If a friend tells me she was daydreaming about a former college room-mate not heard from in years and moments later she phoned, and with a knowing smile suggests that bringing her friend to mind precipitated the call, I’m dismissive, impatient with those who see a mystical plan where all I see is coincidence. I disdain magical thinking.

            Except when the magic works for me:

            For many years my husband piloted his own small plane. Although as a family we flew together now and then, and I often accompanied Len, I was never a relaxed passenger. So, after a number of years, and failed efforts at desensitization of what Len believed to be my irrational phobia, I decided to only fly in planes big enough to suggest I was really on a Greyhound bus.

            Our sons, as adults, accepted invitations to join their father on flying adventures, to go fishing in the wilderness, or to return to the Montana mountains where we’d spent many summers. Although they were happy to fly off with him, I found that my anxiety about small planes extended to include them. They had young families at the time, but their wives offered no objection, so I resisted the impulse to intrude or even hint that they reconsider their plans.

            Instead, I purchased substantial policies insuring the life of each of them. Of course, there was a rational aspect to my plan, but I knew this was really magical thinking at work. I comforted myself with the belief that once the insurance was in place, the odds greatly increased that they would come to no harm.

            Almost daily, new imaging research is reported locating a specific area of the brain where a particular thought process occurs, and recently I read about the locale of magical thinking, my secret nemesis.

            Experiments with college students show how easy it is to elicit such thoughts in well-educated young adults. In one study conducted both at Harvard and at Princeton, participants watched a blindfolded person play an arcade basketball game, and were told to visualize the player making successful shots. Unknown to the subjects, the game was rigged: the shooter could see through the blindfold, had practiced extensively and therefore made most of the shots. On questionnaires, many of the spectators later reported that their thoughts probably had some role in the shooter's success. Far fewer members of the control group, told to visualize the player lifting dumbbells, claimed such credit.

            Dr.Emily Pronin, a psychology professor at Princeton, and one of those conducting the research, was asked why people create this illusion of magical power. She responded: I think in part it's because we are constantly exposed to our own thoughts, they are most salient to us, and thus we are likely to overestimate their connection to outside events.

            Magical thinking is most evident precisely when people feel most helpless, was the conclusion of another researcher, Dr. Gloria Keinan, a professor at Tel Aviv University. She added: It is of interest to note that persons who hold magical beliefs or engage in magical rituals are often aware that their thoughts, actions, or both, are unreasonable and irrational. Despite this awareness, they are unable to rid themselves of such behavior.

            Well, my sons are no longer flying in small planes, but I have not canceled the insurance. Protecting my adult children is quite beyond the control I had when they were small, but the yearning to do so remains. Somehow my brain circuitry allows my magical thinking to offer continued comfort.

            It is unsettling when my beliefs don't guide my behavior, almost as if one part of my brain is master over another. Apparently, at least in this instance, my irrational self is unwilling to tempt fate.