Skarekrow
~~DEVIL~~
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Well…sometime then (minus the threesome ((you fucking wish)).
Merkabah
- Thread starter Skarekrow
- Start date
Well…sometime then (minus the threesome ((you fucking wish)).
Skarekrow
~~DEVIL~~
- MBTI
- Ni-INFJ-A
- Enneagram
- Warlock
Keeping on topic with another thread just more in depth in one direction…
Enjoy! [MENTION=472]Poetic Justice[/MENTION] @dang
Based on my experiences with both states, I believe they are different.
The following is table 6.5 from chapter 6 of "With the Eyes of the Mind An Empirical Analysis of Out-of-Body States" by Gabbard and Twemlow (1984).
The book is an in-depth study of the OBE from a psychological perspective.
Each chapter compares OBE to a psychological phenomena to see how they stack up. One of the things they compare OBEs to is Lucid Dreams.
The chapter is called "More Real Than a Dream."
I'd like to comment on some of the findings described in the chart.
First, under D, I'd like to note that during Lucid Dreams, the dreamer is aware of him/herself as occupying the dream body, and is not aware of another (physical) body.
A lucid dreamer may "realize" they have a body that's sleeping, but they have no awareness of that sleeping body.
An OBEer also occupies his or her non-physical body, but often they are aware of their physical body in relation to where their consciousness is.
Under H, often the OBEer will see their physical body, but LDers do not.
Under G, lucid dreams have been classified into two categories:
(1) ones that occur during REM sleep, and
(2) ones that occur during non-REM (NREM) sleep.
As far as I know, most of the research in LDs has been on the second kind.
Although the data is lacking, studies on OBEs indicate they do not occur during REM sleep.
If anyone knows of research which contradicts this, I'd like more information/references.
Other differences:
In a lucid dream, typically one does not dream about being in one's bedroom, as is common in the out-of-body state.
Also, after a lucid dream, the subject accepts the "unreality" of the lucid dream after awakening.
After an OBE, the subject usually asserts emphatically that the experience was "real."
Many Lucid Dreams contain sexual content.
In fact, author Patricia Garfield indicates that "fully two-thirds" of her LDs have sexual content.
During LDs, sexuality is convincingly real.
In other words, it feels the same as real sex.
OBEs, however, rarely have sexual content.
When OBEers report having "astral sex," the experience is not anything like physical sex.
It's more like an ecstatic mind-trip, a transfer of energy, or a euphoria, but it doesn't feel like physical sex.
Lucid dreams are not easily remembered, unless one is conditioned.
LaBerge indicates that memory is a key factor of having Lucid Dreams.
OBEs, however, are usually remembered vividly for years.
Typical lucid dreams happen from REM sleep.
People don't unexpectedly pass into a lucid dream from a waking state.
But typical OBEs are initiated from a waking state.
In fact, OBEs canunexpectedly occur from a waking state.
For instance, several people (myself included) have reported OBEs during which they have unexpectedly "fallen out of their body" from total consciousness.
Some of these (mine included) occur when the physical body is active, such as walking down the street.
Also, an out-of-body experience is a typical feature of a Near Death Experience (NDE).
One can hardly think that Lucid Dreams occur during an NDE, especially because the physical body doesn't spontaneously go into REM sleep during an NDE.
LaBerge, in chapter 3 (page 61) of his (excellent) book "Lucid Dreaming" cites that "untested philosophical assumptions have until recently blocked the scientific study and acceptance of lucid dreaming."
And yet his untested philosophical assumptions about the OBE have biased people's attitudes against regarding the OBE as a separate phenomena worthy of scientific study.
As a result, many people have "written off" the OBE as a lucid dream of poor quality.
Regardless of what OBEs and Lucid Dreams are, I believe they are two separate phenomena, and I'm not alone in this belief (as supported by Gabbard and Twemlow).
I do believe that occasionally people confuse one experience for the other.
And granted: It's very difficult to tell the difference in some cases.
One thing is for sure: more study is needed.
It is premature to jump to the conclusion that "OBEs are actually variant interpretations of lucid dreams" as proposed by LaBerge in chapter 9 of his book.
Let the flaming begin.
Bob Peterson
peterson@sparc.isl.net
Reply Dean Walker
Dean Walker (dmwalker@cix.compulink.co.uk) 11 May 95 replies:
As a fairly regular lucid dreamer (usually at least 2 to 3 per month) who has put more effort into writing about lucid dreams than inducing them of late
I couldn't resist responding to your post.
I personally have never experienced an OBE, or at least my idea of what an out of body experience should be like.
I have experienced the disorientation, paralysis, tingling, and floating sensations when trying to induce an OBE, but have never succeeded in "separating".
These attempts have been from a starting point of waking consciousness, usually in the evening, where I allow myself to enter a state of total relaxation whilst lying on my back.
Despite my failures to deliberately induce an OBE, I have experienced floating sensations in the early morning which have resulted in what I generally regard as a lucid dream experience.
The "dream" begins with me floating out of bed and onto the floor.
I stand up and explore the house and surrounding environment.
Many might interpret this experience as an OBE, but I do not since it is not significantly different from my other lucid dreams.
Before I begin I should point out that I lean towards the point of view which regards OBEs and lucid dreams as a continuum of experience with considerable overlap in between.
Just so you know where I'm coming from.
So a few observations about the Gabbard and Twemlow chart:-
[TABLE="width: 100%"]
[TR]
[TH]
[/TH]
[TH]LUCID DREAM[/TH]
[TH]OBE[/TH]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD]A.[/TD]
[TD]50%-70% incidence in general population.[/TD]
[TD]14%-25% incidence in general population.[/TD]
[/TR]
[/TABLE]
I take it that the figure of 50%-70% refers to the number of people who claim to have had at least one lucid dream in their lifetimes.
Conservative estimates for incidence of lucid dreaming given by Snyder and Gackenbach (in "Conscious Mind, Sleeping Brain") based on several different studies give a figure of 58% of the population (USA I guess) having had at least one lucid dream during their lifetime.
However they quote the much smaller figure of 21% for those who report regular lucid dreams (at a frequency of one or more per month).
Hopefully in section A of the chart, like is being compared with like where 50%-70% lucid dreams is being compared with 14%-25% OBEs.
[TABLE="width: 100%"]
[TR]
[TD]B.[/TD]
[TD]Occurs only during sleep.[/TD]
[TD]Occurs usually when awake.[/TD]
[/TR]
[/TABLE]
This is a tricky one. Is it a characteristic of lucid dreams that they occur during sleep?
Or must a lucid dream occur during sleep by definition?
After all one of the things that defines a dream is the fact that it occurs when we sleep.
I think this is a difference in definitions and not in the experience.
In my opinion saying LD's only occur during sleep tells us nothing useful about how OBEs and lucid dreams compare.
It's just a consequence of how we have chosen to label these experiences.
Anyway you could argue that an OBE is a conscious transition into sleep, since the body is usually inactive.
And after all, one mans OBE induced from the waking state is another mans WILD (wake initiated lucid dream).
[TABLE="width: 100%"]
[TR]
[TD]C.[/TD]
[TD]Dreamer can consciously program the dream.[/TD]
[TD]OBEer is a passive, objective observer.[/TD]
[/TR]
[/TABLE]
Firstly it is not always possible to control the dream when lucid.
Lucidity is merely conscious awareness of the dream state.
A consequence of this is usually total control over your own actions, and sometimes control over wider aspects of the dream.
Secondly, lucid dreamers have to be objective observers for the most part, otherwise they risk becoming reabsorbed into the dream scenario and losing conscious awareness.
[TABLE="width: 100%"]
[TR]
[TD]D.[/TD]
[TD]Dreamer and physical body are still integrated.[/TD]
[TD]OBEer perceives him/herself as separated from the physical body, which is inert and thoughtless.[/TD]
[/TR]
[/TABLE]
This is just a question of how the dreamer and OBEer interpret their predicaments, and not necessarily anything to do with the difference between the experiences.
The dreamer often has a dream body which is quite separate from their physical body, but believes it to be a construction of their minds with no objective reality of its own.
However the OBEer, who often has a similar bodily perception, will probably view it as being an etheral or astral body which does have a separate and objective reality of its own. This belief is often re-inforced if the OBEer experiences separation and then perceives what they believe to be their inert physical body.
[TABLE="width: 100%"]
[TR]
[TD]E.[/TD]
[TD]Consciousness often vivid, with mystical qualities in experienced subjects.[/TD]
[TD]Consciousness more ordinary, like being awake, even in experienced subjects.[/TD]
[/TR]
[/TABLE]
Well, I've read a bit about OBEers travelling to distant planes of existence and meeting all sorts of wierd and wonderful non-physical beings, some of which are able to communicate with the OBEer via telepathy.
I've also read of realms of existence where perceptions are mixed up such that it is possible to hear colours and to see sounds, that kind of thing.
These sorts of experience are certainly not of any ordinary consciousness that I am familiar with.
I admit that there do seem to be two sorts of OBE account.
On the one hand there are those where the OBEer seems to be travelling in disembodied form throughout the objective reality that we all know and love (to hate?).
And on the other hand there are accounts of a more mystical nature, involving other realities which in some (most?) cases are apparently still objective realities.
This dichotomy is also true of what I regard to be lucid dreams.
I have lucid dreams where I possess more or less waking consciousness, where the dream environment is fairly stable (although differing from reality somewhat).
But I also have lucid dreams where I possess somewhat less of my waking faculty and find there to be much less stability and more elements of fantasy involved.
I personally have a theory (which was probably stolen from someone else, but if so I can't remember) that it is the integrity of our mental models of the world which dictate what we experience when sensory deprivation sets in.
The longer the period since we lost contact with the physical world, the more elements of fantasy that are likely to be involved.
Thus maintaining conscious awareness from waking through to the OBE/lucid dream state might result in a somewhat intact mental model which is perhaps reflected in the realistic perceptions of the room in which we physically (as opposed to mentally, spiritually or etherally) reside.
[TABLE="width: 100%"]
[TR]
[TD]F.[/TD]
[TD]Dream is seen as a totally personal (subjective) production of the dreamer's mind.[/TD]
[TD]OBEer does not see it as a subjective personal production, but rather as objective reality.[/TD]
[/TR]
[/TABLE]
Again this is just a statement of how the dreamer and OBEer interpret their experiences, and not a difference in the experiences themselves.
[TABLE="width: 100%"]
[TR]
[TD]G.[/TD]
[TD]EEG; REM dream type with occasional alpha.[/TD]
[TD]No typical REM findings on EEG.[/TD]
[/TR]
[/TABLE]
Can't comment on this, other than to say that if true, then this is the best evidence yet for a real difference between OBEs and lucid dreams.
[TABLE="width: 100%"]
[TR]
[TD]H.[/TD]
[TD]Physical body not visible.[/TD]
[TD]Physical body usually visible.[/TD]
[/TR]
[/TABLE]
I haven't seen my own body in a lucid dream, other than in a mirror or from the usual vantage point of the eyes in my head.
However I'm sure I've read accounts where lucid dreamers have seen a representation of their physically bodies within the dream (I'm sure someone can back me up here?).
This comes down to expectations I believe.
Expectations have an enormous effect on the imagery during dreams, and I see no reason why the same shouldn't be true for OBEs.
After all, not every OBEer precieves the legendary silver cord, and of those that do some report it as emerging from different points on the body to the solar plexus, such as the small of the back, the neck or the top of the head to name a few.
It seems to depend on where you expect to see it.
So whether a physical body is percieved or not depends on whether you expect to see a body or not, in my opinion.
[TABLE="width: 100%"]
[TR]
[TD]I.[/TD]
[TD]Fewer have a lasting positive impact.[/TD]
[TD]Usually a highly positive lasting impact.[/TD]
[/TR]
[/TABLE]
One of the traits of a lucid versus a non-lucid dream is the frequency with which lucid dreamers report positive carryover from the dream into their waking lives, sometimes with effects lasting a week or more.
Whilst it is possible that OBEs produce even greater and more frequent positive feeling than lucid dreams, this seems to be a characteristic which unites rather than separates the 2 experiences from each other.
As far as positive carryover goes, OBEs and Lucid dreams have more in common with each other than with other experiences such as non-lucid dreams (nightmares especially), or waking life for example.
Bob Peterson says:
An OBEer also occupies his or her non-physical body, but often they are aware of their physical body in relation to where their consciousness is.
I would say it is questionable as to whether an OBEer has awareness of their true physical bodies.
They perceive a representation of their physical bodies, but to say that it is their physical body is a hasty conclusion in my opinion.
Bob Peterson says:
Under H, often the OBEer will see their physical body, but LDers do not.
I'm sure other LDers may have something to say about this.
Bob Peterson says:
Under G, lucid dreams have been classified into two categories: (1) ones that occur during REM sleep, and (2) ones that occur during non-REM (NREM) sleep. As far as I know, most of the research in LDs has been on the second kind.
I don't think so.
As far as I know, the research into lucid dreams has been irrespective of the phase of sleep in which they occur.
However lucid dreaming is largely recognised as being a REM sleep phenomenon.
Hearne, LaBerge and others since have been able to prove that lucid dreams occur during normal REM sleep by asking test subjects to perform pre-arranged eye and fist clenching signals at lucidity onset.
The overwhelming majority of the signals were given during REM (as opposed to NREM) sleep.
Now that isn't to say that lucidity doesn't sometimes occur during NREM sleep also.
In fact LaBerge cites the case of a subject in his book "Lucid Dreaming" who was able to become lucid briefly during NREM stage 1 sleep. These lucid episodes were very short, lasting only a matter of seconds and perhaps could be better described as becoming aware or maintaining awareness within the hypnagogic state rather than being lucid within a dream.
Bob Peterson says:
In a lucid dream, typically one does not dream about being in one's bedroom, as is common in the out-of-body state.
Well you could question whether or not my experiences are lucid dreams or OBEs, but the majority of what I would describe as lucid dreams occur within the house I currently occupy and often begin specifically in my bedroom.
There are so many discrepancies with waking reality especially when I look at the surrounding landscape, that I can only conclude that I am dreaming.
I could try to invent a theory which might explain the discrepancies (such as parallel universes etc), but since the images are so unstable (they vary both between dreams and within the same dream), that it's just not worth it.
Dreaming fits so much better as an explanation in these cases.
Bob Peterson says:
Also, after a lucid dream, the subject accepts the "unreality" of the lucid dream after awakening. After an OBE, the subject usually asserts emphatically that the experience was "real."
Lucid dreams sometimes feel more real that reality.
This often leads lucid dreamers to ask themselves deep questions about the nature of reality itself.
But these questions are asked from a context of realising that everything that we perceive is based on our own mental models of the world, and not from the context of believing that the apparatus for perception has gone walk about during the night through physical or other realities.
If anything, the realisation that lucid dreamers come to is that what we take for granted as being reality is only a second hand representation in our minds.
That life is but a dream.
This seems to be an opposite kind of thinking to OBEers who believe that the clarity of perception and consciousness awareness that is present during their experiences is indicative of a first hand perception of reality from whatever vantage point the imagery might be suggesting.
The theory that I personally subscribe to is that we construct mental models which are highly accurate representations of our immediate environments, constantly being updated by our physical senses.
But when we sleep or are otherwise isolated from those senses, the mental models diverge from reality allowing us to perceive imagery from apparently impossible vantage points.
I believe that whenever we perceive anything, it is always with reference to the internal mental models and therefore any waking perceptions are heavily filtered and re-organised by our minds.
Bob Peterson says:
Lucid dreams are not easily remembered, unless one is conditioned. LaBerge indicates that memory is a key factor of having Lucid Dreams. OBEs, however, are usually remembered vividly for years.
I find this curious.
I too have read LaBerge stating that "without recall, even if you do have a lucid dream, you won't remember it".
Whilst I agree that I have had some lucid dreams where I have found it difficult to recall the details, the vast majority are as easy or even easier to remember than events which occur during waking life.
The more vivid the lucid dream the easier it is to remember.
And the fact that dreams often increase in brilliance at lucidity onset makes them much easier to remember.
Also conscious awareness seems to break the amnesia barrier (for me anyway), such that there is almost no noticeable transition or gap in consciousness from dreaming to waking.
Awakening from a non-lucid dream on the other hand is often associated with a period of disorientation and confusion, which hampers recall.
Bob Peterson says:
Some of these (mine included) occur when the physical body is active, such as walking down the street.
This must be a very weird sensation.
I can only assume that these occur as a result of some sort of withdrawal of the mind from its immediate sensory input.
I would agree that this sort of experience should be regarded as different from lucid dreaming, in that more is going on here than just vivid imagery during alert relaxation or dreaming.
Bob Peterson says:
LaBerge, in chapter 3 (page 61) of his (excellent) book "Lucid Dreaming" cites that "untested philosophical assumptions have until recently blocked the scientific study and acceptance of lucid dreaming." And yet is untested philosophical assumptions about the OBE have biased people's attitudes against regarding the OBE as a separate phenomena worthy of scientific study.
Possibly.
I can see that those people who are introduced to the subject of OBEs before lucid dreams are likely to see things differently from those introduced to lucid dreams first.
But the bottom line is that people make up their own minds about these things.
I think mainstream science has only ever been interested in studying safe subjects which fit in with current theories about the universe and from which clear-cut results can be achieved from experimentation.
It seems to me that the scientific study of lucid dreaming seems to have sky rocketed since the early eighties because those sorts of results were achieved, so I can see how it might seem that OBEs have been left on the fringe.
Bob Peterson says:
As a result, many people have "written off" the OBE as a lucid dream of poor quality.
I've never heard anyone write off OBEs as lucid dreams of poor quality.
If anything OBEs are a high quality experience because of the reported stability and duration that they seem have.
In my opinion the only inferiority (if I can call it that) that OBEs have is that perhaps the OBEer is making too many assumptions about what is actually happening and about what is real and what is imagined.
Because the OBEer believes that they are perceiving an objective reality, they might be imposing limits on themselves and the course of their experience.
However I have to admit that the comparison that LaBerge makes on p140 of "Lucid Dreaming" between OBEers and children at "Piaget's second stage" is a little bit demeaning.
The implication being that OBEers should grow up and become lucid dreamers.
I think the analogy was a bit unfortunate in that respect.
Bob Peterson says:
Regardless of what OBEs and Lucid Dreams are, I believe they are two separate phenomena, and I'm not alone in this belief (as supported by Gabbard and Twemlow). I do believe that occasionally people confuse one experience for the other. And granted: It's very difficult to tell the difference in some cases. One thing is for sure: more study is needed. It is premature to jump to the conclusion that "OBEs are actually variant interpretations of lucid dreams" as proposed by LaBerge in chapter 9 of his book.
As stated earlier I believe OBEs and LDs to be part of a continuum of experience with considerable overlap between them.
You could also extend the continuum I suppose to include all the different states of consciousness, again with a lot of overlap.
Perhaps it is premature to regard the 2 states as identical, but I think it is very worthwhile in exploring the possibility that they are the same thing or at least closely related.
And after all, OBE research might be benefiting from all the attention that lucid dreams seem to be getting by the scientific community.
Dean Walker
Re-Reply Bob Peterson
Bob Peterson (peterson@sparc.isl.net) 12 May 1995 replies:
Dean Walker says:
Do you claim that as I had this dream in which I was aware of both my dream body and my physical body, I was not lucid but rather had an OBE? I was undoubtedly in a dream world but I was able to feel my dream body and physical body at the same time.
Good comments!
Well, I suppose that it all depends on your definition of what a dream is, and your definition of what an OBE is.
In Susan Blackmore's book "Beyond the Body" she defines an OBE as "an experience in which one seems to perceive the world from a location outside the physical body."
She also is quick to point out that, "...the _experience_ of being out of the body is not equivalent to the fact of being out."
So perhaps you did have an OBE.
Perhaps "false awakenings" are dreams too.
What made you believe it was only a dream?
Was it due to the strength or quality of your consciousness during the experience?
Was it because the dream scenery seemed less "real"?
How do you define dreams anyway?
If a "dream" is defined as any "hallucination" experienced while the body is inanimate, then OBEs would fit into that category.
My point is that we can get into semantic problems here.
Dean Walker says:
I felt that I was lying on my left side in my bed. At the same time, I felt that I was floating. In the dream, I levitated in such a position that my head pointed to the opposite direction as in the real world. Very confusing to feel two opposite postures.
I've had OBEs during which I've had partial awareness of my body.
For example, I've had OBEs where I was floating above my body, yet when I opened my eyes, I saw from my body's perspective.
I agree: it's very confusing to feel two opposing sets of sensory data at the same time.
Again, what makes you so sure your experience was not an OBE?
Dean Walker says:
I did not but as I said, I think I was only lucid.
(snip)
After a false awakening, it seems to be typical to dream about being in one's own bedroom. In these kinds of dreams, both in lucid and not, my bedroom has never resembled my real bedroom on a large scale. Also it is said that by utilizing the so-called spinning technique, the dream world often changes to somewhat resemble the dreamer's bedroom.
Perhaps this all supports the theory that lucid dreams are really just poorly developed OBEs, rather than the other way around as some people insist.
Perhaps LDs are OBEs in which the scenery is manufactured by the mind, and therefore obscures the perceptions of another more objective OBE-world.
During the LD experience, you may realize that the dream scenery is not real, no matter how vividly real it seems.
After all, you know you are dreaming; you know your perceptions are not "real".
Perhaps in this LD your consciousness became more aware of perceptions from your OBE-consciousness which was located in your bedroom.
Notice that I did not assert anywhere that we are perceiving the physical world during an OBE.
I think that some people have misunderstood me on this point.
I believe that the OBE "world" has its own objective reality, which can be shared by others (e.g. having OBEs).
But the OBE world doesn't have to reflect what's happening in the physical world.
Anyway, somehow the scenery seems more "real" to OBEers than to Lucid Dream experiencers.
Bob
Addenum
Bob Peterson (peterson@sparc.isl.net) 28 Jul 1995 writes in alt.out-of-body:The recent article posted by The Lucidity Institute (which is also available on their WWW home page) is good. However, I'd like to give my $0.02 worth.
Problem #1:
The majority of their article seemed to use the argument that "OBEs must be the same as lucid dreams (LDs) because some lucid dreams resemble OBEs." That is like saying: "Apples are round fruit that grow on trees. Since oranges are also round fruit that grow on trees, apples must be oranges."
Actually, the argument is even more weak since they only claimed that "some" lucid dreams resembled OBEs.
If they want to study whether OBEs are the same as lucid dreams, they should produce some OBEs in their lab, not just LDs.
Problem #2:
What evidence do they have that their "lucid dreams" that had OBE symptoms, were in fact "lucid dreams"?
How did their subjects know they weren't having genuine OBEs?
Consider this conversation: Person 1 says, "Hey, listen to this unlabelled cassette tape. I think it's by Metallica!"
Person 2 listens and says, "It reminds me of other people's descriptions of Megadeth."
Person 1: "Hey, I bet Megadeth IS Metallica!"
But how do we know that Person 2 wasn't really listening to a Megadeth tape?
The point is, if the subjects were set up to expect a lucid dream, any genuine OBEs they had may have been interpreted as lucid dreams.
As I've said before, part of the problem is semantics.
How do you define an OBE?
How do you define an LD?
If you define an "out-of-body experience" as an experience where your body-image doesn't correspond with your physical body, then all ordinary dreams would qualify by that definition.
If you define a Lucid Dream as an experience of being conscious while your body is inanimate, then LDs and OBEs would fall into the same category.
Bob
Enjoy! [MENTION=472]Poetic Justice[/MENTION] @dang
Out-of-Body Experiences vs.
Lucid Dreams
By Bob Peterson
Are OBEs and Lucid Dreams the same phenomena?Lucid Dreams
By Bob Peterson
Based on my experiences with both states, I believe they are different.
The following is table 6.5 from chapter 6 of "With the Eyes of the Mind An Empirical Analysis of Out-of-Body States" by Gabbard and Twemlow (1984).
The book is an in-depth study of the OBE from a psychological perspective.
Each chapter compares OBE to a psychological phenomena to see how they stack up. One of the things they compare OBEs to is Lucid Dreams.
The chapter is called "More Real Than a Dream."
Comparison of Lucid Dreams and OBE
| LUCID DREAM | OBE | |
|---|---|---|
| A. | 50%-70% incidence in general population. | 14%-25% incidence in general population. |
| B. | Occurs only during sleep. | Occurs usually when awake. |
| C. | Dreamer can consciously program the dream. | OBEer is a passive, objective observer. |
| D. | Dreamer and physical body are still integrated. | OBEer perceives him/herself as separated from the physical body, which is inert and thoughtless. |
| E. | Consciousness often vivid, with mystical qualities in experienced subjects. | Consciousness more ordinary, like being awake, even in experienced subjects. |
| F. | Dream is seen as a totally personal (subjective) production of the dreamer's mind. | OBEer does not see it as a subjective personal production, but rather as objective reality. |
| G. | EEG; REM dream type with occasional alpha. | No typical REM findings on EEG. |
| H. | Physical body not visible. | Physical body usually visible. |
| I. | Fewer have a lasting positive impact. | Usually a highly positive lasting impact. |
I'd like to comment on some of the findings described in the chart.
First, under D, I'd like to note that during Lucid Dreams, the dreamer is aware of him/herself as occupying the dream body, and is not aware of another (physical) body.
A lucid dreamer may "realize" they have a body that's sleeping, but they have no awareness of that sleeping body.
An OBEer also occupies his or her non-physical body, but often they are aware of their physical body in relation to where their consciousness is.
Under H, often the OBEer will see their physical body, but LDers do not.
Under G, lucid dreams have been classified into two categories:
(1) ones that occur during REM sleep, and
(2) ones that occur during non-REM (NREM) sleep.
As far as I know, most of the research in LDs has been on the second kind.
Although the data is lacking, studies on OBEs indicate they do not occur during REM sleep.
If anyone knows of research which contradicts this, I'd like more information/references.
Other differences:
In a lucid dream, typically one does not dream about being in one's bedroom, as is common in the out-of-body state.
Also, after a lucid dream, the subject accepts the "unreality" of the lucid dream after awakening.
After an OBE, the subject usually asserts emphatically that the experience was "real."
Many Lucid Dreams contain sexual content.
In fact, author Patricia Garfield indicates that "fully two-thirds" of her LDs have sexual content.
During LDs, sexuality is convincingly real.
In other words, it feels the same as real sex.
OBEs, however, rarely have sexual content.
When OBEers report having "astral sex," the experience is not anything like physical sex.
It's more like an ecstatic mind-trip, a transfer of energy, or a euphoria, but it doesn't feel like physical sex.
Lucid dreams are not easily remembered, unless one is conditioned.
LaBerge indicates that memory is a key factor of having Lucid Dreams.
OBEs, however, are usually remembered vividly for years.
Typical lucid dreams happen from REM sleep.
People don't unexpectedly pass into a lucid dream from a waking state.
But typical OBEs are initiated from a waking state.
In fact, OBEs canunexpectedly occur from a waking state.
For instance, several people (myself included) have reported OBEs during which they have unexpectedly "fallen out of their body" from total consciousness.
Some of these (mine included) occur when the physical body is active, such as walking down the street.
Also, an out-of-body experience is a typical feature of a Near Death Experience (NDE).
One can hardly think that Lucid Dreams occur during an NDE, especially because the physical body doesn't spontaneously go into REM sleep during an NDE.
LaBerge, in chapter 3 (page 61) of his (excellent) book "Lucid Dreaming" cites that "untested philosophical assumptions have until recently blocked the scientific study and acceptance of lucid dreaming."
And yet his untested philosophical assumptions about the OBE have biased people's attitudes against regarding the OBE as a separate phenomena worthy of scientific study.
As a result, many people have "written off" the OBE as a lucid dream of poor quality.
Regardless of what OBEs and Lucid Dreams are, I believe they are two separate phenomena, and I'm not alone in this belief (as supported by Gabbard and Twemlow).
I do believe that occasionally people confuse one experience for the other.
And granted: It's very difficult to tell the difference in some cases.
One thing is for sure: more study is needed.
It is premature to jump to the conclusion that "OBEs are actually variant interpretations of lucid dreams" as proposed by LaBerge in chapter 9 of his book.
Let the flaming begin.
Bob Peterson
peterson@sparc.isl.net
Reply Dean Walker
Dean Walker (dmwalker@cix.compulink.co.uk) 11 May 95 replies:
As a fairly regular lucid dreamer (usually at least 2 to 3 per month) who has put more effort into writing about lucid dreams than inducing them of late
I couldn't resist responding to your post.
I personally have never experienced an OBE, or at least my idea of what an out of body experience should be like.
I have experienced the disorientation, paralysis, tingling, and floating sensations when trying to induce an OBE, but have never succeeded in "separating".
These attempts have been from a starting point of waking consciousness, usually in the evening, where I allow myself to enter a state of total relaxation whilst lying on my back.
Despite my failures to deliberately induce an OBE, I have experienced floating sensations in the early morning which have resulted in what I generally regard as a lucid dream experience.
The "dream" begins with me floating out of bed and onto the floor.
I stand up and explore the house and surrounding environment.
Many might interpret this experience as an OBE, but I do not since it is not significantly different from my other lucid dreams.
Before I begin I should point out that I lean towards the point of view which regards OBEs and lucid dreams as a continuum of experience with considerable overlap in between.
Just so you know where I'm coming from.
So a few observations about the Gabbard and Twemlow chart:-
[TABLE="width: 100%"]
[TR]
[TH]
[/TH]
[TH]LUCID DREAM[/TH]
[TH]OBE[/TH]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD]A.[/TD]
[TD]50%-70% incidence in general population.[/TD]
[TD]14%-25% incidence in general population.[/TD]
[/TR]
[/TABLE]
I take it that the figure of 50%-70% refers to the number of people who claim to have had at least one lucid dream in their lifetimes.
Conservative estimates for incidence of lucid dreaming given by Snyder and Gackenbach (in "Conscious Mind, Sleeping Brain") based on several different studies give a figure of 58% of the population (USA I guess) having had at least one lucid dream during their lifetime.
However they quote the much smaller figure of 21% for those who report regular lucid dreams (at a frequency of one or more per month).
Hopefully in section A of the chart, like is being compared with like where 50%-70% lucid dreams is being compared with 14%-25% OBEs.
[TABLE="width: 100%"]
[TR]
[TD]B.[/TD]
[TD]Occurs only during sleep.[/TD]
[TD]Occurs usually when awake.[/TD]
[/TR]
[/TABLE]
This is a tricky one. Is it a characteristic of lucid dreams that they occur during sleep?
Or must a lucid dream occur during sleep by definition?
After all one of the things that defines a dream is the fact that it occurs when we sleep.
I think this is a difference in definitions and not in the experience.
In my opinion saying LD's only occur during sleep tells us nothing useful about how OBEs and lucid dreams compare.
It's just a consequence of how we have chosen to label these experiences.
Anyway you could argue that an OBE is a conscious transition into sleep, since the body is usually inactive.
And after all, one mans OBE induced from the waking state is another mans WILD (wake initiated lucid dream).
[TABLE="width: 100%"]
[TR]
[TD]C.[/TD]
[TD]Dreamer can consciously program the dream.[/TD]
[TD]OBEer is a passive, objective observer.[/TD]
[/TR]
[/TABLE]
Firstly it is not always possible to control the dream when lucid.
Lucidity is merely conscious awareness of the dream state.
A consequence of this is usually total control over your own actions, and sometimes control over wider aspects of the dream.
Secondly, lucid dreamers have to be objective observers for the most part, otherwise they risk becoming reabsorbed into the dream scenario and losing conscious awareness.
[TABLE="width: 100%"]
[TR]
[TD]D.[/TD]
[TD]Dreamer and physical body are still integrated.[/TD]
[TD]OBEer perceives him/herself as separated from the physical body, which is inert and thoughtless.[/TD]
[/TR]
[/TABLE]
This is just a question of how the dreamer and OBEer interpret their predicaments, and not necessarily anything to do with the difference between the experiences.
The dreamer often has a dream body which is quite separate from their physical body, but believes it to be a construction of their minds with no objective reality of its own.
However the OBEer, who often has a similar bodily perception, will probably view it as being an etheral or astral body which does have a separate and objective reality of its own. This belief is often re-inforced if the OBEer experiences separation and then perceives what they believe to be their inert physical body.
[TABLE="width: 100%"]
[TR]
[TD]E.[/TD]
[TD]Consciousness often vivid, with mystical qualities in experienced subjects.[/TD]
[TD]Consciousness more ordinary, like being awake, even in experienced subjects.[/TD]
[/TR]
[/TABLE]
Well, I've read a bit about OBEers travelling to distant planes of existence and meeting all sorts of wierd and wonderful non-physical beings, some of which are able to communicate with the OBEer via telepathy.
I've also read of realms of existence where perceptions are mixed up such that it is possible to hear colours and to see sounds, that kind of thing.
These sorts of experience are certainly not of any ordinary consciousness that I am familiar with.
I admit that there do seem to be two sorts of OBE account.
On the one hand there are those where the OBEer seems to be travelling in disembodied form throughout the objective reality that we all know and love (to hate?).
And on the other hand there are accounts of a more mystical nature, involving other realities which in some (most?) cases are apparently still objective realities.
This dichotomy is also true of what I regard to be lucid dreams.
I have lucid dreams where I possess more or less waking consciousness, where the dream environment is fairly stable (although differing from reality somewhat).
But I also have lucid dreams where I possess somewhat less of my waking faculty and find there to be much less stability and more elements of fantasy involved.
I personally have a theory (which was probably stolen from someone else, but if so I can't remember) that it is the integrity of our mental models of the world which dictate what we experience when sensory deprivation sets in.
The longer the period since we lost contact with the physical world, the more elements of fantasy that are likely to be involved.
Thus maintaining conscious awareness from waking through to the OBE/lucid dream state might result in a somewhat intact mental model which is perhaps reflected in the realistic perceptions of the room in which we physically (as opposed to mentally, spiritually or etherally) reside.
[TABLE="width: 100%"]
[TR]
[TD]F.[/TD]
[TD]Dream is seen as a totally personal (subjective) production of the dreamer's mind.[/TD]
[TD]OBEer does not see it as a subjective personal production, but rather as objective reality.[/TD]
[/TR]
[/TABLE]
Again this is just a statement of how the dreamer and OBEer interpret their experiences, and not a difference in the experiences themselves.
[TABLE="width: 100%"]
[TR]
[TD]G.[/TD]
[TD]EEG; REM dream type with occasional alpha.[/TD]
[TD]No typical REM findings on EEG.[/TD]
[/TR]
[/TABLE]
Can't comment on this, other than to say that if true, then this is the best evidence yet for a real difference between OBEs and lucid dreams.
[TABLE="width: 100%"]
[TR]
[TD]H.[/TD]
[TD]Physical body not visible.[/TD]
[TD]Physical body usually visible.[/TD]
[/TR]
[/TABLE]
I haven't seen my own body in a lucid dream, other than in a mirror or from the usual vantage point of the eyes in my head.
However I'm sure I've read accounts where lucid dreamers have seen a representation of their physically bodies within the dream (I'm sure someone can back me up here?).
This comes down to expectations I believe.
Expectations have an enormous effect on the imagery during dreams, and I see no reason why the same shouldn't be true for OBEs.
After all, not every OBEer precieves the legendary silver cord, and of those that do some report it as emerging from different points on the body to the solar plexus, such as the small of the back, the neck or the top of the head to name a few.
It seems to depend on where you expect to see it.
So whether a physical body is percieved or not depends on whether you expect to see a body or not, in my opinion.
[TABLE="width: 100%"]
[TR]
[TD]I.[/TD]
[TD]Fewer have a lasting positive impact.[/TD]
[TD]Usually a highly positive lasting impact.[/TD]
[/TR]
[/TABLE]
One of the traits of a lucid versus a non-lucid dream is the frequency with which lucid dreamers report positive carryover from the dream into their waking lives, sometimes with effects lasting a week or more.
Whilst it is possible that OBEs produce even greater and more frequent positive feeling than lucid dreams, this seems to be a characteristic which unites rather than separates the 2 experiences from each other.
As far as positive carryover goes, OBEs and Lucid dreams have more in common with each other than with other experiences such as non-lucid dreams (nightmares especially), or waking life for example.
Bob Peterson says:
An OBEer also occupies his or her non-physical body, but often they are aware of their physical body in relation to where their consciousness is.
They perceive a representation of their physical bodies, but to say that it is their physical body is a hasty conclusion in my opinion.
Bob Peterson says:
Under H, often the OBEer will see their physical body, but LDers do not.
Bob Peterson says:
Under G, lucid dreams have been classified into two categories: (1) ones that occur during REM sleep, and (2) ones that occur during non-REM (NREM) sleep. As far as I know, most of the research in LDs has been on the second kind.
As far as I know, the research into lucid dreams has been irrespective of the phase of sleep in which they occur.
However lucid dreaming is largely recognised as being a REM sleep phenomenon.
Hearne, LaBerge and others since have been able to prove that lucid dreams occur during normal REM sleep by asking test subjects to perform pre-arranged eye and fist clenching signals at lucidity onset.
The overwhelming majority of the signals were given during REM (as opposed to NREM) sleep.
Now that isn't to say that lucidity doesn't sometimes occur during NREM sleep also.
In fact LaBerge cites the case of a subject in his book "Lucid Dreaming" who was able to become lucid briefly during NREM stage 1 sleep. These lucid episodes were very short, lasting only a matter of seconds and perhaps could be better described as becoming aware or maintaining awareness within the hypnagogic state rather than being lucid within a dream.
Bob Peterson says:
In a lucid dream, typically one does not dream about being in one's bedroom, as is common in the out-of-body state.
There are so many discrepancies with waking reality especially when I look at the surrounding landscape, that I can only conclude that I am dreaming.
I could try to invent a theory which might explain the discrepancies (such as parallel universes etc), but since the images are so unstable (they vary both between dreams and within the same dream), that it's just not worth it.
Dreaming fits so much better as an explanation in these cases.
Bob Peterson says:
Also, after a lucid dream, the subject accepts the "unreality" of the lucid dream after awakening. After an OBE, the subject usually asserts emphatically that the experience was "real."
This often leads lucid dreamers to ask themselves deep questions about the nature of reality itself.
But these questions are asked from a context of realising that everything that we perceive is based on our own mental models of the world, and not from the context of believing that the apparatus for perception has gone walk about during the night through physical or other realities.
If anything, the realisation that lucid dreamers come to is that what we take for granted as being reality is only a second hand representation in our minds.
That life is but a dream.
This seems to be an opposite kind of thinking to OBEers who believe that the clarity of perception and consciousness awareness that is present during their experiences is indicative of a first hand perception of reality from whatever vantage point the imagery might be suggesting.
The theory that I personally subscribe to is that we construct mental models which are highly accurate representations of our immediate environments, constantly being updated by our physical senses.
But when we sleep or are otherwise isolated from those senses, the mental models diverge from reality allowing us to perceive imagery from apparently impossible vantage points.
I believe that whenever we perceive anything, it is always with reference to the internal mental models and therefore any waking perceptions are heavily filtered and re-organised by our minds.
Bob Peterson says:
Lucid dreams are not easily remembered, unless one is conditioned. LaBerge indicates that memory is a key factor of having Lucid Dreams. OBEs, however, are usually remembered vividly for years.
I too have read LaBerge stating that "without recall, even if you do have a lucid dream, you won't remember it".
Whilst I agree that I have had some lucid dreams where I have found it difficult to recall the details, the vast majority are as easy or even easier to remember than events which occur during waking life.
The more vivid the lucid dream the easier it is to remember.
And the fact that dreams often increase in brilliance at lucidity onset makes them much easier to remember.
Also conscious awareness seems to break the amnesia barrier (for me anyway), such that there is almost no noticeable transition or gap in consciousness from dreaming to waking.
Awakening from a non-lucid dream on the other hand is often associated with a period of disorientation and confusion, which hampers recall.
Bob Peterson says:
Some of these (mine included) occur when the physical body is active, such as walking down the street.
I can only assume that these occur as a result of some sort of withdrawal of the mind from its immediate sensory input.
I would agree that this sort of experience should be regarded as different from lucid dreaming, in that more is going on here than just vivid imagery during alert relaxation or dreaming.
Bob Peterson says:
LaBerge, in chapter 3 (page 61) of his (excellent) book "Lucid Dreaming" cites that "untested philosophical assumptions have until recently blocked the scientific study and acceptance of lucid dreaming." And yet is untested philosophical assumptions about the OBE have biased people's attitudes against regarding the OBE as a separate phenomena worthy of scientific study.
I can see that those people who are introduced to the subject of OBEs before lucid dreams are likely to see things differently from those introduced to lucid dreams first.
But the bottom line is that people make up their own minds about these things.
I think mainstream science has only ever been interested in studying safe subjects which fit in with current theories about the universe and from which clear-cut results can be achieved from experimentation.
It seems to me that the scientific study of lucid dreaming seems to have sky rocketed since the early eighties because those sorts of results were achieved, so I can see how it might seem that OBEs have been left on the fringe.
Bob Peterson says:
As a result, many people have "written off" the OBE as a lucid dream of poor quality.
If anything OBEs are a high quality experience because of the reported stability and duration that they seem have.
In my opinion the only inferiority (if I can call it that) that OBEs have is that perhaps the OBEer is making too many assumptions about what is actually happening and about what is real and what is imagined.
Because the OBEer believes that they are perceiving an objective reality, they might be imposing limits on themselves and the course of their experience.
However I have to admit that the comparison that LaBerge makes on p140 of "Lucid Dreaming" between OBEers and children at "Piaget's second stage" is a little bit demeaning.
The implication being that OBEers should grow up and become lucid dreamers.
I think the analogy was a bit unfortunate in that respect.
Bob Peterson says:
Regardless of what OBEs and Lucid Dreams are, I believe they are two separate phenomena, and I'm not alone in this belief (as supported by Gabbard and Twemlow). I do believe that occasionally people confuse one experience for the other. And granted: It's very difficult to tell the difference in some cases. One thing is for sure: more study is needed. It is premature to jump to the conclusion that "OBEs are actually variant interpretations of lucid dreams" as proposed by LaBerge in chapter 9 of his book.
You could also extend the continuum I suppose to include all the different states of consciousness, again with a lot of overlap.
Perhaps it is premature to regard the 2 states as identical, but I think it is very worthwhile in exploring the possibility that they are the same thing or at least closely related.
And after all, OBE research might be benefiting from all the attention that lucid dreams seem to be getting by the scientific community.
Dean Walker
Re-Reply Bob Peterson
Bob Peterson (peterson@sparc.isl.net) 12 May 1995 replies:
Dean Walker says:
Do you claim that as I had this dream in which I was aware of both my dream body and my physical body, I was not lucid but rather had an OBE? I was undoubtedly in a dream world but I was able to feel my dream body and physical body at the same time.
Well, I suppose that it all depends on your definition of what a dream is, and your definition of what an OBE is.
In Susan Blackmore's book "Beyond the Body" she defines an OBE as "an experience in which one seems to perceive the world from a location outside the physical body."
She also is quick to point out that, "...the _experience_ of being out of the body is not equivalent to the fact of being out."
So perhaps you did have an OBE.
Perhaps "false awakenings" are dreams too.
What made you believe it was only a dream?
Was it due to the strength or quality of your consciousness during the experience?
Was it because the dream scenery seemed less "real"?
How do you define dreams anyway?
If a "dream" is defined as any "hallucination" experienced while the body is inanimate, then OBEs would fit into that category.
My point is that we can get into semantic problems here.
Dean Walker says:
I felt that I was lying on my left side in my bed. At the same time, I felt that I was floating. In the dream, I levitated in such a position that my head pointed to the opposite direction as in the real world. Very confusing to feel two opposite postures.
For example, I've had OBEs where I was floating above my body, yet when I opened my eyes, I saw from my body's perspective.
I agree: it's very confusing to feel two opposing sets of sensory data at the same time.
Again, what makes you so sure your experience was not an OBE?
Dean Walker says:
I did not but as I said, I think I was only lucid.
(snip)
After a false awakening, it seems to be typical to dream about being in one's own bedroom. In these kinds of dreams, both in lucid and not, my bedroom has never resembled my real bedroom on a large scale. Also it is said that by utilizing the so-called spinning technique, the dream world often changes to somewhat resemble the dreamer's bedroom.
Perhaps LDs are OBEs in which the scenery is manufactured by the mind, and therefore obscures the perceptions of another more objective OBE-world.
During the LD experience, you may realize that the dream scenery is not real, no matter how vividly real it seems.
After all, you know you are dreaming; you know your perceptions are not "real".
Perhaps in this LD your consciousness became more aware of perceptions from your OBE-consciousness which was located in your bedroom.
Notice that I did not assert anywhere that we are perceiving the physical world during an OBE.
I think that some people have misunderstood me on this point.
I believe that the OBE "world" has its own objective reality, which can be shared by others (e.g. having OBEs).
But the OBE world doesn't have to reflect what's happening in the physical world.
Anyway, somehow the scenery seems more "real" to OBEers than to Lucid Dream experiencers.
Bob
Addenum
Bob Peterson (peterson@sparc.isl.net) 28 Jul 1995 writes in alt.out-of-body:The recent article posted by The Lucidity Institute (which is also available on their WWW home page) is good. However, I'd like to give my $0.02 worth.
Problem #1:
The majority of their article seemed to use the argument that "OBEs must be the same as lucid dreams (LDs) because some lucid dreams resemble OBEs." That is like saying: "Apples are round fruit that grow on trees. Since oranges are also round fruit that grow on trees, apples must be oranges."
Actually, the argument is even more weak since they only claimed that "some" lucid dreams resembled OBEs.
If they want to study whether OBEs are the same as lucid dreams, they should produce some OBEs in their lab, not just LDs.
Problem #2:
What evidence do they have that their "lucid dreams" that had OBE symptoms, were in fact "lucid dreams"?
How did their subjects know they weren't having genuine OBEs?
Consider this conversation: Person 1 says, "Hey, listen to this unlabelled cassette tape. I think it's by Metallica!"
Person 2 listens and says, "It reminds me of other people's descriptions of Megadeth."
Person 1: "Hey, I bet Megadeth IS Metallica!"
But how do we know that Person 2 wasn't really listening to a Megadeth tape?
The point is, if the subjects were set up to expect a lucid dream, any genuine OBEs they had may have been interpreted as lucid dreams.
As I've said before, part of the problem is semantics.
How do you define an OBE?
How do you define an LD?
If you define an "out-of-body experience" as an experience where your body-image doesn't correspond with your physical body, then all ordinary dreams would qualify by that definition.
If you define a Lucid Dream as an experience of being conscious while your body is inanimate, then LDs and OBEs would fall into the same category.
Bob
Skarekrow
~~DEVIL~~
- MBTI
- Ni-INFJ-A
- Enneagram
- Warlock
Pronoia is a neologism that is defined as the opposite state of mind to paranoia: having the sense that there is a conspiracy that exists to help the person.
It is also used to describe a philosophy that the world is set up to secretly benefit people.
In 2008 the writer and Electronic Frontier Foundation co-founder John Perry Barlow defined pronoia as
"the suspicion the Universe is a conspiracy on your behalf".[SUP][1]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pronoia_(psychology)
[/SUP]
TORRENTIAL PRONOIA THERAPY
Experiments and exercises in becoming a blasphemously reverent, lustfully compassionate,
eternally changing Master of Transgressive Beauty
It is also used to describe a philosophy that the world is set up to secretly benefit people.
In 2008 the writer and Electronic Frontier Foundation co-founder John Perry Barlow defined pronoia as
"the suspicion the Universe is a conspiracy on your behalf".[SUP][1]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pronoia_(psychology)
[/SUP]
TORRENTIAL PRONOIA THERAPY
Experiments and exercises in becoming a blasphemously reverent, lustfully compassionate,
eternally changing Master of Transgressive Beauty
1. Take inventory of the extent to which your "No" reflex dominates your life.
Notice for 24 hours (even in your dreams) how often you say or think:
"No."
"That's not right."
"I don't like them."
"I don't agree with that."
"They don't like me."
"That should be different from what it is."
Start the transformation by saying "YES" aloud 22 times right now.
2. Go to the ugliest or most forlorn place you know -- a drugstore parking lot, the front porch of a crack house, a toxic waste dump, or the place that symbolizes your secret shame -- and build a shrine devoted to beauty, truth, and love.
Here are some suggestions about what to put in your shrine: a silk scarf; a smooth rock on which you've inscribed a haiku or joke with a felt-tip pen; coconut cookies or ginger candy; pumpkin seeds and an origami crane; a green kite shaped like a dragon; a music CD you love; a photo of your hero; a votive candle carved with your word of power; a rubber ducky; a bouquet of fresh beets; a print of Van Gogh’s Starry Night.
3. Late at night when there's no traffic, stride down the middle of an empty road that by day is crawling with cars.
Dance, careen, and sing songs that fill you with pleasurable emotions.
Splay your arms triumphantly as you extemporize prayers in which you make extravagant demands and promises.
Give pet names to the trees you pass, declare your admiration for the workers who made the road, and celebrate your sovereignty over a territory that usually belongs to heavy machines and their operators.
4. What causes happiness?
Brainstorm about it.
Map out the foundations of your personal science of joy.
Get serious about defining what makes you feel good.
To get you started, I'll name some experiences that might rouse your gratification: engaging in sensual pleasure; seeking the truth; being kind and moral; contemplating the meaning of life; escaping your routine; purging pent-up emotions.
Do any of these work for you?
Name at least ten more.
5. Have you ever seen the game called "Playing the Dozens"?
Participants compete in the exercise of hurling witty insults at each other.
Here are some examples: "You're so dumb, if you spoke your mind you'd be speechless."
"Your mother is so old, she was a waitress at the Last Supper."
"You're so ugly, you couldn't get laid if you were a brick."
I invite you to rebel against any impulse in you that resonates with the spirit of "Playing the Dozens."
Instead, try a new game, "Paying the Tributes."
Choose worthy targets and ransack your imagination to come up with smart, true, and amusing praise about them.
The best stuff will be specific to the person you're addressing, not generic, but here are some prototypes: "You're so far-seeing, you can probably catch a glimpse of the back of your own head.”
"You're so ingenious, you could use your nightmares to get rich and famous."
"Your mastery of pronoia is so artful, you could convince me to love my worst enemy."
6. Salvador Dalà once staged a party in which guests were told to come disguised as characters from their nightmares.
Do the reverse.
Throw a bash in which everyone is invited to arrive dressed as a character from the most glorious dream they remember.
7. On a big piece of cardboard, make a sign that says, "I love to help; I need to give; please take some money."
Then go out and stand on a traffic island while wearing your best clothes, and give away money to passing motorists.
Offer a little more to drivers in rusty brown Pinto station wagons and 1976 El Camino Classics than those in a late-model Lexus or Jaguar.
8. In response to our culture's ever-rising levels of noise and frenzy, rites of purification have become more popular.
Many people now recognize the value of taking periodic retreats.
Withdrawing from their usual compulsions, they go on fasts, avoid mass media, practice celibacy, or even abstain from speaking.
While we applaud cleansing ceremonies like this, we recommend balancing them with periodic outbreaks of an equal and opposite custom: the Bliss Blitz.
During this celebration, you tune out the numbing banality of the daily grind.
But instead of shrinking into asceticism, you indulge in uninhibited explorations of joy, release, and expansion.
Turning away from the mildly stimulating distractions you seek out when you're bored or worried, you become inexhaustibly resourceful as you search for unsurpassable sources of cathartic pleasure.
Try it for a day or a week: the Bliss Blitz.
9. When many people talk about their childhoods, they emphasize the alienating, traumatic experiences they had, and fail to report the good times.
This seems dishonest–a testament to the popularity of cynicism rather than a reflection of objective truth.
I don't mean to downplay the way your early encounters with pain demoralized your spirit.
But as you reconnoiter the promise of pronoia, it's crucial for you to extol the gifts you were given in your early years: all the helpful encounters, kind teachings, and simple acts of grace that helped you bloom.
In Homer's epic tale The Odyssey, he described nepenthe, a mythical drug that induced the forgetfulness of pain and trouble.
I'd like to imagine, in contrast, a potion that stirs up memories of delight, serenity, and fulfillment.
Fantasize that you have taken such a tonic.
Spend an hour or two remembering the glorious moments from your past.
10. "You can't wait for inspiration," proclaimed writer Jack London.
"You have to go after it with a club."
That sounds too violent to me, though I agree in principle that aggressiveness is the best policy in one's relationship with inspiration.
Try this: Don't wait for inspiration.
Go after it with a butterfly net, lasso, sweet treats, fishing rod, court orders, beguiling smells, and sincere flattery.
11. Become a rapturist, which is the opposite of a terrorist: Conspire to unleash blessings on unsuspecting recipients, causing them to feel good.
Before bringing your work as a rapturist to strangers, practice with two close companions.
Offer them each a gift that fires up their ambitions.
It should not be a practical necessity or consumer fetish, but rather a provocative tool or toy.
Give them an imaginative boon they've been hesitant to ask for, a beautiful thing that expands their self-image, a surprising intervention that says, "I love the way you move me."
12. "There are two ways for a person to look for adventure," said the Lone Ranger, an old TV character.
"By tearing everything down, or building everything up."
Give an example of each from your own life.
13. To many people, "sacrifice" is a demoralizing word that connotes deprivation.
Is that how you feel?
Do you make sacrifices because you're forced to, or maybe because your generosity prompts you to incur a loss in order to further a good cause?
Originally, "sacrifice" had a different meaning: to give up something valuable in order that something even more valuable might be obtained.
Carry out an action that embodies this definition.
For instance, sacrifice a mediocre pleasure so as to free yourself to pursue a more exalted pleasure.
14. What is the holiest river in the world?
Some might say the Ganges in India.
Others would propose the Jordan River or the River Nile.
But I say the holiest river is the one that's closest to where you are right now.
Go to that river and commune with it.
Throw a small treasure into it as an offering.
Next, find a holy sidewalk to walk on, praise the holiness in a bus driver, kiss a holy tree, and shop at a holy store.
15. Are other people luckier than you?
If so, psychologist Richard Wiseman says you can do something about it.
His book The Luck Factor presents research that proves you can learn to be lucky.
It's not a mystical force you're born with, he says, but a habit you can develop.
How?
For starters, be open to new experiences, trust your gut wisdom, expect good fortune, see the bright side of challenging events, and master the art of maximizing serendipitous opportunities.
Name three specific actions you'll try in order to improve your luck.
16. Entomologist Justin O. Schmidt drew up an index to categorize the discomfort caused by stinging insects.
The attack of the bald-faced hornet is "rich, hearty, slightly crunchy. Similar to getting your hand mashed in a revolving door."
A paper wasp delivers pain that's "caustic and burning," with a "distinctly bitter aftertaste. Like spilling a beaker of hydrochloric acid on a paper cut."
The sweat bee, on the other hand, can hurt you in a way that's "light, ephemeral, almost fruity.
A tiny spark has singed a single hair on your arm."
In bringing this to your attention, I want to inspire the pronoiac rebel in you.
Your homework is to create an equally nuanced and precise index of three experiences that feel really good.
17. Some scholars believe the original Garden of Eden was where Iraq stands today.
Though remnants of that ancient paradise survived into modern times, many were obliterated during the American war on Iraq.
A Beauty and Truth Lab researcher who lives near the confluence of the Tigris and Euphrates Rivers kept us posted on the fate of the most famous remnant: the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil.
Until the invasion, it was a gnarled stump near Nasiriyah.
But today it's gone; only a crater remains.
Let this serve as an evocative symbol for you as you demolish your old ideas about paradise, freeing you up to conjure a fresh vision of your ideal realm.
18. "Two chemicals called actin and myosin evolved eons ago to allow the muscles in insect wings to contract and relax," writes Deepak Chopra in The Book of Secrets.
"Today, the same two proteins are responsible for the beating of the human heart."
If you use your imagination, you can sense the connection between the flight of a dragonfly and the intelligent organ that renews its commitment to *keeping you alive every second of your life.
So use your imagination.
19. Is the world a dangerous, chaotic place with no inherent purpose, running on automatic like a malfunctioning machine and fundamentally inimical to your happiness?
Or are you surrounded by helpers in a friendly universe that gives you challenges in order to make you smarter and wilder and kinder and trickier?
Trick questions!
The answers may depend, at least to some degree, on what you believe is true.
Formulate a series of experiments that will allow you to objectively test the hypothesis that the universe is conspiring to help you.
20. The primary meaning of the word "healing" is "to cure what's diseased or broken."
Medical practitioners focus on sick people.
Philanthropists donate their money and social workers contribute their time to helping the underprivileged.
Psychotherapists wrestle with their clients' traumas and neuroses.
I'm in awe of them all.
The level of one's spiritual wisdom, I believe, is more accurately measured by helping people in need than by meditation skills, shamanic shapeshifting, supernatural powers, or esoteric knowledge.
But I also believe in a second kind of healing that is largely unrecognized: to supercharge what is already healthy; to lift up what's merely sufficient to a sublime state.
Using this definition, describe two acts of healing: one you would enjoy performing on yourself and another you'd like to provide for someone you love.
P.S. What would the world look like if there were doctors who specialized in fostering robust health in their patients?
What if the textbooks that psychotherapists used to evaluate their clients were crammed not just with descriptions of pathological states, but also with a catalogue of every variety of bliss, integrity, magnanimity, eros, and wisdom?
Imagine how odd and wonderful it would be if universities began turning out professionals in a brand new field, the science of happiness.
21. Those who explore pronoia often find they have a growing capacity to help people laugh at themselves.
While few arbiters of morality recognize this skill as a mark of high character, I put it near the top of my list.
In my view, inducing people to take themselves less seriously is a supreme virtue.
Do you have any interest in cultivating it?
How might you go about it?
22 "Creativity is like driving a car at night," said E. L. Doctorow.
"You never see further than your headlights, but you can make the whole trip that way."
I would add that life itself is like driving a car at night.
You're often in the dark except for what's right in front of you.
At least that's usually the case.
But for a few shining hours sometime soon, I predict you'll be able to see the big picture of where you're headed.
It will be as if the whole world is suddenly illuminated by a prolonged burst of light; as if you're both driving your car and also watching your journey from high above.
Write about what you see.
- MBTI
- INFJ
- Enneagram
- 9 Mediator
As I was reading down through the various definitions and categories for defining LD's and OBE's I began wondering what one would call what I have experienced.
When I have these occurrences....I am awake...usually sitting in a chair or dancing...I seem to be transported to a different time and place even though my body is still in the chair.... I interact with other Beings...merge with them....feel their pain, thoughts and emotions....have taken action on their behalf...and come "back" to my self sitting in the chair ...shaken but not stirred.
I've also popped through the veil to see inanimate objects move, beings pop out of trees, and one time I saw the face of a Blue Being off 100 feet away floating above the grass keeping watch on me. It was startled to see that I could see them. Hahahahahaha.....but not near as startled as I was at seeing them! Likewise for when the Dragon popped out of the magnolia tree and scared the piss out of me. Hah!
Not to mention I've had a man die one day and then show up fully manifested in his human body the next day in my home to thank me.
I've talked with a few other people now who have had experiences like that. What happened in that few minutes he was there? Was I there with him in 4d? Was he here with me in 3d in a 4d body? I could still feel me in my human body...as if I didn't go anywhere. But I could feel his body too as he hugged me and telepathically told me a lot of stuff. I also merged with another lifetime where I took revenge and ended up killing him "then" in "that time". So I was here...and there...and "then"...all in the space of about 5 minutes. The energy was so intense it felt like I was Frodo with the ring on and the ringwraiths could see me.
What does "science" call those kinds of experiences?
Personally I feel we are shifting our consciousness up a notch in frequency and we phase in to it to experience it in some way. Whether that be an observer role or an active role makes no difference. We slightly shift out of phase with the lower 3d self and therefore experience whatever exists in the next frequencies....while simultaneously maintaining a 3d physical form.
This is what is meant by saying: being Multidimensional.
Skarekrow
~~DEVIL~~
- MBTI
- Ni-INFJ-A
- Enneagram
- Warlock
Curious!
You know I don’t do UFO stuff too often...so for those of you who enjoy UFO info, this one is for you!
Enjoy!
Scottish systems administrator Gary McKinnon fought a decade-long legal battle after allegedly performing what may be the largest U.S. military computer hack of all time.
Fresh from successfully battling extradition to the U.S. to face these charges, he recently gave an interview which outlines what he found while hacking NASA and U.S. military computers back in 2001.
In the interview, with Richard Hall on UFO channel RichPlanet TV, he details the hack, saying: “I kept going for months and months. I kept thinking, ‘They’re going to close this door.’”
Most notable of McKinnon’s claims is that NASA edits its images and videos from space to remove evidence of extraterrestrial craft before subsequently releasing them to the public.
What’s more is that he found evidence of a classified American space program under the auspices of the U.S. Navy which is testing space-capable warships
McKinnon has spoken before about his findings, for example, he told Wired in a 2006 interview with the magazine that he found spreadsheets documenting ‘non-terrestrial’ U.S. military officers that were nowhere to be found on public record.
However, the interview with Hall is perhaps his most in-depth public comments to date.
Check out the interview below:
You know I don’t do UFO stuff too often...so for those of you who enjoy UFO info, this one is for you!
Enjoy!
THIS MAN HACKED INTO NASA’S DATABASE;
WHAT HE FOUND WILL BLOW YOUR MIND
WHAT HE FOUND WILL BLOW YOUR MIND
Scottish systems administrator Gary McKinnon fought a decade-long legal battle after allegedly performing what may be the largest U.S. military computer hack of all time.
Fresh from successfully battling extradition to the U.S. to face these charges, he recently gave an interview which outlines what he found while hacking NASA and U.S. military computers back in 2001.
In the interview, with Richard Hall on UFO channel RichPlanet TV, he details the hack, saying: “I kept going for months and months. I kept thinking, ‘They’re going to close this door.’”
Most notable of McKinnon’s claims is that NASA edits its images and videos from space to remove evidence of extraterrestrial craft before subsequently releasing them to the public.
What’s more is that he found evidence of a classified American space program under the auspices of the U.S. Navy which is testing space-capable warships
.
McKinnon has spoken before about his findings, for example, he told Wired in a 2006 interview with the magazine that he found spreadsheets documenting ‘non-terrestrial’ U.S. military officers that were nowhere to be found on public record.
However, the interview with Hall is perhaps his most in-depth public comments to date.
Check out the interview below:
[video=youtube;n1CggoA_O1M]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n1CggoA_O1M[/video]
Skarekrow
~~DEVIL~~
- MBTI
- Ni-INFJ-A
- Enneagram
- Warlock
Well...time to go get ready for all the fun I will experience today...hahaha!
Much love to you all in case some bullshit were to happen.
Be back as soon as I don’t feel like garbage and am not in too much pain.
I hope the rest of the week and weekend is fantastic, relaxing, enjoyable, and enlightening for you all!
All my best,
Skarekrow
“But if in your fear you would seek only love's peace and love's pleasure, then it is better for you that you cover your nakedness and pass out of love's threshing-floor, into the seasonless world where you shall laugh, but not all of your laughter, and weep, but not all of your tears.”
Much love to you all in case some bullshit were to happen.
Be back as soon as I don’t feel like garbage and am not in too much pain.
I hope the rest of the week and weekend is fantastic, relaxing, enjoyable, and enlightening for you all!
All my best,
Skarekrow
“But if in your fear you would seek only love's peace and love's pleasure, then it is better for you that you cover your nakedness and pass out of love's threshing-floor, into the seasonless world where you shall laugh, but not all of your laughter, and weep, but not all of your tears.”
- MBTI
- INTP
- Enneagram
- 5
Thought you'd appreciate this. Hope you don't mind:
Image Streaming: The ultimate creative thinking technique
Image Streaming, invented by Win Wenger, is one of the great modern techniques for accessing your highest powers of creative thinking...
Image streaming unleashes the powers of your unconscious mindpower for unrivalled creative thinking excellence. Win Wenger invented image streaming and its effectiveness as a process for accessing higher mind insights and creative bolts from the blue has been established by the thousands of people he has trained in this creativity technique. To get a thorough understanding of Image Streaming, I recommend that you get the audio course The Einstein Factor. However, here is a bare-bones description of how YOU can use image streaming to not only boost your IQ, increase your awareness and muster your mindpower but also pop the cork on all the creative juice that is simmering inside waiting to be tapped!
How to practice Image Streaming
If you are going to practice image streaming alone, you will need some way of recording your voice. So either use a small hand-held voice recorder, or sit in front of your PC and use your PC mike (if you have one) to record onto your PC. If you are practicing with a partner, they can listen and record your observations and talk to you about them afterwards. Personally I find using a recording device more satisfying and freeing.
Okay, so you need some quiet time for 5 to 15 minutes. Turn your mobile phone off, put a do not disturb notice on your door, and get comfortable. You can darken the room, you can lie down if you want (but if you are likely to fall asleep, better to remain seated). So close your eyes. And begin to calm your breathing, making your breathing soft and velvety smooth. Do this for a minute or so until you start to feel yourself becoming calmer and more settled within yourself. This process is akin to the shift from beta to alpha brain waves spoken of in courses like the Silva Mind Method.
Begin to focus on the inner screen of your mind and become aware of the stream of consciousness that is occurring there. And immediately begin describing out loud what you are seeing (remember to record this) and try to use and engage all your sensory modalities to capture and describe fully what you are experiencing in your mind.
For instance, if I close my eyes now, the immediate image that is present in my mind is... a bakery scene, with an oven immediately in front of me with several metal sheet shelves pulled out to various degrees and on these shelves there are freshly baked pitta bread (Middle-Eastern flat breads). I can smell the delicious fresh bread, and feel the warmth on my cheeks and heat waves rising from the bread curling upwards and carrying that mouth-watering taste and deeply comforting smell into the air and into my nostrils. The metal trays make a tinny clanging as they are moved, and they are marked and slightly corroded in parts with use, scrubbing and baked on burn marks. And I can imagine them in my hands, and I am washing them in hot soapy water and I shudder and get a feeling go up my spine as I feel my fingertips and fingernails scrape against this metalic uneven surface of the tray...
So there you have a rough description which engages all of the senses of vision, touch/feeling, sound, taste, smell and so on. When you are describing alone into a recorder you will find that your descriptions can flow and evolve more fluidly.
After you have done your image streaming, you can then play back the recording and listen to your description or discuss it with your practice partner. This is an essential step and mustn't be left out. By listening to your audio recording you create a feedback loop with your brain that stimulates intelligence and creative functioning. Make sure you do this step.
Creative Thinking with... IMAGE STREAMING
Image Streaming for Creative Beakthroughs
So that is basic image streaming. Now, how do you use image streaming for creative thinking? Image streaming alone will increase your creativity, but you can use specific techniques to focus your image streaming in very functional ways for deliberate creative thinking and idea generation. Win Wenger and his Project Renaissance team have obviously developed many specific techniques and strategies to use with Image Streaming to squeeze the most from this technique and if you are curious enough to try this method of creative thinking, you would be advised to read some of his books on the subject or explore his audio programs. Here are the techniques that I have employed with image streaming to beneficial effect.
Question... and ANSWERS!
How easy is this? Just preface your image streaming session with a specific question. Try and load your question so that it will encourage the mind to seek the best answer. In other words, it's a bit like a conversation -- you don't want to ask questions that only require a yes or no answer, you want to draw the other person out so that they can answer in detail. The same thing with your mind, try and burrow in... if you find your image stream answers are too broad, then ask another question that gets more specific.
The Creative BOO!
Here is a technique to create a surprise factor and bypass the conscious mind and it's internal editor (or Squelcher as Wenger refers to it!). Basically you set up a visualisation scene in which you are going to get a surprise - the surprise being an answer or image stream creative idea that you hadn't expected. Going beyond the expected is what we are after. So you might visualise a lovely garden scene with a big wall around the garden and you jump up a high as you can to peek at what is the other side of the wall and you gasp as you see...? Or you may come to a doorway that is covered by a curtain and you pull back the curtain to reveal...? Or you fight your way through thick forest or jungle and then stumble into a clearing where you are met by...? Let your deeper unconscious mind surprise you. And as with the central premise of brainstorming, agree not to judge anything that comes and make sure you describe what is there, not what you think ought to be there, should be there, or you'd prefer to be there. Let your deeper mind speak to you.
Future thinking, backwards from tomorrow!
This technique is basically using image streaming to time travel to the future, look around and describe what innovations you see. You know, we are really only here for a very short time and we are really very full of ourselves and our accomplishments. This absorbtion with our own time and problems blinds us to the fact that there is so much more to come! What we think is fabulous today, will seem so primitive in some future tomorrow. And most of us will be entirely forgotten within a few years of our deaths (if not months, weeks or days!). Putting that rather morbid thought aside, let us step into eternity to cherry pick at will from the innovation and creativity of other times and drag it back to today where we can inject that freshness into our own time. Simply set up your image streaming thus...
What will I be doing in 25 years time? What will transport be like in 2050? How will people and society in the year 2200 be different from today, and what will they think of us? Etc...
It is worth exploring time thousands of years ahead, just to see what your image streaming comes up with. However as you become more comfortable with "mind time travel" you might find it more fruitful exploring the next 5-40 years as the innovations you come upon may relate more easily to our time zone. You will have a hard time selling ideas that are too far ahead of what is currently considered within the realm of possibility. (See also: Remote Viewing To Steal Creative Ideas From The Future.)
Twists on this idea include travelling back in time to see how past civilisations or great minds might have met challenges creatively, or even travelling through the Universe in an inner Star Trek adventure to really push back the boundaries of creative thought and innovation.
Image Stream Dream Team
One last suggestion: use your image streaming in association with the idea of an inner council of your heros and mentors. The Mastermind alliance idea promoted by Napoleon Hill in Think and Grow Rich is such a great tool for accessing your unconscious mind and it fits so snugly with image streaming. Research and assemble the people that you want on your dream team, and then visualise the meeting, the assembly of your advisors and set up the purpose of the meeting by stating your objective and the line of creative thinking that you interested in pursuing.... And then basically let the thing run and just describe where your image stream leads to. It will flow off in all different ways, sometimes focussed on the meeting and discussions of your group of inner mentors, other times meandering off and presenting you with different scenes and experiences. Use the meeting place as an anchor point to return to, a bit like the central station in a mind map, and your creative thinking will blossom in all kinds of unexpected ways.
Image streaming is a fantastic way of tapping into your creative genius, harvesting your frequent dips into sheer brilliance, and creating a relationship with your supermind that allows it to communicate better with you. Interpreting your image streams may seem hard at first but be sure to cultivate a certain "confusion endurance" and trust that what you are doing will have massive benefits as far as your creative thinking is concerned. It won't take long for you to start to appreciate this great creative thinking technique and the torrent of genius that it will unleash in YOU!
Image Streaming: The ultimate creative thinking technique
Image Streaming, invented by Win Wenger, is one of the great modern techniques for accessing your highest powers of creative thinking...
Image streaming unleashes the powers of your unconscious mindpower for unrivalled creative thinking excellence. Win Wenger invented image streaming and its effectiveness as a process for accessing higher mind insights and creative bolts from the blue has been established by the thousands of people he has trained in this creativity technique. To get a thorough understanding of Image Streaming, I recommend that you get the audio course The Einstein Factor. However, here is a bare-bones description of how YOU can use image streaming to not only boost your IQ, increase your awareness and muster your mindpower but also pop the cork on all the creative juice that is simmering inside waiting to be tapped!
How to practice Image Streaming
If you are going to practice image streaming alone, you will need some way of recording your voice. So either use a small hand-held voice recorder, or sit in front of your PC and use your PC mike (if you have one) to record onto your PC. If you are practicing with a partner, they can listen and record your observations and talk to you about them afterwards. Personally I find using a recording device more satisfying and freeing.
Okay, so you need some quiet time for 5 to 15 minutes. Turn your mobile phone off, put a do not disturb notice on your door, and get comfortable. You can darken the room, you can lie down if you want (but if you are likely to fall asleep, better to remain seated). So close your eyes. And begin to calm your breathing, making your breathing soft and velvety smooth. Do this for a minute or so until you start to feel yourself becoming calmer and more settled within yourself. This process is akin to the shift from beta to alpha brain waves spoken of in courses like the Silva Mind Method.
Begin to focus on the inner screen of your mind and become aware of the stream of consciousness that is occurring there. And immediately begin describing out loud what you are seeing (remember to record this) and try to use and engage all your sensory modalities to capture and describe fully what you are experiencing in your mind.
For instance, if I close my eyes now, the immediate image that is present in my mind is... a bakery scene, with an oven immediately in front of me with several metal sheet shelves pulled out to various degrees and on these shelves there are freshly baked pitta bread (Middle-Eastern flat breads). I can smell the delicious fresh bread, and feel the warmth on my cheeks and heat waves rising from the bread curling upwards and carrying that mouth-watering taste and deeply comforting smell into the air and into my nostrils. The metal trays make a tinny clanging as they are moved, and they are marked and slightly corroded in parts with use, scrubbing and baked on burn marks. And I can imagine them in my hands, and I am washing them in hot soapy water and I shudder and get a feeling go up my spine as I feel my fingertips and fingernails scrape against this metalic uneven surface of the tray...
So there you have a rough description which engages all of the senses of vision, touch/feeling, sound, taste, smell and so on. When you are describing alone into a recorder you will find that your descriptions can flow and evolve more fluidly.
After you have done your image streaming, you can then play back the recording and listen to your description or discuss it with your practice partner. This is an essential step and mustn't be left out. By listening to your audio recording you create a feedback loop with your brain that stimulates intelligence and creative functioning. Make sure you do this step.
Creative Thinking with... IMAGE STREAMING
Image Streaming for Creative Beakthroughs
So that is basic image streaming. Now, how do you use image streaming for creative thinking? Image streaming alone will increase your creativity, but you can use specific techniques to focus your image streaming in very functional ways for deliberate creative thinking and idea generation. Win Wenger and his Project Renaissance team have obviously developed many specific techniques and strategies to use with Image Streaming to squeeze the most from this technique and if you are curious enough to try this method of creative thinking, you would be advised to read some of his books on the subject or explore his audio programs. Here are the techniques that I have employed with image streaming to beneficial effect.
Question... and ANSWERS!
How easy is this? Just preface your image streaming session with a specific question. Try and load your question so that it will encourage the mind to seek the best answer. In other words, it's a bit like a conversation -- you don't want to ask questions that only require a yes or no answer, you want to draw the other person out so that they can answer in detail. The same thing with your mind, try and burrow in... if you find your image stream answers are too broad, then ask another question that gets more specific.
The Creative BOO!
Here is a technique to create a surprise factor and bypass the conscious mind and it's internal editor (or Squelcher as Wenger refers to it!). Basically you set up a visualisation scene in which you are going to get a surprise - the surprise being an answer or image stream creative idea that you hadn't expected. Going beyond the expected is what we are after. So you might visualise a lovely garden scene with a big wall around the garden and you jump up a high as you can to peek at what is the other side of the wall and you gasp as you see...? Or you may come to a doorway that is covered by a curtain and you pull back the curtain to reveal...? Or you fight your way through thick forest or jungle and then stumble into a clearing where you are met by...? Let your deeper unconscious mind surprise you. And as with the central premise of brainstorming, agree not to judge anything that comes and make sure you describe what is there, not what you think ought to be there, should be there, or you'd prefer to be there. Let your deeper mind speak to you.
Future thinking, backwards from tomorrow!
This technique is basically using image streaming to time travel to the future, look around and describe what innovations you see. You know, we are really only here for a very short time and we are really very full of ourselves and our accomplishments. This absorbtion with our own time and problems blinds us to the fact that there is so much more to come! What we think is fabulous today, will seem so primitive in some future tomorrow. And most of us will be entirely forgotten within a few years of our deaths (if not months, weeks or days!). Putting that rather morbid thought aside, let us step into eternity to cherry pick at will from the innovation and creativity of other times and drag it back to today where we can inject that freshness into our own time. Simply set up your image streaming thus...
What will I be doing in 25 years time? What will transport be like in 2050? How will people and society in the year 2200 be different from today, and what will they think of us? Etc...
It is worth exploring time thousands of years ahead, just to see what your image streaming comes up with. However as you become more comfortable with "mind time travel" you might find it more fruitful exploring the next 5-40 years as the innovations you come upon may relate more easily to our time zone. You will have a hard time selling ideas that are too far ahead of what is currently considered within the realm of possibility. (See also: Remote Viewing To Steal Creative Ideas From The Future.)
Twists on this idea include travelling back in time to see how past civilisations or great minds might have met challenges creatively, or even travelling through the Universe in an inner Star Trek adventure to really push back the boundaries of creative thought and innovation.
Image Stream Dream Team
One last suggestion: use your image streaming in association with the idea of an inner council of your heros and mentors. The Mastermind alliance idea promoted by Napoleon Hill in Think and Grow Rich is such a great tool for accessing your unconscious mind and it fits so snugly with image streaming. Research and assemble the people that you want on your dream team, and then visualise the meeting, the assembly of your advisors and set up the purpose of the meeting by stating your objective and the line of creative thinking that you interested in pursuing.... And then basically let the thing run and just describe where your image stream leads to. It will flow off in all different ways, sometimes focussed on the meeting and discussions of your group of inner mentors, other times meandering off and presenting you with different scenes and experiences. Use the meeting place as an anchor point to return to, a bit like the central station in a mind map, and your creative thinking will blossom in all kinds of unexpected ways.
Image streaming is a fantastic way of tapping into your creative genius, harvesting your frequent dips into sheer brilliance, and creating a relationship with your supermind that allows it to communicate better with you. Interpreting your image streams may seem hard at first but be sure to cultivate a certain "confusion endurance" and trust that what you are doing will have massive benefits as far as your creative thinking is concerned. It won't take long for you to start to appreciate this great creative thinking technique and the torrent of genius that it will unleash in YOU!
- MBTI
- INTP
- Enneagram
- 5
Sinny
Community Member
- MBTI
- INTP
- Enneagram
- 8w7
Curious!
You know I don’t do UFO stuff too often...so for those of you who enjoy UFO info, this one is for you!
Enjoy!
THIS MAN HACKED INTO NASA’S DATABASE;
WHAT HE FOUND WILL BLOW YOUR MIND
Scottish systems administrator Gary McKinnon fought a decade-long legal battle after allegedly performing what may be the largest U.S. military computer hack of all time.
Fresh from successfully battling extradition to the U.S. to face these charges, he recently gave an interview which outlines what he found while hacking NASA and U.S. military computers back in 2001.
In the interview, with Richard Hall on UFO channel RichPlanet TV, he details the hack, saying: “I kept going for months and months. I kept thinking, ‘They’re going to close this door.’”
Most notable of McKinnon’s claims is that NASA edits its images and videos from space to remove evidence of extraterrestrial craft before subsequently releasing them to the public.
What’s more is that he found evidence of a classified American space program under the auspices of the U.S. Navy which is testing space-capable warships
.
McKinnon has spoken before about his findings, for example, he told Wired in a 2006 interview with the magazine that he found spreadsheets documenting ‘non-terrestrial’ U.S. military officers that were nowhere to be found on public record.
However, the interview with Hall is perhaps his most in-depth public comments to date.
Check out the interview below:
[video=youtube;n1CggoA_O1M]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n1CggoA_O1M[/video]
I've heard that case was disinformation.. Was a distraction.. Apparently McKinnon was payed to do what he done, and that's why the government ensured his protection throughout the threats of extradition.
Don't get me wrong, I think there are craft that we aren't told about, and whole space programs which we aren't told about... But I think information offered here is just a ruse.
I can't be any clearer at this stage.
- MBTI
- INFP-A
Cool thread. I started a thread on synchronicity. I found your concept of pronoia to be interesting. Isn't synchronicity very similar to pronoia? Jungian theory is teleological which means it could be described as being a metaphysical form of pronoia. Like people unconsciously help you out, unlike a paranoid conspiracy where people are consciously sabotaging you. So one is conscious. The other is unconscious. One is helpful. The other harmful. One is metaphysical. The other purely physical. But both indicate the individual is at the mercy of powerful external forces which lead to success or failure. The matrix movie comes to mind as a good example of synchronicity, paranoia, pronoia, fate, free will and Descartes' evil genius allegory. I seem to recognize pronoia in my life. Is it metaphysical, physical or does my unconscious mind lead me to what I need to grow/succeed (like individuation)? There are many ways to explain these concepts. I prefer to be pronoiaic (?) rather than paranoid myself. Unless of course I am listening to Black Sabbath. Then I don't mind Paranoid. And Iron Man. So what do y'all think?
- MBTI
- INFP-A
What do you think? Combining pronoia, synchronicity and falling asleep hallucinations into one heavy thread. Intense.
- MBTI
- INFJ
- Enneagram
- 9 Mediator
Skarekrow
~~DEVIL~~
- MBTI
- Ni-INFJ-A
- Enneagram
- Warlock
I would like to see what you have as far as this being disinformation...not saying it isn’t...I tend not to post much about aliens and UFOs on this thread for this very reason.
The credibility of the whole UFO scene IMHO is nil.
Skarekrow
~~DEVIL~~
- MBTI
- Ni-INFJ-A
- Enneagram
- Warlock
It seems like a good way to put your frame of mind into an alternative and differing perspective, thus being more creative, solving problems, etc.
I’ll have to give this particular way a try sometime.
Thanks for posting it!
Skarekrow
~~DEVIL~~
- MBTI
- Ni-INFJ-A
- Enneagram
- Warlock
Yeah pronoia is a thought provoking idea IMO.
And the second time I did shrooms I really felt this as I sat on my front porch that night...just looking at the plants and flowers and everything...I felt an overwhelming sense that all that had been put there by design for me...for you...for us all...and that we create and maintain this reality, but that this reality is TRYING to help us see the beauty, to see the opportunity, to see the future as something ideal, to not fear aging or death but to realize it is the crux and one of the most exciting parts of this life.
There are many layers of what people call “pseudo-science”, like PSI (proven as far as I’m concerned), a collective consciousness (also proven), they have even done studies with fMRIs proving that the average time that people subconsciously react to stimuli is between 5-10 seconds before it happens - so precognition does exist...the flow of time, well, perhaps that doesn’t exist at all according to some. We can get all very in depth with many of these...I don’t think things like synchronicity or pronoia or even something as intense as tarot card readings, etc...have too much to do with individuation, though perhaps in how you interpret and recognize that these anomalous things are happening in reality and not your mind.
Though, really...everything is an illusion in your mind...we see a limited spectrum of light and miss an incredible amount of other types of information that are around us all the time...I think it was Aldous Huxley that said - “The brain serves as a limiting valve for the mind.”
If we took it all in, it would be difficult to function...such as when you trip on mushrooms like I mentioned and your senses are so open...it would be difficult to maintain a normal functioning life in such a state.
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Skarekrow
~~DEVIL~~
- MBTI
- Ni-INFJ-A
- Enneagram
- Warlock
I hope you survived and all went well.
All was fine....still in loads of pain, but I have lots and lots of different drugs to take at my disposal.
It took about hmmm...5 hours surgical time I guess...not to mention the pre-op and post-op time I spent with blood dribbling down my chin (thanks everyone for noticing and doing something about that!).
Anyhow...they had to put bone graft and screws in four different sites, not to mention a female implant to hold a bridge in the back.
I hurt sooooo fucking bad last night...slept in my gravity chair...woke up to streams of dried blood all around my mouth...as if I had been up all night swooping down on unsuspecting victims and draining them of blood...maybe I did..IDK...hehe.
Be on and off here....I lived, much to the disappointment of some.
Much love!!!
- MBTI
- INFP-A
Perhaps this is why my life is as it is. I am very sensitive to my environment. I am like a pain sponge. The one time I tried shrooms and really felt something, I took way too much for me. It was very intense. I needed Valium to fall asleep. But what I learned was interesting. I realized the way I am sober is similar to the way most people are when they are on shrooms. So being on shrooms for me would be like a normal person eating a huge bag and totally tripping out. It was so intense. I could sense everything. I was like a tiger. I could see right through the two people I was with. Defense mechanisms were obvious. Insight was immediate. It was like being an infj on steroids. I was basically telepathic. It was crazy. There were no barriers emotionally. I was not only an empath, I could feel what the two other guys could feel more intensely than they could. Slamming a door felt like a bomb exploding. I could even tell the cat was selfish and aloof towards me. I knew whom to trust. I knew what I should do. It was like my brain was no longer limiting my mind, like what you said. I feel if two infj people were to take shrooms together they could fully communicate without speech. I think people have instincts like animals. We can sense danger. I have like a spidey sense which has helped me avoid bad situations. Intuition is fascinating. Your sentiments remind me of the Passenger by Iggy Pop. "All of this was made for you and me." Like we created our reality and this whole world for ourselves. We did not end up here. We chose and created this world. Every road that exists now didn't 10,000 years ago. But maybe it goes even further than that. Is it possible that we created the entire planet for our own amusement? I once knew a Vedic astrologer who said everything you perceive is actually part of you. There is no source or greater whole that you belong to. You are the whole thing. Like the band Love. "Until I realized that everyone else was just another part of me." Do you see? Metaphysics are crazy. This isn't esoteric. This could be the actual explanation for reality. What do you think?
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