telepathic

Telepathic is an adjective relating to telepathy, the purported ability to communicate information from one mind to another without using known sensory channels or physical interaction. Telepathic communication is often imagined as direct mind-to-mind transfer of thoughts, memories, or feelings, and is a common trope in science fiction and paranormal discourse. In everyday usage, "telepathic" may describe a strong sense of connectedness or an intuitive understanding of another’s thoughts, sometimes described as a sixth sense, but such usage is metaphorical.

In scientific contexts, telepathy is regarded with skepticism. There is no widely accepted empirical evidence that human thoughts can be transmitted directly between individuals without intermediaries. Investigations conducted in parapsychology, including classic experimental paradigms such as the Ganzfeld procedure, have yielded mixed results and have faced concerns about methodological limitations, replication, and publication bias. Mainstream neuroscience explains social communication through sensory cues, language, and shared context, with brain activity related to communication occurring via conventional neural pathways and external devices rather than non-physical transfer of information. Some modern experiments in brain-to-brain interfaces use external technologies to couple neural activity between participants, but these are mediated by machines and signals rather than true telepathy.

Culturally, telepathic concepts appear in literature, film, and popular culture, where characters may exchange thoughts instantaneously or probe others' minds. The term is also used descriptively to describe empathetic attunement or rapid inference, even when no direct mind-to-mind transfer is claimed.