Sixth Sense in Psychology

The sixth sense is one of the senses that reflects acumen and intelligence and focuses on the human ability to extrapolate the ins and outs of things and to understand hidden gestures and meanings.

It is a phenomenon of sensory perception that works to receive deep senses and perceive things that do not exist in a tangible and realistic way. This article will introduce you to the sixth sense and its nature.

What is the Sixth Sense?

The sixth sense is one of the paranormal phenomena dealt with by the parallel psychology known worldwide as parapsychology.

Another medical term for it is "proprioception." It is also called "supersensory perception" or "esper," which is a phenomenon of exceptional value because it is rare and not possessed by all people and expresses in its content an involuntary sense and an innate perception of things whose comprehension exceeds our known five senses: smell, taste, hearing, sight, and touch. We will present the most prominent definitions that deal with the sixth sense:

• The sixth sense is: a higher mental ability that manifests itself automatically in gifted individuals and includes obtaining information not through the senses, deduction, or logical analysis and without limitation of distance, time, or place.
• Joseph Rhine, who dealt with it in his book Extreme Sensory Perception, defined it as: “the study of interaction between living things and their environment; an interaction that is not conveyed by the sensory and kinetic means known to us and includes the capabilities of telepathy, visual clarity, and foreseeing the future.”
• The Sixth Sense: Supersensory Perception. It is "a perception without a sensory means, and it consists of telepathy, visual clarity, and predicting the future."
• Defined by Michael Thalbourne (1983): It is supersensory knowledge and the acquisition of information about an external event or thing or any mental or physical effect, past, present, or future, without the use of known sensory channels.

Sixth Sense Abilities

The sixth sense, according to psychologists, includes basic capabilities, which are "telepathy, clear vision or visual clarity, clairvoyance, or predicting the future."

1. Telepathy

The first to use this term was Frederick Myers in 1882, which is the transmission or transformation of an idea or a mental message, whether this message is emotions, words, or even fantasies, from one person to another without the use of any sensory or kinetic means. This means the ability of the human mind to communicate with another human mind without the use of any known sensory means.

Definition of telepathy among psychologists

James Driver, the first professor of psychology at a Scottish university, defined telepathy as “mental communication between one mind and another without the aid of any of the five senses, in which the receiving mind receives ideas and information from the sending mind in the form of mental images of a current reality or past or future events.”

Michael Thalborn defined it as “extrasensory acquisition of information regarding the thoughts, feelings, or activity of another sentient being.”

2. Clear vision (visual clarity)

It is a kind of sense or supersensory ability to see intangible or unforeseen things without the intervention of any of the senses. Unlike telepathy, in which two people are required, vision does not require that and occurs from one side.

Definition of visual clarity by psychologists

• Shelly Elizabeth Taylor, a professor of psychology at the University of California, defines visual clarity as “knowledge that a person acquires of facts or things that cannot be obtained by ordinary perceptual means.”
• Michael Thalborn defines it as "the acquisition of meta-sensory information about a contemporary physical object or event. Unlike telepathy, it is supposed to derive directly from an external physical source such as a hidden image and not from the mind of another person, because it is a form of meta-cognition."

3. Auditory clarity

The ability of an individual to hear sounds that people generally cannot hear through their normal hearing.

4. Future vision and foresight

This is known as inspiration, and it is an unknown feeling based on the ability of the individual to foresee future or past events in unusual ways. Among these methods are dreams, including daydreams.

Michael Thalborn defines it as “a form of supersensory perception in which the target is a future or past event that cannot be inferred from the known normal data.”

5. Mind reading

Opinions differ regarding this ability, as there are those who attribute it to parasitology, that is, the science of the paranormal. There are those who assert that science has explained this phenomenon by the presence of a region located at the bottom of the brain responsible for it; and there are those who call this ability physiognomy.

In all cases, the power of reading thoughts is considered evidence for knowing people and their nature through the features they show and the innermost actions that they take.

6. Telekinesis

The ability to move things from their place and move them to another place using the power of the supernatural mind.

Factors affecting the Sixth Sense

1. The emotional balance of the individual

It is one of the patterns defining humanity’s personality and way of life. It is also an important part of achieving personal harmony and dealing efficiently with the social environment. It includes controlling the individual's emotions in a way that does not affect their other mental processes.

2. The ability to self-regulate the individual

It is represented by the efforts that a person makes to arrange and modify their thoughts and desires to achieve their goals.

3. The availability of the individual's mental health

which means the compatibility between the various psychological functions of the individual in a way that enables them to face any difficulties that they may encounter.

4. Purity of mind

which means contemplation of God Almighty and His creatures.

Facts about the Sixth Sense

1. The term “sixth sense” has been in use since the 1920s, but it became popular in 1934 after psychologist Joseph Ryan published his book Supersensory Perception.
2. Psychologists believe that the individual possesses hidden senses that are parallel to the five known senses, as each sense is parallel to another. In the sense that the individual can know the taste of honey through the sense of taste, they can also feel the taste of honey without its presence, depending on the hidden sense parallel to the sense of taste, and so on.
3. Apart from the five senses, the sixth sense is responsible for sensing future events.
4. Intelligence is not a condition for the existence of a sixth sense. Intelligence is a measurable mental cognitive activity that has several types, including mathematical intelligence and linguistic intelligence. As for the sixth sense, it is one of the supernatural abilities that cannot be measured.
5. A person with a sixth sense perceives things that ordinary people do not realize, and they may not even believe them.
6. The sixth sense is not scientifically proven, as it is not subject to experiment and proof.
7. Some of them believe that the sixth sense is nothing but a divine gift that God Almighty bestows on His servants.
8. There are those who believe that animals also have a sixth sense represented in their ability to predict upcoming events, such as animals predicting earthquakes before they occur.
9. Psychologists believe that this sense exists in all humans, but in varying proportions among them.

Zener's Sixth Sense and its Abilities Experiment Cards

Zener's cards consist of five cards: a circle, a Greek cross (two intersecting lines), three vertical wavy lines, a five-pointed star, and a hollow square.

The tester chooses from a pack of 25 cards. That is, 5 cards of each symbol, notes the symbol, records the answer of the person taking the test, and the same process continues until the person taking the test chooses all the cards.

However, according to the opinion of many psychologists, the Zener method lacks credibility due to fraud, sensory leakage, or both.

How to Develop the Sixth Sense?

When you feel that you have extrasensory abilities—any sixth sense, even if it is small—you can develop them using the following methods:

1. Focus: It means the ability of the human mind to focus attention on something that it desperately wants. This leads to new discoveries about this thing.
2. Imagination: It is the ability to produce new ideas, feelings, or things without the intervention of the other senses.
3. Relaxation: It is the state of relieving stress or anxiety that the individual lives in so that all the contractions that cause this state stop.
4. Meditation: It means the ability of the human mind to control or prevent the flow of thoughts.

In addition:

• You can also write down your dreams as well as your daydreams and combine the dots connecting these dreams.
• Start learning to scrutinize the details of the events. By knowing the small and easy things or events, you can expect the big ones.
• Start by writing down the unique ideas that come to mind, and then make connections between them.

In conclusion

Although the sixth sense is not proven to exist in practice—that is, through experience and proof—today, thanks to parallel psychology, it has become a science in itself, and every day the number of individuals who believe in its existence and its supernatural capabilities increases.