Max Littman, LCSW

August 23, 2025

When we talk about perception, we usually name the five senses—sight, sound, smell, taste, touch. These channels of perception are often referred to as exteroception. In recent decades, psychology and neuroscience have expanded that list with terms like interoception (sensing internal bodily states), proprioception (knowing where our body is in space), and neuroception (our nervous system’s automatic scanning for safety and danger). These additions remind us that our awareness is layered, subtle, and often beyond conscious thought.

But anyone who has felt an unexplainable connection, sensed the presence of another being without words, or attuned to what many call “energy” knows there’s another form of perception that has not yet been named in this lineage.

I’d like to call it transception.

What Is Transception?

Transception refers to our capacity to perceive beyond the boundaries of the physical senses and even beyond the self. It’s the awareness that moves through and across us—into fields of relationship, into subtle energetic attunement, into experiences we often label spiritual or ineffable.

Examples of transception might include:

  • The felt presence of a loved one even when they are not physically there
  • The sense of being held by something larger during a ritual, meditation, or moment of awe
  • The subtle energetic “read” we sometimes have of another person’s state before they say a word
  • The moments in therapy when something passes between therapist and client that is more than empathy—it is field awareness, a shared shift
  • Being in the right place and the right time
  • Synchronous events beyond explanation

Why We Need This Term

Without language, we struggle to validate these experiences. Interoception, neuroception, exteroception, and proprioception became part of our lexicon once science could map their pathways. Transception, while harder to measure, describes phenomena most humans already recognize. By naming it, we can start to treat it not as an anomaly but as a normal dimension of perception.

Transception and Healing

In Internal Family Systems and other relational therapies, transception shows up often. It’s in the therapist’s intuition about what is close, or the client’s sense that something within them is ready to be witnessed and unburdened. It’s in the shared silence where a truth ripples through the room. We could dismiss these as coincidence, or we could understand them as moments of transceptive awareness—our systems reaching beyond the ordinary senses to connect with what is deeper, wider, and unseen.

Transception in Clinical and Scientific Contexts

It can be tempting to dismiss transception as too vague or mystical. Yet many now-established concepts—like interoception—were once fringe or unnamed until research caught up. If we treat transception as a working hypothesis rather than a final truth, it opens a path for study and validation.

Hypothesis: 

Transception is a perceptual process through which the nervous system, body, and psyche register relational, field, or non-ordinary information not captured by established sensory categories. It may represent an emergent integration of interoception, exteroception, proprioception, and neuroception—extended into subtle relational and energetic domains.

Some promising avenues of research already point in this direction. Dyadic synchrony studies show how heart rate variability, cortisol levels, and even brainwave patterns can entrain between people in relationship. Polyvagal theory has demonstrated that our nervous systems are constantly scanning for safety and connection outside conscious awareness. Interpersonal neurobiology suggests that “mindsight”—our capacity to sense the inner world of others—arises from complex integrations of body, brain, and relationship. All of these lines of inquiry could be extended to explore whether transception represents a broader category of perception: one that includes subtle or spiritual forms of awareness.

In naming transception, I am not claiming to prove it exists. I am suggesting that the experiences many people already report—intuitive knowing, energetic sensing, relational fields, spiritual presence—deserve a place at the table of inquiry.

Transception and Non-Ordinary States

Non-ordinary states of consciousness often heighten transceptive awareness. In meditation, psychedelics, contemplative prayer, or breathwork, people describe experiences that move beyond the boundaries of self. They sense the interconnectedness of all beings, feel held by something larger, or encounter patterns of meaning that feel undeniable yet hard to explain.

Stanislav Grof called these states “holotropic”—oriented toward wholeness. William James treated mystical experience as a legitimate dimension of human psychology. Indigenous traditions have long honored altered states as portals to wisdom. Through the lens of transception, these experiences can be seen as perceptual expansions rather than anomalies: the nervous system and psyche opening into channels of awareness that ordinarily remain subtle or dormant.

Rather than pathologizing these moments as delusion, or romanticizing them as proof of the supernatural, transception allows us to name them as part of our human perceptual range. They remind us that consciousness is porous, that awareness is not bound entirely within our skin and skull.

Transception and Synchronicity

Another place transception shows itself is in synchronicities—the meaningful coincidences that arrive with uncanny timing. Jung described synchronicity as an “acausal connecting principle,” a way the psyche and the world mirror each other through patterns that defy rational explanation.

From a transceptive perspective, synchronicity is not just a coincidence we assign meaning to. It is a perception of resonance across inner and outer worlds, a moment when the boundaries between psyche and environment thin. The nervous system registers a significance that can’t be explained by cause and effect alone.

Synchronicities often carry a felt sense of being guided, affirmed, or nudged. They can arise in therapy when a client’s dream aligns with the unfolding of their life. Or when we as therapists are in our own parallel process with the client’s system. They can appear in collective experiences, like a shared image or phrase surfacing across different people at the same time. Naming transception helps us treat these moments not as curiosities to be dismissed, but as meaningful perceptions worthy of respect.

How Transception Can Manifest

Transception does not appear in just one form. Like interoception or neuroception, it has many flavors and channels. Naming some of these helps us recognize when it is already present in our lives.

  • Visually: An image arrives in the mind’s eye that mirrors what another person is holding.
  • Energetically: Walking into a room and sensing its heaviness before anyone speaks.
  • Somatically: Feeling a tightness in the chest that matches another’s unspoken fear.
  • Auditory/Verbal: A word forms internally that matches exactly what the other person is about to say.
  • Temporal/Contextual: Thinking of someone just before they call.
  • Field Awareness: A spacious sense of being part of a larger collective presence.

Each of these manifestations shows how transception is not confined to one channel of perception. It weaves together visual, energetic, somatic, auditory, and contextual streams, giving us subtle ways of attuning that stretch beyond the ordinary senses.

Energy Waves

Many spiritual and scientific traditions speak of energy waves as both a physical and subtle reality. Just as light and sound travel in waves, so too do our emotions, thoughts, and intentions ripple outward in ways that can be felt by others. Some traditions connect this directly to manifesting: the idea that focused energy creates ripples that shape reality, attracting or aligning with similar frequencies. From this view, centering ourselves—through breath, meditation, or grounding practices—allows our waves to become more coherent, transmitting clarity rather than static.

Resonance fits here as well, though it can be understood in different ways. Resonance describes how our waves interact with others, amplifying and reinforcing shared frequencies. A therapeutic model called Somatic Internal Family Systems (Somatic IFS)—an approach that integrates the body into Internal Family Systems therapy—highlights resonance as central. It emphasizes that our bodies and nervous systems pick up and respond to each other’s subtle signals, even beyond words. Somatic IFS gives us a language for noticing how energy waves are received in the body and how we can stay grounded enough to engage with them without becoming overwhelmed. In this way, it supports and deepens the idea of resonance as a natural human capacity.

Morphogenetic Fields

Rupert Sheldrake’s concept of morphogenetic fields offers another perspective on how transception might operate. These fields describe patterns of information that transcend individual minds and bodies—organizing structures that shape behavior, memory, and even biology. They function like collective templates: the more a pattern is enacted, the stronger and more accessible it becomes for others.

Morphogenetic fields may help explain phenomena that otherwise seem mysterious: why similar discoveries or inventions appear in different parts of the world at the same time, or why archetypes—such as the wise elder, the trickster, or the wounded healer—emerge across cultures with no direct contact. They suggest that when one person touches into a field, others can access that same pattern, even across distance.

From this perspective, synchronicities are not random accidents but reflections of fields activating in multiple places at once. In therapeutic or relational spaces, it can feel like stepping into something larger than oneself—a shared field charged with history, imagery, and possibility. 

Transception in Action

Transception is not a tool to be pulled off the shelf and applied like a protocol. It’s a living practice of openness and attunement. When we soften enough to notice, transception often arises on its own—offering images, sensations, or words that resonate with what another is carrying. Used gently, it can support connection and healing without becoming prescriptive or intrusive.

Vignette One: The Image

A client is struggling to describe the grief they feel after a breakup. Words are halting. As their therapist listens, an image appears in his mind: a wilted bouquet, still tied together, petals dropping one by one. He doesn’t rush to share it. Instead, he stays present, allowing the client’s words to keep forming. When the client pauses, he says softly, “I don’t know if this will land, but as you speak, an image of a wilting bouquet comes to mind.” The client gasps, tears spilling—“Yes! That’s exactly it. That’s what it feels like inside me.”

Vignette Two: The Somatic Echo

In another session, a client speaks about a fear of being judged. As they talk, the therapist notices a sudden pressure in her own chest. Rather than assuming it is “hers,” she wonders if this is part of the shared field. She checks inside: “As you’re speaking, I notice a pressure in my chest. I’m curious if that fits for you too.” The client nods vigorously: “Yes, exactly—I feel like my chest is being crushed when I imagine people’s eyes on me.”

Here, transception came through the body. By naming it tentatively, without ownership or agenda, the therapist validated the client’s experience and deepened the exploration.

A Living Practice, Not a Technique

What makes these moments helpful is not the accuracy of the image or sensation but the spirit in which they are offered. Transception is not about performance or proving one’s intuition. It’s about staying present enough to notice what arises, checking it with openness, and allowing the client’s system to decide whether it resonates.

In this way, transception becomes a practice of attunement and humility: living in the unknown, trusting the field, and inviting connection. It’s less about “using” transception and more about letting it be channeled through us—allowing awareness to move in ways that support healing without forcing or formula.

Spirituality, Pragmatism, and the Odds of Healing

Bob Falconer has been one of the voices encouraging therapists to bring spirituality more fully into the room. His work has shaped my own paradigm: not as an invitation to bypass or float away, but to recognize that human beings are embedded in larger fields of meaning and connection. He names the importance of a pragmatic spirituality—valuing whatever methods, perspectives, or ways of knowing truly help people heal, even if they don’t fit neatly into conventional categories.

At the same time, the more “evidence-based” approaches also matter. Helping clients strengthen their interoception—their awareness of internal states—and their neuroception—their nervous system’s reading of safety or danger—has clear benefits. We know from research that cultivating these skills improves regulation, resilience, and the odds of making healthier choices for themselves, others, and the world. In a sense, it’s a numbers game: the more fluent someone becomes in recognizing the cues of their own body and nervous system, the more opportunities they have to respond with care instead of reactivity.

Encouraging transception can be understood in a similar light. Naming and nurturing this sense doesn’t have to conflict with science; it simply extends the range of perception clients can draw from. Just as interoception gives people more chances to notice and meet their own needs, transception may give them more chances to feel connected, guided, or resourced in ways that support healing. Whether one frames it in spiritual terms, or as pragmatic skill-building, the outcome is the same: more pathways open for awareness, regulation, and transformation.

Honoring What We Already Know

Whether we approach it through neuroscience, therapy, spiritual practice, or field theory, each perspective points toward the same truth: humans are built to sense beyond the skin. Naming transception doesn’t claim to prove or reduce it. Instead, it acknowledges what many of us already feel: that there are ways of knowing that don’t fit neatly into the sensory categories we’ve inherited.

Just as interoception helped us articulate the role of the body in emotion, transception can help us speak about the role of spirit, energy, and field in our lives. It is an invitation to honor the permeability of our awareness—to recognize that we don’t just look out at the world or look in at ourselves. We also sense through, between, and beyond.

That is transception.

For feedback and comments, I can be reached at max@maxlittman.com.

I provide consultation and therapy for therapists.

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References

Falconer, R. (2023). The others within us: Internal Family Systems, porous mind, and spirit possession. Great Mystery Press.

Harari, Y. N. (2015). Sapiens: A brief history of humankind. Harper.

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McTaggart, L. (2008). The field: The quest for the secret force of the universe. Harper Perennial.

Schwartz, R. C. (2021). No bad parts: Healing trauma and restoring wholeness with the Internal Family Systems model. Sounds True.

Sheldrake, R. (2011). Morphic resonance: The nature of formative causation (4th ed.). Park Street Press.

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