Psychometry

Psychometry was the ability to sense the impression of past events, thoughts or emotions: the stronger the emotion, the clearer the psychic impression. Traditionally, people using psychometry touched an object and had an image of the past of that object come into their mind. It had something of the quality of time travel.

Professor Herbert Clegg demonstrated his psychic powers for the Third Doctor by using psychometry on the sonic screwdriver and a crystal taken from Metebelis III. In the formert instance he saw Drashigs. With the latter, the images of the Eight Legs frightened Clegg so much that he died of heart failure. He showed the Doctor these images through use of a Image Reproduction Integrating System. (DW: Planet of the Spiders)


 * Natural psychometry may have a relationship to clairvoyance and time sensitivity.

Though inanimate, the quantum transducer functioned in a similar way. The past-reading half of the device (the other part relayed images from the future) amplified the quantum "record" of past events to such a degree that the user could hear and see them as if experiencing them directly. (TW: Ghost Machine)