The Truth About Mind Reading

Have you ever wished you could read minds? Of course, you have, we all have. To possess mind-reading skills would be phenomenal, less a skill than a superpower.

Imagine all the things you could do and achieve, how much your life would change, never caught off-guard, always one step ahead, no one could con you or trick you. It sounds like the ultimate superpower, and you probably think it’s impossible, but then again, what if you could? What if everyone can read minds?

Well, we do, maybe not literally, but almost. It’s called empathic accuracy. Empathetic accuracy involves reading certain cues given by the words, emotions and body language of another person.

All humans (and most animals) use it, these cues are fairly easy to read(if you tune in) and no so not easy to hide. When you think about it, it seems obvious. Even a small child can tell if someone’s angry, happy or sad by their words, tone, facial expression and body language. You can tell immediately if an animal appears aggressive or passive. We yawn when we’re tired, and pull faces in disgust, laughter, and anger. Some people profess to have perfected a poker face, so-called because, in the card game, they must hide excitement, nerves or bluff, but even then, there are other clues to what someone is thinking or how they’re feeling.

Arms folded across the chest can be a sign of defiance or disagreement, biting nails can be a sign of stress or nerves, tilting the head while listening is a signal of interest, drumming fingers impatience, rolling the eyes boredom. And so it goes on. We can all read minds.

But does it go further? What about telepathy? When you think of someone and they call or you bump into them and say “I was just thinking of you!” You walk into a room and get a feeling about someone or perhaps drawn to someone and make eye contact, maybe it feels as if you knew what they were thinking or what they might say next.

Take emotions for instance. Emotions can spread from brain to brain, like when you’re feeling low and a group of friends can cheer you up. And vice versa, if someone’s low you can pick up on that energy too. Under MRI the same areas of the brain have been shown to become active when a person experiences an emotion such as seeing another person or animal in pain.

According to a neuroscientist at Princeton University, when we relate to another person on a deep level the activity in our brains quite literally mirrors theirs.

So it would seem that there exists, a transfer of brain states. Especially if we tune in to our intuition.

So what about hypnosis? Can a hypnotherapist read your mind? The answer of course is no. No more than any other human. We empathise, listen and observe encouraging clients to tune into their gut, their instincts, and their intuition and discover their immense storehouse of inner resources to improve their lives, break bad habits, become more successful, calmer, more relaxed, happier, healthier or whatever it is they want to achieve for themselves.

No swinging pocket watches, no purple capes, no mind reading, hypnotherapy is helping to guide you on a journey of discovery, to discover your true potential.