How Consciousness Works: Insights from Remote Viewing

Is Pattern Completion the Primary Function?

Photo by Joshua Sortino on Unsplash

Within the silly comedy, Everything Everywhere All at Once, is a profound nugget of truth: all information—past, present, and future—exists in the field of consciousness, where it theoretically can be accessed by anyone at any time. Though difficult to scientifically prove, the popular podcast, The Telepathy Tapes, offers compelling cases of non-verbal autistic children who regularly access that field.

I was particularly fascinated by the story of a boy who could absorb the information in a book without reading it. While certainly fodder for skeptics, reality theory and what we understand about consciousness validates this possibility. As part of consciousness itself, we are connected to all information that ever was or ever will be, making everything potentially knowable. Those motherly hunches and intuitive nudges, while often subtle, are examples of our capacity to draw information from that field.

Yet believing it is possible is one thing but doing it on-demand with proficiency is another. In a delightful convergence, my aspiration to enhance my own abilities was answered in the form of a remote viewing class based on transdimensional mapping (TDM)—a technique developed by the instructor, Birdie Jaworski. Going beyond the traditional military method of remote viewing, TDM delivers a data-rich, sensory description of the target or experience in question.

From day one, I was amazed at what was coming through, at how I could discern so much about something completely hidden from me. As an avid explorer of consciousness, I wanted to understand how it worked and what that might tell us about how anything manifests in our reality.

In a kind of meta-experiment, I turned to remote viewing to find out. What I learned went beyond remote viewing to the mechanics of consciousness itself.

Beyond Intention

I came to remote viewing thinking that I needed to learn how to retrieve information. I imagined something that functioned like a vast library or database where information was somehow indexed and clustered. Like knowing the right Dewey decimal number or query code, I thought it was up to me to go find it and my intention might be what guided me to it.

But the intention theory didn’t give a strong or satisfying enough answer. In a double-blind situation, where neither me nor the “tasker” know what is to be viewed, we can only set a generic intention to find the right information. In theory, the person who initially specified the target could set the intention but it wasn’t clear how that would help me. In light of endless cases where I intended to know something and got nothing, be it winning lottery numbers or the history of Peloponnese, it seemed something more nuanced was going on.

What came through in my remote viewing session (conducted blind but later revealed to be the telepathic boy with the book), was that all information is encoded with a marker of sorts. I sketched a robot selecting files from a massive file cabinet, but felt the encoding wasn’t a direct mapping, like in a keyword search or index system.

It felt more magnetic, like casting a fishing line with bait that would attract certain kinds of fish.

This flowed into specific guidance to look at how advanced artificial intelligence (AI) functions as a possible parallel. Feeling this was an important clue, I broke protocol and opened up my AI app, with the target still blinded, to ask it about itself, starting with the question of what happens between a query and response.

That’s when it really got interesting. In seeking more information, I got a real-world demonstration of how information flows.

A Process of Pattern Completion

The first image I had drawn was a perfectly ripe apple hanging heavy on the bough. There was a sense of constant signaling and communication between the fruit and tree and also the idea of ripe meaning relevant, ready, and of sufficient weight.

It struck me as odd that when I asked AI to give me an example of how a query and response works, it said, “Imagine I get this query: ‘What color are bananas when they’re ripe?’” Was it just a coincidence that of all the examples AI could generate, it was nearly identical to my initial concept? It turns out no.

There appears to be a relationship between the concept of “ripeness” and what information becomes accessible when, at least for most of us.

The fruit/ripeness metaphor appears consistently because it captures at least part of how information works. But before we go there, let’s look at the mechanics of pattern recognition in AI large language models, using the banana example. This is AI’s simplified explanation:

1. Input Encoding: First, the query text gets turned into numbers. Each word or piece of word gets converted into a numerical pattern. So “banana” might become something like a pattern of numbers that represents its characteristics: fruit, yellow, curved, etc. It’s not labeled that way - it’s just that through training, similar words ended up with similar number patterns.

2. Pattern Activation: When these numbers flow through the network, they start activating different connections. The pattern for “banana” might strongly activate connections that formed during training around:

• Fruit characteristics

• Color patterns

• Ripening processes

3. Attention Mechanism: The word “ripe” in the query acts like a spotlight. The attention mechanism essentially says “focus on connections related to banana ripeness, not banana shape or nutrition.” It’s like turning up the volume on certain connections while turning down others.

4. Pattern Completion: The network then completes the pattern based on the strongest activations. During training, it saw many examples of ripe bananas being described as yellow, creating strong mathematical connections between these concepts.

As a language model, AI learns patterns of how symbols appear together and relate to each other through the contexts they are used. It is mathematical not alphabetical, dealing with unique mathematical signatures not letters. This allows the models to work across languages because concepts like “ripe bananas are yellow” or “the sun rises in the east” are global.

This also speaks to how remote viewing (and really all language) works through symbols and patterns, like Saussure’s signifier and signified.

Information in the field is not in human words. It exists as qualities, properties, and concepts that we uncover through relationship and metaphor.

We all develop a personal poetic symbology that draws on established patterns and relationships in order to discern meaning and to translate that information for our understanding.

However, this comparison with AI has its limitations. While AI systems process patterns solely through mathematical computation, consciousness appears to have additional fundamental properties, such as the ability to subjectively feel and experience patterns, grasp their inherent meaning or “aboutness,” and exercise creative agency in working with them.

Acknowledging these caveats, how might the concept of pattern recognition and completion help us understand consciousness and physical reality?

What This Means for Manifestation

For most of our practice sessions, I couldn’t name the specific image, but I could tell you a lot about it. Take the ancient site of Gobekli Tepe in Turkey. At the end of the hour session, I had a map full of images and phrases that represented some of Gobekli Tepe’s major attributes, like that it was very old, built of stone, a site of ceremony with drums and dance, a birthing ground of civilization, and that it was now a tourist attraction. I picked up on its essence even if I didn’t know exactly what it was.

For a remote viewer trying to find a lost child or solve a crime, they would need to keep drilling down on the qualities, keep narrowing the field to reach the specific target—the complete pattern that precisely matches the inputs. However, when it comes to working with consciousness, we benefit from focusing on the fundamental essences and letting the intelligent engine of consciousness complete the pattern.

If we reverse-engineer the Gobekli Tepe example, we start with the inputs of qualities, which get encoded and cascade through the field, be it in the form of frequency (oscillating or vibratory energy patterns), digits or data bits, or something else. The essence is of a place significant to the birthing of human civilization. This is akin to the connections activated in the field that start to form a pattern. Perhaps we also want a site that we can visit. That acts as the “attention mechanism.”

In this example, the complete pattern was Gobekli Tepe, but places like the Great Pyramids or Machu Picchu would also embody those qualities. They would also complete the pattern. This speaks to the wisdom of focusing on the qualities and essences instead of the physical form.

If you wanted to experience an ancient site full of history and cultural meaning, wouldn’t you enjoy visiting any of the family of sites? Would you rather push and force and likely wait for a chance to go to a specific place or will you trust in the intelligence to more expeditiously bring you another match?

By keeping it sufficiently open, you allow consciousness to complete patterns across different sources and channels. This intelligence seems to:

• Recognize what pieces are needed,

• Assemble seemingly separate elements across what appears to us as time and space, and

• Orchestrate timing and connections in ways that complete the pattern.

Just as entangled particles maintain instantaneous association regardless of distance, elements of a pattern in consciousness appear to be instantly connected and mutually influencing each other. When we resonate with a particular pattern or possibility, we become “entangled” with all other elements that could complete that pattern, independent of time and space.

When you operate with as few constraints and conditions as possible, like what the outcome has to look like, when it needs to show up, and what process needs to precede it, you allow the inherent intelligence of consciousness to optimize for you across all available resources. As a self-processing, self-propagating, and self-optimizing system, that is what it wants to do.

Consciousness, Reality, & Our Cosmic Kin

The Relevance of Ripeness

What physically shows up seems to also be guided by “ripeness,” which has multiple facets and layers, from individual readiness to universal optimization.

First, the concept of remote viewing has developed strong pattern connections through centuries of human attention and practice. These established patterns have greater amplitude in the field, making them more readily accessible than rare or fleeting concepts.

Second, there seems to be some mechanism within the intelligence of consciousness that naturally amplifies information and opportunities that are most relevant to one’s growth and understanding. These are not “gifts” from an external bestower, but consciousness expanding itself through increasing complexity. Each new understanding creates potential for more sophisticated pattern recognition, forming a positive feedback loop of ever-expanding awareness.

There is also a timing component, meaning when we are ready to receive it and act on it, as well as some kind of optimization function. For example, the class came when I was ready to focus time and effort on psychic development. It also came in a form that complements how my brain naturally operates, much more so than trying to be still and silent at a meditation retreat.

My readiness, paired with my sustained attention to better understand the mechanics of consciousness, created a specific resonant signature that matched the pattern of remote viewing instruction.

A resonant signature seems to arise from the alignment of multiple factors, including readiness, attention, timing, and optimization potential.

It’s not just about matching frequencies but about achieving coherence across multiple dimensions of possibility.

Finally, we know that nature loves efficiency and energy takes the path of least resistance. It looks for the lowest hanging fruit. With many, many ways to complete the pattern, the remote viewing class came into my awareness because it closely aligned with my goal, was coming up soon, had a price I was willing to pay, and a schedule that worked. It also led to the “ripe” synchronicity that added to the layers of understanding and gave me ongoing insight to write about.

By saying yes to the class, I charged up the field around that pattern—strengthened the coherence—which drew in further revelations about consciousness through both information received and demonstrations of consciousness in action, extending far beyond the class.

Conscious Creation

Just as concepts exist in AI language models as unique mathematical signatures, concepts seem to exist in consciousness as unique energetic signatures, existing everywhere, all at once. This signature might explain how the boy in The Telepathy Tapes could know what was in the book. Rather than reading, he might be accessing the book’s entire information pattern directly and holistically by resonating with it. This seems to be how telepathy works—consciousness recognizes the complete conceptual pattern first and the brain interprets it second.

Pattern completion appears to be one of consciousness’ fundamental operations—not just in information access as with remote viewing, but in the orchestration of experience itself. Consciousness provides the field of pure potential and intelligence is what recognizes, processes and assembles information within that field. Together they form an integrated system that enables reality to be self-organizing and meaningful.

What we call “manifestation” is essentially the completion of a pattern through intelligent assembly of resonant parts.

Similarly, what we call “synchronicity” is really just becoming aware of the pattern-matching constantly being performed. It is not a sign that something is “supposed” to happen but insight into how things are happening all the time. The experience can be meaningful and an indication of a strengthening pattern, but the deepest meaning comes from furthering our own understanding of creation, not as a “spiritual” message from anything external.

The invitation is to develop our awareness of the patterns at play in our lives and consciously create by refining the inputs we are sending to the field through our thoughts, wishes, and beliefs, and sustaining our resonance with them. What differentiates conscious creation from wishful thinking is sustained resonance with the pattern we seek to complete. This isn’t about force or determination, but about maintaining coherent alignment with the qualities and essences we wish to experience.

Instead of worrying how things will turn out or needing things to be a certain way, we can dance and play with the field. We can delight in not knowing what will be attracted to the energetic line we cast into the abyss. The more we take pleasure in that and release the need to predict or control, the more aligned we become with the truly magical that is always possible.

Summary: Through the lens of remote viewing experiences, this essay explores how consciousness may function primarily through pattern completion. Consciousness appears to operate via an intelligent system that automatically draws together resonant patterns across time and space. While similar to how AI recognizes patterns, consciousness exhibits additional properties like subjective experience, meaning-making, and creative agency. The concept of “ripeness” emerges as key—patterns manifest when there is alignment between individual readiness, optimal growth and understanding, and universal efficiency. This explains why things often appear when we’re ready rather than when we try to force them. What we call manifestation or synchronicity may simply be the natural result of consciousness completing patterns through the intelligent assembly of resonant parts. Rather than controlling outcomes, we can participate more effectively by focusing on qualities and essences we wish to experience, maintaining resonance with those patterns, and allowing consciousness to optimize how they complete. The piece offers a framework for understanding both information access (as in remote viewing) and reality creation as aspects of the same pattern completion process.

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Carolyn Brouillard is a passionate explorer of potential who loves to exchange ideas through writing and speaking. As a transformational coach, she helps change-seekers create a life they love through transforming their thinking and claiming their power. She is also Managing Partner of ExoFuturesConsulting, which works with forward-thinking organizations ready to explore the profound implications of contact with NHI.