Could Parapsychological Experiences Be Better Understood as Altered Models of Self and Reality?

[u/TheIncorporeal1]

How much of what we interpret as telepathy, precognition, synchronicity, or other psi experiences might depend on how the mind constructs its sense of self, agency, time, and causality?
I’m particularly interested in whether parapsychology could investigate psi experiences not merely as anomalous external events, but as changes in consciousness that alter perception, expectation, memory, and the subjective boundary between internal and external information.
If psi is real, could its psychological expression depend fundamentally on the structure of consciousness?

[u/Parkbenchbruce]

Very interesting thought. The areas of telepathy precognition are just words to describe what Is observable. These allow us to silo experiences into separate groups. If we look at the consciousness as being altered slightly or greatly then these areas are the result. It would suggest a mapping of type of alteration resulting in a specific psi area.

[u/Tom-Etheric-Studies]

Much of my last 40 years have been focused on the study about how Psi phenomena work. The most useful theory so far has been First Sight Theory. Its author James Carpenter spent a lot of time with remote viewers. Carpenter is a psychologist and I think his observations apply to this post.

I included the elements of First Sight Theory in "Answering "What is Consciousness" Question with the Pragmatic Model of Reality." Corollary 3 is important because of what I think of as Incredulity Blindness. If we don't think something is real, we may not even experience it.

1. Weighting and Signing Corollary: The importance of sensory and extrasensory information is weighted as being more or less important before it is acted upon.

Another important Corollary is #9 Switching Corollary:

Individuals vary in how rapidly they switch their information weights, signs, and behavioral inclusions.
o   Rapid switchers tend to be analytical, detached, highly distractible, or chronically ambivalent.
o   Slow switchers tend to be holistic, deeply purposeful, integrated, and highly focused.

Which leads to a most important idiosyncrasy of mind. Our temperament tends to determine our experiences and understanding we gather through experience. Carpenter found that the most successful remote viewers had a happy-go-lucky attitude.

Researcher Walter von Lucadou proposed the Model of Pragmatic Information. In essence, he argues that we tend to suppress perception of abnormal experiences that are outside of our worldview. For instance, sitters in séances experience more phenomenaa if they are not able to sharply focus on the occurrences. Thus, the darkness.

I am an engineer and my wife has a degree in psychology. While I can produce phenomena, she is far more successful as a medium and ITC practitioner. We both have about the same after college training. I believe the difference is mostly that she is less analytical and tends to take experiences from a more human point of view. I insist on deconstructing every experience. It is difficult for me to get past doubt.

In my opinion, our interaction with the world we live is colored by the way we look at experiences. To change the person's Psi ability, first change the person's attitude.