and back. After 20 to 30 seconds, you
will see the cup start to move forward
and back. Then, again using only your
mind, order the cup to stop. Repeat
the exercise, this time willing the cup
to sway left and right like a pendulum.
No, you can’t literally move things
with your mind. But this experiment—
which feels eerily like telekinesis—
proves that your unconscious exerts
extraordinary control over your mus-
cles, causing them to contract in sub-
tle ways that produce tiny but precise
motions that move the cup. Although
you probably weren’t aware of which
muscles you contracted to cause the
cup to sway, your body knew what to
do through a process called implicit
memory, in which your brain files
away enormous amounts of informa-
tion unconsciously, such as which
muscle groups will cause which kinds
of subtle motions. Perhaps such un-
conscious movements are what gave
rise to the concept of telekinesis in the
first place.3
Navigate in the Dark
Bats navigate in the dark by lis-
tening for the returning sound
they create from ultrasonic clicks,
chirps, and tones. We all have an in-
ner bat that can also echolocate. Find
a long stick or pole with a hard tip
(metal is ideal) and a friend to spot
you, then go to an uncarpeted area
of your house. Close your eyes and
tap the stick in front of you, as blind
people do. Observe that you can geta rough sense of the presence of large
nearby objects, and even their dis-
tance, just by listening to the clicks.
If you’re like most sighted people
who do this for the first time, you
will just “know” when you are getting
close to a wall or a large object without
knowing exactly how you know. This
“knowing without knowing how” is
another example of implicit memory.
But if you listen carefully to the
clicks of your stick, you’ll start to no-
tice that a click made from tapping theWE HAVE AN
UNCONSCIOUS ABILITY
TO SENSE SOMEONE
IS BEHIND US.118 april 2019Reader’s Digest