Medical Anomalous, extraordinary, or otherwise interesting conscious experiences

  • Thread starter Thread starter hypnagogue
  • Start date Start date
  • Tags Tags
    Interesting
Click For Summary
SUMMARY

This discussion centers on the exploration of anomalous conscious experiences, particularly those that occur during hypnagogic states, meditation, and sensory deprivation. Participants share personal accounts of vivid auditory hallucinations, including spontaneous voices and music, often linked to specific states of consciousness or external stimuli. Notable experiences include hearing distinct sounds that do not correlate with the environment, as well as feelings of confusion upon waking in unfamiliar places. The conversation emphasizes the importance of detailed descriptions to enhance understanding of these phenomena.

PREREQUISITES
  • Understanding of hypnagogic states and their effects on consciousness
  • Familiarity with sensory deprivation techniques and their psychological impacts
  • Knowledge of auditory hallucinations and their characteristics
  • Basic concepts of lucid dreaming and its induction methods
NEXT STEPS
  • Research the effects of sensory deprivation tanks on consciousness and perception
  • Explore techniques for inducing lucid dreaming, particularly the WILD method
  • Investigate the neurological basis of auditory hallucinations during altered states
  • Study the psychological implications of experiencing déjà vu and memory confusion
USEFUL FOR

This discussion is beneficial for psychologists, neuroscientists, and individuals interested in the study of consciousness, as well as those exploring meditation, lucid dreaming, and the effects of sensory deprivation on mental states.

  • #91
There was a documentary about people with 'sound shock syndrome' (something like that, i can't remember the name). They showed a guy who was in a band, and one day they decided to let their audience hear a shotgun sound. The sound was too loud for the singer near the speakers, and the following days he noticed that he started feeling weird (he didnt know why). He ended up with a constant very loud hum/beeping noise in his head, and he couldn't sleep anymore. His ears weren't damaged, but his brain was confused by the sound.

Other examples in the show were people who had listened to music or other noises for too long. Their ears/brains had adjusted to the sound and when the sound was removed, the ear would still give off signals to the brain.
 
Biology news on Phys.org
  • #92
I forgot to write it down here, but a few weeks ago i had what i think may have been an OBE, but it could as well have been a dream.

Here is what happened:

I was asleep and dreaming, and somewhere along the dream i thought: "im dreaming... I am dreaming... hey I am dreaming!". So at that point it was a lucid dream (also my first, or perhaps second one). Almost instantly when i realized i was dreaming, i thought it would be interesting to see if i could leave my body. As soon as i thought this, i started hearing static noise (like radio or tv), the dream was gone and replaced by my normal room, and i felt that i was being pulled/pushed out of my head. Then i felt/heard a *pop* and it felt as if i had exitted my body and was now floating somewhere in my room.

I was aware that my eyes were closed, so all i experienced was darkness, a loud static noise, a feeling of floating around, and a feeling of being in an open environment. However i was too scared to open my eyes and check if i could really see the environment. I wanted to check if i was experiencing something real, but i just didnt feel safe. Picture urself getting up in the middle of the night and walking outside in the rain completely naked into an unknown place, and then u can imagine how it felt. I mention the rain because that is what the static noise reminded me of - rain hitting the roof and giving off a noise, or perhaps it was really raining at the time. The situation felt unsafe because i thought if i opened my eyes i might see a sleep paralysis demon walking around the room. I didnt feel any presence, it was just my mind remembering that people had said they sense beings while in sleep paralysis situations. I would not have thought of any demons if i hadnt known about SP.

Because i didnt feel safe and was scared, i almost instantly ended it all (by just willing it to stop). The whole thing happened in a timespan of maybe 20 seconds, so it was very short. After i ended it, i was briefly awake and thought "wow did i just have an OBE? I should remember this", then fell back asleep.

So i don't know what this was: an OBE, a lucid dream, a normal dream, or a sleep paralysis episde, or a combination of all four, and i wish i had opened my eyes too see if the environment was real.
 
Last edited:
  • #93
Has anyone ever had the experience of reading in 3D. What I mean is, while your reading, all the letters on the page can be focused in on like a necker cube. The letters have depth like you see sometimes on the big movie theatre. Its possible to look around the sides of the letters as if they were houses and by moving my head to one side or the other or from the top or bottom. This has happened to me three times and lasted one day then dissapears. When it happens I can remember the feeling is like when I go inside those 3D hidden pictures. It feels good.
 
  • #94
How anomolous, extraordinary, or otherwise interesting, Rader.
 
  • #95
My totally conscious experience that defies conventional ones is as follows.

I had finished a climb of about 600 vertical feet and was rewarded by a bluff overlooking a large straight of ocean between me and a large island that was 21 miles to the west where I was looking.

I was standing and admiring the vista when I noticed something small and hovering at my eye level. At first I thought it was a bug until I focused my vision and attention on the object.

After carefully watching this eye level object I could discern that it was actually about my size but about 60 feet away from me, 600 ft over the ocean below. As I inspected what I now accepted as something the size of a miniture helecopter cockpit I began to make out its content. It was a humanoid form yet it was transparent like the cockpit is was inside.

After realizing the nature of the hoovering object my heart-rate rose and my adrenalin did what it normally does to my body and brain. The object then rather subtley began a backward retreat while remaining at my eye level.

It steadly, with a slight waver up and down, made it back to across the straight to the large island west of me in 20 seconds or so... this means it was traveling approximately a mile a second since the distance was 21 miles. I watched it till it became a dissappearing speck.

Not sure if this is the type of thing you wanted for this thread, but, its true and there you go!
 
Last edited:
  • #96
I was going to ask this in the hallucination thread, but this gets a little off track. I’d like to know about the difference between hypnagogic and hypnopompic hallucinations. I have heard with no great authority, that the former is artistically helpful, and the latter, scientifically so.

I’ve also just read this, about whether or not dreams are useful to problem solving – “ Morton Reiser, a psychoanalyst at Yale University ….says ‘ How do you explain that so many scientific breakthrough ideas have been portrayed as dream imagery?’ (as cited in Schulte, 1998, p.3.)”. http://www.asu.edu/clas/english/linguistics/Joanfinalpaper.DOC
I wonder if this is the case and if this is related to hypnopompic experiences.

I wonder about the differences between states of hypnogogia, because I’ve had a lot of (not drug, but otherwise self-induced) hypnagogic experiences, mostly artistically helpful, but only one hypnopompic experience that I recall, and it didn’t seem scientific.

It was recent, early December, and involved the appearance of an astral traveller who was doing me the honour of visiting. I would say it would qualify as a hallucination because there was no distinction between sleep and waking. I had been aware of some movement and noise, but in identifying them as the 6:30 alarm and my husband waking beside me, the wonderful vision standing in our room, regrettably, was gone. However, I’m not science minded and so am unlikely to think scientifically. I’m also not a morning person, and find I’m not too good with hypnopompic experiences myself, but would like know more about them.
 
Last edited by a moderator:
  • #97
I embrace the activation-synthesis theory of dreams (random patterns of neurons fire and are perceived by certain cortices) and consolidation or mental-housekeeping theory.

Activation-synthesis explains incoherent, fragmented dreams while consolidation theory describes coherent, story-like dreams. Neither theory can explain all dream related phenomena but together help to explain a lot.

I really have not seen any convincing empirical research which indicates that problem-solving theories have any validity. Although, I am interested in your thoughts.
 
  • #98
I'll put in my experience on this question first, "difference between hypnagogic and hypnopompic hallucinations".
I've been experiencing this as far back as I can recall, toddler age on, so about 30+yrs. As a child it was very intense and I didn't know what to make of it, my mother figured the house was possessed by demons, she was a bit over the top with religion. However here's what I've "seen", the hypnagogic stage was sometimes more frightening as the wallpaper would come to life, pictures would start-up and behave as TV's complete with sound, as a child this is a bit much! As I got older I found that I could control what was happening and what the outcome was, I also found that this gave me a completely new world in my dreams. I learned to completely control my dreams and become the 'creator' at about age 8, I would travel to other planets by flying AKA superman, I could make entire environments appear etc... I found that I would rather spend more time asleep than awake. who wouldn't?

As I got older I found that I could induce the dream state while awake, it was sketchy at first and required concentration, usually in the form of day time school. which by the way I always daydreamed during, this started around 2nd~3rd grade - I'd 'zone' out of class and disappear into my own reality, while still being aware of my surroundings and 'remotely controlling' myself so as not to appear too detached.

Now on the hypnopompic arena, that's entirely different. It can be a mix of waking dream into reality or waking and carrying in hallucinations that I don't recall in the dream state, I also think it's just hallucinations related to external visual field that my mind plays with. These are at first so real that it's impossible to tell the difference, it's the voice of reason in my head that says, "wait a moment, this can't be real" I then have a choice, I can try and interact with it at which point the hallucination fades or disappears or do nothing and watch it evolve into very fascinating things, and here's the key difference I've noticed, in the prior state of lucid dreaming while falling asleep the visuals and what not are just what ever I want them to be or have induced no real deep meaning or substance, more like and alternate reality. In the case of waking and dreaming, there is always a very deep meaning sense of feeling tied to it, I also find that it relates to something I've been trying to solve or work related with my design process. It's like seeing the overall picture all at once and getting a sense of where to focus and what and how to tie it all together to get this 'flash' where the proverbial light goes on.

It sounds very odd, and the experience is very hard to put into words as it's entirely for me a 'picture' based thing.
 
  • #99


Nobody else has these?

I have noticed this lately, but my question is why so happy? You identified the problem, but its still a problem. Is there any treatment for this, its ridicules to try to fall asleep with this.

Let me know, thanks.

a.
 
  • #100
You probably know of the inner alarm clock where in some mysterious way you wake up at just the right time to go somewhere without an actual alarm clock. One time when sleeping I heard a most pure and beautiful single note of what must have been a silver bell and my eyes opened and I was awake. What a wonderful way to wake up I thought. Too bad it can't happen everytime.
 
  • #101
Three or four times within the last few years I have been in a store shopping and one time driving when I saw what I thought was an old friend. But then upon getting closer I realized it wasn't that person. Within a minute or so I then encountered that old friend and we had a chat. Bi zzzz ar!
 
  • #102
Grizzlycomet said:
I've been trying to teach myself Lucid Dreaming, conciously perceiving that you are in a dream. A common way to try to induce a lucid dream is WILD, Waking induction of lucid dreaming. Basically you try to keep your mind awake while your body goes to sleep. The key is the hypnagogic state, which often induces both auditory and visual hallucinations. So no, I don't think you're insane for hearing things before you go to sleep :biggrin:

All you have when dreams are over is a memory of them. I think inducing false memories of dreams is something that's easer to do than having them. Write down your dreams or fragments of them in the morning when you wake up. To fabricate a dream, look back into your records of several weeks ago and pick out some parts of dreams that are interesting. Then imagine a story that incorporates these fragments. Just replay the events that "really" happened in your dreams and add your imagined events into the story. It's best to write down the revised dream. Replay it several times as vividly as you can in your mind. (You don't have to hallucinate the dream. The ordinary way of replaying a memory will do.)

The memory of the false dream will become as "real" as your memory of the actual dream.
 
  • #103
I've been reading some comments about magic mushrooms and would like to add my 2 cents, if it means anything to you scientists.

Taking LSD (Acid) and Magic Mushrooms will alter your mind like nothing else you can imagine.
The best way I can describe my last experience taing Mushrooms, was my entire life flashed before my eyes. Literally.

This effected me in such a way I realized who I really was, a liar, cheat, con artist... is the best way I could put it. This was almost like confession for a Catholic church, whereby you are subjected to realize all your sins and past wrong doings. Even tho I consider myself to be a good person, I spent hours in a way 're-programming' my brain, for the better good of society, myself, my friends and family alike.

Realising that doing things behind my room mates back, such as pinching cigarettes when they weren't looking... is wrong, as it's deceptive. It's their cigarettes, they paid for them and I love my room mates so therefore I would be an idiot not to respect them in the fact where I need to leave their personal items alone.


Drugs have caused many, many hallucinations including anything from where smoke from fire has turned into thousands of birds to the belief that mental telepathy exists, including waking up the next morning and believing I could send and receive messages between people with 'The Third Eye'...

My friend believes she personally met Jesus Christ whilst off guts on heroin, that was the day she decided to quit drugs.

Don't do drugs, and all those dirty tricks you think you can get away with... be prepared to let it all go if you take those magics ;)
 
  • #104


Lars Laborious said:
... This one time I tried to "confront my fear" by walking down a hall to meet whatever might hide in the shadows at the dark end. Even though I was fully aware that it was all just a dream, I simply couldn't do it. I didn't dare walking into the darkness. I still wonder if I would have died of fear if I had done it.

I was in my teens when I finally succeeded in "just falling, no matter" when in a falling-to-my-death dream. Instead of waking in a sweat, I landed softly, the dream continued, and I never had that kind of nightmare again.

Possible connected, soon after that I became able to fly in dreams.

Ol' Bab

Hey, is there a spell check in this forum? Don't want to appear so illiterate.
 
  • #105


Alex11111 said:
Nobody else has these?

I have noticed this lately, but my question is why so happy? You identified the problem, but its still a problem. Is there any treatment for this, its ridicules to try to fall asleep with this.

Let me know, thanks.

a.
Sorry, I've forgotten just what you are wanting. I posted my own "nutty images" at thread "tiny pictures", references the wiki article, maybe pertinent...
Ol' Bab

Or was it "tiny images"
 
  • #106
http://www.rawstory.com/rawreplay/2011/06/3-students-die-after-being-hypnotized-by-principal/

Three Florida high school students are dead after being hypnotized by their school principal in Sarasota County, one in a car accident and two by suicide. Principal George Kenney is believed to have hypnotized up to 75 people, including students, members of the school staff and their children. Sarasota County School District officials repeatedly warned Kenney to stop the practice, which the principal insists was only done in the interest of helping students to be motivated and focused on school work and sports.

Can this be cause and effect, or is it mere coincidence?

Respectfully submitted,
Steve
 
Last edited by a moderator:
  • #107
Dotini said:
http://www.rawstory.com/rawreplay/2011/06/3-students-die-after-being-hypnotized-by-principal/

Three Florida high school students are dead after being hypnotized by their school principal in Sarasota County, one in a car accident and two by suicide. Principal George Kenney is believed to have hypnotized up to 75 people, including students, members of the school staff and their children. Sarasota County School District officials repeatedly warned Kenney to stop the practice, which the principal insists was only done in the interest of helping students to be motivated and focused on school work and sports.

Can this be cause and effect, or is it mere coincidence?

Respectfully submitted,
Steve
Don't know. It's certainly an interesting story. But, this thread is for people to post their own personal experiences.
 
Last edited by a moderator:
  • #108
Coming home from spring break several years ago, My friend and I were in a serious fight, and i didn't trust him to drive. Having had no sleep the night before, I had to drive all the way from Panama City Beach Florida to New Jersey. On the drive, I had auditory hallucinations, imagining that i could hear the discussions of people in the other cars. It sounded like I was hearing people talk about the spring break experiences. There was this split in my mind. I 100 percent KNEW that these were auditory hallucinations from sleep deprivation. Yet I BELIEVED that i was actually hearing these conversations, that the sleep deprivation had somehow unlocked a circuit in my mind that was acting like a radio. It gave me a window into what schizophrenia must be like. I could imagine how, if this continued to go on all the time, what my brain was telling me to believe could overwhelm my rational thought process, or I could lose the distinction between the two.

EDIT: And if it sounds like a bad idea to drive on such little sleep, it is, but under the circumstances, there wasn't much I could do.
 

Similar threads

Is Expanded Consciousness the Future of Human Perception?
  • · Replies 2 ·
Replies
2
Views
3K
The Scientist as Hero - or not
  • · Replies 1 ·
Replies
1
Views
3K