Abstract Consciousness: Remote Sensing

The remote sensing consciousness sense is perhaps the most ‘mystical’ abstract consciousness sense. Where intuition usually concerns our own future or decisions, remote sensing is normally associated with sensing the thoughts, experiences or emotions of others who are not directly present, or in some cases, may be deceased.

Remote sensing may be known as extra-sensory perception (ESP), telepathy, pre-cognition or psychic sensing.  When remote sensing, we perceive as if information is coming from one of our external consciousness senses, but there is a certainty that the information is not coming from us. Or we may perceive information through our internal consciousness senses, and have memories, ideas, thoughts or emotions that are clearly not our own. 

The information received often does not neatly fit into any of the other external, internal or abstract consciousness senses. For some, this includes perceiving a future event, sensing the emotional state of someone at a large distance, or intuiting unseen energies in a distant space. Remote sensing is controversial and often met with skepticism because its experiences are internal, subjective, and not easily verified. This personal, variable nature makes it challenging to study or prove. Nevertheless, it is a sense that feels vivid and very real to those who experience it.

The percentage of people who report experiencing some sort of remote sensing varies widely depending on the study and its methodology. Surveys and polls suggest that a significant portion of the population, often ranging from 25% to over 50%, believes they have had at least one ESP-related experience, such as precognition or telepathy. However, the high prevalence of such reports could be influenced by cultural beliefs, subjective experiences, or interpretation of ambiguous events as paranormal.

Scientific proof? Not so much

Most explanations of remote sensing involve the idea that there is an invisible energetic layer of information that humans are connected to in some way. Through consciousness training or other contemplative practice, we may be able to ‘turn on’ or ‘tune in’ to these specific energies or frequencies. These explanations rarely have a proven, scientific basis.

For example, someone might have a strong "knowing" that a loved one is in trouble or experience a premonition about an event that later unfolds as foreseen. These occurrences can feel profoundly meaningful, even transformative, but their lack of external validation often relegates them to the realm of the mysterious or unexplainable. Psychic sensing is not limited to dramatic events; it can also manifest as subtle impressions, flashes of insight, or inexplicable feelings about a person or place that don’t seem to fit in with your current location or time. 

Despite its contentious nature and lack of credible scientific verification, remote sensing plays a role in many spiritual and meditative practices. It may be seen as an extension of intuition or a heightened sensitivity to energies that are normally imperceptible. Deliberate training in remote sensing often involves deep meditation, advanced self-awareness, and quieting the mind to tune into subtle impressions, energies or frequencies, and clearly distinguish their origin. Just as with intuition, cultivating remote sensing requires trust in one's internal experience and the ability to distinguish between genuine insights and the projections of one's own thoughts and desires, emotions, imagination, preconceived ideas and unconscious programming.

The Risks of Remote Sensing

Remote sensing can also carry risks, such as misinterpreting internal impressions or feeling overwhelmed by information that is difficult to process. For this reason, many traditions emphasize grounding techniques, discernment and care when exploring remote sensing. While science cannot yet fully explain remote sensing phenomena, it remains an area of fascination and exploration for many people, bridging the gap between personal experience and the mysteries of consciousness.

Remote sensing has been explored historically but remains highly controversial in mainstream science. One notable example is the Stargate Project, a U.S. government-funded initiative during the Cold War to investigate potential psychic phenomena for intelligence purposes. While participants occasionally reported accurate details of distant locations, comprehensive reviews found the results inconsistent and not scientifically reliable, leading to the program’s termination in 1995. Similarly, experiments by J.B. Rhine in the mid-20th century, involving ESP testing with Zener cards, initially suggested statistical support for psychic abilities but faced criticism for methodological flaws and poor replication.

In the 1970s, the Ganzfeld experiments aimed to test telepathy under sensory isolation, with some studies reporting small positive effects. However, issues like experimental bias, lack of rigorous controls, and replication failures undermined their credibility. More recently, neuroscientists have examined whether heightened intuition or subconscious pattern recognition might explain phenomena mistaken for remote sensing, with brain regions like the anterior insula and prefrontal cortex implicated in intuitive processes. Despite these studies, no robust evidence has emerged to confirm genuine extrasensory abilities.

Numerous speculative ideas, such as the ability of the brain to access quantum information through the crystals present in the pineal gland, have been proposed to explain psychic phenomena, but these theories remain unsupported by empirical data. Most reported cases of remote sensing are attributed to coincidence, subconscious cues, or psychological mechanisms rather than paranormal abilities. Despite this, public fascination and anecdotal accounts keep the topic alive, straddling the boundary between scientific skepticism and cultural intrigue. 

As you deepen your study of consciousness, increase your skills at managing your attention and making more precise observations about what is occurring in your own awareness, many strange and unfamiliar things may happen. Personally, I’ve experienced sensations of travelling great distances, unintentionally holding my breath for minutes, falling into endless blackness, and many emotional states that seemed to categorically not be my own, or related in any way to my physical surroundings at the time. Personally, I don’t rank these experiences as psychic, just unexplained. But I do have friends for whom psychic perception is not just a regular, but an everyday experience. So my mind remains open.

Exercise: What is not mine?

Find a quiet place where you can sit comfortably for at least ten to fifteen minutes without interruption. Begin by settling into stillness and allowing your breathing to become smooth and natural. Spend the first minute simply observing what it is like to be you.

Ask yourself these questions:

• What emotions are present for me right now?

• What thoughts are active?

• What physical sensations belong clearly to my body?

• What memories, images, or internal dialogue are already moving through my mental space?

This first step is essential, because remote sensing begins not with trying to perceive anything unusual, but with developing a clear reference point for what is unmistakably your own consciousness activity.

Now bring to mind a person you know well. Choose someone emotionally neutral or safe at first, such as a close friend, colleague, or family member. Someone whose normal emotional style and way of being is already familiar to you.

Direct your attention towards your awareness of them. Do not force images or try to “receive” anything. Now, simply notice what changes inside your own consciousness when you place your attention on this person.

• Does a certain mood arise?

• Do body sensations change?

• Do words, images, memories, or impressions spontaneously appear?

• Did your breathing shift?

• Did you suddenly feel more open, constricted, tired, energized, warm, cautious, or emotionally moved?

The question is not whether this information is objectively “remote sensing.” The question is:
Did something arise that was not previously present before you placed your attention on that person?  Contemplate this idea of how you distinguish between ‘me’ and ‘not me’  for several minutes.

Now ask a deeper question: Is this perception or sensation arising from them somehow (even though they are not physically present), or from my memory of them, from my imagination, or from something in me that this person tends to trigger. Work on observing carefully enough that you can detect where that perception or sensation is arising from, and whether you are creating the idea, or whether it is genuinely coming spontaneously from ourside of yourself.

This distinction is the heart of your practice of the remote sensing consciousness sense. Rather than trying to prove anything paranormal, you are training the ability to separate:

• direct memory

• emotional projection

• unconscious association

• empathic resonance

• recognition of social programming

• genuinely unexplained impressions

Next, try the same process with a physical place. Bring to mind a room, workplace, home, or landscape you know well. Notice whether the space itself seems to evoke emotional or sensory impressions that were not present before. If you can, mentally move from that space into another adjacent space, and see if there is a shift in sensation or emotion. Using these shifts, we can sometimes identify if a space holds a positive or negative ‘charge’ for us within our consciousness. 

Again ask: What here is memory, what is emotional residue, and does anything feel like genuinely new information?  When you are done, bring your attention back to yourself and re-establish what it feels like to be you, and notice what clearly belongs to you again.

• your breathing

• your posture

• your body sensations

• your thought

• your affect (overall mood)

Self Reflection: Psychic Sensing

• Have you ever experienced information or impressions that seemed to arise from beyond your usual senses, and was clearly not your own?

• How do you feel about the idea of remote sensing or psychic phenomena? Are you skeptical, curious, or open to exploring it further?

• Have you ever sensed the emotional state or intentions of someone without them being physically present? If so, how is that different from empathy when they are present.

• Would you choose to train yourself to trust or refine very subtle senses of information, or do you prefer to focus on more tangible senses?

Your Personal Insights

Make some notes in your journal about your remote sensing consciousness sense.