You are alone in the wilderness. You took a wrong turn and lost your way. The sun has set. Your phone has run out of battery. And to make matters worse, you can hear howling in the distance.

Suddenly, a spotlight shines on your position. A rope ladder falls to the ground and a rescue worker takes your hand. Your distressed thoughts have been picked up by guards. They scanned your mind to identify your location.

The ability to communicate using thought is known as telepathy.¹ It is the stuff of science fictionStories based on major scientific or technological changes. .² But it may one day become reality.

One of Elon MuskA South African-born entrepreneur whose companies have included the online payment service PayPal.'s companies is developing a brain implant. Musk claims those who put the chip in their brain will be able to communicate instantly using thought alone. He believes this invention will replace speaking in the next decade.

The possibility of brain-to-brain communication is a very real one. One 2014 experiment saw a person in India send a message to three people in France.

It was nothing like Musk's full-on telepathy. The participants wore headsets. The sender moved their limb to create a Morse CodeA method of communication in which each letter and number has a dot-dash code.-like series of flashes and blanks to the receivers. It took 70 minutes to send a simple "hola" and "ciao".

These are early days, however. A breakthrough could come through at any time. 

There are many ways in which telepathy would make our lives easier. It would remove the language barrier. Our desires could be transferred clearly to all. There would be no more confusion over double-meanings or misunderstandings.

This could have extreme benefits. As science writer Kat McGowan writes: "If isolation, cruelty, malice, violence and wars are fuelled by misunderstandings and communication failures, as many people believe, telepathy would seem to offer the cure."

Telepathy would let us speak as fast as we think. This could save time. It could increase innovation. And it could let us save those in danger faster.

Yet there may be downsides. We already live surrounded by extreme digital noise. Imagine if our notifications came directly into our brain. It could quickly become overwhelming.

Hackers could read our thoughts and steal our deepest secrets. Rogue actors could steal dangerous information. Even worse, agents could implant false thoughts in our minds.

Yes: Imagine what could be done if we could all talk in the same way. Athletes could pull off amazing coordinated feats. Artists would invent bold new forms. We might even achieve world peace.

No: Individuality is our greatest asset. Technologically-assisted telepathy could strip this away. It could encourage groupthinkThe practice of thinking or making decisions as a group, often leading to irrational or poor quality decisions., fill our mind with too much noise and make us vulnerable to danger.

Or... If genuine telepathy was ever developed and implemented on a wide scale, it would be the biggest shift in human history - and would make life both better and worse in many, many different ways.