Telepathy and Empathy

I've often wondered where the boundary line between the two is.

Broken down very basically, I see telepathy as knowing another's thoughts, and empathy as knowing another's feelings (there's more to it that that, I'm just trying to get both into raw form here).

So, as an example.

You know that someone is hungry, and they confirm that. Assuming that a supernatural ability was used to discover this, which would it be?

Hunger isn't exactly an emotion, right? So would it be telepathy?

And furthermore, I find that when I am feeling something, often I am thinking about it. Another example: A person is feeling sad and depressed, and they do not know why, so in their mind they are trying to figure it out. (So throw the "confused" emotion in the mix). An empath picks up on that person's feelings, but because the thoughts and feelings are aligned, aren't they applying telepathy to a degree as well? So where is the boundary line?

It would be telepathy if you picked up "I feel hungry" in words from them. It'd be empathy if you tapped into them and you yourself felt their hunger.

That's my take on it anyway.

When people think something in words that they're feeling...well depends if you pick up on the words, the feelings, or both I guess.

Good Empath’s can sense emotional states as well as….how do I describe this ?

You can tell if someone is in pain , you can sort of pick up on how they physically feel as well , sensations , you can pick up the emotions of memory’s , say someone is remembering a happy moment from their childhood , you’d be able to feel the emotions of that , or remembering when a close friend died , again you’d be able to feel their sadness and sense of loss …

You can also tell on certain levels how a person is physically feeling , tired , hungry , in pain ,euphoric , the whole works of emotion and sensation.

Depending on the strength of the connection and the telepath …for memory’s , there could be pictures , sounds , names …but no emotional content .

It’s a sort of very fine line …ok…hypothetical analogy .

A television …it has both sight and sound .

An Empath …would hear the sounds but not see the pictures , and a Telepath would see the pictures but not hear the sounds .

That’s just an analogy of course and it doesn’t work quite like that but the principals are the same .

Erm…what else ?

Ok…smell , it’s the most powerful trigger in memory , but I’m not sure if Empath’s can pick up on it as I know ( from my own experience ) Telepaths cant .

Blanks …anybody know about Esper Blindness ?

I know of these from a telepathic point of view but I’m not sure about empath’s , there are some people out there who generally get called “blanks” , you’ll probably never meet one as they are incredibly rare .

Hard to believe but it’s a sort of a urban legend among telepaths .

I’m not sure who coined the term “Esper Blindness” , but its used to describe a person with absolutely no psychic ability’s at all …not even latent ability’s which nearly everybody has to some degree , a flip side of being esper blind is that you simply cant be read , its like your looking at a big blank space , nothing registers at all .

From an empathic point of view , I’m not sure if they’ve ever been talked about or if empath’s have their own name for them .

Its almost unheard of … being Empathic “and” Telepathic , I say almost …because there’s always someone who claims to be both , most of the time their claims are fraudulent , so far nobody can say “ No , you can’t be both” , as far as anybody knows , there’s no law that’s says you cant be both …

But as far as anybody knows , no …its unlikely to be both , it has something to do with the way psychic ability’s branch out , one branch of ability’s will be , psychometry and empathy and another branch will be telepathy and precognition .

Ability’s branch off , but there’s a lot of ability’s out there …how should I say this ?…that don’t make the spotlight ?

Some people have psychic connections to animals , or plant life , others with constructs ( machines ) ..I kid you not , like being able to find your way through a circuit board , and not knowing the first thing about electronics .

There’s just a lot of things that people can do that don’t get classed as ability’s .

But by far the hardest ability for anybody to learn is telekinesis , direct energy manipulation to the point where it effect physical matter .

Anyway…I’ve rambled on enough.

An empath feels another's emotions. But sometimes our minds translate those emotions into words and imo, that would be a form of telepathy. What we're feeling and thinking are often the same after all and it's quite hard to remove the emotional aspect from what we're thinking. *two cents*