Psychic Bond?

Today I said to one of my daughters, "You'll never guess what I saw down the street." I gave no clues, but asked her to guess. After a wrong guess of an orange cat, her second guess was "a raccoon," which is just what I saw. No one in our family has seen such a thing on our street before. Later in the day I asked her what I saw in a weird dream I recently had, mentioning only that it involved something odd in our front yard. After a wrong first guess of a snowman, she asked, "Was it a wild animal?" I said yes. Then she asked, "Was it an elephant?" I said yes. The dream I had was of two baby elephants in our front yard. These were the only two times today she tried to guess what was in my mind. Tonight is one of several times in which it seemed as if there was ESP between me and her (two similar cases are described here).

Postscript: One or two times during the 13 days after this event I asked the same daughter to guess what I was thinking, without success. Then on the 13th day I asked her to guess what I had dreamed about, without giving any clues. I thought of a dream involving my father playing baseball catch with my sister. My daughter's first guess was wrong. Then she asked whether it was something that happened in my childhood. I said yes. Then she asked whether it was something happening in my back yard. I said yes. Then she asked whether it was some kind of sport. I said yes. Then she asked whether it was playing catch or some kind of baseball. I said yes. This was the same performance level noted above: one wrong guess, followed by all other guesses correct. On a test with my other daughter (the only telepathy test I can recall doing with her), I simply asked her to guess a thing I saw today, telling her only it was something that I hadn't seen in years. On her fourth guess, she got the correct answer: a grasshopper. 

Post-postscript: On later days (around November 12) I got similar results. I asked one daughter to guess what I had dreamed about, giving no clues. The first guess she gave (a car) was fairly close to the right answer: a red double-deck bus, as both are vehicles. I asked my other daughter to guess what I had dreamed about, giving no clues. Her third guess was a red bicycle, which was close to the right answer, since a red bicycle and a red double-deck bus are both red vehicles. 

Post-post-postscript: I don't do such tests often with either of my daughters -- maybe a single "guess what I dreamed of" or "guess what I saw" test about every 10 days or two weeks, with only one target subject per test. In my latest attempt (on January 7) I merely told one of my daughters I had a dream of touching something, and asked her to guess what it was. Her first guess was "a tree," which was not correct. Her second guess was "a dog," which was correct. I asked her to guess the dog's color, and she answered correctly, "Black." I had dreamed of a black Scottish terrier on my lap. We see the same pattern I have seen repeatedly: wrong on the first guess, but correct on the second or third guess, usually the second one. 

On another test (the first in a few weeks) I was with my two daughters, and told them simply to guess what I had dreamed about, telling them only it was something I could not recall ever dreaming about before. After two incorrect guesses, one daughter guessed a zebra. The other daughter then made her first guess: a donkey. That was exactly what I had dreamed of. 

I see in such tests a "warmup" effect in which there is very often success on the second, third or fourth try. I encourage anyone trying such tests to always allow for several different guesses, with at least a ten-second interval between guesses. 

Post-post-post-postscript:  I was playing with my daughters a word game I invented, one that could be called "By the City Name Only." To play the game, you think of some question prompt involving a city. The answer must be based purely on the name of the city, not any of its physical characteristics or population. 

Here are some examples:

Q. Which city is the most mobile?

A.  Rome, as in "roam." 

Q. Which city has a parent's animal?

A. Moscow, as in "Ma's cow."

Q. Which city is the most hopping?

A. Albany, as in "Al Bunny."

Q. Which city is the most managerial?

A. Boston, as in "Boss ton." 

Q. Which city is the bravest?

A. Boulder, Colorado, as in "bolder."

While playing the game with me, one of my daughters said this: "This one has two answers: which city has a body part in it?" I instantly gave two correct answers: Liverpool (containing the word "liver") and Geneva, as in "Juh -KNEE-va." How was I able to answer so quickly? In the seconds just before my daughter asked the question, I was thinking of exactly that question, and also the two answers. What is the chance of that happening by coincidence? Much less than 1 in a million.