I had been working with this person for over a year in a stressful project with tight deadlines. We got along pretty well which it was a blessing considering the amount of hours of work, the stress and the fact that we were sharing the same small office.
One day I was focused in my morning‘s routine when this melody kept going and going in my mind as only minds know how to do in a loop. My co worker arrived and while he was putting his stuff on his desk he began to whistle the same melody.
How could that be possible? How could be possible that at the same moment I was thinking in this melody he started to whistle it? Was that a telepathy phenomena or just a very odd coincidence? Could two people’s thoughts get in some kind of harmony after sharing long time together or they just get to know each other so well that start to anticipate the other behaviours?
A study, led by Sydney's University of Technology, has found that some couples are so in tune that their brains begin to work in synchronisation - with parts of their nervous systems beating in harmony.
The scientists studied the brains and heartbeats of 30 volunteers during counselling sessions by counsellors and found identical patterns of brain activity in those who had become so close they were "physiologically aligned".
That means they reached a state in which their nervous systems were ticking in harmony, helping them to know each other's thoughts and emotions. The scientists believe the findings also shed light on the behaviour of couples, close friends or family members.
Psychologists know that some couples learn to think like each other - allowing them to "know" what their partner is thinking. But, this new study goes further by looking into the activity of the nervous system. In fact, Dr Trisha Stratford, who led the study, identified a crucial moment when the counsellor and patient's brains started to work in sync in an "altered state".
She said: "When this happens we can read each other's brains and bodies at a deeper level -- a sixth sense." During the "altered state", the part of each person's brain that controls the nervous system began to beat together.
The brain is an electrochemical organ; researchers have speculated that a fully functioning brain can generate as much as 10 watts of electrical power. Electrical activity emanating from the brain is displayed in the form of brainwaves. Radio waves and brain waves are both forms of electromagnetic radiation—waves of energy that travel at the speed of light.
The difference between brain waves, radio waves, and other electromagnetic waves (such as visible light, X-rays and Gamma rays) lies in their frequency—that is, how often the waves peak and trough in a second. Radio waves, which include radio and other wireless transmission signals, as well as other natural signals in the same frequency, peak and trough at between 50 and 1000 megahertz—that’s between 50 million and one billion oscillations per second.
The difference between brain waves, radio waves, and other electromagnetic waves (such as visible light, X-rays and Gamma rays) lies in their frequency—that is, how often the waves peak and trough in a second. Radio waves, which include radio and other wireless transmission signals, as well as other natural signals in the same frequency, peak and trough at between 50 and 1000 megahertz—that’s between 50 million and one billion oscillations per second.
The human brain also emits waves, like when a person focuses her attention or remembers something. This activity fires thousands of neurons simultaneously at the same frequency generating a wave—but at a rate closer to 10 to 100 cycles per second.
Scientists have unveiled a new technique for decoding human brainwaves and then converting them into speech. Researchers at the University of Utah have used an array of microelectrodes placed over the brains speech centres to capture brain waves and convert them into the spoken word.
The accuracy was actually quite low, only 48% accuracy with a set of 10 words, however when using a set of only two, yes and no, they achieved 90% accuracy which can certainly be no fluke. Trials have been very narrow so far i.e. only tested on one patient but they are hoping to work on the design of the equipment and begin clinical trials in the next couple of years. The technique may one day make it possible to communicate with patients who are unable to talk.
But the Radio Wave Theory to explain telepathy has some skeptic’s argument against it. If telepathy works like radio waves and people often speak of "vibes" as though there were telepathic and "brain waves" go from one person to another, then we ought to be able to detect it coming from people's brains. But we cannot. The brain's electrical activity can be detected at best only a few centimetres away from the skull.
There would also need to be a wave transmitter in one brain and a wave receiver in the other brain. No sign of either has ever been detected in any human brain. Also, the strength of the "signal" ought to decay with distance.
By other hand believers can point that the idea in physics of "interaction at a distance" is not new, Einstein wrote about it and it's dealt with in theory of quantum teleportation. There are numerous anecdotal accounts of lovers, mother-child couples, twins, or even military buddies being attuned to each other across large distances.
My co worker and I were a little more than a metre of distance though, so maybe that was short enough for him to perceive my musical waves. Or maybe it was just a song broadcasted by a radio channel that same morning that we both could have listened and provoked our predisposition to sign it later.
Telepathy or coincidence? You tell me. Most probably you have a similar story or theory to share. So, please, be my guest.
By Viviana Gomez - September 16, 2012
Why do you consider only two opposing hypotheses of telepathy or coincidence? There are other models available: synchronicity & Alan Moore's Idea-Space model to name but two...
ReplyDeleteYou're absolutely right. I will research and write about these other models in future articles. By now I just wanted to start with this one. Thank you for point this out.
ReplyDelete