Ok, so I have this friend who believes in ghosts

[zoobyshoe]

I'd agree with that, but I wasn't suggesting anyone has epilepsy. Like I stated the same effects have been induced experimentally in people without epilepsy by using magnetic fields on the temporal lobes. The effects were never to the extent of those having seizures but enough to be able to feel a presence and induce smells and tastes.

For the record, most seizures don't involve the motor strip of the brain and are non-convulsive. The majority of seizures disorganize consciousness in various ways. In simple partial seizures there's no disorganization of consciousness at all and they often take the form of extreme sensory or emotional experiences. All kinds of visual, tactile, auditory, gustatory, olfactory, proprioceptive, and balance related distortions, amplifications, or failures can be experienced, as well as sudden, uncaused strong emotions of every sort. Not to mention autonomic and motor simple partials.

 

[zoobyshoe]

Like a sleeping cat knocking a fan to the floor and two people witnessing it? I had to walk over and pick the fan up, it was running at the time.

I'm not ruling out that the cat had some kind of seizure that propelled it sideways off the bed, I've just never heard of such a thing, but then, it's an easier explanation to swallow. I'm just really interested in what actually happened.

Until something unexplainable happens to you it's easy to blow it off. I don't believe in an afterlife, I'm not religious, I don't believe in ghosts, but things have happened that I can't explain. That's it, I haven't found explanations yet and I'd like some answers.

Talking to my youngest daughter about those two years, she said she was very angry and unhappy. Can human brainwaves affect those around them? Could the fact that we were related and emotionally close to her have made it easy for us to pick up her emotions? Could the high power lines contribute to that?

Was the cat capable of mind control and we were all it's hapless victims?

I recall you telling the story of breaking something in the kitchen and then having the whole incident repeated, as if time itself had been distorted. I met a guy here a couple months ago who had the same sort of experience a few times with some embellishments. He's extremely bright, functional, and sociable, but in his childhood was constantly taken to doctors because of his lack of performance in school. Eventually he was diagnosed with dyslexia, but I'm not sure if it's not something much more elaborate than that because it doesn't just happen with reading and writing: he sees objects in the real world change position. The example he gave me was that the car we were standing near might suddenly shift to being parked a few yards away from its original position.

I'll try to get the details of the time distortion story from him tonight if I see him at La Souris Perdue.

 

[moe darklight]

I don't think any hallucinations are "normal", or I'm misunderstanding what you mean by that word.

when I say normal, I mean that it would be experienced by most people, under regular circumstances: Vivid hallucinations are not experienced by most people, unless under extreme stress, lack of sleep, very high fever, etc.

I think I need to repeat that, according to the stories I've heard and read, the post-drug use, spontaneous, hallucinations people have are NOT the same quality as the ones they have while actually on the drugs.

I think we're saying the same thing using different words .
The only thing I add is that not all drugs have the same effect on the brain; these types of vivid hallucinations are not common side-effects with all drugs. We have a tendency as a society to paint all illegal drugs with the same color (or is it brush? stroke? ... I never get that analogy right ), and forget they are very different one from the other (legal drugs: caffeine, nicotine, morphine, alcohol; they all act very differently on the brain, they all come with different risks).

The prior drug use, though, and not some predisposition to mental illness, is what primes them for these later spontaneous experiences of much more literal, realistic, hard to identify hallucinations.

My comments on pre-existing mental illnesses is in reference to vivid, unrecognizable hallucinations on mushrooms—Mushrooms have been known to cause such episodes to people who have a history of mental illness; still, these kinds of hallucinations, are extremely rare on mushrooms, either before or after use. I'm talking about the specific drug.— I wasn't denying your point, it does happen with many other drugs.

The fact they don't have the recognizable quality of previous drug induced hallucinations doesn't make them any more real, any less an hallucination; just a better rendered one. The portraits I draw today are much more realistic than the ones I did at age 10, but they're still just drawings, and not real people.

Again, I wasn't denying this. Only adding that these kinds of problems are not uncommon among people who abuse coke, E, meth, heroine (and, rarely, LSD). It's just not heard of in the case of mushrooms, except for very rare cases, which usually involve a person who abuses other drugs as well. Mushrooms come with a with a whole different bag of possible complications (PTSD or severe panic attacks, paranoia)— but these are not common either, since you don't find many habitual users of mushrooms, and long-term complications from drug use usually don't start until the person is well into addiction and regular use.

Which is how so many kids start using heavy drugs in the first place— it's the "well, my friend Johnny does a lot of drugs, and he's perfectly fine" factor. And he is. So they start doing drugs too. And they're just fine too... by the time the complications start showing up, everyone's too deep into drug use to stop.

 

[moe darklight]

but back to the original topic (I've apologized to myself for completely de-railing my own thread; apology accepted).

Another problem is that many people use the line of reasoning:

science can't explain THAT >therefore> all science is wrong and scientists are all evil anti-theists here to destroy the sanctity of marriage and turn our kids into human-animal hybrids

so it's really a double edged sword.

 

[Ivan Seeking]

I'd agree with that, but I wasn't suggesting anyone has epilepsy. Like I stated the same effects have been induced experimentally in people without epilepsy by using magnetic fields on the temporal lobes. The effects were never to the extent of those having seizures but enough to be able to feel a presence and induce smells and tastes.

Taste and smell, perhaps, but I believe that the sense of presence is as far as it goes. I have not read about anyone hallucinating a physical force. It is important to not get sloppy about the facts and then extrapolate to convenient explanations. This is what makes true believers think that scientists are crackpots.

 

[Kurdt]

I admit I should have been clearer. Instead of saying a good explanation for all ghostly and religious experiences, its a good explanation for some parts of these stories. I'm also guilty of not reading all the stories properly, I just thought it would be research people would be interested in looking at. :tongue:

 

[zoobyshoe]

Taste and smell, perhaps, but I believe that the sense of presence is as far as it goes. I have not read about anyone hallucinating a physical force. It is important to not get sloppy about the facts and then extrapolate to convenient explanations. This is what makes true believers think that scientists are crackpots.

The article in the 1989 issue of Omni magazine about Persinger described him being able to evoke full blown hallucinations of fictional scenarios when the subject was directed to try to imaging those scenarios while being stimulated by his coils. One example given was of a man directed to imagine himself walking on a beach and then suddenly finding himself, apparently, on that beach able to enjoy everything about it as if he were actually there.

I haven't found a paper by Persinger himself, though, in which the same remarkable claim is made, (I certainly haven't read them all, though, he has written a very long list of them) so there's a chance the Omni writer embellished.

On the other hand, I have to wonder how many people read that Omni article and had the same thought as I did, which was to make one of these helmets and try it. The only thing that stopped me was that the article stated the specific frequency was vital, and it neglected to say what that inportant frequency was. I didn't think it would be wise to experiment on my own brain until I found it. I often wonder how many garage tinkerers did just that, though, and got themselves into trouble in the attempt to get away to a tropical beach at the cost of some wire and a frequency generator. I can imagine Persinger keeping this more interesting effect quiet later when he found out people were trying it at home. But that's total speculation.


In any event, the brain can hallucinate physical forces in so far as we percieve any force with our senses. The experience of the girl in the bathroom I posted is an example of the fact that it's possible to hallucinate any and every sensation your brain is capable of generating: she hallucinated herself getting up and having a physical altercation with another person, which, it turned out, never took place. There's nothing about your bed incident or Evo's cat incident, that couldn't be hallucinated. I, myself, have hallucinated what could be called a "physical force" which was the disorienting sensation that the floor on which I was standing was slowly rocking back and forth beneath me like the deck of a large boat being hit by a heavy swell. (This might have been a simple partial, which I suspect because it was episodic, or it might have been an unidentified inner ear problem that resolved itself in time, but the sensation was indistinguishable from standing on the deck of a whale watching boat, which I've done here a couple times. It was very intrusive and annoying and made it hard to concentrate on whatever I was doing.)

 

[zoobyshoe]

Again, I wasn't denying this. Only adding that these kinds of problems are not uncommon among people who abuse coke, E, meth, heroine (and, rarely, LSD). It's just not heard of in the case of mushrooms, except for very rare cases, which usually involve a person who abuses other drugs as well. Mushrooms come with a with a whole different bag of possible complications (PTSD or severe panic attacks, paranoia)— but these are not common either, since you don't find many habitual users of mushrooms, and long-term complications from drug use usually don't start until the person is well into addiction and regular use.

If I understand your point correctly it is that the use of mushrooms alone is unlikely to cause these post-use hallucinations. I'm willing to take your word for it because all the people I've talked to and read about who have these experiences certainly did other strong drugs as well at one time or another.

 

[zoobyshoe]

I recall you telling the story of breaking something in the kitchen and then having the whole incident repeated, as if time itself had been distorted. I met a guy here a couple months ago who had the same sort of experience a few times with some embellishments. He's extremely bright, functional, and sociable, but in his childhood was constantly taken to doctors because of his lack of performance in school. Eventually he was diagnosed with dyslexia, but I'm not sure if it's not something much more elaborate than that because it doesn't just happen with reading and writing: he sees objects in the real world change position. The example he gave me was that the car we were standing near might suddenly shift to being parked a few yards away from its original position.

I'll try to get the details of the time distortion story from him tonight if I see him at La Souris Perdue.

OK, I talked to him in detail last night and it turns out his repetition of time story was nothing but a common deja vu: he didn't actually experience the same thing twice in succession, he just "felt" he had experienced a few incidents before. Not like your vivid incident:

I have had an experience that I have been unable to find a rational answer to. I'd like to hear opinions on what I might have experienced.

This was several years ago. I was in the kitchen making a cup of tea. The cup was on the counter with a tea bag in it. I picked up the teapot and started to pour the boiling water into the cup. As I did, the cup cracked and the hot water poured out onto the counter, suddenly, there was no water on the counter, I had not poured the water into the cup, the cup had not cracked and I was holding the teapot, ready to begin pouring.

I was startled, to say the least, and decided it was some odd mini "daydream", so I poured the boiling water into the cup, and as I did, the cup cracked and the hot water poured out onto the counter. Exactly as it had just happened.

https://www.physicsforums.com/showthread.php?t=9379

 

[Evo]

https://www.physicsforums.com/showthread.php?t=9379

And a rational explanation was found for it. I noticed a crack in the cup.

]Now in your case, let me tell what I think the best explanation is. Before pouring water in the cup, your subconscious must have figured out that, given the state of the cup and the water temperature, that there was a good chance the cup would crack and the water would spill over the counter. That's not a difficult thing for the subconscious to guess. So your brain was getting ready ("guessing") the picture of a broken teacup and spilled water. Then for some reason you lost sync with reality, and the event did not happen when your brain expected it. You saw the image of what would happen, but it was a fluke. It didn't last long though, and eventually you realized it was a fluke. "Odd", you think, but nothing phenomenal. What seems phenomenal is that what your subconscious had guessed before actually happened, and you got the same picture in your mind again, only this time it was not inconsistent with what was really happening - it was, as we say, real.

Hi Confutatis,

That is the best explanation I have had so far! I believe that may be the answer. Strange how the mind works...

I know you like telling everyone they are having seizures but sometimes the explanation is much more simple.

 

[zoobyshoe]

And a rational explanation was found for it. I noticed a crack in the cup.

Now in your case, let me tell what I think the best explanation is. Before pouring water in the cup, your subconscious must have figured out that, given the state of the cup and the water temperature, that there was a good chance the cup would crack and the water would spill over the counter. That's not a difficult thing for the subconscious to guess. So your brain was getting ready ("guessing") the picture of a broken teacup and spilled water. Then for some reason you lost sync with reality, and the event did not happen when your brain expected it. You saw the image of what would happen, but it was a fluke. It didn't last long though, and eventually you realized it was a fluke. "Odd", you think, but nothing phenomenal. What seems phenomenal is that what your subconscious had guessed before actually happened, and you got the same picture in your mind again, only this time it was not inconsistent with what was really happening - it was, as we say, real.

I know you like telling everyone they are having seizures but sometimes the explanation is much more simple.

His reply "for some reason you lost sync with reality" doesn't explain anything. Unconsciously assessing the cup and coming to the conclusion the cup will break when you pour the water in, is plausible and rational, yes, but what caused the full blown hallucination of that happening before it happened? I arrive at conclusions about what is probably going to happen next all the time. Everyone does. However, people don't normally hallucinate these predictions actually happening.

Regardless, my point was not about simple partial seizures here, but that I thought I had found someone who'd had a similar experience, but after I checked with him, it turned out he'd mischaracterized it to me the first time he described it.

 

[moe darklight]

If I understand your point correctly it is that the use of mushrooms alone is unlikely to cause these post-use hallucinations. I'm willing to take your word for it because all the people I've talked to and read about who have these experiences certainly did other strong drugs as well at one time or another.

well, you shouldn't take my word for it, I'm not a doctor

It's not easy to find credible research on hallucinogens. I read a lot on the subject back before I decided to try them myself, but this was a few years ago. I'm not one to do things without knowing what I'm getting myself into.

http://www.maps.org/ (who are obviously quite liberal on drugs), are one of the few organizations that have legal permission to research hallucinogens in the U.S; they have many papers on the effects of hallucinogens, especially LSD and mushrooms.

Their views are a bit hippy-ish at times, but they do conduct professional research and go over the dangers and side effects.

 

[Ivan Seeking]

The article in the 1989 issue of Omni magazine about Persinger described him being able to evoke full blown hallucinations of fictional scenarios when the subject was directed to try to imaging those scenarios while being stimulated by his coils. One example given was of a man directed to imagine himself walking on a beach and then suddenly finding himself, apparently, on that beach able to enjoy everything about it as if he were actually there.

Well, quoting Omni is about as good as quoting the National Enquirer - we are well into material that can't be trusted unless published and duplicated in the mainstream - but even so, I don't see this as being akin to what happened to me. I too have dreamt of being somewhere else to such an extent that it seemed real, but even the most realistic dream can't speak to the reality dP/dt; as I experienced it. Of course, I have no way to be objective here because I am already convinced it was real, so I won't defend the point any more. Also, I don't know if Persingers work passes peer review. I think it is still pretty fringe on its own.

Does anyone know of a paper by Persinger published in a mainstream journal? This really is the standard that we need to even consider the explanation. Quotes from lesser sources gets us in trouble pretty quickly. Also, I have no reason to think that we were experiencing seismic activity at the time, but we did live above an active fault and I couldn't help but wonder.

 

[zoobyshoe]

Well, quoting Omni is about as good as quoting the National Enquirer - we are well into material that can't be trusted unless published and duplicated in the mainstream - but even so, I don't see this as being akin to what happened to me. I too have dreamt of being somewhere else to such an extent that it seemed real, but even the most realistic dream can't speak to the reality dP/dt; as I experienced it.

The Persinger experiences aren't dreams, there's no falling asleep. To the extent they actually happen we'd have to call them hallucinations, or, at least, sensory illusions.

Of course, I have no way to be objective here because I am already convinced it was real, so I won't defend the point any more. Also, I don't know if Persingers work passes peer review. I think it is still pretty fringe on its own.
Does anyone know of a paper by Persinger published in a mainstream journal? This really is the standard that we need to even consider the explanation. Quotes from lesser sources gets us in trouble pretty quickly. Also, I have no reason to think that we were experiencing seismic activity at the time, but we did live above an active fault and I couldn't help but wonder.

This site lists as slew of his papers under the heading of "peer reviewed" journals, but I don't see any names I recognize.

http://www.shaktitechnology.com/Persinger_pubs.htm

 

[RogueSpidor]

Let me start by saying that I respect everyone's personal beliefs; that they have a right to these beliefs is not even in question.

Along with that, I'm part of a paranormal investigations team, which is a fancy title for "ghost-hunters." We use the standard equipment to investigate homes that our clients believe to be haunted. Our team has members of spiritual/theistic, professed psychic, and scientific persuasions, and we try to have one of each on each investigation.

We have never, even once, found solid evidence of the afterlife. We've only found one picture which I or another team member were not able to debunk as a lens flare, reflection, or particulate-caused orb, or some other trick of the light. We've had no Electronic Voice Phenomena that we can clearly understand as a voice. In short, we've encountered no real evidence of the afterlife or hauntings, and only one photograph we can not explain. Being unexplainable is not the same as being evidence.

Evidence has a basic meaning of "that which can be seen," or "that which is shown." In order to obtain evidence - solid, concrete, empirical evidence - that evidence has to be understandable to all, it has to be repeatable, and repeatable by independent researchers. Concerning ghosts, we don't yet have that. Nothing that is supposed evidence has yet been produced that cannot be explained as easily (or more easily) as another phenomenon.

The 3/4 ounce weight suggestion is not valid because it was not repeatable, and indeed, many of the efforts to repeat it resulted in no weight loss, or weight gains, or there was interference with the scales, or the scales were faulty, or several other reasons. Why Dr. Duncan MacDougall, the researcher attempting the experiment, chose the 3/4 oz loss as evidence, is puzzling, but supposedly it was the best (though not repeated) measurement he had. Because it has been repeated by neither he nor any other researcher, it is invalid as evidence.

Photographs can be doctored, as can film. The famous photograph of The Brown Lady of Raynham Hall in England has been declared undoctored and doctored at different times by different experts. Other photographs are either equally explainable as something not paranormal, or simply unexplainable at all, but not definite evidence of hauntings or paranormal activity.

The Amazing Randee has offered one million dollars to anyone that can provide concrete proof of the afterlife; so far, there have been many attempts, but no successes. My point is that evidence of the afterlife is based on the definition of the afterlife; and until we have a solid definition of what we mean by a ghost or afterlife, we can't have that evidence. And so far, all we have is theories that are inconsistent and inconclusive.

None of this says that there's no such thing as a ghost. I only aver that we cannot prove it with our current understanding of whatever it is that a ghost might be. 90% of all investigations are debunked as perfectly normal events. The other 10% are inconclusive, because unexplained phenomena are not evidence.

Perhaps one day someone will find evidence. Perhaps my team will, perhaps another team will, perhaps The Amazing Randee will, or someone that manages to find a chatty ghost that will talk to anyone and let anyone analyze its nature in detail in a way that is understandable and repeatable. Until then, all we have is probabilities, best guesses, and conflicting data; and that's not science.

Recommended reading on this subject is "Spook: Science Tackles The Afterlife" by Mary Roach. https://www.amazon.com/dp/0393059626/?tag=pfamazon01-20
In this book, she discusses what I've stated here, and much, much more. It's a fun read, and well researched.

My scientific ideals indicate that there is insufficient evidence for a meaningful or definitive answer to the question "is there an afterlife" or "are there ghosts." The best answer science can have is "maybe." Occam's Razor implies denial of ghosts, but does not rule it out. In the light of day, with all my faculties in order, I feel no inclination to believe in ghosts.

But at Midnight, alone in the dark, my mind starts to wonder and wander, my hairs stand on end, and I dare not look in the closet, because I might see something I don't want to see.

Do I believe in ghosts? Well... no. But sometimes I worry that they don't know that I don't believe in them.

 

[zoobyshoe]

But at Midnight, alone in the dark, my mind starts to wonder and wander, my hairs stand on end, and I dare not look in the closet, because I might see something I don't want to see.

Do I believe in ghosts? Well... no. But sometimes I worry that they don't know that I don't believe in them.

As Cognitive Therapy points out, "Feelings aren't facts." Feelings are a reaction to thoughts.
The thought "alone in the dark" is enough to give anyone the creeps.

Likewise, I don't think many people completely unlearn the all-accepting gullibility of childhood when we took everything told to us as true, and it was as easy to believe in closet monsters as it was in, say, the existence of a relative you hadn't met yet. Scratch the surface and many people can be reduced back to that ability to believe in anything, despite knowing better and all evidence to the contrary.

 

[bassplayer142]

First of all on the Perfume topic. The first time I drank alcohol I drank way to much. Leaving me with a horrible headache and thoughts that I would never drink again (I was wrong). For the next week I'd say, I would smell Vodka multiple times. I remember eating some ice cream and it smelled of Vodka. I remember going to school and smelling it in the lobby which is obviously false. I'm a sane person first of all, I'm known to be down to Earth and I don't know any problems with me. Maybe the perfume could have been hallucinated because you smelled it earlier and it was in the back of your mind just like the alcohol.

Secondly, I have a few stories but which I will leave as unexplained

First, I was with my friend probably back in 10th grade. We left my house and walked down the road at 4:00am. Long story short, on the way back a dirt road we saw probably 10-11 people walking down the street towards us. They were all side my side and none of them were talking. My guess is about 10-11 but it was enough to cover one side of the street to the other. Using obvious percautions we both cut across some lawns but kept moving forward. As we kept going it was clear that they were gone. Funny thing is is that the only houses were on the side we were and we would have seen them. On the other side was a corn field and some trees. I know they didn't turn around cause there was nowhere they could have hid and passing us on the road wasn't it either. No alcohol or other drugs in this story too.

Next, I was with my friend, same one. My parents were gone on a trip and we were in my great room. I got these two chairs that face everything and this is where we sat. This room in my house is the biggest and you can see the loft upstairs and it is probably 20 feet or so to the ceiling. As we sat there for probably a few hours it was very silent. My house is known to creak also. We heard a creak on the opposite wall on the second floor by the loft. I don't remember what we said to each other but we kept listening. After a while one came closer and was off to the left side up high. Again we waited and it came even closer. This happened maybe 4 times coming slowly towards us and it was enough to make your skin crawl. The anticipation for the next one nearer was amazing because your thinking, no, it won't do it again, but it does. By now it was to the left maybe 10 feet. Again silence. The next time was enough to scare the hell out of anyone, this thing creaked right next to my head about a foot away. I don't think anything happened after that other then us trying to figure out what is going on.

On a side note. As a kid I used to start counting at night when it creaked and sometimes it would go to a ryhthem. Sometimes I would say count to 15 and it would but sometimes it would go at around 30 which is double. I don't know if that has any relavence or most houses do that. Also, this house is only 10 years old as of this year.

 

[Ghost803]

Well here is my story. I went back to India for my summer vacation last year and was staying in my cousin's/ Mom's old house. There is no air conditioning, so all the windows are open. And the door to my bedroom was also open, and at the door way is a light curtain that blows in the wind.

So around 4 or 5 in the morning, I kinda wake up but I can't really move. I look towards the doorway and in the dim moonlight, I see a man who is about 5 foot 11 standing there. I figure it is just my cousin. But then the figure walks towards my bed and stands right next to me and stares at a full length mirror that is parallel to the bed. And I notice that the dude doesn't have a face. And as I am staring at him, he slowly disappears. My mom's brother committed suicide there when he was 20.

Butt I think it was just a hallucination. Cause I raid about people hallucinating in that state where they are kinda awake but haven't fully woken.

Oh ,and I ran out of that room and went and slept in my cousin's room.

Btw I did not make this account to comment on this thread. IF anyone is thinking that from my name, I've been here for a while now.