This section contains information on other common psychic phenomena that have been recorded or experienced over the years. You can use the subcontents menu at the right to navigate through this section.

Déjà vu, popularly defined as the sensation that you are doing something you have done before, is hardly an uncommon phenomena. According to a poll conducted in 1986 by the National Opinion Research Council of the University of Chicago, 67% of Americans reported instances of déjà vu.

Déjà vu consists of an unexpected sensation of familiarity that applies to events, experiences, sensory impressions, dreams, thoughts, statements, desires, emotions, meetings, visits, the act of reading, the state of knowing, and, in general, the circumstances of living. The term is French for 'already seen,' and was first used in 1876 by E. Letter Boirac, who called it "le sensation du déjà vu."

There is a wide variance in theories explaining déjà vu. Some psychologists refer to it as double cerebration. As early as 1884, theories were advanced suggesting that one hemisphere of the brain received information a split second earlier that the other half, resulting in the feeling of familiarity that accompanies déjà vu.

In 1895, the English psychical researcher Frederic W. H. Myers theorized that the subconscious mind registered information sooner than the conscious mind. However, the speculation of a biological process for déjà vu, if there is any, has not been proven.

Those believing in reincarnation theorize that déjà vu is caused by fragments of past-life memories being jarred to the surface of the mind by familiar surroundings or people. Others theorize that the phenomenon is caused by astral projection, or out-of-body experiences, where it is possible that individuals have visited places in their astral bodies during sleep. The sensation may also be connected to the fulfillment of a condition as seen or felt in a premonition. Other possible explanations are clairvoyance and telepathy.

Psychiatrist Carl Jung, as with ESP, theorized that déjà vu is a product of the collective unconscious. He as well as many others speculate that déjà vu occurs when one draws on the collective memories of humankind. (Jung himself had an intense déjà vu experience during his first trip to Africa.)

However, many researchers are cautious when dealing with instances of déjà vu because of the chance that the person who experienced the sensation may simply have experienced a case of cryptomnesia.

Historically, dowsing has been defined as the ability to find underground water through the use of the bare hands, a forked twig, or some other type of "divining rod." The typical image is that of a person traveling through an area, his divining rod at the ready, searching for the water source. As the dowser approaches the source, the rod would begin to jerk, or the dowser would be able to read certain vibrations. One example of dowsing can be found in the Bible, which states that Moses once found water with his staff. In later centuries, dowsing became associated with the ability to find oil, coal, minerals, and archeological sites as well.

In more recent times, the use of charts and maps have been substituted for the actual exploration, and swinging pendulums have become the divining rods of choice. This method has also been used to find the bodies of murder victims, or to locate lost or missing items or persons. ³

Some explanations for dowsing, though typically rejected by serious investigators, involve forces such as emissions, vibrations, electromagnetic waves, or radiation which the dowser is able to sense. ⁵ For example, there may exist a magnetic field on the earth's surface, and the presence of buried iron objects or underground water causes altercations in this field. It is thought that experienced dowsers are able to detect these altercations. ⁴ These explanations, however, do not account for the use of maps in dowsing.

Another explanation that has been given more serious consideration involves Carl Jung's collective racial consciousness theory. "That is, the individual's mind attunes itself to a universal pool of consciousness. Responding to information from this cosmic matrix, the dowser's muscles react involuntarily to cause a wand to dive or a pendulum to rotate." ⁵

It may also be that dowsing is a form of clairvoyance. The divining rod simply act as as an "instrument to amplify the mind of the dowser....[allowing] his mind to connect with the substance or person to be located, whether he is at the location or working with a map." A more famous example of such an amplifier would be the popular crystal ball. ³

During the mid-1800's, Joseph Rhodes Buchanan conducted a series of experiments in which he tested the abilities of people to sense the history and association of objects. He termed this ability psychometry, meaning "the measure of the soul of things."

What he discovered was that various subjects, termed sensitives because of their ability, were able to give a thorough description of not only the history of the object, but also of the emotions associated with it. For example, one subject, when given a letter, "was able to talk about the character and emotions of the writer as if he knew him personally." ³ Another sensitive was reportedly able to give a physical description of the author.

Buchanan's offered explanationfor the phenomena of psychometry was that the information conveyed through the object was somehow recorded onto those objects by the people previously associated with them. This explanation, however, fails to satisfy many people: how logical is it to believe that an inanimate object has a memory?

Another more popular explanation is the claim that there is no such thing as psychometry: rather, the sensitive is merely a clairvoyant who, rather than see the images associated with the object, is more able to sense them. (This theory of clairvoyance is similar to that used in attempts to explain hauntings.) ³

Retrocognition is defined as the ability to see into the past, possibly brought on by a time slip. It can be in the form of a vision or a hallucination, but typically involves the viewer's surroundings suddenly changing and redeveloping into those of the past.

Often, the vision lasts only briefly, however some people have reported being in the past for nearly half an hour. In some of these longer experiences, people report being able to interact with others from the past.

Déjà Vu

Dowsing

Psychometry

Retrocognition