precognition

M told me awhile ago about a phenomenon called precognition, where people can process things that happen in the near future, without consciously knowing it. This unconscious absorption can then manifest itself in thinking about what will happen in the future, before it actually happens. In some experiments, subjects are shown images of two curtains and asked to predict under which curtain contained a picture. They were then shown which curtain was correct, and even though they had no idea before being shown, they predicted the curtain correctly more often than would be predicted by chance. The idea is that something outside the usual senses absorbs this future experience, or the experience "travels" back in time to you, so that your mind has glimpsed it before your senses do.

Since he told me about it, he's mentioned some examples that have happened to him. I am by nature like most people, resistant to ingrained, familiar processes of thought that make sense to me mainly because I haven't given them much thought. But that stubborn narrowness exists more in the immediate than long-term. The willingness to continue considering something, combined with M's natural way of pushing me to be more open, makes the world much bigger and wider, and richer.

The other day, I was telling M about a blog I read. A few days before that, I decided to finally comment on this person's blog that I've read over the past couple years. A little while ago she became sick and needed a bone marrow transplant. I was pretty jarred by this, the sudden change in a stranger's life; somehow those take on the regularity of those more familiar to you. Her blog moved to a different website and became focused on health updates. I'd read it only sporadically, but recently became invested in reading it more regularly. I like her way of taking things as they come, and how her qualities that were associated with her old life--being out and about, active, running--still seem present despite not being able to have that life anymore. I'm not sure why, after all this time, I decided to comment and tell her a little of my connection to her blog.

As I was telling M, I remembered that I was struck by how she mentioned doing "laps" around the hospital, walking with her IV down the hallway. One of the things I'd liked reading about was her running, and I was struck by the contrast. It also made me think of how sad I've been over my rusty hip, and not being able to move to the same degree as before. Compared to her change, it's not much of a difference, but with the effect this small change has had on me, I can imagine how much more difficult such loss would be. I think this is one of the things that prompted me to comment.

I'm not sure why, a couple days after posting the comment, I brought it up to M. I introduced it on my own and we had a long conversation about bone marrow transplants and donors. A few hours later, I am told that a friend has just received a letter about being a possible bone marrow match for a 51 year old man. Long story, I'm involved in communicating to this friend that she's received this letter, and I'm struck by the coincidence. M is the one to point out possible precognition.

Though experiments are centered around having precognition of something that happens just several seconds later (not several hours like my case), things like that make me feel that thoughts are in some way sent out to the universe. It's not so straightforward, like telepathy or the idea that thinking something will happen will make it happen. More that energy and thoughts exist in forms we might not feel or know directly. I don't know how much this changes anything other than maybe to consider and feel things with slightly different awareness. Which as far as measuring value of being open to the incomprehensible and unlikely, seems more than enough.