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We are always 1-5 seconds ahead in the future
This website outlines a few studies that show something remarkable. Our brain is constantly in the future!!!
I am a skeptic. I don't believe in fortune tellers or psychics. I certainly doubted that I could forsee the future. But, as I did the research for this article, I discovered that I was wrong. Everyone can see into the future and we do it all the time.
Ooop! That wasn't supposed to happen.
Our journey starts with an experiment conducted in 1976. Dr. Kornhuber asked a number of volunteers to be wired with EEG electrodes to measure their brain activity. He then asked the volunteers to flex the index finger of their right hand, suddenly and at various times of their own choosing. He wanted to measure how fast it took for the mental decision to move the finger to actually make the finger move. His results were not what he expected.
Kornhuber expected to find a sharp peak in electrical activity when the decision was consciously made, at which point he would begin timing the trials. However, what he found is remarkable, namely that there is a gradual build-up of recorded electric potential for a full second, or perhaps even up to a second and a half, before the finger is actually flexed. This seems to indicate that the conscious decision process takes over a second in order to act! Even more surprising was that the volunteers were not aware of this delay and believed they were acting spontaneously and instantly.
So what happened? Did the brain somehow "know" that the decision would be made in the future and begin planning the action?
The experiment received little attention until another experiment conducted by Dr. Libet in 1979 raised questions about our conscious perception of time and the idea of "now."
Everything "now" happened already!
Libet tested subjects who had to have brain surgery for some reason unconnected with the experiment and who consented to having electrodes placed at points in the brain, in the somatosensory cortex. He monitored the electrical activity while stimulating their skin. To his amazement it took about a half-second before the subjects were able to perceive the stimulation. Further experiments showed that this same delay - about a half second - was needed for all sensory input to reach consciousness.
The significance of this is enormous. Everything we know about the external world right now - the sounds, the sights, the feelings - are all being delayed. Everything that you think is happening right now actually happened already, about half a second ago!
So how is this possible? How do we drive cars, catch baseballs, swat flies and write or draw if it's all delayed? Well, the obvious answer is that we have adapted the ability to compensate for the delay by projecting our behavior into the future, which is really "now."
Confusing? Wait... it gets even better.
Five Seconds In The Future
Marilyn Schlitz connected volunteers to a series of monitors, similar to a lie detector, to measure their heartbeat, perspiration and other nervous activity. She then had them sit in front of a computer screen and began showing them a series of images which were selected at random by the computer from a large collection. These images were described as either "neutral" (boring) or "emotional" (erotic or morbid). As expected, the subjects showed physical and mental excitement when the "emotional" images were shown and showed less reaction to the "neutral" images. But as the experiment continued, something weird happened.
Researchers began to see that most people, unconsciously, began to react to the "emotional" images a full 5 seconds before they were selected by the computer program! What's more, they did not react to the "neutral" images. This result was statstically significant (p=0.00003) and has been repeated many times. It strongly suggests hat subjects can perceive the future.
Another study, described in the Journal of Alternative and Complementary Medicine, was reported by psychophysiologist Rollin McCraty and his colleagues from the Institute of Heartmath in Boulder Creek, California. McCraty's group simultaneously measured skin conductance, heart rate, and brainwave activity before, during, and after 26 participants viewed emotional and calm pictures. They found that both the heart (p < 0. 001) and the brain (p < 0. 05) responded about 5 seconds before the future emotional stimuli, and to their amazement, that the heart responded before the brain. They also observed significant gender differences in the processing of this future information (women performed better, on average, than men). They concluded: "Our findings suggest that intuitive perception is not a discrete function produced by a single part or system of the body alone. Rather, it appears that intuition may in fact be a system-wide process involving at least the heart and brain, together, in the processing and decoding of intuitive information." They highlighted that "the fact that the heart is involved in the perception of a future external event is a surprising, even astounding result, especially from the classical perspective that assigns the brain an exclusive role [for perception]."
Link Below..
You Can Know the Future
I am a skeptic. I don't believe in fortune tellers or psychics. I certainly doubted that I could forsee the future. But, as I did the research for this article, I discovered that I was wrong. Everyone can see into the future and we do it all the time.
Ooop! That wasn't supposed to happen.
Our journey starts with an experiment conducted in 1976. Dr. Kornhuber asked a number of volunteers to be wired with EEG electrodes to measure their brain activity. He then asked the volunteers to flex the index finger of their right hand, suddenly and at various times of their own choosing. He wanted to measure how fast it took for the mental decision to move the finger to actually make the finger move. His results were not what he expected.
Kornhuber expected to find a sharp peak in electrical activity when the decision was consciously made, at which point he would begin timing the trials. However, what he found is remarkable, namely that there is a gradual build-up of recorded electric potential for a full second, or perhaps even up to a second and a half, before the finger is actually flexed. This seems to indicate that the conscious decision process takes over a second in order to act! Even more surprising was that the volunteers were not aware of this delay and believed they were acting spontaneously and instantly.
So what happened? Did the brain somehow "know" that the decision would be made in the future and begin planning the action?
The experiment received little attention until another experiment conducted by Dr. Libet in 1979 raised questions about our conscious perception of time and the idea of "now."
Everything "now" happened already!
Libet tested subjects who had to have brain surgery for some reason unconnected with the experiment and who consented to having electrodes placed at points in the brain, in the somatosensory cortex. He monitored the electrical activity while stimulating their skin. To his amazement it took about a half-second before the subjects were able to perceive the stimulation. Further experiments showed that this same delay - about a half second - was needed for all sensory input to reach consciousness.
The significance of this is enormous. Everything we know about the external world right now - the sounds, the sights, the feelings - are all being delayed. Everything that you think is happening right now actually happened already, about half a second ago!
So how is this possible? How do we drive cars, catch baseballs, swat flies and write or draw if it's all delayed? Well, the obvious answer is that we have adapted the ability to compensate for the delay by projecting our behavior into the future, which is really "now."
Confusing? Wait... it gets even better.
Five Seconds In The Future
Marilyn Schlitz connected volunteers to a series of monitors, similar to a lie detector, to measure their heartbeat, perspiration and other nervous activity. She then had them sit in front of a computer screen and began showing them a series of images which were selected at random by the computer from a large collection. These images were described as either "neutral" (boring) or "emotional" (erotic or morbid). As expected, the subjects showed physical and mental excitement when the "emotional" images were shown and showed less reaction to the "neutral" images. But as the experiment continued, something weird happened.
Researchers began to see that most people, unconsciously, began to react to the "emotional" images a full 5 seconds before they were selected by the computer program! What's more, they did not react to the "neutral" images. This result was statstically significant (p=0.00003) and has been repeated many times. It strongly suggests hat subjects can perceive the future.
Another study, described in the Journal of Alternative and Complementary Medicine, was reported by psychophysiologist Rollin McCraty and his colleagues from the Institute of Heartmath in Boulder Creek, California. McCraty's group simultaneously measured skin conductance, heart rate, and brainwave activity before, during, and after 26 participants viewed emotional and calm pictures. They found that both the heart (p < 0. 001) and the brain (p < 0. 05) responded about 5 seconds before the future emotional stimuli, and to their amazement, that the heart responded before the brain. They also observed significant gender differences in the processing of this future information (women performed better, on average, than men). They concluded: "Our findings suggest that intuitive perception is not a discrete function produced by a single part or system of the body alone. Rather, it appears that intuition may in fact be a system-wide process involving at least the heart and brain, together, in the processing and decoding of intuitive information." They highlighted that "the fact that the heart is involved in the perception of a future external event is a surprising, even astounding result, especially from the classical perspective that assigns the brain an exclusive role [for perception]."
Link Below..
You Can Know the Future
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