Lucid dreaming

[CoderGuy]

I'm sorry if I offend any practitioners of remote viewing, but I don't buy it. The implications of this phenomenon being within the realm of possibility are way too big. Also, with human kind sitting around perceiving the world around them through nothing but their brains, this would be common knowledge by now if true. This quote from the Wikipedia entry speaks volumes:

Well the realm of the paranormal is a lot like religion in respect that those who believe, believe no matter what the non-believers say and those that don't can rarely be persuaded. The world needs both types (and all those in between) to maintain balance.

I have had experiences that would most likely be unbelievable to most, but since I experienced them, no one could tell me they weren't real. I gave up trying convince people decades ago.

[Roo]

Nice post CoderGuy. Well put.

[bill77.017]

The other "planes of existence" are much like here (or I should more accurately say this is more like the other planes of existence")

How many planes of existence are there? What is their purpose? Do you think it has anything to do with what happens after we die, like an afterlife or do they exist parallel to
this life for some reason?

[Crow]

The only thing I can vouch for, are lucid dreams. I'm skeptical of remote viewing, and the other stuff. It's interesting, though.

[sgreger1]

I'm sorry if I offend any practitioners of remote viewing, but I don't buy it. The implications of this phenomenon being within the realm of possibility are way too big. Also, with human kind sitting around perceiving the world around them through nothing but their brains, this would be common knowledge by now if true. This quote from the Wikipedia entry speaks volumes:

There's also a few thousand dollar reward for anyone who can prove Obama was born in the united states, but no one has shown a birth certificate. Does this mean you believe Obama is a kenyan? No, that would be stupid. There is enough evidence to not need to worry about what prizes are left unclaimed.



I know what you mean though, and frankly it doesn't make any sense how it would actually "work" within our current models used to describe reality. But I tell you Roo, people say the same thing about out of body experiences. They have to be impossible, right? We are local to our material bodies, being able to traverse space/time without the attendence of our vessels seems impossible. And yet one of our members claims to have done it, repeatedly. I don't know him to be a whacko or a wierdo, and see no reasno why he would lie.


This leaves us with a problem. We are talking about a subject which should be impossible to accomplish, yet we have first hand testimony from someone we know not to be crazy, and they claim to have done it reapeatedly and even on command. What does one do? For me, instead of discounting his first hand testimony, I will try to recreate it under similar conditions.

Tell me Roo, if I am successfull in recreating it and experiencing it for myself (which I doubt I will be), what then? If I say, "Roo, I did it. I had an out of body experience", what is your response? Surely it must be impossible, yet there seems to be some evidence that it may in fact be possible. This is the problem with the paranormal. It's one of those things were everyone claims to see it, but no one can prove it. Therefore, it could be happening and science is just unable to detect or explain it yet. Just because somethign does not have an explanation does not mean it didn't occur. The number of people seeing things that are "paranormal" is too large for it to just simply be "crazy people"




And what do you mean if it were possible we would have figured it out. People have been claiming to do this by the thousands and millions since as far back as history goes. There are psychics today (supposedly) and they claim to be in large numbers. So we see a huge segment of society believing that they are doing this, but science telling them that they are not. Who is lying? And if it is the people who are lying, how did they manage to keep a hoax running for 6,000 years?


I just think that for whatever reason, people see ghosts, UFO's, claim to be telepathic etc. Why? What the **** is causing all of this? Science says it is all fake, but science is too young to know anything about anything. I disregard 99% of what scientists think about the universe right now, because in another 300 years they will have changed their mind.

If you told scientists about quantum mechanics before "science" decided it was real, they would tell you to take your quackery "action at a distance" junk-science off of their desk.

[precious007]

There's also a few thousand dollar reward for anyone who can prove Obama was born in the united states, but no one has shown a birth certificate. Does this mean you believe Obama is a kenyan? No, that would be stupid. There is enough evidence to not need to worry about what prizes are left unclaimed.



I know what you mean though, and frankly it doesn't make any sense how it would actually "work" within our current models used to describe reality. But I tell you Roo, people say the same thing about out of body experiences. They have to be impossible, right? We are local to our material bodies, being able to traverse space/time without the attendence of our vessels seems impossible. And yet one of our members claims to have done it, repeatedly. I don't know him to be a whacko or a wierdo, and see no reasno why he would lie.


This leaves us with a problem. We are talking about a subject which should be impossible to accomplish, yet we have first hand testimony from someone we know not to be crazy, and they claim to have done it reapeatedly and even on command. What does one do? For me, instead of discounting his first hand testimony, I will try to recreate it under similar conditions.

Tell me Roo, if I am successfull in recreating it and experiencing it for myself (which I doubt I will be), what then? If I say, "Roo, I did it. I had an out of body experience", what is your response? Surely it must be impossible, yet there seems to be some evidence that it may in fact be possible. This is the problem with the paranormal. It's one of those things were everyone claims to see it, but no one can prove it. Therefore, it could be happening and science is just unable to detect or explain it yet. Just because somethign does not have an explanation does not mean it didn't occur. The number of people seeing things that are "paranormal" is too large for it to just simply be "crazy people"




And what do you mean if it were possible we would have figured it out. People have been claiming to do this by the thousands and millions since as far back as history goes. There are psychics today (supposedly) and they claim to be in large numbers. So we see a huge segment of society believing that they are doing this, but science telling them that they are not. Who is lying? And if it is the people who are lying, how did they manage to keep a hoax running for 6,000 years?


I just think that for whatever reason, people see ghosts, UFO's, claim to be telepathic etc. Why? What the **** is causing all of this? Science says it is all fake, but science is too young to know anything about anything. I disregard 99% of what scientists think about the universe right now, because in another 300 years they will have changed their mind.

If you told scientists about quantum mechanics before "science" decided it was real, they would tell you to take your quackery "action at a distance" junk-science off of their desk.

I'm not denying there aren't other similar species to humans living in other galaxies/planets....

but you know the ol' saying.... Seeing is believing..... I never saw any UFO's in 26 damn years..... highly doubt will see any in the future.........

lol

[Roo]

OK, I'll bite. Out of body experiences as they are commonly understood and remote viewing (as I understand it) are completely different things. An out of body experience is the perception of one's self viewed from outside his or her body. In other words, the person doing the perceiving is viewing themselves do whatever it is that their body is doing, like laying there on the hospital bed, or skateboarding on acid (lol), etc. There is nothing outside of the person's mind affecting the experience, and as such there is no way (or desire, really) to prove that this happened. It would be like trying to prove the contents of a dream -- impossible. Remote viewing, however, is the act of perceiving actual events or objects in real time and space, events or objects about which the person reportedly has no prior knowledge. So, a skilled practitioner who has never met me in person could tell me what color my youngest cat is and what she is doing right now with accuracy. This is what I claim to be impossible. Correct me if I'm wrong about the nature of either phenomenon.

[rickcharles606]

it's all a nazi experiment



*runs out of thread, lol*

[precious007]

Bottom line.....

the thread could go on for years......

It's only been covered in some of the most basic issues... of what spiritual/paranormal is really at....

I got quite a few books on spiritual life and honestly it's just too much load of information to me to comprehend ..........

Mind controlling weapons are trendy these days and they could too bring any individual to experiece all of these things..............

[chadizzy1]

it's all a nazi experiment



*runs out of thread, lol*

[sgreger1]

OK, I'll bite. Out of body experiences as they are commonly understood and remote viewing (as I understand it) are completely different things. An out of body experience is the perception of one's self viewed from outside his or her body. In other words, the person doing the perceiving is viewing themselves do whatever it is that their body is doing, like laying there on the hospital bed, or skateboarding on acid (lol), etc. There is nothing outside of the person's mind affecting the experience, and as such there is no way (or desire, really) to prove that this happened. It would be like trying to prove the contents of a dream -- impossible. Remote viewing, however, is the act of perceiving actual events or objects in real time and space, events or objects about which the person reportedly has no prior knowledge. So, a skilled practitioner who has never met me in person could tell me what color my youngest cat is and what she is doing right now with accuracy. This is what I claim to be impossible. Correct me if I'm wrong about the nature of either phenomenon.

They both rely on the concept of "everything is connected in some way, and there is a way to access non-local information because of this".

Remote viewing is as you described it; A non-psychic, regular person, through a certian procedure can supposedly be able to collect visual details of objects far away from the observer with some level of accuracy above "chance". In this case, remote viewing gives I belive 15% over chance, which is statistically significant if it can be repeated enough times consecutively. 6 out of 10 times is nothing, but 60 out of 100 is. The problem is that a trained practitioner cannot always produce consistent results, therefore it does not pass the test.

The thing is that this is only relevant for someone trying to prove it for science. They need much better evidence. What is amazing here, is that if even if only 1 person in all of history managed to accomplish this "remote viewing", than it must fundamentally change our perception of how the universe works.



And out of body experience is similar (allegedly), in that one can leave their body, travel to a remote location, and lucidly navigate around space-time while their physical body is somewhere else. You are describing an out of body experience in that you appear to be "looking at yourself doing something" or "floating above your bed looking down at your body". This is one definition of OBE, but for the purpose of this conversation we are decribing it as the ability to move around freely through space time without the aid of your body.

I make this distinction because coderguy claims he can walk around to another remote loaction using just his "mind", as no physical body accompanies him.





Let me throw a wrench in this whole thing right now: Scientists can cause a person to have an OBE on command by stimulating a particular region of the brain. So how does this figure into it. We now know nothing "magic" is happening, in that we can recreate the experience in a labratory, but HOW IN THE **** IS IT POSSIBLE TO BE WATCHING YOUSELF LAYING IN BED, AS IF YOU WERE OBSERVING FROM A LOCATION OTHER THAN YOUR BODY? How can you change your camera angle, while your eyes stay in the same place?

So nothing magic about it, but it does say something about our knowledge of reality. If by touching your brain I can make you feel like you are standing across the room looking at yourself, how could that be possible. For you to experience yourself looking at your body across the room, there would have to be eyes taking in sensory input for you to be seing it. How are you looking at something without eyes, how can you magically change the camera angle, yet your head/body stays in the same place?


I just think there is more out there than what is currently known.

[precious007]

Let me throw a wrench in this whole thing right now: Scientists can cause a person to have an OBE on command by stimulating a particular region of the brain. So how does this figure into it. We now know nothing "magic" is happening, in that we can recreate the experience in a labratory, but HOW IN THE **** IS IT POSSIBLE TO BE WATCHING YOUSELF LAYING IN BED, AS IF YOU WERE OBSERVING FROM A LOCATION OTHER THAN YOUR BODY. So nothing magic about it, but it does say something about our knowledge of reality. If by touching your brain I can make you feel like you are standing across the room looking at yourself, how could that be possible. For you to experience yourself looking at your body across the room, there would have ot be eyes taking in sensory input for yu to be seing it. How are you looking at something without eyes, how can you magically change the camera angle, yet your head/body stays in the same place?

The soul/spirit is what's seeing around...

Many people in coma's have reported moving around the room and even talking to other dead people in this period.... or experiencing some of the most pleasant activities and stunning places in the heaven.... I've read quite a bit on this subject and all individuals that went through OBD reported the same things.... well similar....

There was a Romanian professor that hang himself up (commited suicide) .... 100% controlled just to experience OBD ..... he was resqued and described the exact same things...... he was basically floating across the room and suddenly seen nice fields of flowers and sunshine.... clear water rivers ....seemingly the HEAVEN

A close relative of mine had a brain stroke and explained the same experiences when she went out of the coma

[Roo]

I attribute your out of body experience examples to a wonderful and vivid imagination and ability to control one's own mind through meditation, etc. Step in and correct me if I'm wrong CoderGuy, but I didn't take your story of OBE on the beach to mean that you actually thought you were present elsewhere. Of course not, then it wouldn't be an out of body experience if you were there in any physical capacity. How about a dream, sgreger? Dreams can seem very real as we all know. Why couldn't someone train their mind to recreate this feeling while not in a deep sleep? So, again, sorry to offend anyone, but I call it imagination.

As for the whole 15% above chance thing: This was from one study, which Wikipedia noted was conducted by a Scientologist. He wanted the experiment to succeed. In my mind, he was not controlling well enough for evidence of a serious paranormal phenomenon. What does "chance" mean? If I want subjects in an experiment to prove that they can view distant objects of which they have no prior knowledge, I'm going to make sure the object cannot be stumbled upon or guessed by chance. For example: I guarantee the object I am looking at right now, on my desk at work, couldn't be guessed by anyone in any realistic time frame, even if I give vague clues: it was given to me by Mongolians, in Mongolia.

Edit: I realize the experiment in question was not conducted by researchers who knew what and where an object was and asked the subjects to identify it. But my question still stands. What is chance? "I'm seeing a crane in Russia" "Yes, there is a crane in Russia". I suppose I should look into the experiment a bit more before I comment on it further.

[sgreger1]

The soul/spirit is what's seeing around...

Many people in coma's have reported moving around the room and even talking to other dead people in this period.... or experiencing some of the most pleasant activities and stunning places in the heaven.... I've read quite a bit on this subject and all individuals that went through OBD reported the same things.... well similar....

There was a Romanian professor that hang himself up (commited suicide) .... 100% controlled just to experience OBD ..... he was resqued and described the exact same things...... he was basically floating across the room and suddenly seen nice fields of flowers and sunshine.... clear water rivers ....seemingly the HEAVEN

A close relative of mine had a brain stroke and explained the same experiences when she went out of the coma

This is what i'm talking about though. We have people claiming that they are having these crazy experiences, yet science will not even investigate. They immediately say "Nope, doens't fit within our established paradigm of how things work, not even going to look at it". I don't believe it is the "soul" looking around, because I don't believe we have a soul really.


but this is what I mean Roo. What does all of this mean. When someone claims that they walked around in their mind and saw a nucealr bunker somewhere, and they find a nuclear bunker
at that place, one must ask how the **** that happened.


We know remote viewing is real. The military quite clearly, in no other words, said that they had successfully collected intel that later turned out to be true, and that there is no possible way that the remote-viewers could have had access to, as even the US government didn't know it at the time. They just couldn't make it happen on command, so scraped it as a military tool. But the real amazing thing here is that, if the government is to be believed, they successfully saw objects at a distance using nothing but their minds and a piece of paper. If this is true and they are to be believed, than it has some serious implications, even if it only happened 1 time to someone. The fact you could move around the "collective unconscious" and harvest it for information means we have to re-write all of science. And it is for this reason why I understand scientists like to stick to the easy to explain stuff, as opposed to the paranormal which is harder to prove via traditional methods since most of the things observed are not "physical" in nature.

[sgreger1]

I attribute your out of body experience examples to a wonderful and vivid imagination and ability to control one's own mind through meditation, etc. Step in and correct me if I'm wrong CoderGuy, but I didn't take your story of OBE on the beach to mean that you actually thought you were present elsewhere. Of course not, then it wouldn't be an out of body experience if you were there in any physical capacity. How about a dream, sgreger? Dreams can seem very real as we all know. Why couldn't someone train their mind to recreate this feeling while not in a deep sleep? So, again, sorry to offend anyone, but I call it imagination.

As for the whole 15% above chance thing: This was from one study, which Wikipedia noted was conducted by a Scientologist. He wanted the experiment to succeed. In my mind, he was not controlling well enough for evidence of a serious paranormal phenomenon. What does "chance" mean? If I want subjects in an experiment to prove that they can view distant objects of which they have no prior knowledge, I'm going to make sure the object cannot be stumbled upon or guessed by chance. For example: I guarantee the object I am looking at right now, on my desk at work, couldn't be guessed by anyone in any realistic time frame, even if I give vague clues: it was given to me by Mongolians, in Mongolia.

I asked the same questions you are asking. A dream can be recreated while waking, this is partially what crazy people experience, as well as those who believe jesus came to visit them in bed.

Roo, I am just going by the knowledge available to me. From my experience, the DOD is pretty good about science and being on the cutting edge of shit, and they believed they were receiving reliable intel (which was later confirmed to be correct) form these remote viewers. If they say the remote viewers were successfull, than how the **** did they do it? How did they know the soviet crane was there, and how did they discover a new type of submarine that even the CIA didn't know about at the time. How then did they get this knowledge, and why then did the government give medals to these people for successfully gathering intel that would have otehrwise been impossible to obtain.



As for the chance thing, that is a discussion on statistics, which is a discussion for another time. Whether that study is BS or not doesn't really matter, I know very litlte about these individual studies. What I do know is that the government claims they successfully gathered intel through this method, and I want to know how that is possible if science says it is impossible.