Empathy: Paranormal or Not?

Being empathic is having the ability to understand or feel the emotions of others.
Some people place empathy in with paranormal skills such as telepathy and telekinesis. Others say it is just an ability to read emotions in faces and body language.

So what are your thoughts?
Is Empathy a paranormal skill or not, or is a mix of both?

Empathy, in my opinion, is nothing more than a social and cognitive awareness.

To place ourselves in the shoes of others in an attempt to understand their ordeal, that is a cognitive and social awareness where we attempt to understand something from another's perspectives. For one to be truly empathetic, one must of experienced the ordeal themselves. It is not always the case, but it certainly helps.

Empathy is one of the better traits a human can possess. I view sympathy as a form of remorse for our position, or a degree of pity. Both of which I do not need or want. But empathy is a degree of respect for the individual and the position they find themselves in.

So I don't think it is any form of paranormal activity.

Just good people being good people.

My girlfriend shows signs of being an empath.

She can tell when her sister or mother is in a stressful situation even though they live 1k miles apart. The female members of that family have a connection that I certainly can't explain. When my GF and I have an arguement, I now anticipate a call from the sister or mother as they seem to know "something."

I have read that twins can exhibit the same kind of empathy, though

seperated.

Paranormal? Could be.........

[edit on 21-4-2007 by whaaa]

skill or not an phychological illusionist called derran brown reads peoples minds all the time now thats a skill i would guess he is reading the body language and facial expressions of other people so i guess this is in the catagory of computer (anyone can do it its just some are better than others)

i think everyone is born with empathy, thats how we can know wether people are feeling sad when they cry or happy when they cry. but it gets more paranormal because of the fact that when you learn empathy further you feel the peoples emotions?

Both,
Alot of people read/pick up messages from subtle signals (body language, micro body language, voice tone etc)

But done out of sight at range, then it's psychic



btw Derran Brown plants messages in peoples minds just as much as he reads (in a mundane sense) a target

I personally don't think that empathy is related to the paranoramal.

Experiencing emotions that someone else is going through is very natural. But it is just that - an emotion. For instance, on 911 when we learned that people were jumping from the windows, I felt panic and my stomach was having butterfly sensations. It all had to do with the urgency of the matter I was sensing these people must be going through, and I'm sure many people besides myself felt this way.

I think some people can physically feel what someone else is going through. For instance I have twin nieces who are 20. One gave birth about 6 months ago - the other twin actually felt her sisters labor pains. I don't know what this phenomena is called though.

Good question.

Although I understand empathy and sympathy as this:

Sympathy feel for others.
Empathy feel for others because you can relate

So sympathy would actually be the better question.

If you lost a dad and a friend lost a dad you'd both empathize with each other. If you didn't lose yours, then you'd sympathize with him.

my .02

AAC

Thanks for clearing that up^^^^.

I'd have to agree with cancerman. I think we can all do it...sympathize, but...some do it better than others. And some do it even better than the best...to the point of...maybe paranormal?

[edit on 23-4-2007 by sdrawkcab]

paranormal = beyond normal experience

-AND-

empathy = the capacity to feel emotions similar to those felt by another person

Then-

no, empathy isn't paranormal.

Now if it's one of those situations where you had an emotional reaction based upon something happening to someone else and you had no immediate direct connection or way to "know" something was happening to them, then maybe you've got some evidence of possibility.

Then again, since those are generally after-the-fact anecdotal reports, it's a little tough to draw a solid conclusion without making some very large assumptions.

My opinion is that I've seen nothing to convince me of the existence of a "paranormal empathy".

Yet.

From my experience of empathy I say it is a paranormal. At first I wasn't sure what was going on with these feeling because I know that these feeling weren't mind. I didn't like it at first because it would spoil my fun. For example, I am at a party with close friends and I am just hanging out. Out of nowhere I start to feel an intense pain of sadness and depression. I was like what the F**K. So this is when I was somewhat experience and realize what was going on with me. So I went around looking for someone that could possibly be setting off my alarm. Just like that I found my Buddy setting by himself out on the curb drinking and I knew it was him. I think that this strong sense of empathy was given to me through a higher power that I am supposed to use it to help people. Otherwise something bad might happen to them later on. But there has been a few more cases for me that this happen and along with a stranger. At first I didn't like having this so called empathy. I quickly research to see if I was crazy and I am not . I stop looking for a way to turn it off and embrace it.

Empathy is a common feeling, and we all know what it is. It's, let's say, "explainable", we know what it is. So I think it isn't paranormal.

I have it and am struggling to cope with it so am living a reclusive life.

It is only paranormal until more people have it - then it becomes normal.

I wasn't born with it and only began experiencing it a few years ago.

It depends on the degree of empathy. Certainly most people are born with an innate sense of empathy except for narcissists and they can feign it if there is something they want from you. Then there are empaths who can walk into a crowd and literally get sick from all the different feelings they pick up. I'd say the later is paranormal.

Originally posted by Umbrax
Being empathic is having the ability to understand or feel the emotions of others.
Some people place empathy in with paranormal skills such as telepathy and telekinesis. Others say it is just an ability to read emotions in faces and body language.

So what are your thoughts?
Is Empathy a paranormal skill or not, or is a mix of both?

It is an interesting topic. I think Empathy is a natural human phenomenon that manifest's itself in a quasi-paranormal way. For one thing most people are not empathic. "Normal's" are nothing more then people who exist on the "normal scale". They can be in the middle, or lean towards sociopathy(no conscience) or empathy(fully functioning conscience)

Normal people can have moments where they transcend the normal scale and either descend into a sociopathic state or ascend into an empathic state and enter the sociopathic scale or empathic scale respectfully.

Because being an empath is not just pattern recognition alone. As sociopaths are arguably among the masters of pattern recognition as most are capable of faking a conscience and conscience derived emotions altogether.

But some people(I suspect the numbers of Sociopaths and Empaths are relatively equal at 10% of the population each) are born Empaths.

That means regardless if we want it or not, our conscience is on all the time at full blast. To explain what this feels like, it is a V-Chip in your brain. If you hurt someone else it will feel like you hurt yourself, if you see others in pain it feels like you yourself is in pain. The most I can do to manage it is use a Clenchy mask like mask to dull my emotions(it often gives the outward appearance of being cold hearted, as a sociopaths Clenchy Mask gives them the appearance of being warm hearted/normal).

Combined with my own natural predisposition towards pattern recognition(like I said above, sociopaths are more likely to be the masters of pattern recognition, but they aren't the only ones) has caused me to have experiences one could describe as "paranormal".

For example: In my senior year in my one class this guy was trying to get into this gal's pants by flirting and what with her hard. Eventually she brushed him off, turned around and smiled at me. In my head in her voice I heard "but I would ^&%$ you" as she was smiling at me. Over the years I had similar like experiences but that one sticks out the most.

I doubt there is anything paranormal about it; I think it is a pattern recognition interplay between my subconscious, conscious and my conscience. I suppose one could even argue that Empathy is as much a mental illness as sociopathy as it is a case of a person who isn't balanced. Too much in one direction, not enough in another.

Glad I searched instead of creating a new thread because this one will do fine. I have wanted to post on this subject for some time, and finally have some time.

I feel Empathy is paranormal, and I know that reclusive feeling mentioned above, due to how strongly I can absorb others feelings, I instantly know and avoid them. My empathy seems to be much stronger than any info I can seem to find online.

Examples
In person I am a human lie detector, I should have been a cop or lawyer . I instantly know if some one is telling a fib or is shady, and piloting something bad. Doing some research on the subject I did come across a book called "The Gift of Fear", and I would call my empathy a gift of fear since I seem to always know when to escape from a situation that turns sour. 1 instance that come to mind is seeing a shady character at a 7-11 and leaving moments before they attempted to robbed it. I just somehow knew it was going down as he got out of his car. More than body language.

I also seem to absorb feelings from others a little to easily. This happens with 2 of my family members, from anywhere, and anyone else in person.

If some one near me is angry, like a co worker in the next office, their anger fills me and I become angry. One example, was overhearing an angry co-worker on a conference call. He was so mad I could hear him talking through his teeth. I could imagine him grinding his teeth then I started doing it. For the rest of the day I was in a bad mood with a sore jaw.

I can also use this to my advantage. If I'm stressed or having a bad day, I will visit a cheerful person to adjust my mood.

I would call Empathy paranormal, good sometimes, but a curse other times. .

I think there are two types of empathics. The cognitive ability to understand and imagine how another feels and the 6th sense of empathy which is actually feeling another persons emotions, stress and having a physical reaction.


I am the second type of empathic, I feel what people are feeling at all times, when I am in a large crowed I feel almost hypnotized. In great moments of sadness or despair it is crippling unless I shield myself and remember my own emotions. As an empathic I can easily manipulate others emotions as well as mask my own.

My grandfather has the same thing he calls it the touch. Its a soothing presence, or can be at times a menacing one. those who are calming empathics often draw children near them and can easily sooth a cry child, some with just one look or smile.

Originally posted by Xiamara
As an empathic I can easily manipulate others emotions as well as mask my own.

Wow, thank you for that! I can do this easily too but never associated it with Empathy. Really motivated to do a lot more research now.

Thanks!

reply to post by Cyprex


Np everyone has a unique form of a 6th sense my specialty is my cures.... I have a soothing presence and take emotion from people, but I end up with that emotion. Its why I love working with children their emotions are far different from adults. Adults have ridged emotion very cube like, children are fluid and spherical, I find they also have emotions that as adults we don't. I consider curiosity and thirst for knowledge an emotion. I've done quite a bit of research especially on shielding. I took too many negative emotions and turned them inward and found out the hard way that there is a price. It actually nearly killed me until I shut off all my emotion/ had an emotional break down. Now I can control it.

Learn your gifts use them but know that every gift has a cost, its the balance of life. Also there is only so much research out there everyone is unique maybe your stronger in reading emotion or manipulating it, also I find that there is a lot of overlap between mind reading and empathy.

Also you may have more than one unique ability, so play around some people are stronger than others in the paranormal. Feel free to PM me if you want to know more. I've been studying this for about 5 years or so and have had a lot of personal experience in gifts and abilities.

I believe it could be both depending on the situation. Feeling extreme empathy that you can't really control not only for people you know but for those you don't, and seeming to be able to "absorb" others emotions when around them would be what I consider to be a bit paranormal.