Around five in the afternoon here, mosquitoes become lively and start looking for their evening meal. When I am sitting outside, perhaps with a drink, I become a target.
It may happen that I notice a mosquito landing on me and starting to feed (they don't waste time), and prepare to swat it. About fifty per cent of my attempts to do this miss, no matter how fast I try to move.
But sometimes I am engrossed in reading, writing or playing freecell, or just doing nothing much, and don't notice a mosquito landing and starting to feed. However, my body reacts automatically and my hand will move without any conscious intention on my part to scratch or rub the itch the mosquito is causing. Even though my hand moves relatively slowly, it's surprising how often the offending mosquito gets squashed in this way, when my conscious attempt might well have failed.
Having read some of Cleve Backster's work on biocommunication, with plants and a polygraph, it has occurred to me that perhaps the mosquito that I notice and prepare to swat has been forewarned by my conscious intention, whereas when I don't have any conscious intention to swat, it receives no such warning and moves too late.
I wonder if others have noticed this phenomenon and if so, what their explanation might be?
Comments on and descriptions of everyday family life in a tropical country, plus other interesting stuff that takes my fancy. May contain explicit sexual material so if you are offended by such or under the legal age, please leave now.
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I have noticed this too. I live in a very damp climate and in summer especially there are many mosquitos here. I just imagined that it had to do with my body tensing if I noticed and tried to swat it consciously, therefore the mosquito would react to the tension, whereas if I do it unconsciously my body stays relaxed and the mosquito takes no notice.
ReplyDeleteDunno though, yours is definitely a valid interpretation.
Cande, I'm delighted to know that others have noticed this rather puzzling phenomenon, and that it is not just an over-active imagination. Yours is a possible explanation, too.
DeleteTechnically, telepathy would be communication from brain to brain... yours to the mosquito in this case. You hypothesize that you are somehow "telegraphing" your intention to the mosquito, who then interprets your intent and reacts ahead of your swat. So, your premise relies on the functioning of the mosquito brain. The problem with that reasoning is that, while mosquitoes do have a rudimentary nervous system, the "brain" that caps that whole organ system is about the size of the period at the end of this sentence. Mosquitoes do have thousands of years of evolution behind them, and most of their behavior is in response to patterns built up over all of that time. I can't imagine that you are the first critter to "think" of swatting at a mosquito. It seems very likely to me that mosquitoes have evolved patterns of behavior that make it probable that they will outwit your swatting at them a significant portion of the time. If that were not true, then the likelihood of there being mosquito progeny would be zero or close to it, and the species would have vanished from the Earth. Probably, this is not a function of telepathy, but of good old Darwinian natural selection.
ReplyDeleteswan
Sue, I was expecting, if there were any comments at all on this post, that someone would be mentioning brains! Cleve Backster, who used to be a CIA interrogator, was familiar with polygraphs and noticed that plants, when connected to a polygraph, gave a reaction on the instrument when he burned one of the leaves with a cigarette. But they also gave a reaction when he burned the leaves of plants that were not connected and were in a different part of the room or even of the building.
DeleteHe also noticed that they reacted not only to his actual attack on the leaves, but to his intention to attack. If he pretended to be about to burn a leaf, there was no reaction. The intention had to be genuine.
I'm no biologist, but I take an interest in plants and I think it can be said that plants do not have a brain in any sense of the word as normally used. So I am not thinking a mosquito has to have any brain at all in order to react to an intention.
Malcolm, Much as my skeptical / scientific bent annoys you, I am still interested in the convesation here. I'd dispute that the observed mosquito behavior, or plant responses constitute "telepathy." Plants and mosquitoes might, however, be quite sensitive to changes in the electical/energy fields around them and around us. I would absolutely believe that the intention to do something harmful and violent, like smashing or burning another living thing, might generate changes in the energy field, and that your pesky mosquito might sense and react to that shift.
ReplyDeleteswan
Sue,in the case of the mosquitos, it could be changes in the electrical field that does it; but not in the case of plants located in places too distant for electrical fields to have an effect.
DeleteI always think it strange that skeptics such as yourself should find it so difficult to accept telepathic communication. It's so straightforward, especially if you happen to have experienced telepathic communication yourself.
Trying to explain everything in terms of what can already be measured with existing scientific instruments is stretching Occam's razor further than is useful. The human organism and all other life organisms are more complex than science can presently measure; having practised Qi-gong a little, I am aware that types of energy exist and can be perceived which are not measurable by current devices and methods: that is yet to come. In the meantime, let's be open to new things and not get stuck in the scientific mud! Trying to explain everything in terms of what we already know prevents us from understanding anything new. New discoveries are made by leaps in the dark, not by treading well-worn roads.