There are many ways you might begin to sense and have contact with spirit. These are times when you calm the mind and become more receptive and attuned to the vibration or frequency of spirit. These times are as you fall to sleep and just before you awake and while you are daydreaming or in a meditative state. At these times, you may enter an altered state of consciousness, and a natural heightening of your spirit vibration takes place. If you do wish to develop these abilities to sense and communicate with spirit, you first need to invite your spirit guides, helpers and loved ones to work with you.

If you wish to speak or have contact with spirit and departed loved ones, then it is best done through developing attunement to spirit. This is done by heightening your own spirit senses and vibration to a frequency where it becomes possible to sense, and then eventually you build a strong enough link to communicate with spirit. This normally involves entering an altered state of conscious awareness. To some it comes naturally and is not unlike a day dreamy state of mind, where the mind is allowed to freely drift while you allow a quieting of your thoughts. The mind is taken up into a heightened but peaceful state of awareness while expanding your spiritual senses outward. For those who do not find it natural, then often finding this attunement and quieting of the mind so that spirit may be perceived will work best within a relaxing meditation.

Once the gift is open and is fully developed, it becomes much easier to attune to the spiritual vibrations where clairvoyance, psychic perceptions and awareness become possible. However, the foundation of clairvoyance is often psychism, and the two are often thought to be the same thing when in fact they work on different levels. You can be psychic and clairvoyant without hearing spirit, though psychism is often used by clairvoyant mediums to form a link with someone here so that spirit can draw close to them. Then they move their vibration up into the spiritual vibrations to link in with the spirit and pass on the message that is given. The psychic link helps build up energy between the material and spiritual planes; it is very beneficial and perhaps even necessary to have basic psychic abilities, which can be developed with practice.

One of the most common things you might experience is catching glimpses of spirit out of the corner of your eye, or you might see the colors of their auras. Sometimes these spirits may be seen as shadows or as a normal figure standing or moving to one side. The problem is that as soon as you look directly to see what or who it is, there is nothing to be seen; therefore you mostly put it down to a figment of your imagination, when in reality you are seeing spirit.

Spirits can be seen as tiny sparks of light or as transparent orbs or beads that at times become bright lights or flashes of light about the size of a marble, which can at times be caught on film. Mostly these orbs are seen in your peripheral vision, flashing briefly. They are typically white light but they can vary in color. These sparks of light can be seen as spiritual pearls or orbs hovering and gliding though the air, and are often seen to be following you or others around. They are normally best seen indoors or out of direct daylight.

Spiritual pearls or orbs of light are a form and presence that spirits can use to remain constantly here upon the earth plane. This is so that spirit never has to leave the earth completely; a small part of their spirit can remain here all the time in this form so that they can also be living their lives within the spirit realms while being here at the same time to guide and watch over you. Guides and loved ones can communicate with you and each other through this form. Spirit orbs have been photographed on many occasions all around the world, and are often seen by mediums hovering over the heads of those who are waiting for a message.

Spirits are etheric beings of energy and light. They blend their own spiritual energies with yours when they attempt to find attunement to your spiritual vibration, which is much slower than that of spirit. This is because your mortal body acts like a dampening field to your spirit, slowing down your spiritual vibration. It is therefore helpful if you heighten your own vibration and meet spirit halfway between their normal vibration and your own normal vibration. Then clairvoyance becomes possible. You gain a sense of spirit and the thoughts or impressions they are trying to channel to you through psychic and clairvoyant intuition, senses and perceptions. This will be on a level that is in attunement with your own spirit vibration and frequency, somewhat like tuning the dial on your radio until you receive a good frequency.

The blending of spirit energies within your aura is what many first sense and become aware of. When a spirit draws close to you, they blend their energies within your aura so they can attune to you in an attempt to communicate and make you aware of their presence. This can produce feelings of energy, tingling sensations or even goose bumps. Sometimes your hair may stand on end on the back of your neck, and warmth or coolness can be felt, particularly around the head and shoulders. This blending can at times produce a feeling around the face not dissimilar to the feeling you might get if you walked into cobwebs as they touched your face, or even a feeling like tiny kisses being placed on your cheeks.

You may at times sense that there is someone you know in your presence, standing by your side, or you might have feelings of someone placing a hand on your shoulder as a supportive gesture, or stroking your hair lightly. This is normally done by loved ones in spirit when they are trying to make you aware of their presence.

The perceptions and impressions spirit loved ones might try to send into your mind are often memories of themselves. If they wore distinctive perfume or smoked a pipe, you might be given a sense of these smells as triggers to remind you of them. This helps you to form a psychic link. However, these senses are usually quite subtle for beginners. You may also feel or experience emotions or inspirations of thoughts and words that just seem to pop into your mind. Most feel and sense these things rather than hearing spirit voices directly, while others can at times see and hear spirit more directly in the mind. Clairvoyance is the general term given to this, where clairsentience is feeling or sensing spirit more like psychics do, and clairaudience is hearing spirit voices clearly in the mind or coming out of the air.