Guide For Beginners

AN INTRODUCTION FOR BEGINNERS (WIP)
By draemer


GLOSSARY OF TERMS:

Metahuman: this site defines metahuman as anyone with innate, supernatural abilities.

Meditation: an important skill for metahumans, and anyone else really.  Our forms of meditation go beyond just clearing one’s mind.  We meditate to some extent whenever we use our abilities.  We meditate to induce jamais vu.  We meditate to induce ego death.  Users of ESP often meditate to access their unconscious, which uses ESP pretty much constantly.  Dreamers meditate to induce sleep paralysis and go directly from consciousness to lucid dreaming.

ESP: initialism for Extra-sensory-perception.  This broadly describes psychic abilities.  It refers to a sixth sense that allows users to perceive information without directly observing it.  ESP has a variety of applications, such as tracking, navigation, precognition, retrocognition, etc.

Active ESP: ESP used actively…i.e. the user consciously initiates it.  This is rare and usually the least powerful.  Note that for some, it is possible to actively initiate the use of ESP, but not possible to control what they see.

Passive ESP: ESP used passively…i.e. the user has no control over when it is used and what they see with it.  These sorts of predictions are usually more accurate and powerful.  It is often very difficult to determine whether a feeling is actually ESP or just one’s imagination…the only way to get better at this is to practice and get to know what actual predictions feel like; when you get better, they do feel more distinct than ordinary thoughts.

Conscious prediction: A passive ESP based prediction that the user realizes consciously…i.e. Billy suddenly gets the feeling that he is in danger.

Unconscious prediction…an passive ESP based prediction that the user never realizes consciously, but acts on it like a reflex…i.e. Billy reflexively jumps to the site to avoid a flying brick that his ESP senses detected passively.

Dreams: Dreams are random signals from the brain that are interpreted by the unconscious.  It is believed that the unconscious is responsible for ESP, which is why dreams sometimes tell the future.  These are often called precognitive dreams.  Usually, these dreams are unusually vivid.  They can be literal and realistic or symbolic and surreal.  Some dream contain only a few precognitive elements alongside ordinary dream elements.

Lucid dreams: dreams where the dreaming is conscious that they are dreaming.  Sometimes they are able to change elements of the dream. This definition is included since lucid dreaming can be useful in more advanced ESP-dreaming techniques…when the dreaming goes lucid (but doesn’t change anything) with the intent of looking for ESP-elements in the dream, they become more perceptive.

Precognition/precog: ESP used specifically to see into the future.  Precog means the ability itself or the person who uses the ability.  Note that we often refer to psychic abilities in general as precog, though this technically isn’t correct.

Impressions Theory/Impressions: Impressions are feelings that describe everything about an object…i.e. the impression of a car contains the information that it is made of steel.  Auras are similar, but some people claim that auras only surround living things, where all objects have impressions, and auras are usually fields that can be seen, where impression are metaphysical and are felt.  It’s difficult to describe what they feel like, but when you do feel them, you will know, since it will simply feel like the object it corresponds to.  Impressions can be used as the basis of ESP, since the ability to feel impressions is basically a sixth sense.  We don’t know what impressions are physical or what allows us to feel them.


Energy/Energy theory:  Some metahumans claim that ‘energy’ is the basis of their abilities.  This energy is usually describes an all permeating field that can be felt and manipulated.  Some also claim to be able to divine information by reading an objects energy; in that way, it is similar to impressions.  Think the Force from starwars. Since it can’t be detected physically, it’s not known if energy is actually real or just a visualization.  Regardless, many users find it useful to imagine energy, since it is a useful visualization.  It’ an ongoing debate whether energy exists or not, but that’s irrelevant to your training, since it’s a useful visualization.



Telepathy: This ability is nothing like it’s portrayed in popular culture.  Most telepaths describe it not like having a conversation with someone in your head, but like sharing a mind with another person so that their thoughts feel like yours.  Push telepathy: the ability to influence other’s minds.  Includes the ability to push thoughts into people’s heads, to hypnotize them telepathically, or to influence their emotions.  Pull telepathy: The ability to read other people’s minds.  Telepathic camouflage: Also called telecamo.  This is a subset of push telepathy where the user convinces the target that they aren’t there, effectively making them invisible.

Astral: a theoretical alternate reality alongside our physical one.  Some claim to be able to access it with astral-travel, where the soul/astral body leaves the physical one.  Remote viewing and astral travel are therefor very similar.

Telekinesis: the ability to move objects with one’s mind.  This has been accomplished by a number of methods: from using chi, to using the aforementioned energy visualization.  Some claim that it’s possible to only be able to use telekinesis on specific object.  This is usually called X-kinesis (i.e areokinesis for control of air, pyro kinesis for control of water, etc.).  It’s not known if this is due to personal preference, or if these users physically cannot manipulate all objects.





DRAEMER'S LETTER AND FAQs

If you’re reading this, you are probably a new member to the site and new to the concept of metahumans.  Let me be the first to welcome you!  You probably don’t realize it now, but you’ve just taken the first step on life-changing, character-defining, paradigm-shifting journey.  My name is draemer, and I began this same journey about four years ago when I first joined the metahuman community.  Though I had been training for many years before that day, my skills improved drastically after I joined the community.  We are a collaboration between dozens of metahumans, all with different background and techniques.  Metahumanity is still in it’s infancy; there’s so much that we don’t know.  But I am confident that this collaboration will continue to give us insights into our training and breakthroughs in the study of metahumans.

We like to think that we’re different from most sites that deal with the paranormal.  We pride ourselves in being logical, since superstition and irrationality is what lead to the downfall of many other such communities.  Don’t think that just because metahumans are classified as “paranormal” that we are unscientific here.  Science is a way of knowing; it’s a procedure for learning more about the world.  Science, not mysticism, is our best hope of learning more about these abilities.



Now then, before I start rambling, let’s get to the FAQ.
“What does _____ mean?”
Refer to the Glossary of Terms for any questions like that.

“I need help with this ability!”
We get this a lot, and since we’ve grown tired of explaining the same things over and over again, we’ve made some tutorials.  Refer to those for general questions, and anything that they don’t cover you can post in the forum about.

“Is this a roleplaying site?”
No.  But sometimes it seems like it, which is why we’ve had some problems with roleplayers.  The concept of superhuman abilities tends to attract younger users and users who are more likely to lie or exaggerate their claims.  If you are that sort of person, you will not be well received here.  There are many other sites that would love to believe your claims that you can access already with your .webs account.  Our policy on roleplayers: if someone is suspected of roleplaying, they are ignored.  If someone is proven of roleplaying, they are banned immediately.  We might ask you to provide proof of your claims (though this is not required for membership); please don’t take personally as a sign of distrust.

“Why are you guys so mean?  Most of the threads on this site are arguments!”  Debates and arguments are actually a good thing.  That’s how we learn more.  It may seem like we all hate each other here, but that’s not at all true.  It’s possible to have heated argument with someone who you are good friends with.  Don’t take it personally when someone attacks your arguments.

“How do I get powers/ can these abilities be learned?”
We define a metahuman as someone who’s born with superhuman abilities, so by definition, you have to be born a metahuman.  However, some of us believe that this is an unfitting definition, and that you can learn some abilities.  There are documented cases of people learning abilities, but according to some these abilities “don’t stick”.  You’re perfectly welcome to try, though, since we need more data on the subject anyways.

“Let’s fight crime and become superheroes!”
If you are thinking something along those lines, you should re-evaluate your worldview.  Outside of the movies, vigilantism solves very little.  You can take out a criminal, but if you don’t solve the system at makes criminals, you really haven’t fixed anything.  My point is that there are ways of helping the world, but being a superhero isn’t one of them.

“If you don’t want to be superheroes, than why are you training your abilities?”
That varies from person to person.  Most of us train our abilities for our personal use.  Some of us train for the same reason people go to the gym: to exercise out psychic muscles, as it were.  Some of us do it FOR SCIENCE to see how powerful metahumans can become.  I personally use my abilities because it makes me feel closer to nature, and allows me to explore with meditation the places where reality breaks down.

“How powerful can I become?  Can I learn to lift cars with my mind?”
Probably not.  Telekinesis is quite weak, as are most kinesis abilities.  ESP is useful even at the beginner level.  Even our most experienced members are continuing to improve, so we really don’t know yet what the limits are—or for that matter if there are any.

“Where do I go from here?  Where do I start with my training?”
There’s a few general skills that you’re going to need as a beginner regardless of what ability you have.  While there are many types of meditation, they all involve concentration and ‘looking in’ to one’s on mind—that’s the best place to start.  Some methods of ESP require you to become more aware of impressions; there’s really no trick to this, likely you already feel them unconsciously, so becoming aware of impressions means is just a matter of the proper meditation.  You’ll know when you feel them.  The ability to feel and manipulate energy is the basis of kinesis abilities.  Try and feel an energy and excitement inside of you, then learn to intensify that and move it around your body.   Also, realize that to use these abilities to their fullest extent requires a change in mindset.  You will have to keep an open mind and be aware of what your unconscious is doing (that will allow you to feel things with ESP better in the future).  You will have to change your mindset based on what ability you are learning: for example, if you are learning psychic tracking, you’d first familiarize yourself with conventional tracking.  That will put you in the mindset of a tracker, since physical tracking and psychic tracker feel similar to the brain.  If you are learning pull telepathy, become aware of the people around you and go “people-watching”; imagine who they are, how they behave, and what they are feeling.  Confidence is also important in abilities and anything else for that matter.  Most importantly, remember: if you have specific questions, that’s what the forum is for!



Welcome to the site, good luck, etc,
-draemer