There is one thing that has always fascinated me and my teammates. Whether it is honed or latent hidden ability. Prophetic or Psychic ability is an amazing occurrence that few can explain. This is one of the few strange traits in human kind that can be traced back thousands of years.
From the time of Antiquity, the use of certain abilities has had an effect on the human race. From mystics and oracles, to prophets, the use of these abilities have been sought by emperors ad Kings. In the world today however, these individuals are mainly shunned and seen as mentally unstable or ill individuals.
Truthfully there has to be some reason as to why some individuals can access these other abilities while others cannot or do not. Some researchers beleive that all people honestly can access some of these abilities if they took the time to hone and learn them. as with all learned attributes, it is possible that all one needs is practice.
There are multiple ways one can pursue these teachings. there is the newer mainstream belief of "raising your vibration." This basically states that we are on a certain level of vibrational tone. This does make sense scientifically. We are in essence just a build up of cells and atoms all undulating at a certain frequency. So it could be theoretically possible to change that frequency and thus change our position on this plane.
There are other ways as well. older methods such as scrying have maintained around the fringes of society and among serious practitioners. Scrying is the act of using an object to gain insight into the future or to learn something from the other side. This can be done commonly with mirrors, water, or fire. By gazing into these items for periods of times, sometimes with additives, one can begin to see images appear in the items.
Other forms of Scrying or divination consist of Tarot cards, runes, and casting bones or sticks. All of these are a more physical form of Scrying or divination. Different cultures have used these items as a way to seek future outcomes. This is more of a guessing game and an interpretation than other forms however, as most outcomes are subjective. though many wars have been fought based off of the way a few stones fall on the table.
Of course as nearly every ghost show on TV has one, there are what are known as mediums. These are individuals who claim they can make contact with the deceased. This is highly scrutinized in most circles as it is hard to prove, and has also been a source of con-men in the last couple decades. Whether these individuals can or cannot contact the dead remains mostly unclear and is a debate still today.
A slightly newer term to something that has been around for likely all of human life are known as Hypnagogic states. This in practice seems like dream state. Your mind and body are awake but only barely.
Often accessed when the human body is very tired and begins to drift off, just before that, in a lot of cases you can reach this state of mind. It is also not unlike a trance state as the body and mind are in between the realm of awake and dreams. This can allow the individual to see visions, short dreams, visit locations they have never seen before, and much more.
The study of these in between states, to me, is the next step in finding out more about psychic abilities. If one could master how to achieve this state for a longer period of time and access it at will, they could theoretically use this trance state to reach the higher plane of consciousness mentioned earlier in the article.
It seems the main goal of any of these is to reach a different level of brain activity. To see what others cannot see and to go where others dare not go.