To possess the ability to communicate with people without using any medium is a fascinating subject for many. Known as a superpower, telepathy stands right up there with x-ray vision, telekinesis and time freezing, as something people would love to have!

The great news is that recent research is removing the fictional nature of telepathy. Many scientists now don’t regard it as science fiction but closer to actual science that presents a ripe area for research.

Recently, a group a researchers successfully completed a telepathic transmission from one persons mind to another, half way across the world!

The Experiment

Star Labs in Barcelona used sophisticated non-invasive equipment to send a message from a mind in India, all the way to France! The setup involved the sender wearing an electroencephalography (EEG) cap which captured the electrical signals in their cortex.

The focus was on motor transmissions, as this architecture is similar across all human brains. So, the sender was asked to think about moving his hands or feet. Once these signals were captured by the EEG cap, they were sent over to a computer that transcoded it into binary data (0s and 1s) and transmitted it over the internet to another computer situated next to the recipient.

This computer translated this data into a form that was understandable by the Transcranial Magnetic Simulation (TMS) coil put on the head of the receiver. The TMS coils then delivers simulative jolts to the recipient’s brain that cause an involuntary twitch or response. The Star Labs team used a Morse code pump to transmit words like Ciao and Bird between the participants of the study.

At the University of Washington, (in an experiment similar to the one conducted by Star Labs) researchers connected two individuals to play a single computer game that involved the shooting of rockets!

Wearing an EEG cap one person was asked to think the thought of shooting a rocket, while the other would respond to this thought and shoot the rocket (he wore a TMS coil).

The recipient would do this by having a triggered twitch of his finger that would press the hotkey on the touchscreen. Each turn was approximately 30 seconds apart because of the safety guidelines associated with the TMS machine.

While this isn’t a ‘pure form’ of telepathy, scientists are getting closer to it than ever! When we look at the aforementioned scientific experiments we are not trying to prove it but engineer it from tools at our disposal. Does this imply that such a form of communication exists in nature? Absolutely, and the more we can understand about the human brain, the closer we will get to authentic telepathic communication in the future.

by LJ Vanier