Has anyone ever jumped the fence, baby?

strobe

PDN wrote: »

I know these posts are meant to convey some universal truth about the human mind, but they actually just make me ask myself, "Why am I conversing on a message board with people who suffer from hallucinations?"

robindch wrote: »

Well, you moderate that board -- why not ask there?

You really should have seen that coming a mile away PDN.

Sam Vimes

PDN wrote: »

or aeroplanes flying out of their wardrobe

That was me \o/

Very bizarre experience, I can still picture the little fighter jet and the hatch it flew out of. At that age I didn't know just how powerful the human mind is at this type of thing, e.g. how you can make this woman spin left or right with a bit of mental effort:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L5A4OoQ3zqo

Luckily I only ever saw things like tiny little fighter jets. If my mind had conjured up an image of Jesus I might just be on this forum now telling everyone about my faith and the personal experience of Jesus that led me to it

Dave!

PDN wrote: »

Er, your mind, Dave!

I've seen a number of these posts where they people recount how they thought they saw a scary old woman, or aeroplanes flying out of their wardrobe and other such stuff.

I know these posts are meant to convey some universal truth about the human mind, but they actually just make me ask myself, "Why am I conversing on a message board with people who suffer from hallucinations?"

It's not that uncommon, it is a feature of the human mind, and it doesn't mean that there's anything wrong:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pareidolia

ShooterSF

My most recent hallucination was an ambulance sitting behind a car in traffic. I was coming towards it and somehow made out a person sitting on a motor bike. As I got closer I remember severe confusion as the bike/biker seemed strange but I couldn't figure it out. Only when I looked away and then refocused did I notice it was an ambulance.
It's a strange realisation that I had been looking at something I know very well yet my brain had made a mistake and mis-recognised it and then instead of fixing the image it continued to distort the bike to fit the shape that was appearing as I got closer.

robindch

A few years ago, I was driving from Dublin to Cork and passed through (AFAIR) Horse and Jockey in Tipperary. It was raining at the time and I remember quite vividly seeing, out of the corner of my eye, a white corpse dangling from a tree on the right hand side of the road. It was shocking enough that I stopped the car, turned around and drove back up the road, but the corpse turned out to be -- wait for it -- not a corpse, but a life-size statue of Jesus nailed to a cross, and both were painted white.

Eeek!

.

Canis Lupus

My turn my turn!!!

Few weeks ago woke up and looked across the room only to see what on first glance was a looming shadow in the shape of a man...thing but here is where I agree with the above, I've learnt over the years to stop and analyse rather than duck under the covers and hope it goes away like a child might do because I'm fairly sure that big scary shadows that eat you only exist in the movies..

After a few seconds of looking my brain finally clicked it was my pc chair and a towel and the angle I was looking at it. End of dilemma, back to sleep.

Dave!

Maybe it's just an atheist phenomenon, and religious folk are genuinely seeing God!

Calibos

I wouldn't call them hallucinations. A hallucination is the result of faulty brain chemistry whether that be an imbalance caused by physical or mental stress/illness or by drugs.

A hallucination is my taking a substance and seeing a 3D black panther jump out of the Black Panther poster on my wall. That wasn't the brain mistaking some visual cues which a normal brain does, that was a brain with its brain chemistry altered truely creating something from nothing. Yeah it used the poster as a jumping off point but it created the vision of the Panther jumping out into the room from nothing as it were.

It was not the brain seeing some interplay of light and shadow on the wall near the poster and incorrectly interpreting it as a panther before it corrected this mistake on the next perceptual 'refresh' where I would see it for what it actually was interplay of light and shadow.

It would be much closer to Pariedolia that Dave mentioned but I think that is still a different phenomina.

I have no doubt that this phenomena happens every now and again for PDN too. Hypothetically speaking, without a religious context to the 'Vision' he just interprets it as one of those, "Jaysus, I was sure I just saw....LOL" events. For example I was walking out the back door the other day and just out of the corner of my eye I thought I saw a Cat run past. My brain made one of its perceptual mistakes and drew a cat on my visual cortex as it were. It was actually the heals of SWMBO'd shoes as she passed the door just before I opened it. Everyone, Atheist or religious put those hum drum visions down as the brain farts that they are. They might not know the neurology behind it but they instinctually know it was a brain fart.

The difference is I recognise the Jesus apparition as exactly the same phenomena whereas when some religious people have one of these brain farts that happened to have a religious context they don't recognise it as a brain fart but think the Lord is appearing to them.

midlandsmissus

Dave! wrote: »

Maybe it's just an atheist phenomenon, and religious folk are genuinely seeing God!

It's posts like this that really make atheists look quite arrogant and righteous...

MagicMarker

midlandsmissus wrote: »

It's posts like this that really make atheists look quite arrogant and righteous...

And it's posts like this that really make theists look like overly sensitive party poopers.

midlandsmissus

MagicMarker wrote: »

And it's posts like this that really make theists look like overly sensitive party poopers.

What would you do without me to stir things up though eh? You'd all just be agreeing with yourselves, you wouldn't get to flex any atheist arguments ....

magimarker how did you arrive at your non-beliefs out of interest.

midlandsmissus

Calibos wrote: »

Am I remembering correctly midlandmissus, was it some kind of vision that converted you?

If that was the case, then I think there is probably a simple difference between you and I and that is propensity to jump to conclusions.

One night about 2 years ago (I'm Atheist for 20) I walked into the kitchen and glanced in the direction of the glass patio door and into the dim yard beyond. I saw a bona fide vision of Jesus standing at the end of the yard. Longish curly hair, beard, robes the whole shebang. I stopped dead in my tracks and uttered WTF!?!? He disappeared.

Now because I was not a default atheist because of atheist parents who just accepted what their parents said like any child or a religious child are genetically programmed to do, but arrived at my atheism through research and deep thought, well I had come across lots of literature and documentaries about neurology and brain chemistry and the nature of conciousness as well.

I knew that the brain is a powerful computer that subconciously builds a picture of the outside world. It guesses a lot when building that picture from the imperfect information coming from the senses. Most of the time it guesses correctly. Sometimes it guesses wrong.

Instead of imediately sitting down with a stiff drink and a cigarette to settle my nerves uttering, OMFG! what did I just see!!??, I actually just stopped dead in my tracks and kept staring at the same spot where the vision had been, examining the scene, adjusting my focus around the area. BINGO!! Jesus appeared again. It was the reflection in the patio door of a towel on a chair inside the kitchen superimposed over a hanging basket of flowers in shadow at the end of the yard. I could make the vision of Jesus appear and disappear at will just like that optical illusion with the candlestick and the human faces.

The human brain is an amazing thing but it is not infallible nor unfoolable

Thank you for remembering

A vision did play a part, but a small one. I definitely didn't believe straight after it. I did ALOT of research into spirituality and my years of studies have brought me to my present beliefs. I'm far from the type of person to jump to conclusions, I like to analyse everything.

I agree with your point about the atheist child - I was atheist by default, doing what their parents wished. But as I got older I DID start putting alot of thought and research into it, and I do now believe in God because of this.

robindch

robindch wrote: »

Gotta be the Fantasia and Fugue in C Minor BWV 537(*) or the Fugue in A Minor from BWV 543 -- those fugues could send shivers up the spine of a corpse.

Cello suites please, but then I am biased :pac:

PDN wrote: »

If you put milk in it Earl Gray tastes manky. But it's rather nice if you drink it black.

I don't like any tea with milk in it

Anyway enough offtopic from me :pac:

Dave!

midlandsmissus wrote: »

It's posts like this that really make atheists look quite arrogant and righteous...

But you have no comment about PDN effectively telling us that we're losing our minds, even though most of these examples are quite normal due to the constitution of the brain?

midlandsmissus

Dave! wrote: »

But you have no comment about PDN effectively telling us that we're losing our minds, even though most of these examples are quite normal due to the constitution of the brain?

Apologies, actually missed PDN's post. I actually think that was quite funny, and a nice comeback, talk about setting youself up