Reference note
At a glance
Telepathy is the claimed communication of thoughts, images, or feelings from one mind to another without recognized sensory channels. Research designs have included card guessing, dream studies, and ganzfeld experiments. Results remain disputed because small effects can be influenced by sensory leakage, analysis choices, publication bias, and failures of independent replication.
Reference note
Tradition & history
Frederic W. H. Myers coined “telepathy” in the early 1880s during the formation of the Society for Psychical Research. The term replaced looser phrases such as thought-reading while investigators tried to separate alleged mind-to-mind transfer from clairvoyance.
Reference note
In fiction
Fiction tends to depict clear inner speech, effortless scanning, or permanent mental links. Reported and experimental claims are usually fragmentary and statistically framed, not conversational.
Reference note
Sources consulted
- Society for Psychical Research, “Telepathy,” reference overview.
- National Research Council, Enhancing Human Performance, National Academies Press, 1988, parapsychology evaluation.