Mental telepathy involves directly communicating through thought transference without using the normal senses, but that can be a very broad-based definition. Things like getting hunches, or having premonitions could fall under the category, but there are some people that can read a person's inner most thoughts without any other signals and no close relationship to the person. Mental telepathy covers basic functions that could be close to random guesses to very complex levels of thought transfer abilities. Different levels of mental telepathy can best be demonstrated in these instances:

NON-VERBAL COMMUNICATION

A form of non-verbal communication known as Kinesics can be construed as mental telepathy. Kinesics is the ability to communicate using eyes or body behaviors instead. Entire conversations can be had without saying a word, but the other person knows what you mean or are thinking, like parents communicating without speaking when they don't want their children to hear. Kinesics or non-verbal communication more easily attained between people who have a close relationship, such as?spouses, brothers and sisters, parents and children and at times close friends.

Many refuse to accept this kind of non verbal communication as mental telepathy because they feel that the subjects use expressions and other senses sans the sound to communicate. Truly speaking they are right. However, we cannot completely disregard the role of mental telepathy here since the very reason that non verbal communication is so effective between people who are familiar to each other is due to the fact that their minds are more in synch with each other than with strangers. Though this kind of an argument can be contested with an argument that the reason why non verbal communication is so effective between two people who know each other is because they understand each others subtle gestures and can interpret the slightest body language.

EMPATHY

When you can step into someone else's shoes and completely understand their feelings, then you are said to have an ability called empathy. Not all people have the same kind of empathy. Many people excel in it and many don't. However, for people who do not possess this quality, it can be increased and inculcated with practice and training. A great example are the actors who can even feel the pain and the problems of the characters they play so much so that they can even imitate their emotions in the most lifelike manner.

Sympathetic pain is another aspect of telepathy where in the subject feels the physical pain of the person as his own. When loved ones are hurt, then there are times a mother or a close relative physically feels the pain in spite of the fact that there is nothing wrong with them. This sympathetic pain can be also experienced emotionally when some one you are close to is undergoing an emotional turmoil or even when he is deliriously happy. Long distance empathy is another telepathic connection that we have felt sometime or the other. When a person close to you is in pain or trouble and in cases close to death, you feel that there is something wrong with that person even though that person is far away. This kind of long distance empathy is quite common in parents and spouses.

Psychologists think an overactive imagination could be to blame for these types of reactions rather than mental telepathy. There may be senses being used, such as seeing a medical procedure, but long-distance empathy, where it is a gut feeling and no visual or audio communication has taken place is quite another story and certainly does not reflect any direct communications.

CONCRETE CONCEPTS

A form of mental telepathy that goes beyond the five senses is thought transference of concrete symbols and objects between two minds. Many times this requires a designated sender and receiver, training, practice and super strong concentration.

Simpler concepts can be communicated via thought. For instance it's easier communicating a shape or a color than an animal.

Experiments in concrete levels telepathy use Zener cards to prove mental telepathy skills. They are simple, concrete black-and-white symbols (a circle, square, star, plus sign, and three wavy lines). Critics of the Zener cards have pointed out that with only five cards to choose from, there is a 20% chance of being right, even with random guesses. On the other hand, it may be easier for two people to send and receive thoughts if those are shared, known, and a limited set of concrete symbols. Although anyone can get a 20% success rate with enough guesses, there are success rates of 50% or higher in some cases.

NON-CONCRETE OR ABSTRACT THOUGHT TRANSFERENCE

Mental telepathy at this level uses abstract thoughts, actions and ideas and goes beyond simple colors and shapes. Rarely do telepaths achieve this level of mental telepathy, and experiments have shown that do not do as well on these types of tests.

There are animals which can communicate simple abstract concepts like hunger, thirst and pain and our technology still cannot figure out how. Though the lack of prefrontal lobes makes these concepts exceedingly basic, it still seems to involve telepathy.

There is a theory that humans may have used mental telepathy in ancient times, but once they developed language, they no longer needed to communicate in this manner. Humans should be able to re-discover this ability if that theory is true and it may just involve practice.

Other scientists believe that psychic powers and mental telepathy can exist and become part of the human communication options, however, they feel future means of communication could involve use of mental telepathy for mankind rather than something that was used and discarded from the past.