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Old 17th November 2011, 03:17 PM   #41
Lowpro
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Originally Posted by Limbo View Post
I disagree. Different contexts will produce different experiences. An atheist who experiences something "odd", while in a secular context, will have no clue about what goes on when a mystic experiences something in a sacred context.

Why? Because as I said earlier the human psyche is the spirit world. That means that psychological factors are important. Frame of mind is an ingredient in the inner alchemy, so to speak. The posture of the ego-self is part of the inner alchemy. Without the right frame of mind the psyche will not open up.
Color me skeptical

Does Limbo know that there's a million bucks he can earn just by demonstrating this?
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Old 17th November 2011, 04:28 PM   #42
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Originally Posted by Limbo View Post
I've already died and so I know you're wrong. You and your friends here are wrong about a lot.
Don't be silly.
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Old 17th November 2011, 06:18 PM   #43
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Originally Posted by Dessi View Post
I've held trembling dimensions in my own hands, I've been a mirage of dead reality flickering out of existence behind the present, folded through my own ego and had it sliced into 1000s of sheets of time spaced apart by infinitesimally tiny chasms of abstract seams in reality, dissolved through tendrilous reality and perceived Everything as infinite extension of my own sense organs.
I hate when that happens.
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Old 17th November 2011, 08:44 PM   #44
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Originally Posted by Limbo View Post
See, this is part of the reason why I have a hard time talking about my experiences around here. Ignorant skeptics piss me off when they try to tell me what *I* experienced, and then they act like their assumptions are facts. But I guess you had a better view from behind your computer?
Not at all, Limbo. You experienced what you experienced. Save for arguments based on the frailty of memory (before the peyote? really?), nobody is going to argue with *what* you experienced.

The argument comes from *why* you experienced what you did. One side (you) says that it was a supernatural event, but you have no evidence. The other side (us) says the most likely explanation was that it was a chemical response to drugs/stress etc, which has lots of evidence in it's favour. Im sure youve been told many times that pilots undergoing high-G training often experience euphoria and other associated sideeffects. We *know* how the brain can react. Drugs can make lots of imaginary stuff seem real. We *know* this.

Nobody is arguing that these experiences didnt feel very very real to you. The only point of contention is the *source* of these experiences. We are happy with mundane explanations rooted in brain chemistry and evidence. You, on the other hand, are happy to extrapolate and involve a heapin-helpin of unnecessary, complicated and supernatural causes.

Everybody, day to day, lives their lives relying on evidence. You wouldnt even get in a taxi if you didnt already possess strong evidence that it is, to a large degree, safe. Why do you struggle so much with the concept of people relying on evidence for other things, even when it goes against everything you want to believe?

You make your claims without providing any evidence - therefore, they can be dismissed out of hand. We have evidence to backup our position on your experiences - you have none. The fact that you do not like the result is immaterial.
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Old 17th November 2011, 09:39 PM   #45
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Jesus reportedly put it this way: "Ye worship ye know not what."

He had that right.

Reality is unlike anything any weak-ass mystic can possibly dream up under the influence of drugs. That's because - and I have to be blunt here - if you think you need drugs or mystical mumbo-jumbo to get a peek at it then you are incapable of getting a peek at it. Only a cold, calculating clarity can reveal reality. But not from inside the box. And if you're into drugs and/or mysticism, then you are deep inside the box. The same box your ignorant ancestors were trapped in for millennia.

You think you've experienced reality? No. You've only experienced it's shadow, and only an infinitesimal wisp of that. Here, let me prove it to ya:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SaZJFWOEzrc

Sure, you know something is happening. So what? You don't know what it is. Do you, Mr. Jones.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7VYhb...eature=related

Don't get cocky, you skeptics. What can you possibly know? You won't allow yourselves to know anything that doesn't fall on you like an avalanche of certainty.

None of you better be here when John gets here.

Talkin out yer asses...
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Old 17th November 2011, 10:04 PM   #46
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Originally Posted by Toontown View Post
You won't allow yourselves to know anything that doesn't fall on you like an avalanche of certainty.
You say that like it's a bad thing.
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Old 17th November 2011, 10:15 PM   #47
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Originally Posted by Toontown View Post


You don't know what it is. Do you, Mr. Jones.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7VYhb...eature=related
Will you please STOP doing that! Now I have a Dylan fetish for the rest of the evening.

V.

(One of his few original songs that I preferred over the covers)
Do you, Mr.Jones?
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Old 17th November 2011, 10:22 PM   #48
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Originally Posted by devnull View Post
You say that like it's a bad thing.
It is a bad thing if taken to the extreme. Are you often buried under avalanches of certainty?

I'm often buried under mudslides of fuzzy probability. Sometimes that's enough. Sometimes that's all there is.
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Old 17th November 2011, 10:29 PM   #49
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Originally Posted by Toontown View Post
It is a bad thing if taken to the extreme. Are you often buried under avalanches of certainty?

I'm often buried under mudslides of fuzzy probability. Sometimes that's enough. Sometimes that's all there is.
Sure, but you do realise "I dont know....yet" is a perfectly valid answer.

Making stuff up to cover holes in your own knowledge isnt a worthwhile plan IMHO, especially when you tout it as fact.
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Old 17th November 2011, 10:39 PM   #50
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Originally Posted by Dessi View Post
On 2011-04-21, I had a curious experience, which I wrote about here. Not the most interesting or intense, except from its uncanny realness:

I had a cold and couldn't sleep. I laid on the couch with a vaporizer steaming to open my sinuses. While laying there, in a dreamy state of hynogogic conscousness, I could "feel" a ball and a quilted blanket moving around which I percieved as sentient toys. They were made of nothing and existed as green ribbons traced out in their respective shapes on the floor. (I'd watched Toy Story earlier that day, the vaporizer has a green light on it.)

The toys wordlessly insisted that I should eat, and in doing so I would be able to sew more quilted patches into the blanket and inflate the ball. The toys seemed really insistent on having me do this. My stomach was in a lot of pain from not having eaten enough, and I was thinking to myself how stupid it was that I'd have to be volunteered for an odd task like this. Quilts are added to the blanket by sewing small humans into the stiches and stretching them out until they're roughly rectangular. I could briefly feel my sense of self becoming the stitches and ribbons of green forming off of me into an elaborate pattern.

It was so uncanny and so real beyond words, and lasted 20 minutes, it abruptly ended when I got up to eat a bagel, and resumed where it left off when I laid back down. Absolutely fascinating from start to finish.
Anything else involved? I get visions like that when I take too much nyquil, and certainly if I was feeling bad enough to lay down with a vaporizer, nyquil might be involved.
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Old 17th November 2011, 11:27 PM   #51
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Originally Posted by devnull View Post
Sure, but you do realise "I dont know....yet" is a perfectly valid answer.
A valid answer, but often meaningless for practical purposes. Most often, our decisions and actions are based on probability rather than an unobtainable certainty.

But let's not make a big issue of it. Basically, I was joking. Skeptics are better than mystics. Except for the incredibly obtuse, stubborn ones. They're about the same as mystics.
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Old 18th November 2011, 02:47 AM   #52
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Originally Posted by Limbo View Post
There are differences between what people tell one another to do too. Since the human psyche is the spirit world then why should it be any different for the gods? 'As above, so below'.
1. But then you've just thrown away the whole pretense of finding any deeper common ground than "people believe stuff" about various religions, plus a few common tropes. I.e., the whole thing about looking past the superficial details and doing a comparative study of religions is bunk. If you're tossing out the whole meat of what those religions say, and find your similarities in just, basically, "uh, people get told stuff by 'spirits'", then you're not the one being less superficial, you're exactly the one being ridiculously superficial about it.

2. We must then accept that those spirits are an extremely unreliable source for anything from knowledge about the universe to morals, since different spirits say wildly different and incompatible things. They can't ALL be true. The only way to reconcile that with some mighty spirits is that the spirits lie a LOT, in fact most of the time, or are just as ignorant and, shall we say, the polar opposite of wise, as the tribes that worship them.

3. ADDITIONALLY some of those are wildly bogus. If you want to make everyone a shaman, we have to accept that some of those spirits actually told people that the Earth is flat and actually has four corners. Or that the dome of the sky has some windows through which the wind blows. (Don't laugh, actual shamanistic belief in the polynesian islands.) Or that the steam boats of the Europeans coming from beyond the horizon are actually coming from the spirit world and were sent by those spirits for the natives, the Europeans just fooled them into landing in their ports. (Again, actual 19'th century cargo cult belief.) Or that the airplanes of the Europeans are big birds sent by the spirits in the sky to bring goods to the faithful. (Actual 20'th century cargo cult belief.) Or that rabbits aren't subject to normal breeding cycles, but praying to the great rabbit spirits can get them to just make more rabbits pop out of the ground for your hunters, and thus you don't have to worry about overhunting. (Sums up about 90% of the tribal animistic beliefs.) Or that if you overhunted some animal after all, it's the dark magicks of another tribe's shaman that are keeping away the animals sent by the spirits. (Not just actual belief, but the #1 cause of endemic tribal warfare and why 30% to 60% of those people die a violent death.) Or that sex is not really a pre-requisite for pregnancy: a pregnancy just happens when a baby spirit chooses a mommy to be born to, and sex at most like candles in church, in that it helps get some attention, but otherwise not really required. (Common belief in pre-animal-husbandry tribes.) Or that a teen male can't produce his own sperm until he, erm, gets it orally from an older male, sorta getting impregnated before he can produce more seed. (Yep, at least one tribe has mandatory homosexuality.) Etc, etc, etc.

THAT is the kind of thing you see when you actually look beyond superficial tropes.

And that info is Bogus with a capital B. Not only you're not better off asking the spirits about anything than asking a random person on the street, you're probably actually worse off. Nowadays even someone who slept through school will give you more reliable answers than that. They'll have at least heard from SF movies, or the class's SF nerd, that the Earth is round or that animals need a mommy animal and a daddy animal to be born. Whereas the historical track record of those spirits is to be basically utterly and completely clueless.

It's not the kind that I'd want to learn anything from.

4. It still doesn't answer the question of why people always find what their culture already knew, or had enough data to discover anyway. Or for that matter, why they always find the spirits they expect to find. Why don't we see the Norse coming back from Vinland with stuff like "dude, our witch went into trance to ask Freja, but this dude called Manitou was answering instead and telling us to qualify for the great happy hunting grounds instead of Valhalla. Weird crap."? Really, if there's such a great big spirit world, how come nobody EVER takes a wrong turn and talks to someone else's spirits?
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Old 18th November 2011, 02:56 AM   #53
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Originally Posted by Limbo View Post
I've already died and so I know you're wrong. You and your friends here are wrong about a lot.
Uh, duude... Unless you mean a brief clinical death -- which is known to produce hallucinations, and it's unsurprising too as consciousness is lost in a couple of seconds, but measurable brain activity continues for up to 40 seconds -- belief that one already died can be the Cotard Delusion, one of the relatively common delusions in schizophrena. Often accompanied by other classic schizophrenic delusions, e.g., being the one that has some special message from the gods/spirits/whatever and who must enlighten the others.

Now I'm not saying that you ARE schizophrenic, because frankly that's not diagnosed over the internet, and people are good at acting crazy even when they aren't. But anyway, if that sums up your beliefs, you might want to see a psychiatrist for your own good. Left untreated, it tends to get worse and end up in drooling in a corner eventually.
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Old 20th November 2011, 08:18 PM   #54
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Originally Posted by Dessi View Post
I've held trembling dimensions in my own hands, I've been a mirage of dead reality flickering out of existence behind the present, folded through my own ego and had it sliced into 1000s of sheets of time spaced apart by infinitesimally tiny chasms of abstract seams in reality, dissolved through tendrilous reality and perceived Everything as infinite extension of my own sense organs.
I was there, too, I thought that was you.

[/bad humor]
Sorry.
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Old 20th November 2011, 08:40 PM   #55
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Originally Posted by Dessi View Post
In another thread, Limbo made a few remarks which I find absolutely fascinating:



Meditation, lucid dreaming, and altered states of consciousness are regular part of my life, a subject I've written about a handful of times on the forum. I keep a journal of psychonautic journeys filled with the most vivid, profound experiences I've had over the past several years ranging from bizarre, to tantric euphoria, to pure eschatological terror.

Limbo's experiences are likely different from my own, many of which would to scare him less. I've held trembling dimensions in my own hands, I've been a mirage of dead reality flickering out of existence behind the present, folded through my own ego and had it sliced into 1000s of sheets of time spaced apart by infinitesimally tiny chasms of abstract seams in reality, dissolved through tendrilous reality and perceived Everything as infinite extension of my own sense organs. Many of these experiences which are so powerful, so profound, extraordinary, wordlessly insightful, ineffably enigmatic that I literally begin to quiver and tear up when I talk about them.

I have a feeling that spiritual, mystical experiences are more common than he believes.

I'd very much appreciate other skeptics on the forum would describe their personal experiences which, for lack of better words, are truly odd or interesting. Personal accounts of lucid dreams, out of body experiences, psychedelic journeys of self-discovery are much appreciated
"This one time" () at a Phish concert, people were throwing glow sticks around and this guy in front of my group who was facing away from us lifted his arm above his hand and caught a glow stick that my friend threw right at that second, and the guy didn't seem surprised at all - it was as if he had expected to catch this particular stick even though he had no way of seeing it coming. We all thought that was kind of neat.

Oh yeah I guess I've had psychedelic journeys and all that but you wouldn't understand them. If you've had similar experiences you know what I mean.
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Old 20th November 2011, 09:40 PM   #56
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I cannot bring myself to pursue altered states of consciousness and hallucination experiences as a recreational pastime.

All of your body's organs have ways of letting you know something's wrong with them. When your lungs are unhealthy they become inflamed, and you wheeze and cough. When your heart is having to work too had to pump blood through blocked passages, it starts to hurt. When your intestines are irritated, you have diarrhea. Many times a general body infection manifests in a special way on the outside of your skin. And when the brain is exposed to chemicals, stress, or oxygen levels it shouldn't be exposed to, you have hallucinations (amongst other things), which are pretty much its most direct and unavoidable channel of letting you know something is wrong. I could no more seek to induce such an effect than I would attempt to induce diarrhea or an asthma attack for fun.

I understand others may feel differently; I understand some folks have a sexual attraction to pain for instance, and I suppose inducing hallucinations recreationally is something like that.
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Old 21st November 2011, 10:31 AM   #57
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Originally Posted by Checkmite View Post
I cannot bring myself to pursue altered states of consciousness and hallucination experiences as a recreational pastime.
^This. Growing up, all I wanted to do was feel "normal." I was under so much stress that I suffered panic attacks when it seemed like I was going insane, weird dissociation where nothing seemed real, nightmares, emotional sensations of dread, and similar things, which are part of the brain's typical reaction to intense stress, though of course I didn't know that at the time. It didn't help that my father was actually insane (paranoid schizophrenic), so I didn't even have reliable guidance about life or a role model of what was normal from my parents.

When I became a teenager, the last thing I wanted was to take drugs to make me feel weird or different or make reality any more confusing, and I've been that way ever since. It took me years to get over most of it and be able to travel, socialize, and experience life like most people do.

I see ordinary reality now as a precious gift, not something to escape from.

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Old 21st November 2011, 10:50 AM   #58
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Originally Posted by Limbo View Post
I've already died and so I know you're wrong. You and your friends here are wrong about a lot.




You don't know what you're talking about. Pseudo-skepticism does that.

See, this is part of the reason why I have a hard time talking about my experiences around here. Ignorant skeptics piss me off when they try to tell me what *I* experienced, and then they act like their assumptions are facts. But I guess you had a better view from behind your computer?

I experienced veridical psychic experiences before, during, and after the peyote event, thank you very much.
no you didn't
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Old 21st November 2011, 11:10 AM   #59
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Originally Posted by DC View Post
no you didn't
You know, he hasn't elaborated but awhile ago Limbo said he was reincarnated.

Maybe he's referring to that?
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Old 21st November 2011, 11:16 AM   #60
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Originally Posted by Lowpro View Post
You know, he hasn't elaborated but awhile ago Limbo said he was reincarnated.

Maybe he's referring to that?
doesn't matter, its the same BS claim and not true.
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Old 21st November 2011, 11:50 AM   #61
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Originally Posted by Limbo View Post
I've already died and so I know you're wrong. You and your friends here are wrong about a lot.




You don't know what you're talking about. Pseudo-skepticism does that.

See, this is part of the reason why I have a hard time talking about my experiences around here. Ignorant skeptics piss me off when they try to tell me what *I* experienced, and then they act like their assumptions are facts. But I guess you had a better view from behind your computer?

I experienced veridical psychic experiences before, during, and after the peyote event, thank you very much.
So you're posting from the afterworld? You should know that the Catholic Church eliminated Limbo so will you now vanish in a puff of logic.
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Old 21st November 2011, 11:51 AM   #62
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I find subjects like this very curious. I can honestly say I've gone my entire 42 years on Earth and never once had a feeling that seemed to reflect any kind of "altered reality". I have moods and emotions just like anybody else, of course. I feel happy or bored or whatever, obviously. I've been falling down drunk and felt dizzy and sick and depressed because of it.

But reality just is what it is, regardless. All this kind of talk just seems like so much nonsense to me.

Maybe I'm just really boring.
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Old 21st November 2011, 03:46 PM   #63
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Originally Posted by Pup View Post
When I became a teenager, the last thing I wanted was to take drugs to make me feel weird or different or make reality any more confusing, and I've been that way ever since. It took me years to get over most of it and be able to travel, socialize, and experience life like most people do.

I see ordinary reality now as a precious gift, not something to escape from.
Agreed very much. In my life, I've used drugs for recreational or self-discovering purposes dozens of times. Never ever ever have used it to "escape from reality" or as an emotional pickup when I'm in a bad mood. (Nevermind that, if you're in a sour mood, the rules of set and setting suck all joy out the experience anyway, its a guaranteed way to have a bad trip)

With that said, please be aware that the stereotype of recreational drug users as druggie burn outs with no life and no future is untrue in the vast majority of cases. Like anyone who enjoys alcohol, a tremendous number of people have enjoyed psychoactives view them as a net positive influence on their life.

Speaking from my own point of view, psychoactives supplement and enrich my personal experiences, they're not an escape from them.
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Old 22nd November 2011, 04:23 AM   #64
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Originally Posted by Dessi View Post
Agreed very much.
What are you agreeing with? We seem to be complete opposites when it comes to opinions about using drugs ourselves.

Quote:
Speaking from my own point of view, psychoactives supplement and enrich my personal experiences, they're not an escape from them.
Speaking from my own point of view, I feel just the opposite. Psychoactives would not supplement or enrich my personal experiences; rather, they would interfere with them.

This has nothing to do with stereotypes of recreational drug users. I'm talking only about the experience/perception itself, and assuming that altering it causes no other physical, psychological or social harm.

As Checkmite said, people have different opinions about what's enjoyable or enriching and I have no problem with that. It's when they imply that something is enjoyable or enriching by definition, where I have a problem, because each person's opinion is, in the end, subjective. I could list things I find enjoyable and enriching, and you might find them pointless or boring, just because we're different people.

Where we do agree, I think, is that these experiences of altered reality (for lack of a better phrase) are very common, both when chemically induced and when they occur otherwise, such as lucid dreaming when half asleep. People who experience them aren't special; the experiences are mundane and predictable biological reactions, like taking an emetic and then throwing up, or staring at a bright light and then seeing a dark spot when you look away.

The personal significance or value that people place on them is something else though, and varies widely depending on the person.
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Old 22nd November 2011, 07:26 AM   #65
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There's lots of talking in here about the drugs we use to experience altered states.
They are merely a mechanism that allows us to open the door to an altered reality.
They are altered because of the substances we have used, when I say we, I mean whomever.

If you want clarity, try fasting and cleaning your body first, then see what happens and I mean clean, no drugs, alcohol, smokes of any kind.

There will be nothing to fool your eyes perception.
At that point you will know what it's all about.

If you don't go in clean, your impressions will be blurred and skewed.
Then there is the manifestation of spirituality that breaks into our reality on its own.
Unless the experience that you are having; is prompted by something greater than self, like God or demons or angels.
At which point it could still be blurry unless you are clean and awake.

I think most people in here are smart enough to know the difference of hallucinations, sickness or other ways these experiences are induced and what caused them.

They are the most interesting when they make the connection into our reality with unknown proof that happens on a multilevel truth of some sort or another.
For instance when someone comes back from an NDE and states a future event they couldn’t possibly know of; or that it would happen. Something truly dramatic, with a confirming truth, that proves itself.

Like: Uncle Bob is going to win the lotto at the end of the month, I had a dream that showed me, it will happen and then he does exactly that on February 28th.

My Father had a dream like that before he died and it all came to pass about his death and after his death, so Limbo is right about much of what he is saying in some respects.
You’re not going to have clarity unless you go in clean and clear headed.
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Old 22nd November 2011, 07:40 AM   #66
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Sounds like a recipe for woo to me.

Thanks, but I'll pass.
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Old 22nd November 2011, 07:56 AM   #67
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Originally Posted by slingblade View Post
Sounds like a recipe for woo to me.

Thanks, but I'll pass.
I understand because knowing the real truth is a scary process.
Till you really know that it is and was and always will be.
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Old 23rd November 2011, 07:44 AM   #68
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Originally Posted by Minoosh View Post
...

Sleeping under electric blankets gives me terrifying dreams. I'm trying to sit up or move but held down by a terrific weight, usually with not-quite-seen malevolent beings whispering things I can't make out. ...
There's an easy fix for that. Just lock the cats out of the bedroom at night.
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Old 23rd November 2011, 05:09 PM   #69
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Originally Posted by Andrew Wiggin View Post
Anything else involved? I get visions like that when I take too much nyquil, and certainly if I was feeling bad enough to lay down with a vaporizer, nyquil might be involved.
I've had some bizarre dreams on Benadryl (diphenhydramine) and have heard other people say the same thing. They're very vivid, and have a different texture than regular dreams. They seem more real.
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Old 23rd November 2011, 05:10 PM   #70
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Originally Posted by crackers View Post
There's an easy fix for that. Just lock the cats out of the bedroom at night.
I have a dachshund now but she doesn't sleep on my chest.

Remember the nursing-home cat of death?
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Old 23rd November 2011, 06:22 PM   #71
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Originally Posted by Dessi View Post

Supplemented with cannabis, I had one of the strongest sexual experiences of my life deep in state of hypnagogic meditation. The most extraordinary feelings of closeness, and exquisite tactile and visual sensuality from first and third person perspectives.
Would this require an actual partner?

It's easy to write off hallucinations as being "caused' by drugs or feelings of love to be triggered by a certain person, and maybe they are. On the other hand we fall readily each day into hours of hallucination, during which we may experience a huge range of very strong emotions. And we don't really know why.

I'm no Puritan but ultimately drugs may be just a bridge. It may turn out your natural mind delivers an even better high. If you're experimenting, be careful.

Last edited by Minoosh; 23rd November 2011 at 06:24 PM.
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Old 23rd November 2011, 06:24 PM   #72
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Originally Posted by edge View Post
I understand because knowing the real truth is a scary process.
Till you really know that it is and was and always will be.
Jesus man, you *really* need to lay off the weed.
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Old 23rd November 2011, 06:29 PM   #73
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Originally Posted by devnull View Post
Jesus man, you *really* need to lay off the weed.
Just the weed?
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Old 23rd November 2011, 06:38 PM   #74
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Originally Posted by Pup
Originally Posted by Dessi
Agreed very much.
What are you agreeing with? We seem to be complete opposites when it comes to opinions about using drugs ourselves.
Oops, I interpreted your comment as suggesting that you shouldn't do drugs when you're depressed.

Seeing things that aren't there, haven't we all been there before...
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Old 23rd November 2011, 06:41 PM   #75
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Originally Posted by Minoosh View Post
Originally Posted by Dessi
Supplemented with cannabis, I had one of the strongest sexual experiences of my life deep in state of hypnagogic meditation. The most extraordinary feelings of closeness, and exquisite tactile and visual sensuality from first and third person perspectives.
Would this require an actual partner?
Would this require an actual partner?
For that experience, no.

I have no way if its in any way related, but some people can achieve the same thing while sober. Its probably in now way similar to my experience, but still really awesome example of the kinds of interesting things meditation can do for you.
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Last edited by Dessi; 23rd November 2011 at 07:18 PM.
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Old 23rd November 2011, 06:58 PM   #76
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Originally Posted by Minoosh View Post
I've had some bizarre dreams on Benadryl (diphenhydramine) and have heard other people say the same thing. They're very vivid, and have a different texture than regular dreams. They seem more real.
Anti-malarial drugs can do that as well.
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