The Bub in the Belly

There are four things to bear in mind while doing Senses Play / playing ESP games:

1. Your child should be in a good, relaxed and happy mood throughout the activity.

2. You should believe in your child's powers of ESP. Otherwise, your skepticism will have an adverse effect on how you play the game with your child and how your child responds. Iin Professor Shichida's book, there is a report from a parent that when she did not believe in her son's talents, her son keep getting the answers wrong. He only got them right when she understood the theory of the right brain and believed in it. This is consistent with scientific research in ESP, which has found that people who believed in ESP scored positively on ESP tests while those who did not believe in ESP did not. If you are uncomfortable about ESP, I hope that reading Part 6 will ease your fears and help you to understand how fundamental it is to right-brain training as it is a basic capability of the right brain.

3. Exercise patience. It may take a while for your child to train up, at first he may only get one of out five correct, but keep at it with a cheerful and optimistic spirit, and in time your child will surprise you! If he gets it wrong, please no harsh words and do not feel or show disappointment. Accept that your child is a work in progress (remember Part 2?). Also, I have had parents ask me what to do when their child shows little interest in the activity or looks/walks away in the middle of the activity. I think there is nothing unusual about this, whether playing these games or doing other things - sometimes when I introduce a new storybook to Ryan, he loses interest after the first two pages. Love doesn't always have to be love at first sight. Just let it go, and try again another time with a cheerful smile.

4. Keep it fun!

The most essential ESP game is playing with Zener cards. Shichida parents in Singapore are issued two sets of cards and are asked to practise with them often at home. The set of cards we have are similar to Zener cards except that on one of them there is a hollow triangle - the original Zener card has three wavy lines. We do not play this in class as class is only once a week.

You can use the cards to play clairvoyance games, precognition games, telepathy games, and psychometry/hand reading games. Here, I will share with you how to use these cards for clairvoyance play.

1. If your child is over 3 years old or if he/she is not in a relaxed state of mind, you should lead him/her to relax, breathe deeply and slowly. Make positive statements about the activity and his/her ability to do it.
2. Place the five cards face up in a row.
3. Give your child another set of the five cards, face down.
4. Let your child place one card after another face down in row below yours such that the card he/she is placing corresponds to a card in the row that you placed. The goal is to match up the cards.
5. When your child has placed all five cards, let him/her turn over his/her cards to check if they match up to the cards in your row.

During the Shichida Parent Education Course, we watched a video filmed at an aviation academy in Japan where the trainee pilots were paired up. They played this game over and over, switching roles each time, one person arranging the cards and keeping score, the other guessing the order. And yes, they scored 100% each time. Why pilots? A heightened sense of perception results in an ability to predict danger and oncoming bad weather. In low visibility, the pilot can still navigate safely even though he cannot see through the clouds/mist/fog.

The Singapore Shichida parents' handbook provides some suggestions for more games that you can play at home. I have set these out below. Some are for younger children and some for older children.

Clairvoyance. Remember clairvoyance is the ability to know the identity of hidden things eg. cards, or to identify the color of balls in a box. It is different from telepathy, which is mind reading. The child is being clairvoyant as the mother herself does not know the answer, so the child is not reading her mind.

a) Identifying Cards
Line up 5 picture cards or game cards face down in front of your child and have him/her guess the card you point to.

b) Guessing What’s In The Box
Put one ball out of a possible 5 colours – red, blue, yellow, white and black - into a box, and from the outside without touching the ball, have your child guess the colour of the ball.

c) Matching Cards Memory Game
This is also a memory game. All cards are arranged in rows faced down. When it’s your child’s turn, ask him/her to open 2 matching cards. If he/she is successful, he/she can keep the cards, otherwise the cards are closed again.

d) Guessing While Blindfolded
When games (a) and (b) are done 100% successfully, try this blindfolded game. Have your child blindfolded and guess what object is being placed in front of him without him touching the object. Alternatively, have your blindfolded child guess and point to where Japan, Australia, America, Russia, etc are on a map placed in front of him. This is pretty advanced.

e) Catch Mummy
When your child can guess what is placed in front, play the game of having him/her try to catch you while blindfolded. After your child is blindfolded, ask your child to catch you as move away from the place you were standing before to a new position.
 
Next, telepathy, which is the ability to read thoughts. You will need to be able to visualise a clear image in your mind (not easy!) and your child will try to make a successful guess of what is visualized in your mind.
 
a) Animal Cards
i) You will need 2 sets of 5 cards, each with pictures of animals like giraffe, panda, elephant, bear or deer.
ii) Line up one set of 5 cards face up in front of your child and the other set of 5 cards face down in front of you.
iii) Take one of the cards in your hand, stare at it intensely until you see the image in your mind. Then ask your child to pick the matching card from his set. 
iv) Do this 5 times.

b) Mind Reading
i) Mother and child face each other.
ii) Hold an image in your mind and ask your child to guess what it is. (Decide a category first eg. shape, colour, animal, vehicle, letter, etc.)

Then hand reading, which is different from clairvoyance in that the child is asked to touch the object with his hand and guess it.

a) Guessing the Colour of the Ball
At one side of a completely sealed cardboard box, make a round hole just right for a hand holding a ball to be able to pass through. Place 5 different coloured balls inside the box. Let your child put his hand into the hole and guess, without looking, what the colour of the ball in his hand is before drawing it out.

b) Card Play
In front of your child, lay 10 cards face down. Have him touch each card one by one and guess the colour of the cards. Animal or picture cards can be used as well.

c) Guessing What Is Written On The Paper
On a piece of paper about 2 square centimeters, write a letter of the alphabet. Wrap it up into a little ball and hand it to your child. Ask him to put the paper ball to his ear, or tuck it under his arm-pit and guess what’s written on the paper.

Precognition is the ability to understand the future with a concrete image that is more precise than intuition.

a) Guessing The Weather
Have your child predict the next day’s weather.

b) Guessing The Card
Have your child guess the order of the next day’s 5 cards and write his prediction down. The next day, mix the cards well and line them up face down. Let your child turn them over one by one and see if they agree with the order written down the day before.

Once you understand the concepts of clairvoyance, telepathy, hand reading and precognition, you can come up with your own games to play with your child at home or when the two of you are out and about. Questions like, which elevator will arrive first? or what shoes will daddy choose to wear later? are precognition games. Telepathy games can be as simple as hiding a snack in your hand and asking your child to guess which hand it is in, or hiding a toy under the blanket and asking your child which toy it is. Guessing which of the cupcakes you baked has an extra strawberry inside, assuming you can't tell either, is clairvoyance (or hand reading if he touches them). Simple and fun, the options are endless.

Of course, in class, it is less flexible as you are sitting in the classroom.  In the next instalment, I will share with you how we do Senses Play/play ESP games in class.

[This post also appears in our Learning at Home section.]