by Karen Frazier, Managing Editor
Paranormal Underground

There’s something to be said for being open to experience. How open we should be is another question entirely.

When we approach the paranormal with openness, we just may see things that surprise and amaze us. Personally, I like being open to the possibility of being amazed – it makes the world a more interesting place to be. And yet, as my friend and our science editor JD Harrison reminds me, we can’t be so open that our brains fall out.

I watch how my dogs live their lives and I believe that I could learn from them. They are just little bundles of experience. If they see a grasshopper and it amazes them, they chase it. If they catch it, there’s a good chance they will eat it. See now in my mind – the first part of that sounds great. I like to follow after things that amaze me. Usually I’d prefer not to eat them unless they are dipped in chocolate – but that’s another story for another day.

Is there such a thing as too open to experience?

I am a critical thinker by nature. I’m not sure that I’ve ever had an experience in my entire life that I haven’t put through the meat grinder that is my brain. For most of my life, I have believed that this is a good thing, although recently I’ve begun to wonder if maybe I should give it a rest. I don’t mean that I should stop thinking critically altogether. It’s just that maybe every single experience doesn’t have to be analyzed until it runs away screaming. There’s something to be said for chasing that grasshopper.

My good friend, past life regression hypnotherapist Melissa Watts, regularly reminds me that I don’t have to know what every single thing means. Sometimes and experience is just an experience. Or so she says.

This past weekend, we were filming/investigating up at Wellington, and I watched three psychics do some rather impressive work. What is so impressive about all three of them is that they are able to quiet all of the stuff that runs through their minds and trust the information they are receiving. What is doubly interesting to me is that all three seem to receive the same or very similar information that comes to them in different ways. One hears. One sees pictures and hears. One just knows stuff. What’s even more fascinating is that the information that they see, hear and know often matches the thoughts that are running through my mind. The difference? I don’t trust what I think. I’m pretty sure it’s my imagination gone as crazy as a college girl flashing Snoop Dog in a Girls Gone Wild video.

Maybe if I was just a bit more open and spent just a little bit less time processing every single experience and every single thought, I would know and understand far more about the universe than I currently do. Maybe then a paranormal experience would be just that – something that I experience with awe and wonder until the moment passes. I often use history to take away that awe and wonder for myself, because in the light of history I analyze and think until I remove all of the magic that was there in the moment. I guess its sort of like eating the grasshopper. One minute – wow – it’s hopping – that’s amazing!!! The next minute – it’s gone and I’ve got nothing left but a bad taste in my mouth and a sourness in the pit of my stomach. Perhaps instead I should just let the grasshopper hop away so that it can amaze someone else – or maybe even amaze me again in the future.