I'm gonna start off by saying, I'm not a doctor of any form. My only knowledge comes from my own experiences.

Those experiences you spoke of with, I'm going to say, "tapping into" your friends thoughts. I can tell you I've had those too. I like to think it's some heightened form of empathy and intuition. Something that a person possesses, often derived from both natural and environmental factors. Natural factors being genetics and you just being you; while I believe that a chaotic environment on a young mind breeds a heightened awareness of human motives. My childhood, personally, was what I could definitely describe as chaotic, tense and often some kind of hostile. My mind had to develop a way to evaluate people through some kind of silent observational check. Too many in my life were unpredictable (due to varying factors) and they weren't exactly vocal until someone was yelling for no reason... but I knew there was always "a reason". What some would refer to as a trigger for their outburst and/or cruel behavior. I needed to understand in order to protect myself before anything could happen.

I'm not trying to say this is what you had to do, or the exact conditions you grew up with, but that it's a place where I believe my ability to do these things began. I really think I may have just unintentionally become a good cop.

As for the other experience of going into these worlds you describe. Yes, I do this too. I believe this as well was developed in childhood as a defense against my environment. How else could I leave these situations when I wasn't able to actually keep it from occurring? In my case, my other worlds are a symptom of my dissociative disorders. Psychosis is also a symptom I suffer from, this however, I can distinct most of the time as being outside of my mind. These worlds are my brain's, they're not a sickness but a now maladaptive feature of my self-defense. There's nothing to defend my mind from the present anymore, so why must it happen? The brain is a muscle, and as it exercises these mechanisms they become second nature.. even first nature. I dissociate quite frequently, I have several time while writing this out. I myself have a disorder in which the excess of my dissociation is common. Well, a couple diagnoses. Don't take this a diagnosis for you, but the ones I'm referring to are CPTSD and DID.

I saw your other post looking into information on DID, I'm willing to answer you in a private message if you really like. Looking into CPTSD would be highly advisable, as well.