

how many times have you looked up when you had that vague sort of feeling and nobody was staring at you? how many times have you looked up and caught somebody staring and then identified the vague feeling as being a feeling that somebody was staring? (In other words - you felt something, didn't know what, and looked up. when you caught somebody staring at you, you assumed what you felt was that somebody was staring at you, even though that may not be what you were feeling.) how many times have you been stared at and had no premonition or feeling or suspicion?

i think if you examine the times you are wrong as well as the times you are right, the times you catch people looking is not that impressive...

[Kurn, son of Mogh]

in the case of waking up before your alarm clock goes off, what sensory input could you be processing subconsciously

As you suggested, one possibility is seeing the clock. Another might be hearing subtle changes in ambient sound from outside or sensing changes in the light level. It's also possible that we posess a subconscious time-sense.

[CrisBrown]

Hi Kurn,

[ QUOTE ]
It's also possible that we posess a subconscious time-sense.

[/ QUOTE ]

It's not only possible; it's a fact. It's known as the diurnal clock. Alas, for we humans, a recent study showed that our diurnal clocks are set at ~25 hours. Apparently, the feeling of "not enough hours in the day" isn't purely a psychological response, but is also in part physiological.

For the curious, the study involved subjects placed into windowless laboratory settings where they could "free run," that is, operate on their own schedule without reference to the sun, clocks, or outside constraints (jobs, etc.). As it turned out, within just a few days the majority settled into a roughly 25-hour daily routine, and reported feeling much more rested and refreshed throughout the "day."

Cris ... font of utterly useless trivia

[Kurn, son of Mogh]

Cris ... font of utterly useless trivia

Many people I know say the same thing about me. [img]/images/graemlins/tongue.gif[/img]

[daryn]

</font><blockquote><font class="small">In risposta di:</font><hr />
And now, I ALWAYS wait.

FWIW

[/ QUOTE ]



if you really believed in ESP then you wouldn't ALWAYS wait.. you would only wait when you got "the signal"

[Kinli]

With all due respect, Al, I've had some inexplicable ESP experiences in my life, and they have witnesses.

But at the card table, to think ESP is playing a role? No way. There are too many cues available, along with one's own ever-growing experience, to make it any more than a "hunch."

Kinli

[PDosterM]

This question has actually been put to properly controlled scientific examination, the results of which are documented in quite a bit of detail in The Skeptical Inquirer which is the magazine put out by the Committee for the Scientific Investigation of Claims of the Paranormal. See http://www.csicop.org/si/2000-03/stare.html

Bottom line – not ESP.

[CrisBrown]

Hi PDosterM,

For the record, CSICOP aren't skeptics. They're skepti-bunkers. That is, they don't adopt the attitude of "there is insufficient evidence to reach a conclusion." Rather, they adopt the attitude of "if you can't prove it happens, in a laboratory, repeatably, beyond and to the exclusion of any shred of doubt, then it doesn't happen."

Cris

[bdk3clash]

[ QUOTE ]
Hi PDosterM,

For the record, CSICOP aren't skeptics. They're skepti-bunkers. That is, they don't adopt the attitude of "there is insufficient evidence to reach a conclusion." Rather, they adopt the attitude of "if you can't prove it happens, in a laboratory, repeatably, beyond and to the exclusion of any shred of doubt, then it doesn't happen."

Cris

[/ QUOTE ]

This statement is patently false. From their website:

[ QUOTE ]
CSICOP encourages the critical investigation of paranormal and fringe-science claims from a responsible, scientific point of view and disseminates factual information about the results of such inquiries to the scientific community and the public.

[/ QUOTE ]

More specifically, CSICOP

[ QUOTE ]
...does not reject claims on a priori grounds, antecedent to inquiry, but examines them objectively and carefully.

[/ QUOTE ]