Psychic Abilities Writing Prompts

Looking to write a story about a psychic? I predict you’ll love this collection of writing prompts! It’s perfect for stories about psychic visions, telekinesis, astral projection, and other psychic abilities.

Psychic Visions

Precognition – Where Do You See Yourself in Five Years?

While out antiquing, a woman comes across a VHS video camera that records videos two hours in the future. She goes to the New York Stock Exchange and films a video of the stock ticker. When she reviews the video, she sees a man that wasn’t there before. Oddly, he appears to know she was there. He looks into the camera like he can see her and smiles darkly.
A man with the ability to see thirty seconds into the future becomes a boxer. His ability means he can see any punch before it’s thrown, allowing him to dodge and never get hit. When gangsters threaten to kill him unless he throws a match, he decides to hurt them before they can hurt him. Hopefully, his ability will also let him dodge bullets.
A scientist invents goggles that allow her to see one minute into the future. She heads to a casino and plays the slots, winning thousands of dollars. To her horror, her winning streak is interrupted by visions of being kidnapped and tortured for the secret of her invention. She goes on the run, using her ability to stay one step ahead of the kidnappers.
The new drug allowed users to have visions of the future. People could see stock market changes, terrorist attacks, advanced warnings of anything. But taking too much caused the user’s perception of time to break down. They became lost, unable to tell if they were seeing the present, the future, or the past.
A woman has a computer implant in her brain that allows her to calculate probability with startling accuracy. People who observe her think she is predicting the future. The Union of Professional Psychics kidnaps her and looks for a way to destroy the implant, so the technology won’t put them out of work.
A police detective in a large city gains the ability to predict the future, seeing crimes before they are even committed. He is torn between upholding the law and illegally apprehending these pre-criminals.
A baker’s cakes become the most popular in town. Not because of the taste, but because their icing decorations seem to predict the future. The baker denies having any psychic abilities, and refuses to bake the next day’s winning lottery numbers or stock price changes. When one of her cakes seems to predict the exact time and manner of a customer’s death, she is arrested on suspicion of murder.
A bachelor who can predict the future knows how his relationships will end before they even start
A psychic detective that can only see what DIDN’T happen
A psychic predicts the winning lottery numbers three times in a row. The FBI decides he must be tampering with the lottery and arrests him.
A psychic writes a best seller that predicts each reader’s future.
A children’s birthday party clown receives psychic visions. Unfortunately, they only come when he is in full clown regalia, so no one takes him seriously.
A woman is cursed with a kind of clairvoyance… Every time she makes a choice, she has a vision of what the future would have been like if she had chosen something different. And the grass is always greener…
A chef discovers she is psychic, gifted with the ability to smell the future
A government agency monitors private individuals investing in the stock market. Anyone who makes consistently good picks is investigated for illegal use of psychic ability.
A psychic musician is able to hear hit songs from the future and claim them as his own.
When humanity evolves the ability to see the future, television producers are faced with a serious problem: by the time a show makes it to the air, viewers have already seen it. New television shows are instant reruns.
A man gets a job writing an astrology column for a small town newspaper. Amazingly, he can actually see into the future. However, given that there are hundreds of people with each sign, his predictions must be general enough to apply to them all. When the local factory shuts down, dozens of people move away. The astrologer realizes that there is only one Gemini left in town. Finally, the astrologer can show just how accurate his predictions are! The next morning, the astrology column addresses the last Gemini by name.
A man experiments with a piece of software called a “virtual coin flipper.” Each side of the coin should come up fifty percent of the time. However, the man discovers that whenever a major event in his life is about to happen, the coin flipper produces far more heads than tails. He can use the machine to sense the future. However, he does not know if this predicted “major event” will be good or bad, or even how to prepare for it. The more he experiments, the more his paranoia grows.

Telepathy – Mind Reading is Fundamental

A government agency rounds up people with psychic abilities to be part of a selective breeding program. A couple paired by the program search for a way to escape, but how can you make secret plans when the guards can read your mind?
A police detective has the ability to read minds, using her power to detect lies and talk suspects into confessions. When a suspect thinks “she has no idea I’m from another planet”, the detective investigates to determine if he’s just crazy or really an alien.
Negotiating with the Trespians is tricky. They are a telepathic species, able to instantly detect any deceit. The only way around their mind reading was to make your mind too confusing to read. This usually involved massive doses of LSD. Of course, this came with its own problems…
Humanity is invited to join the Galactic Council of Planets. Humans soon learn that the group is actually an empire ruled by a species of telepaths. The aliens can read minds, allowing them to stop any attempt at rebellion before thoughts can become actions. However, one in a thousand human beings is immune to telepathy. This special group gets together to plan a rebellion, giving the galaxy back its independence.
A group of aliens fleeing a war takes refuge on Earth. The aliens are telepathic. They are immediately given jobs with law offices, police departments, espionage agencies, and other organizations where knowing someone’s innermost thoughts and being able to detect lies would come in handy. A human scientist searches for a way to make humans immune to telepathy and restore mental privacy.
A pair of psychic police detectives is assigned to investigate a series of murders. All of the victims are telepathic. It appears the killer has a secret in their head that they will do anything to keep.
In a world where almost everyone is telepathic, those without psychic ability are considered disabled.
A doctor in a traveling medicine show sells pills which temporarily give the user the ability to read minds. The pills which make the user immune to telepathy are much, much more expensive.
A mentally ill telepathic man can force anyone to listen to the sound of his screams.
Before being paroled, convicted criminals have their minds “unzipped,” allowing everyone to hear their innermost thoughts. If they even consider committing another crime, everyone around them will know.
A telepathic man is kidnapped by government agents and taken to a hidden laboratory. The agents order him to talk to their prisoner, a captive mermaid.
After a zookeeper suffers a head injury, he develops psychic powers. Unfortunately, the animals have less than fascinating thoughts.
A teenage jock searches for a way to keep his cheating a secret from his telepathic girlfriend.
A dramatically untalented musician develops telepathy and uses her newfound powers to project her music directly into people’s heads. They can’t avoid listening, no matter how hard they try.
A scientist is developing a machine that can project images and sounds directly into people’s minds. When Congress passes a new budget, his project is cut. The scientist turns to a new source of funding: an advertising agency.
A professional “human guinea pig” takes part in experiments to develop telepathy. Afterwards, he listens for the doctor’s thoughts, but nothing happens. He thinks the experiments have failed. However, when he drives home, he realizes something amazing: he can hear what his car is thinking.

Psychic Movement

Telekinesis – I Can Move Objects with My Mind (I Call These Objects “My Hands”)

A powerful telekinetic has the power to control planetary orbits. He blackmails the world’s governments into paying him to not hurl the Earth into the sun. A secret agent infiltrates the telekinetic’s organization and looks for a way to end the threat – permanently.
A telekinetic goes to a casino and gets caught using his power to control the outcome of dice rolls. The gangsters running the casino drag him to a back room. They demand that he use his powers to remove a bullet from the boss’s brain and save his life – or else.
A young alien is enrolled at a human middle school. He is constantly bullied for his otherworldly appearance. He could easily defend himself with telekinesis, but his parents warn him that revealing his powers would only make the humans scared of him, and frightened humans are even more dangerous.
When other kids get upset, they yell at their parents, storm upstairs, and slam their bedroom doors. When Jack gets upset, it’s dangerous. An eight-year-old with telekinetic powers throws temper tantrums that can destroy entire city blocks.
The most feared man alive is a powerful telekinetic with the ability to cause stars to go nova. Militaries across the galaxy are hunting for him, hoping to use him as a weapon against their enemies, but all he wants is to be left alone. A group of revolutionaries finds him on a remote planet and convince him to use his power in their war.
A powerful psychic uses telekinetic energy to drill for oil, water, gold, and other resources. He is digging out a new silver mine when he comes across an underground city. The humanoid creatures living there are immediately enraged and attack.
An alien disguises himself as a human to fit in on Earth. He uses his telekinetic powers to perform as a magician. A fan discovers that his favorite magician’s “tricks” are actually real.
After a stem cell procedure fails to regrow his limbs, a quadruple amputee is offered an alternative: telekinesis
Variation – A man has his arm amputated but, afterwards, he can still feel its presence. The doctor says it’s just “phantom limb syndrome,” but the man isn’t so sure. With some experimentation, he finds that he can move objects with the missing limb, even though it isn’t really there.
A telekinetic prostitute can service her customers from the next room
A magician discovers the secret to telekinesis. He decides that he could use it to catch criminals, fight terrorism or do a really, really amazing card trick…
A government clerk is assigned a difficult task: designing a prison to hold a telekinetic criminal.
A telekinetic stage performer’s powers grow until he is able to pull planets from their orbits.
A telekinetic gambler uses his powers to control the outcome of football games. When the players discover that he has been making them lose all season, they are desperate for revenge, and even his powers may not be enough to stop them.
A lazy telekinetic is warned by his doctor that he is desperately in need of exercise. He must use his physical muscles instead of his powers or he risks dying of heart disease.
A man with telekinesis discovers that he can use his abilities to cause heart attacks. He can kill anyone without any risk of being caught.

Astral Projection – Free Your Mind

A woman has an out of body experience during surgery. She discovers that she has an astral stalker. Someone is using astral projection to watch her every move. How can she defend herself against a stalker that could be anywhere?
A master of astral projection leaves his body every night, exploring the city in spirit form. He wanders into a physics lab and accidentally gets sucked into a time travel experiment. His spirit and body end up separated by a hundred years. He must find a way back to his body before something else moves in.
A group of monks is famous the galaxy over for teaching meditation. If you can master their unique meditation method, it will allow you to enter the astral realm and project your consciousness anywhere in the universe, traveling faster than light. Just stay on the assigned paths. Don’t go wandering. There are things in the astral realm that don’t like intruders, things that can follow you into the physical world.
Trapped in solitary confinement, a prisoner discovers that he can leave his body and explore his surroundings. Invisible, he spies on the security guards and the prison warden, and discovers some information that may be the key to his escape.
A lonely teenage boy reads a book on astral projection. He uses his newfound skills to spy on teachers and get the answers to exams, to watch cheerleaders in the girls’ locker room, and more. While out on one of his trips, he meets another wandering spirit and falls in love.
Variation – The boy decides to spy on the ladies at a Catholic girls’ school on the edge of town. The girls notice something is odd and decide that the school is haunted. Before the boy can return to his body, the girls call a priest and ask for an exorcism.
In a tragic car accident, a young woman is paralyzed from the neck down. While at the hospital, struggling to move her limbs, she discovers that her mind can leave her body and fly. When she returns to the hospital, she finds that she has been gone too long. Her body has died. She waits for someone else to pass away, hoping to take over their empty body and make it her own.
Variation – During a complicated operation, a young woman has an out-of-body experience. For a moment, she enjoys the experience, floating about the hospital and exploring. But then she begins to see other souls wandering about the hospital, the souls of patients who have recently passed away. Realizing that there is an uninhabited body nearby, the souls are soon fighting to control it.
An anti-social, teenage girl discovers that she can leave her body and explore the “astral world,” an alternate reality accessible only to spirits. As she spends more and more time in the astral world, her life begins to fall apart.

Psychic Strange

Mind Control – Lock up Their Mind

At birth, humans are fitted with mind control chips that prevent them from breaking any laws or committing illegal activity. A woman suffers a head injury and finds that her mind control chip has switched into “parental control” mode. She is prevented from doing or seeing any activities that would be inappropriate for a young child.
A preacher discovers he can make his congregation hallucinate
A new product for parents comes on the market, a mind control device that can force kids to behave.
Police who can force people to obey the law, and the criminal who outwits them
A scientist leaves his mind-control ray plugged in, and it is discovered by his cat
Variation – A pet store sells a “behavior modifier,” an electronic device that makes animals behave like the perfect pet. A young couple purchases one, hoping to make their cat stop scratching the furniture. Soon, however, they begin to wonder if the behavior modifier is affecting them more than their pet.
An inventor creates a mind control device, and programs it to turn the victim into his old-fashioned idea of a “perfect” wife – cooking 3 meals a day, cleaning the house in pearls and high heels, a “Donna Reed” type. But then his wife discovers his plan…
A small town politician discovers a way to use hypnosis to swing voters in his favor.
A small girl discovers a way to control her parents’ minds. Her parents’ friends wonder why they let their bratty eight-year-old make all of their decisions.
A high school principal begins to suspect that the new soft drink being sold in his school is keeping the students weak-minded.
A man develops the ability to control minds, turning anyone into his slave. Soon, he has millions of dollars, designer clothes, and a fleet of sports cars, everything he could ever desire… except for a wife. Love isn’t real if the person has no free will.
After studying hypnosis for years, a man develops the ability to control anyone’s mind. However, he can only do it for thirty seconds at a time.
An archeologist discovers an ancient amulet that allows her to control people’s minds. However, it only works on men.
Putting on her makeup one morning, a talented scientist discovers her first gray hairs. She uses a mind control ray to change how she is perceived. She isn’t actually younger, but everyone sees her as if she is. At first, she is happy with the results. But when her boyfriend offers her a lollypop, she wonders if she’s losing control of her powers.
The new head of an advertising agency is a former Las Vegas stage hypnotist. Anyone who sees his commercials are instantly convinced that they need the product being advertised, even if they don’t. A few days later, the stores are packed with men buying cosmetics and childless couples buying diapers and formula.

Talking to the Dead – No Shovel Required

When a spirit medium is proven to be in contact with the founding fathers, she is elected president, running the country based on their advice. However, the spirits are imposters. The spirits lead the country into a war that threatens to destroy the world.
A woman goes to spirit mediums and asks them to contact her late husband. Her husband hated spirit mediums and considered them all frauds. Even as a ghost, he refuses to believe in their powers. He is determined to convince his wife that the mediums are fakes.
An inventor develops a device that allows him to talk to ghosts. He has no family or friends, so he ends up talking to the spirits a lot. Unfortunately, he never has anything interesting to say, at least nothing interesting to someone who has been dead for a hundred years. The ghosts quickly grow sick of him and search for a way to shut him up.
A horror author is perfectly honest about where his ideas come from. “They’re whispered to me by ghosts.” Everyone assumes it’s just a marketing ploy, until he brings the ghost with him on a book tour.
A mortician makes two startling discoveries: 1. He has the ability to talk to the dead and 2. Being dead makes senior citizens even less interesting than when they were alive.
A man with the ability to communicate with the dead decides to open earth’s first nightclub for ghosts.
A psychic medium is still being nagged by his late wife.
A beautiful psychic medium is constantly hit on by the ghosts of dirty, old men. Growing tired of being sexually harassed by the dead, she decides to look for a way to lose her powers.
After years of being addicted to gambling and alcohol, a man dies penniless and alone. Due to a clerical error in the afterlife, he is assigned as a spirit guide to a young psychic medium. Unfortunately, he is still terrible at making decisions and even worse at giving advice.
A psychic medium encounters a beautiful ghost who does not realize that she is dead. The medium falls in love and, not wanting her to leave for the afterlife, tries to keep her from discovering the truth.
A psychic medium discovers that she can capture spirits with her mind, and trap them inside of anything made of glass. She decides that collecting ghosts is much more interesting than collecting snow globes.

Weird Psychic Abilities

A hypnotist discovers he can use his abilities to make anyone instantly forget what he looks like. He goes on a bank robbery spree. The police are unable to get a description of him from any of the dozens of witnesses. He takes his money home and, to his horror, his wife doesn’t recognize him.
A hypnotist discovers that time is an artifact of human perceptions. He can hypnotize anyone to perceive themselves to be in any time period, and their perceptions are entirely accurate. He hypnotizes himself to see the next day’s stock prices, but is unable to end the effect. He finds himself stuck seeing one day in advance.
A stage hypnotist hypnotizes a thirty-something man from the audience into thinking he has returned to ten years of age. Before he can end the effect, the hypnotist has a heart attack and dies on stage. The man’s family find themselves stuck with a thirty-year-old child.
A psychic empath works for the police department, sitting in on interrogations and telling officers when a suspect is lying. She discovers that another psychic has been interfering with her readings, resulting in false convictions and guilty suspects being released. She searches for the enemy psychic and discovers the department is far more corrupt than she could have imagined.
In a martial arts tournament, one competitor seems impossible to hit. He dodges every blow, no matter how fast or talented his opponents. The other competitors begin to suspect that he is using psychic abilities to cheat, reading the minds of his opponents. Some go on the hunt for proof, while others decide to seek revenge.
A doctor has dozens of patients come to him complaining of being exhausted even after a full night’s sleep. He investigates and determines that all the patients live within a five-mile circle. He begins to suspect that the town has been invaded by a psychic vampire that drains people of their energy. He partners with a local bow hunter and they go after the creature.
A powerful pyrokenetic is paid to live on an island with a live volcano. In case of eruption, he can redirect the lava to flow away from the surrounding village and into the ocean. Unfortunately, on the day the volcano erupts, the pyrokenetic is very, very drunk.
A psychic healer is hunted by medical executives who are afraid her power will cost them billions in lost patients. She soon discovers that it’s impossible to hide from a global corporation. If she wants to survive, she will have to use her powers to fight.
A thief travels the world, using psychic powers to steal knowledge and skills from the smartest and most talented people in the world. A group of detectives with their own psychic abilities attempt to hunt down the thief, but how do you outsmart someone with the combined intelligence of dozens of people?
At a school for psychically gifted children, the students can see the new girl’s imaginary friend. The huge teddy bear follows her everywhere, sitting at the back of her classrooms and next to her at lunch. When the new girl is bullied for being “too old” for an imaginary friend, the teddy bear turns into a grizzly.
Travel to distant worlds is possible thanks to powerful psychics called benders. They warp the fabric of spacetime, allowing ships to travel many times the speed of light. Benders are so valuable, it is a war crime to kill one in battle. Spaceships battle with nonlethal weapons, stun guns and electromagnetic pulse bombs.
An antiques dealer has the power of psychometry, the ability to see an object’s history just by touching it. When he determines that an antique statue was used to bludgeon someone to death, he goes to the police. He is told that supposed psychic abilities aren’t enough to open a murder investigation. He decides to investigate the murder himself, and find the proof that will get the police to act.
In the near future, anyone with psychic abilities who wants to visit a casino has to take a pill to temporarily nullify their powers. A psychic woman goes to Vegas on her honeymoon and, even though she has no interest in gambling, she has to take the pill to even enter the casino. After her honeymoon, her powers fail to return. She begins to suspect that her powers weren’t nullified – they were stolen.
A man with the ability to instantly learn any skill by sucking information from other people’s minds. When a famous rock star suddenly loses the ability to play the guitar, he wonders if the pizza delivery boy with the strange eyes had something to do with it.
The shock of losing his powers causes a psychic’s mind to snap. He remains convinced that he can read minds and predict the future, rationalizing his every failure.
A man discovers that a local psychic cannot actually predict future events – she makes the events happen. All of the earthquakes, wars, and deaths she predicted were actually caused by her.
A voyeur finds a book on “remote viewing,” the ability to see events without even being there. His neighbors’ blinds won’t hide them now.
Variation – When a book on remote viewing becomes a best seller, more and more people gain the strange, new ability to spy on their neighbors. Television producers begin to worry about going out of business.
A casino hires a man with a most unusual talent: anti-psi. He can prevent dishonest psychics from using their telepathic or telekinetic abilities to rip of the casino. Later, when the psychics find a way around his powers, the casino bosses are out for blood.
Variation – The government in Nevada hires psi-immune detectives to search for psychics, and to stop them before they reach the casinos. Stop them by any means necessary.
A portrait photographer discovers that he can project images onto a roll of film with his mind. He creates beautiful psychic photos that get his work national recognition. As he develops new photos for an art exhibition, he notices a man in the background of each shot. Somehow, a mysterious figure in black is appearing in all his photos. When the photographer finally sees the man’s face, he knows he must never take another photo again.
A college student discovers he accidentally registered for the wrong class. Instead of “Intro to Physics”, he signed up for “Intro to Psychics”. He considers dropping the class, until he sees the required textbooks: “13 Steps to Mind Reading”, “An Astral Projection Safety Guide”, and “Seeing the Future Before it Sees You”.
A gambler discovers that he has the ability to “budget” his luck. He calculates that he would be lucky enough to win the lottery if he just saved all of his good luck for a year. He just has to survive the unlucky year first.
A young man has a reoccurring nightmare where he is chased by floating, disembodied hands. After weeks of waking up screaming, he goes to see a hypnotherapist. The hypnosis works. Rather than being chased by the hands, the man finds that he can control them. Amazingly, when he awakes, the hands are still there. He can control their actions and their size. He can shrink them until they vanish, or make them big enough to lift a car. He decides to put this power to use in underground martial arts tournaments. He goes undefeated for weeks, until he meets a fighter with an even stranger ability than his.
When kids are young, their imaginary friends are a source of companionship and comfort. But for some older kids, imaginary friends are simply a source of income. Every day after school, a group of kids meets in the park for a Tulpa Tournament, where their imaginary friends are forced into violent battles. The winner gets the group’s lunch money. The loser is forced to watch as their imaginary friend dies on the ground, and a piece of their childhood dies with them.
A child with the world’s most powerful imagination gets paid to create imaginary friends for the other children. As his clients grow up, they start to wonder if their adult friends really exist.
“See?” Jenny says, showing her parents the library book. “A tulpa is an entity made of thought, created through mental powers. So my imaginary friend isn’t so imaginary after all. And one day, I’ll have enough mental powers to make him visible, and then you can see him, too.” Her parents look over at the drawing on the refrigerator and shiver. They aren’t so sure they want to meet “Mr. Teeth.”

Psychic Abilities Writing Prompts

Table of Contents

Psychic Visions