Remote Viewing

Remote viewing is the paranormal ability to see in your mind's eye places that are separated from you by vast distances or by time. I would argue that this is just an altered state of perception. Remote viewing is just a misinterpretation of the mystic's vision or the artist's imagination. It is merely a matter of mental imagery coming to mind of places that seem real but unfamiliar. I've observed that there is never any verifiable facts to be found in these mystery places. People who believe in remote viewing as a paranormal ability will often convince themselves that they've seen an actual location by grasping for similarities between their vision and a real place that they may visit later on. For example, someone who has had a vision of an apartment will later visit a friend and convince himself that this is the apartment in his vision based upon the refrigerators being eerily alike. It is important to note that the vision was vague and the connection is also vague. You can never precisely connect a vision of a place with a location in the real world based upon a hard fact that should be unknown to you.

New Age believers in remote viewing also come into contact with entities. They may also think they can spy on actual people as disembodied voyeurs. For me, there is never anyone at these mystery locations. The place is always completely deserted with no entities or persons in sight. I account for this discrepancy in the experiences by speculating that their experience is accompanied by a dissociative mental state whereas mine is not. The New Age believer fails to associate with his vision and therefore his mind creates the illusion of another to provide a experiencer distinct from his identity. I properly associate with my mental imagery and recognize it as being the product of my imagination and therefore there is no need to create the illusion of the other.

Why is it so common for mental imagery to create the illusion of a real, but unfamiliar location? My rational explanation is that exceptional access to the unconscious mind or altered states of consciousness are like dreams that occur while you are awake. A dream has to occur someplace so there is always a location. Also I have observed that I never have a vision of a place that is completely unlike anything I have ever seen. Usually it is just a highly distorted vision of someplace I have seen although it is often difficult to be sure about this. It should be noted that dreams never picture a place without significant distortion. Even your own, intimately familiar home will be transfigured into something unrecognizably surreal.

posted by Robert Robbins @ 4:03 PM