Many stories that involve a superhuman ability, can turn to the more cerebral subject of an expanded awareness. It kind of plays into the idea that a character is worthy of our attention because they have special knowledge of something, and the story will impart this knowledge onto us. “Come here, I have a secret to tell you.” Isn’t that the crux, of an expanded awareness, like knowing the future? That thing that is supposed to be hidden from man. One of the unknowable things that you can only discover in the way that all people can. Sorry, that’s a convoluted way to talk about things like precognition, telepathy, remote viewing, and even X-ray vision.

But I think we can understand the point clearly when we count the near-infinite ways that authors have described how it would be to have our senses expanded this way. Usually, they all describe it with some metaphor that they like the sound of. Time is like a wave, and seeing the future is like standing on the crest of one of these waves. Or you see all kinds of different possibilities and outcomes play out in front of you in an instant, and only your super brain is smart enough to sort out all that information.

It’s an idea that seems to have more of a place in writing, as an author can fit much more information onto a moment in the story than a director would be able to convey through a scene in a film. This may also be a reason that powers like super strength or flying are interesting to see in film and easy to portray, whereas an extrasensory power requires another level of creative thinking to make it compelling on screen, though it can be done. A mental battle can be portrayed metaphorically with stunning and interesting visuals, or it can be realistically portrayed with a lot of subtlety, where not much seems to be happening and then some result happens out of nowhere to illicit a sense of shock from the audience.

Though, perhaps it is different for other writers and members of the audience. I should not presume to know how another mind works. Some people process things visually, others make sense out of swirling parades of concepts. Perhaps the most interesting thing about a story based around the concept of extra-sensory awareness is the insight it gives into the author’s mind. The enjoyment that the audience derives is dependent upon the interaction between the author’s ability to communicate and the audience’s ability to empathize.