Okay, so … bubbles.
I find that I think of subjective experience (a redundant expression, actually, since all experience is subjective) as a big soap bubble. Each person’s private world is a separate bubble. All the bubbles constituting the subjective lives of different minds are floating together on (or in) a vast and deep sea that I call the Reservoir.
The Reservoir is what has been called Mind at Large, or the Cosmic Mind, or the Mind of God, etc. It is the Source from which the bubbles arise, and to which they remain connected.
The bubbles are in partial contact with the Reservoir and also have points of contact with adjacent bubbles. Where two bubbles meet, there is the opportunity for the two-way exchange of information. Where a bubble meets the Reservoir, there is the opportunity to import information from the Source.
But all information must pass through the bubble’s membrane, which is not totally permeable. Some information gets through, while other information does not. Distortions, omissions, and errors can result.
The membrane is the portal to the “subliminal self” – the lower and higher reaches of consciousness – the basement of the subconscious, and the penthouse of the superconsious or higher self.
So the bubbles (which we might call thought bubbles) correspond to individual minds, the membranes correspond to the division point between conscious awareness and unconscious influence, and the Reservoir corresponds to Mind at Large. But what about physical things? Where is “reality”?
Image source: http://energetic-mastery.com/are-you-trying-too-hard/
Reality is experienced as sensory images (using the word images to refer to a perception in any modality). These sensory images are inside each bubble. But then how do they maintain (reasonable) consistency across the multitude of separate thought bubbles?
Answer: the images arise (like the thought bubbles themselves) from the Source. How exactly this happens is an open question. Maybe the Source includes (or consists of) a pattern of pure information analogous to the data of a computer program, and the sensory images are analogous to icons on a computer screen. Or maybe the Source imagines these images or their underpinnings, in some fashion akin to Plato’s theory of Forms. Or maybe both things are true, or neither is true. In any event, physical reality exists as ideas or information in the Reservoir and as rendered or imagined sensory images in the thought bubbles of our personal subjective experience.
What are the implications of this model for psi phenomena? We can sketch out a few.
Telepathy. Bubbles in contact (which, of course, would not necessitate physical contact between individuals) can exhibit transference of ideas across their abutting membranes.
Clairvoyance (remote viewing) and precognition/retrocognition. A bubble is always in contact with the Reservoir, which is the Source of all reality, so information about “distant” locations and past and future temporal events can be imported across the membrane.
Apparitions of the dead. The bubble of a deceased person can establish a point of contact with the bubble of a living person and pass information across the membrane. Some membranes are more permeable than others. Two people in a room may see an apparition while a third person standing beside them sees nothing. The third person either wasn’t contacted by the deceased or has a more resistant membrane.
Levitations, table titling, etc. The bubble of subjective experience is not that different from a dream. It is not uncommon to have a vivid dream of defying gravity. To have this experience in “real life,” we generally have to be in contact with an imagination powerful enough to overcome our entrenched resistance to the idea. Whether this imagination belongs to a deceased person or to a living medium (i.e., whether the phenomenon boils down to spirits or macro-PK) is debatable, but one way or another, our reality-picture needs to be temporarily overruled by a different picture.
Sheep and goats. Some people are “psi-resistant” and will consistently fail at psychic tests, while others will consistently succeed. The psi-resistant ones have less permeable membranes and a more rigid world-picture that resists changing. Children are generally the most psi-accepting, because their world-picture is not fully formed and more easily subject to revision. Hypnotized individuals also seem more prone to psi-acceptance, probably because their ego is temporarily overruled, allowing their world-picture to become more malleable. People who say they have never experienced even the slightest hint of the paranormal are usually telling the truth; their membrane is too impenetrable to allow any intrusion of an anomalous experience. Psychics and mediums who warn about negative vibrations are often telling the truth also; the more resistance there is, the less chance of establishing communication across the membrane of the sitter’s personal thought bubble.
Naturally, all of the above is just speculation. Such a model can never be more than a rough approximation of the truth, and it may be all wrong. But I find it helpful in getting a handle on the more perplexing aspects of psi.
Now, after all that deep thinking, it's time to take a break and sing along with Don!