THE RIDDLE OF TWIN TELEPATHY - Twins, both fraternal and identical, have fascinated the world for millennia. They are often very close, and share not only genes but home environments, friends, clothes and, of course, secrets. However, many identical twins — perhaps as many as one in five — also claim to share something more mysterious: a special psychic connection. About one out of every 30 babies born in the U. S. is a twin, and identical twins are especially interesting because they have the same genes and are alike in many ways. Brothers and sisters can be close, but some twins claim to know what the other is thinking or feeling. It's an intriguing idea, but what's the truth behind it — coincidence, psychic powers, or something else? Twins often finish each other's sentences and think the same thoughts, but that has more to do with shared experiences than any psychic telepathy. This sort of psychological connection isn't necessarily mysterious: any two people who know each other very well and who have shared many common experiences — including non-twin siblings, old married couples, and even best friends — may complete each other's sentences and laugh at inside jokes that leave outsiders baffled. Indeed, when twins die at the same time it can give the appearance of some sort of supernatural or psychic connection linking not only their mental states but physical health. There is no credible scientific evidence that psychic powers exist.

Identical twins, which occur when a fertilized egg splits into two, often look like spitting images of each other.

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The Riddle of Twin Telepathy

By Benjamin Radford

 

 

Twins, both fraternal and identical, have fascinated the world for millennia.

They are often very close, and share not only genes but home environments, friends, clothes and, of course, secrets.

However, many identical twins — perhaps as many as one in five — also claim to share something more mysterious: a special psychic connection. 

About one out of every 30 babies born in the United States is a twin, and identical twins are especially interesting because they have the same genes and are alike in many ways.

Brothers and sisters can be close, but some twins claim to know what the other is thinking or feeling.

It's an intriguing idea, but what's the truth behind it — coincidence, psychic powers, or something else? 

Twins often finish each other's sentences and think the same thoughts, but that has more to do with shared experiences than any psychic telepathy.

This sort of psychological connection isn't necessarily mysterious: any two people who know each other very well and who have shared many common experiences — including non-twin siblings, old married couples, and even best friends — may complete each other's sentences and laugh at inside jokes that leave outsiders baffled.

Separated at birth

The idea of twin telepathy has been around for well over a century.

The 1844 Alexandre Dumas novella, "The Corsican Brothers," tells the story of two once-conjoined brothers who were separated at birth yet even as adults continue to share not only thoughts but physical sensations.

As one twin describes, "However far apart we are now we still have one and the same body, so that whatever impression, physical or mental, one of us perceives has its after-effects on the other."  

Dumas drew upon a considerable body of folklore associated with twins — not all of it positive.

In many places if a cow gives birth to twin calves, they are sold immediately, as they are considered a bad omen.

Centuries ago in West Africa — where women bear twins at a rate four times higher than the rest of the world — among the Yoruba people of Nigeria the arrival of twins was cause for alarm.

Sometimes the mother and babies were banished from their village or even put to death, though modern-day twins are revered. 

In their book "The Encyclopedia of Superstitions," (Metro Books 1961) folklorists E. and M.A. Radford note that "It is a very common belief that twins, especially identical twins, are united by a strong bond of sympathy that each knows when danger or misfortune threatens the other, even when they are separated. In the same mysterious way, any special state of happiness or wellbeing in one of the pair is reflected in the feelings of the other. It is often said that if one twin dies, the other will not live long thereafter."

Indeed, when twins die at the same time it can give the appearance of some sort of supernatural or psychic connection linking not only their mental states but physical health.

For example, in 2017, 97-year-old twin sisters Martha Williams and Jean Haley died outside their Rhode Island home after they both appeared to have tripped and fallen in the cold, dying from exposure.

Three years earlier in 2014 identical twins Helen Mae Cook and Clara Mae Mitchel, aged 83, died within a day of each other (though the circumstances were different: one died suddenly of a heart attack and the other after a long struggle with Alzheimer's disease).

As remarkable as these stories are, they are the notable exceptions.

After all, they make the news and become noticed precisely because of their rarity and extraordinary coincidence.

The deaths of twins who die months, years, or decades apart are much more common and generally not newsworthy. 

Of course, given their advanced ages their coincident deaths are inherently more likely; it's far more common to hear of 83-year-old twins dying at the same time than, for example, 23-year-old twins.

That identical twins might die at approximately the same stage of life at higher rates than non-twins is to be expected since genetics plays a role in many life-threatening illnesses including heart disease.

Another non-psychic explanation for the timing of twin deaths is stress; the death of a close family member is one of the most stressful events in a person's life, and the shock and stress of losing such an intimate sibling could trigger a potentially fatal heart attack in the remaining twin. 

Anecdotal evidence

Most of the evidence for twin telepathy is not scientific but instead anecdotal.

For example, in 2009 a British teenager named Gemma Houghton was in her home when she suddenly had a feeling that her fraternal twin sister, Leanne, needed help.

"I just got this feeling to check on her, so I went up to the bathroom and she was under the water," she said.

Gemma found Leanne in a bathtub, unconscious. She had suffered a seizure and slipped under the water, nearly drowning.

Gemma called for help and administered first aid, saving her sister's life.

The story of Gemma and Leanne Houghton has been widely cited as an example of twin telepathy (the phrases "telepathic bond" and "sixth sense" appear in many news stories about them), and was cited by Guy Lyon Playfair, author of a book about twins, as a case where twin telepathy may have saved a life. 

However, the case may not be as inexplicable as it first appears. Leanne had suffered many similar fits in the past, and the rest of her family (including her sister) had been warned to keep a watchful eye on her.

Knowing that Leanne had a tendency to have seizures that could render her unconscious — and knowing that being alone in water (such as a bathtub or pool) could be dangerous for her — it's not surprising that Gemma might have become concerned when after a few minutes she heard no activity (such as splashing water) from the upstairs bathroom where Leanne was bathing alone.

No "twin telepathy" is needed to explain this event; it's likely that any other (non-twin) member of the family who was home at the time would have reacted the same way. 

Such stories of twin telepathy (or coincidences) that make the news and are discussed in the context of some unexplained phenomena are, of course, the most dramatic ones.

Mundane coincidences that everyone experiences aren't newsworthy, and if Leanne's mother (and not her twin sister) had saved her it's unlikely we would have heard about it.

By one estimate there are about 100 million twins worldwide, and the fact is that most twins do not report experiencing any sort of mysterious telepathic connection.

If some special, psychic connection between twins is as strong and common as often claimed, then by chance alone we should expect millions of these amazing stories, not just a few dozen.

As intriguing as the idea is, there is no credible scientific evidence that psychic powers exist, either in the general population or among twins specifically. 

Benjamin Radford, M.Ed., is deputy editor of Skeptical Inquirer science magazine and author of seven books including "Scientific Paranormal Investigation: How to Solve Unexplained Mysteries" and "Mysterious New Mexico: Miracles, Magic, and Monsters in the Land of Enchantment," which will be published later this year.

https://www.livescience.com/45405-twin-telepathy.html

DÉJÀ VU IN HINDSIGHT - Why we believe in false premonitions - Researchers already know that déjà vu — the feeling that we have already had a particular experience before and are now reliving it — can come with a false sense of premonition. But is it also linked with a sense of postdiction — the feeling that our false premonition was, in fact, correct? Have you ever turned a corner into a street that you had never been on before and had a nagging feeling that some time, you had turned that same corner into that same street? If so, you have experienced what is known as “déjà vu.” If, following such an experience, you have also thought that you knew what would come next — say, that a black cat was about to cross your path in a hurry — then you have experienced a false premonition, which is often associated with déjà vu. Déjà vu and its associated phenomena have interested cognitive scientist Anne Cleary. Cleary and a fellow researcher, focused on the sense of false premonition that tends to accompany déjà vu and concluded that this likely happens because of the programming of our brains. Humans amass and store memories for predictive purposes — when we face a situation, we access previous similar experiences so that we can predict the likely outcomes automatically and thus make the best choices. With a phenomenon such as déjà vu, our brains become “tricked” into thinking that they can rely on previous experience to predict what will come up next.

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Déjà vu in hindsight

Why we believe in false premonitions

Written by Maria Cohut, Ph.D.

Fact checked by Isabel Godfrey

 

Researchers already know that déjà vu — the feeling that we have already had a particular experience before and are now reliving it — can come with a false sense of premonition.

But is it also linked with a sense of postdiction — the feeling that our false premonition was, in fact, correct?

New research shows how déjà vu influences aspects of our recollection.

Have you ever turned a corner into a street that you had never been on before and had a nagging feeling that some time, perhaps in a different life, you had turned that same corner into that same street?

If so, you have experienced what is known as “déjà vu.”

If, following such an experience, you have also thought that you knew what would come next — say, that a black cat was about to cross your path in a hurry — then you have experienced a false premonition, which is often associated with déjà vu.

Déjà vu and its associated phenomena have interested cognitive scientist Anne Cleary, from Colorado State University in Fort Collins, for many years.

In a previous study that Medical News Today covered, Cleary and a fellow researcher, Alexander Claxton, focused on the sense of false premonition that tends to accompany déjà vu and concluded that this likely happens because of the programming of our brains.

Humans, Cleary and Claxton explained, amass and store memories for predictive purposes — when we face a situation, we access previous similar experiences so that we can predict the likely outcomes automatically and thus make the best choices.

With a phenomenon such as déjà vu, our brains become “tricked” into thinking that they can rely on previous experience to predict what will come up next.

However, this is merely a false impression.

Now, Cleary and colleagues from Colorado State University are reporting their findings regarding another phenomenon relating to déjà vu: postdiction.

False familiarity tricks the brain

When a person experiences postdiction, they are “filling in” memory gaps with newer information, but they remain under the mistaken impression that this information was already part of the original memory.

So far, it has been unclear whether déjà vu has as strong an association with postdiction as it does with false premonitions.

However, in the new study paper that they published in the Psychonomic Bulletin & Review, Cleary and colleagues now report that it is and explain why this may be so.

“If this is an illusion — just a feeling — why do people so strongly believe they actually predicted what unfolded next? I wondered if there was an explanation in some sort of cognitive illusion,” says Cleary.

To find out, the researchers tasked study participants with the exploration of a virtual reality scene and then asked them whether they were experiencing déjà vu.

After this, the participants returned to the virtual scene, which randomly turned to the left or right.

At this point, the researchers asked the participants whether the event had unfolded as they had expected.

Finally, in another experiment, a second cohort of participants went through the same series of actions, with the additional task of rating how familiar the scene was to them both before and after the turn took place.

The researchers found that when participants experienced déjà vu and also reported a strong sense that they could predict what would happen next, this situation was strongly associated with the phenomenon of postdiction.

These participants were convinced, in hindsight, that they had correctly predicted the direction of the turn in the scene.

However, as the turns occurred at random, the researchers explain, they would have been pretty much impossible to foresee.

Cleary and colleagues argue that this mistaken belief in the accuracy of a false prediction is likely to be due to the intense sense of familiarity that the déjà vu sensation provides.

“If the entire scene feels familiar as it unfolds, that might trick our brains into thinking we got it right after all. Because it felt so familiar as you were going through it, it felt like you knew all along how it was going to go, even if that could not have been the case.” Anne Cleary

In the future, Cleary is planning to put her findings to good use in a clinical context.

She says that she will be joining forces with neuroscientists from Emory University in Atlanta, GA, to conduct a study focusing on individuals who have injuries of the medial temporal lobe of the brain.

The researcher explains that people with such injuries often experience seizures that recurring experiences of déjà vu accompany.

The forthcoming study may offer a glimpse into the underlying biological mechanisms at play in this phenomenon.

Maria Cohut, Ph.D.

Maria is an insatiably curious soul, particularly fascinated by the mysterious workings of the human brain, medical history, and our relationship with our own bodies, both during and after life. Before joining Medical News Today, Maria worked as a teacher, academic ambassador, and a freelance writer and copy editor. Recently, she finished a Ph.D. in English at the University of Warwick in the U.K. In her spare time, she learns Japanese, occasionally practices taxidermy, and spreads her infectious love of invertebrates.

Medical News Today, part of Healthline Media UK, is one of the fastest growing health information sites in the United States. Every month, more than 70 million people come to Medical News Today for our in-depth health content and the latest news in medical research. Consider us your intellectual peer. We unravel the complexities of health information and make it easy to understand.

We take a deep dive into medical research of the past and present, and we break it down to give you the clear-cut facts. Ultimately, we want you to be confident in making informed health decisions for yourself and your loved ones. Using peer reviewed studies and reputable sources, our knowledgeable and curious editors and writers create more than 250 pieces of content every month.

https://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/326953.php#1

ECTOPLASM - Ectoplasm emerged as a nifty way for mediums to "show" people that those spirits really did exist and could physically manifest. Usually, this ectoplasm would kind of ooze from the body -- the mouth, an ear or any other orifice you could imagine. This ectoplasm sometimes looked like gauzy, cloth-like material or mysteriously took the form of faces of the spirit that was being invited to talk. Some of the most famous "physical" mediums were later found to be cutting out pictures from newspapers and using the cover of darkness to "manifest" the stuff - For a long time, ectoplasm was absolutely something mysterious. In a séance, a medium supposedly communicates a spirit. During the 19th and early 20th centuries, séances were a popular fad. People were quite into the idea that souls or spirits were floating around us. Ectoplasm emerged as a nifty way for mediums to "show" people that those spirits really did exist and could physically manifest. Usually, this ectoplasm would kind of ooze from the body -- the mouth, an ear or any other orifice you could imagine. This ectoplasm sometimes looked like gauzy, cloth-like material or mysteriously took the form of faces of the spirit that was being invited to talk. Others would just swallow some cloth or paper and spit it up for effect. A kind of gross trick, but not really from another dimension, after all. It's pretty easy to find lots of photographic "evidence" of the kind of spooky ectoplasm

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Ectoplasm

What is ectoplasm?

.

A strange visage appears on a piece of cloth next to the head of medium Marthe Beraud
 (aka Eva C) during a seance, circa 1910. Ectoplasm got its start in such seances.

Ectoplasm emerged as a nifty way for mediums to "show" people that those spirits really did exist and could physically manifest. Usually, this ectoplasm would kind of ooze from the body -- the mouth, an ear or any other orifice you could imagine. This ectoplasm sometimes looked like gauzy, cloth-like material or mysteriously took the form of faces of the spirit that was being invited to talk. Some of the most famous "physical" mediums were later found to be cutting out pictures from newspapers and using the cover of darkness to "manifest" the stuff

BY KATE KERSHNER

To most of us, the definition of ectoplasm is "a slime in 'Ghostbusters.'"

To a more select group of people, it is the outer layer of cytoplasm that helps make up an amoeba.

And to an even smaller subset of the population, ectoplasm is a substance that secretes off spirits -- or their earthbound medium -- and might just help that medium produce spooky, otherworldly feats for awed witnesses.

Now. Guess which explanation for ectoplasm is actually rooted in reality?

It doesn't exactly take a biologist to figure out that we should probably go for the amoeba one, as it does sound vaguely familiar -- in that high school science class kind of way. Also, ghosts aren't real.

But don't tell that to the small, yet vocal, part of our audience who chose the latter definition.

Because for a long time, ectoplasm was absolutely something mysterious but not altogether insane -- if you were hanging out at séances, that is.

In a séance, a medium supposedly communicates (or helps others communicate with) a spirit.

During the 19th and early 20th centuries, séances were a popular fad. People were quite into the idea that souls or spirits were floating around us, waiting to be nudged with a question.

Ectoplasm emerged as a nifty way for mediums to "show" people that those spirits really did exist and could physically manifest.

Usually, this ectoplasm would kind of ooze from the body -- the mouth, an ear or (let's just be polite) any other orifice you could imagine.

This ectoplasm sometimes looked like gauzy, cloth-like material or mysteriously took the form of faces of the spirit that was being invited to talk.

Or perhaps not so mysteriously, considering that some of the most famous "physical" mediums were later found to be cutting out pictures from newspapers and using the cover of darkness (ectoplasm would supposedly disappear in light, you see) to "manifest" the stuff.

Still others would just swallow some cloth or paper and spit it up for effect. A kind of gross trick, but not really from another dimension, after all.

It's pretty easy to find lots of photographic "evidence" of the kind of spooky ectoplasm mediums were into.

And it probably isn't a huge surprise that people took these pictures as proof; in the burgeoning days of photography, it was easy to assume that white splotches on a badly rendered picture were ghosts or that the carefully staged pictures were candid.

Lesson being, for those asking you for a definition of ectoplasm at a party, you can really judge what kinds of people they are by which definition they cleave to.

Kate Kershner, Contributing Writer
Kate Kershner has a degree in creative writing from Western Washington University.

https://science.howstuffworks.com/science-vs-myth/unexplained-phenomena/ectoplasm.htm

ESP & PSYCHIC POWERS - The idea of special — apparently paranormal — mental abilities such as psychic powers or extrasensory perception (ESP) has intrigued people for centuries. There are several claimed varieties of psychic powers, including telekinesis (or psychokinesis, the ability to move objects through mind power); precognition (knowing future events before they happen); and telepathy or clairvoyance (French for "clear sight" — describing things at a remote location). Many Americans believe in psychic ability (about 15 percent of the country, according to a 2005 Baylor Religion Survey; and 41 percent in another survey), but scientific evidence for its existence remains elusive. And it's not for lack of trying; people — and the U.S. government — have spent decades searching for ESP. Though the government concluded that psychic power doesn't exist (or, if it does, the information it provides is no more accurate than random chance guesses), ESP research has continued. ESP has not fared well under scientific conditions, whether in the private or public sector. Early experiments used "Zener cards" with common symbols such as circles, squares, and wavy lines selected at random and which a psychic would try to guess. Overall the vast majority of ESP studies can best be characterized as inconclusive. Some studies suggest evidence of some sort of psychic ability; others don't.

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Research has not proven that extra powers of the mind exist. 

ESP & Psychic Powers

Claims Inconclusive

By Benjamin Radford 

The idea of special — apparently paranormal — mental abilities such as psychic powers or extrasensory perception (ESP) has intrigued people for centuries.

There are several claimed varieties of psychic powers, including telekinesis (or psychokinesis, the ability to move objects through mind power); precognition (knowing future events before they happen); and telepathy or clairvoyance (French for "clear sight" — describing things at a remote location).

It's the stuff of fiction and movies — but is it real?

Many Americans believe in psychic ability (about 15 percent of the country, according to a 2005 Baylor Religion Survey; and 41 percent in another survey), but scientific evidence for its existence remains elusive.

And it's not for lack of trying; people — and the U.S. government — have spent decades searching for ESP.

Government ESP research

During the Cold War, rumors circulated that the Russians were developing an army of psychic spies; in response, the U.S. military created a program to examine whether psychics could be useful in military applications.

The program, called Stargate, tested "remote viewers" to see if their feelings and visions were accurate.

The research continued for about two decades, ending in the mid-1990s with little apparent success.

Finally, the CIA took over the program and asked scientists to review the results.

They concluded that the psychics did no better than chance, and that the psychic information was neither validated nor useful.

Project Stargate failed and was shut down. SOUND

Some suggest that the fact that Stargate program even existed is evidence that there must be some validity to psychic powers (otherwise it would not have been created and funded for years).

Yet countless programs have been funded despite never having been proven valid or effective; the U.S. government spending money on fruitless programs is hardly novel.

Some believe that top-secret government programs still use psychics today, though high-profile intelligence failures (i.e., if accurate psychics are employed by the government, why did it take a decade to find Osama bin Laden?) cast doubt on such conspiracy claims.

ESP in the laboratory

Though the government concluded that psychic power doesn't exist (or, if it does, the information it provides is no more accurate than random chance guesses), ESP research has continued.

Unfortunately, ESP has not fared well under scientific conditions, whether in the private or public sector.

Early experiments used "Zener cards" with common symbols such as circles, squares, and wavy lines selected at random and which a psychic would try to guess.

In the 1930s and 1940s a researcher at Duke University named J.B. Rhine became interested in the idea that people could affect the outcome of random events using their minds.

Rhine began with tests of dice rolls, asking subjects to try and influence the outcome through concentration.

Though his results were mixed and hardly robust, they were enough to convince him that there was something mysterious going on.

Unfortunately for Rhine his experiments failed a crucial scientific test, that of replicability: other researchers were unable to duplicate his findings.

Errors were found in his methodology, and the topic faded away.

By the 1960s, computer technology allowed more sophisticated tests, including using psychic powers to influence the outcome of random number generators.

In 1976, several children who claimed to be able to bend spoons with their minds were tested in controlled experiments at the University of Bath.

For a while the results seemed promising, and experimenters believed they might finally have found real scientific evidence of psychokinesis.

Unfortunately, the children were caught cheating on hidden cameras, physically bending spoons with their hands — not their minds — when they thought no one was watching.

Inconclusive results

The problem is not that skeptics and scientists refuse to take ESP seriously; indeed, researchers have spent decades trying to find good evidence.

One famous research organization, the Princeton Engineering Anomalies Research group, led by Prof. Robert Jahn, spent nearly three decades searching for psychic ability, usually getting mixed and inconclusive results.

It finally closed its doors in 2007, never having found hard scientific evidence for ESP.

Still, others continue the research.

An emeritus professor at Cornell University, Daryl Bem, spent much of the past decade conducting experiments that he believes demonstrate that psychic powers exist.

Bem tested the ability of college students to accurately sense random events, such as detecting where an image will flash on a computer screen. Bem's research was published in "The Journal of Personality and Social Psychology," a respected psychology journal.

The study made national news, but researchers who examined Bem's studies found significant statistical and methodological flaws, suggesting that his apparent success was likely an artifact of those errors.

Bem stood by his findings, acknowledging some mistakes and dismissing others, and encouraged others to replicate his ESP studies.

If he had really found scientific evidence for psychic ability, others should be able to duplicate it.

Two different teams of independent researchers replicated Bem's research — and both failed to find any evidence for ESP.

The studies were published in the journals "PLoS ONE" in 2011 and in the "Journal of Personality and Social Psychology" in 2012.

Overall the vast majority of ESP studies can best be characterized as inconclusive. Some studies suggest evidence of some sort of psychic ability; others don't.

Often the effect sizes were statistically significant but very small — not much above random chance.

Most of the studies that do show an effect (like Daryl Bem's) were never able to be replicated.

Ironically, if the ESP researchers are right and psychic ability does exist, it seems to be a very weak effect.

What's the point of using psychics if their guesses aren't much more accurate than the average person's?

Presumably the whole point of ESP is that it should be much more accurate and valid than chance or an informed guess — except that it isn't.

Those who believe in ESP are undeterred by the consistent lack of good evidence, and insist that one day scientists will find hard evidence of psychic abilities.

That may be true, but ESP believers said the same thing half a century ago.

Benjamin Radford is deputy editor of "Skeptical Inquirer" science magazine and author of six books, including "Scientific Paranormal Investigation: How to Solve Unexplained Mysteries." His website is www.BenjaminRadford.com.

For the science geek in everyone, Live Science breaks down the stories behind the most interesting news and photos on the Internet, while also digging up fascinating discoveries that hit on a broad range of fields, from dinosaurs and archaeology to wacky physics and astronomy to health and human behavior. If you want to learn something interesting every day, Live Science is the place for you.

https://www.livescience.com/23852-esp-psychic-powers.html