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[Tabbyman]

The sensation that something should work but doesn't is quite common in dreams. Even outside the plausable such as simply being unable to do something you were just doing in your dream not too long ago.

Kind of reminds me of how looking at the time or some text, looking away, and then looking back at it is supposed to result in garbling or otherwise changing from what you saw the first time. I haven't specifically tried those things in dream yet though, usually been too preoccupied with something like flying or find some pants.

Oh god, the no pants dream. One time I used "OMG No pants! WTF!" as a trigger for a lucid dream, but wasted the whole time looking for pants. I managed to find shorts at least... And then not a minute after putting them on and going about my business, I look down and... WTF No pants!!!

Dreams are horrible at consistently storing information.

[DwarfMeister]

I've had am intense sleep paralysis incident once and it was interesting, distortion of perception etc, i can see how it could be interepreted as a "spiritual" phenomena.

This is my feeling on it as well. The brain is a very strange thing, and for most things like ESP, or astral projection, I think the defensible position to people who think that is just to say they don't really know what's going on. That there is no data on your set of experiences does not mean the most wishful or convenient explanation is supported.

Speaking of paralysis, have you ever slept on your arm and woken up with it completely limp? It's awesome, but scary because it makes your realize how delicate the system to control the muscles of the body is. Imagine putting in the effort to close your fist, but your hand not closing. In fact, you can't feel your hand while that is happening. It tripped me out when it happened!!! What's cool, is the fact that I could (lightly!!!) abuse my arm, but it wouldn't hurt!! And yes- I've even tried *THAT, but I'm not going to give the dirty details...

*C'mon- You know what I mean...

[Urist Imiknorris]

You tried emulating greatorder?

[Skyrunner]

*cough*
I .... might have associated the topic for a ... erm... sophisticated ... encantation, of eigth or nineth magnitude, from an illustrious... popular pastime... named after small rooms often used to incarnate prisoners, and mythical, scientifically improbable endotherm reptiles with six limbs.
But no worries. I've got it straight now xD

Personally, I'm sceptical at best o.O What WILD is, I do not know, but astral projection doesn't sound exist-able. Maybe it's a sort of lucid dreaming, created by the wishes of the dreamer...?

[Reelya]

WILD: wake-induced lucid dreaming, which implies you put yourself into a trance so deep you manage to somehow be in REM sleep while still conciously awake. I know the STATE is possible (experienced it on waking - AKA sleep paralysis), but i never heard that you can put yourself into that state on demand, maybe some people can.

[Starver]

All the proof needed would be to look at a piece of paper behind your head and tell the investigators what's written on it, which should NOT be hard at all.

I know there's been something similar for OOBEs.  Asked (surviving[1]) post-operative patients of major trauma if they had an OOBE and, if so, what they saw.  With some pattern on the floor of the operating theatre, or somesuch thing that they would have been able to see from their OOB POV but not, even subconsciously, from their more physical positioning.

I can't recall whether it turned out as a Yay or a Nay, though, on that experiment.  Which I believe was singular (at least at the time) and I've a worrying feeling was not entirely cleared with the Ethics Committee.


Fever-induced sensations can be interesting.  I was once (when quite young) suffering a bit of restless sleep from whatever it was that I'd got at that time.  I'd obviously (in hindsight) been flailing my limbs a bit, sending my bedclothes into paroxysms of motion very much like stormy seas.  My consciousness of the situation had me observing this with total disassociation from the fact that I was causing this.  I shouted at the bedclothes to "Stop it!"...  Only for a few moments later to do a mental face-palm...  There was no use telling the bedclothes to stop, as I realised that they couldn't understand English!

(Cue double-mental-face-palm, when I later remembered these events.)


As to the whole... well, everything... of ESP/etc, my Dad's commented at how many times he's thought about someone/something and then that person/someone associated with the thing phones up.  And I know the feeling.  I also know that both he and me doubtless think about countless random things, at all times, and the times when a person does not call after being thought about are never remembered.  Not to mention those times when some common cue (something having been on TV, perhaps) has perhaps cued the respective thought/contact scenaio.  (As I was contemplating this paragraph, I received an SMS from my Dad.  A rare-ish occasion, and without a common-cue.  But I don't give it any more relevance than mere happenstance/synchronicity.  Maybe it is significant, but I really can't see how it can be quantified.)


[1] Asking those that weren't involves a totally different metaphysical proof-of-concept, of course...

[Skyrunner]

Fever hallucinations >.> The most distinct one I remember is when I thought I was in a cave, with a strong urge to eat, of all things, gumballs. So I kept asking my mom where the gumballs were. I kept seeing gumballs with the letter Z emblazoned on them all around the cave moving out of range.

Later she said she was really concerned about me then

Strangely, if I take medicines for general colds, I always have a nightmare. I try not to take cold medicine now >.>

[Reelya]

Selective memory - we remember when things align, but not when things don't align. Lab animals exhibit this same behavior in tests.

Also related:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Confirmation_bias#Biased_memory
"One study showed how selective memory can maintain belief in extrasensory perception (ESP). Believers and disbelievers were each shown descriptions of ESP experiments. Half of each group were told that the experimental results supported the existence of ESP, while the others were told they did not. In a subsequent test, subjects recalled the material accurately, apart from believers who had read the non-supportive evidence. This group remembered significantly less information and some of them incorrectly remembered the results as supporting ESP."

Interestingly this shows there's an asymmetry between believers and non-believers - at least for this phenomena. One might expect the two views to be mirror-image. Further studies in other areas of polarized beliefs would be interesting.

[Tabbyman]

I've had am intense sleep paralysis incident once and it was interesting, distortion of perception etc, i can see how it could be interepreted as a "spiritual" phenomena.

This is my feeling on it as well. The brain is a very strange thing, and for most things like ESP, or astral projection, I think the defensible position to people who think that is just to say they don't really know what's going on. That there is no data on your set of experiences does not mean the most wishful or convenient explanation is supported.

Speaking of paralysis, have you ever slept on your arm and woken up with it completely limp? It's awesome, but scary because it makes your realize how delicate the system to control the muscles of the body is. Imagine putting in the effort to close your fist, but your hand not closing. In fact, you can't feel your hand while that is happening. It tripped me out when it happened!!! What's cool, is the fact that I could (lightly!!!) abuse my arm, but it wouldn't hurt!! And yes- I've even tried *THAT, but I'm not going to give the dirty details...

*C'mon- You know what I mean...

When you said *THAT... I was like, oh, auto-erotic asphyxiation. The natural step up from cutting off circulation to your arm for fun. (edit: mis-spelled, guess what word...)

Anyways, I notice you didn't mention the horrible "pins and needles" sensation that I usually feel when I regain circulation to a numbed limb. You don't experience that?

[DwarfMeister]

I've had am intense sleep paralysis incident once and it was interesting, distortion of perception etc, i can see how it could be interepreted as a "spiritual" phenomena.

This is my feeling on it as well. The brain is a very strange thing, and for most things like ESP, or astral projection, I think the defensible position to people who think that is just to say they don't really know what's going on. That there is no data on your set of experiences does not mean the most wishful or convenient explanation is supported.

Speaking of paralysis, have you ever slept on your arm and woken up with it completely limp? It's awesome, but scary because it makes your realize how delicate the system to control the muscles of the body is. Imagine putting in the effort to close your fist, but your hand not closing. In fact, you can't feel your hand while that is happening. It tripped me out when it happened!!! What's cool, is the fact that I could (lightly!!!) abuse my arm, but it wouldn't hurt!! And yes- I've even tried *THAT, but I'm not going to give the dirty details...

*C'mon- You know what I mean...

When you said *THAT... I was like, oh, auto-erotic asphyxiation. The natural step up from cutting off circulation to your arm for fun. (edit: mis-spelled, guess what word...)

Anyways, I notice you didn't mention the horrible "pins and needles" sensation that I usually feel when I regain circulation to a numbed limb. You don't experience that?

Nope. It just wakes up.

P.S.- I was talking about using one hand to hold the "dead" one during "happy hour", so I can imagine that I'm getting "service" from another person.

[G-Flex]

This thread is going from bad to incomprehensible to worse.

That said: Sleep paralysis is one of the more frightening things that's happened to me. I used to get it a lot when I was a kid, and on rare occasion since. It's scary being completely unable to move your body while conscious but still basically dreaming and delirious, trying desperately not to go back to sleep because, in my experience, it only happens during/between nightmares.

Sleep paralysis is also the likely explanation for a lot of alleged supernatural phenomena, from out-of-body experiences to succubus attacks.

[kaijyuu]

Man, I never get attacked by succubi

[DJ]

Simple test - astral project to my room @ 44.348441 : 17.251529 and tell me what brand of beer I am drinking right now.

Budweiser. I didn't astral project, just so you know. And I doubt that those are the real coordinates.

The coordinates are as close as I could get on Google maps' low, low resolution. And it was Karlovačko, I've never even seen Budweiser IRL.

[G-Flex]

I've never even seen Budweiser IRL.

This is for the best. Trust me.

[DwarfMeister]

Simple test - astral project to my room @ 44.348441 : 17.251529 and tell me what brand of beer I am drinking right now.

Budweiser. I didn't astral project, just so you know. And I doubt that those are the real coordinates.

The coordinates are as close as I could get on Google maps' low, low resolution. And it was Karlovačko, I've never even seen Budweiser IRL.

It's an American brand. Beer is a big thing here, especially in the South (NASCAR might have something to do with this!!!). Believe it or not, we love our booze so much that we have counseling centers (Al-Anon) that help people kick their drinking habits because a lot of us (still small compared to the general population) become a danger to others when we are intoxicated. In fact, during holidays, you'll notice a HUGE increase in the amount of police patrolling the streets because... We are Americans.