I have a cautionary tale. 5 years ago I went to a live show by a well-known British "mentalist". One of the things he did was get people to (seemingly) read each others' minds: he'd hypnotize them, then get one of them to touch the other's temples and guess what they were thinking.
Something that struck me was that he would say to them, "Even if you don't believe in telepathy, I want you just to imagine that you believe in it for now." From this I hypothesized that maybe all you needed in order to experience telepathy was to believe you could do it, and that the easiest way to believe something is to persuade yourself of it in a trance.
Afterwards, I started experimenting with self-hypnosis by rubbing my temples. I was able to get into a trance easily, and I then arrogantly decided to experiment with thought projection. I'd get in a trance, then try to make drivers behind me pull back if they were too close. It always seemed to work.
After a while of messing with trance states I started to get AWFUL panic attacks, so I stop doing it.
A few months passed, and being of a rather pessimistic turn of mind I found myself starting to think: what if I could project hostile thoughts at people, and make them hate me, and couldn't control those thoughts?
That's what happened. At work, I ended up having to move to an isolated desk, because I'd get these angry thoughts towards people sitting near me, and I could swear they felt it, because within seconds of the thoughts taking hold, they'd shield their faces or get up or fidget, looking extremely annoyed and uncomfortable. I became very isolated, and found it virtually impossible to join in conversations because of this obsession. I was aware that no one wanted to be anywhere near me.
I'm currently unemployed, so the problem is less pressing, but I think it illustrates the adage that we should be careful what we wish for.
Most people, obviously, think I'm imagining it all. I would be convinced of this if just once, I could think these hostile thoughts without the other person acting very uncomfortable: but I swear, it happens every time, within seconds if not less. I have established some techniques for controlling my thoughts, such as breathing steadily and meditating, but these only go so far.
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