Psychometry

Psychometry is the ability to sense the impression of past events, thoughts or emotions. Traditionally, people using psychometry touch an object and have an image of the past of that object come into their mind.

Professor Clegg demonstrated his psychic powers for the Doctor by using psychometry on the sonic screwdriver and then a crystal taken from Metebelis III. In the second instance, Clegg saw such frightening images that he died of heart failure (DW: Planet of the Spiders)


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

Though inanimate, the Ghost Machine, functioned in a similar way. The past-reading half of the machine (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.