Telepathy is the ability to read thoughts, usually surface thoughts. Telepathy is fairly common to some degree. The most common type is between close family or friends and manifests as answering questions before they are asked, knowing when a family member is thinking of you, or thinking about them and they call. Slightly less common is the ability to read the surface thoughts of strangers. Even less common is being able to read the deep or subconscious thoughts of people, friends, family or anyone else. It is not, however, completely unknown. If you have the disconcerting habit of knowing everything about a person when you meet them, you are at least a highly gifted telepath. In crowds this may manifest as "white noise" or constant buzzing in the ears (brain), accompanied by a feeling of pressure on the brain. This is due to the constant noise of all of the thoughts of others that one is unable to block. Many highly gifted telepaths are unable to live in highly populated areas, and an apartment complex is a nightmare. They are also prone to intense headaches. This gift may or may not be related to proximity. For strangers, it is usual that the person must be close by (though not always the case). Family seems to be instantly accessible, due to the non-local nature of the gift, speed of light laws do not apply. Strong thought, as in a disaster or violent attack, may be picked up without prior knowledge of the person at all, if they are in the vicinity or there are enough people concentrating on mentally screaming at the top of their lungs. This gift also manifests more strongly if one really desires something (a strong focus of will or emotion). To block out the noise, shielding must be practiced constantly, and the person should put up permanent shields around their home. To develop this gift, one should focus on an individual and relax, allowing whatever impressions one is receiving to come through. Write them down. This is best developed with close friends or family. Telepathy can manifest in three ways. A sending telepath can not "hear" the thoughts of others, but instead broadcasts his/her own thoughts to anyone even remotely sensitive. A sending telepath can influence others, without being aware of it, by strongly desiring something. A danger is that one who is a sending telepath, without any of the other gifts, has a tendency to be self-centered and demanding, and petulant when they don’t get their way. A receiving telepath can "hear" but can’t send, others don’t pick up their thoughts. This person might believe the voices, thoughts, or impressions of ideas to be internally generated, and might doubt his/her sanity. As is often the case, the thoughts are incongruous, and seem to come from nowhere, but the individual can not distinguish the internal thought from the external. Most common is one who can both send and receive, and the response is usually enough to convince the person that s/he is not crazy, though the gift might be hidden out of a fear of being unusual, especially if the person’s church mistakenly equates the gifts with possession. The "voices" or impressions gathered by the telepath are relaying accurate, verifiable information based on the consensual hallucination we call reality. Ask. The information is usually pretty mundane, and the telepath, upon thinking about it, can learn to tell that the thought did not originate in his/her own brain (for example: "I need to remember the ice cream" when the individual is allergic to ice cream and is talking to someone on his way to the store.) If one is hearing voices counseling them to murder or warning that the toaster is influencing our thoughts by controlling the television, then some mental health care is definitely in order.
