From: "Trish" Newsgroups: alt.out-of-body Subject: Mirror Mirror on the Wall ... Lines: 87 X-Newsreader: Microsoft Outlook Express 4.71.1712.3 X-MimeOLE: Produced By Microsoft MimeOLE V4.72.2106.4 Message-ID: X-Trace: 9m+Dz5vhV8ZSTRgz0RIr3h0EbAnBONwAwLuzxpLT6uVy1T8IesZjkXUVaFAvIGstaTpV1SKCLlt/!9gyl8/LSEBiV9Sf1RRtkkeBYIE2kgAxGxOm5T/k9b2FJecisxK3QLngoLNtLEZ9niIiIte2QwP90!nP5b9Q== X-Complaints-To: abuse@gte.net X-Abuse-Info: Please be sure to forward a copy of ALL headers X-Abuse-Info: Otherwise we will be unable to process your complaint properly NNTP-Posting-Date: Wed, 23 Feb 2000 00:06:47 GMT Distribution: world Date: Wed, 23 Feb 2000 00:06:47 GMT Path: chonsp.franklin.ch!pfaff.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!newsfeed-zh.ip-plus.net!news.ip-plus.net!News.Amsterdam.UnisourceCS!newspeer.te.net!news.indigo.ie!diablo.theplanet.net!newsfeed.berkeley.edu!su-news-hub1.bbnplanet.com!washdc3-snh1.gtei.net!news.gtei.net!dfiatx1-snr1.gtei.net.POSTED!not-for-mail Xref: chonsp.franklin.ch alt.out-of-body:34098 Julia, this one's for you! Let me know if you perceived anything. Right after I posted a few messages into the group this afternoon, I signed off and lay down on my living room couch to watch the prosecution's closing statement on the Diallo trial. As the words droned on and on, I fell asleep. I found myself in a dream, in a vast hotel. A variety of people I know were there ... my closest girlfriend, some people at work, and there was lots of moving to and fro ... up and down staircases, elevators, etc. For some reason I was feeling very woozy in the dream .. as if my equalibrium was out of balance ... the pressure of moving up in the elevator almost levelled me out. So I wandered around asking other people if they were feeling the same way ... but no one had a clue what I was talking about. At last I met my mother in the hotel lobby where she was sitting on one of the lounge sofas reading a magazine. I sat next to her, and then laid my head in her lap, asking her "Mom .. what's wrong with me? Why do I feel so woozy?" She patted my head and smoothed my hair and then assured me, "It's ok hon ... you're dreaming. It's just a dream." It's then that I sat up, looked at her incredibly and said "Mom, you're right, this is a dream!!" ... So I jumped up and thanked her, and every thing seemed to level out as I gained lucidity. I went in search of my best friend and found her on a staircase, dressed as the Queen of Hearts. What a laugh that was. She was wearing red stilleto heels. I tried explaining to her that this was my dream, and that we could do what we liked ... but as usual, my dream characters don't tend to catch on. I decided to drop it, and told her I had to go ... there was something I had to do, and I had to be awake to do it. Next thing I know, I'm awake, and the closing statement on the Diallo trial was coming to an end. The news commentator came on, and I reached for the remote control and turned the TV off (this was about 5 p.m. EST) The minute I placed my head back down, I went into a very easy relaxed vibrational state, and then went right into an OBE. My living room was exactly as I left it ... and I do note that the OBE originated in the living room where I fell asleep, not from my bedroom environment. Since it was well lit, I could see everything clearly, and didn't notice anything out of place. Feeling a time urgency, I went right into my memory recalls .. (My full name, what is today?, what did I do at work earlier today?, what time is it now?) I was headed for the bathroom (the closest mirror) and that's all the time I had for memory recall. I flipped on the bathroom light ... and the bathroom was exactly as it usually is (colors, fixtures, etc) I looked into the mirror and noted my reflection ... I was the same as I usually look, although I did note that my eyes were red and a little bit glassy ... how I would assume I would look after just waking up from sleep. The first person I called forth was Lorene. "Show me Lorene" I asked. I waited ....... nothing. (hmmmm) "Ok, then, show me Janice" I waited ..... the background of the mirror became dark, and I could no longer see the reflection of the door behind me, or the wall. (Ok, I thought, now something is going to happen) I waited and waited ... but nothing did. "Alright, if not Lorene or Janice ... show me Julia or Dorothy". This time my reflection changed into what you would see looking at a film negative. It moved as I moved, which was strange enough ... but I wasn't satisfied. It wasn't myself I wanted to see. So I started repeating everyone's names over and over ... "Lorene, Janice, Julia, Dorothy ...." (Something! Anything!) I continued until I began to get frustrated, and then found myself back on the couch. I immediately went into another OBE, and sat up on the couch trying to pull myself together. (When things move that quickly, you need to take a moment or two to re-orient yourself) The living room was the same this time around, but there was something added. In the top corner of the room directly across from me, was the severed head of a woman ... and the head was slowly turning (like a security video camera) and scanning the room. It was facing away from me, moving slowly in my direction, as I sat there stunned. When her features finally came into view, I saw that it was Julia. I was frozen (I mean .. what does one say to a severed head?). Finally I blurted out, "Julia, is this a lucid dream or an OBE?" (No discrepancy quite this strange has ever occured in my OBEs ... so I had to ask) And she winked at me. Sorry Janice, I didn't get out front to look for the ball. I thought of it on the way to the bathroom, but I wasn't sure how long the OBE would last, and opted for the mirror. After Julia's head showed up, I woke up completely, and couldn't produce another OBE (I think her image kind of stunned me). With time, I believe I'll be able to extend the length of my experiences to their former, much longer, duration ... and I won't feel as if I'm under time constraints. Trish ###### Message-ID: <38B347FC.66DA5F2B@privatei.com> From: The Original Ken X-Mailer: Mozilla 4.02 [en]C-DIAL (Win95; U) MIME-Version: 1.0 Newsgroups: alt.out-of-body Subject: Re: Mirror Mirror on the Wall ... References: Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Lines: 86 Date: Tue, 22 Feb 2000 19:37:48 -0700 NNTP-Posting-Host: 204.131.176.189 X-Trace: wormhole.dimensional.com 951273788 204.131.176.189 (Tue, 22 Feb 2000 19:43:08 MDT) NNTP-Posting-Date: Tue, 22 Feb 2000 19:43:08 MDT Organization: Interlink Advertising Path: chonsp.franklin.ch!pfaff.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!newsfeed-zh.ip-plus.net!news.ip-plus.net!News.Amsterdam.UnisourceCS!skynet.be!hermes.visi.com!news-out.visi.com!pulsar.dimensional.com!dimensional.com!wormhole.dimensional.com!not-for-mail Xref: chonsp.franklin.ch alt.out-of-body:34060 Trish wrote: > > Next thing I know, I'm awake, and the closing statement on the Diallo trial > was coming to an end. The news commentator came on, and I reached for the > remote control and turned the TV off (this was about 5 p.m. EST) The minute > I placed my head back down, I went into a very easy relaxed vibrational > state, and then went right into an OBE. > > My living room was exactly as I left it ... and I do note that the OBE > originated in the living room where I fell asleep, not from my bedroom > environment. Trish, you just blew my smelly socks off with this comment!!!! Do you realize what you just said here?? As far as I am aware I have *never* had an OBE where the room I exited to was different from the room I was in. If I'm in my bedroom, I exit to my bedroom, if I'm on the couch (which I do occasionally) I exit from the couch. I had an OBE once while I was in a cabin somewhere sometime ago and I exited into the cabin. *Never* have I exited from my body and been anywhere else but where I actually was. I don't know why I never saw this before (being the brilliant person that I am) but this is really a monumental observation. How many times have you woken at a friends house thinking you were in your own bed? Why would the mind always make you seem like you were exiting from the location you are actually at rather than another room or another place you had been at while on vacation or something like that! This is astonishing! Brilliant!!! Oh by the way, great OBE. Thanks for posting it. Congratulations. 'Bout time eh? I wonder if the head thing was a little left over from my comment about the severed head from the radio shack thingy. Just a thought. Ken > Since it was well lit, I could see everything clearly, and > didn't notice anything out of place. Feeling a time urgency, I went right > into my memory recalls .. (My full name, what is today?, what did I do at > work earlier today?, what time is it now?) I was headed for the bathroom > (the closest mirror) and that's all the time I had for memory recall. I > flipped on the bathroom light ... and the bathroom was exactly as it usually > is (colors, fixtures, etc) I looked into the mirror and noted my > reflection ... I was the same as I usually look, although I did note that my > eyes were red and a little bit glassy ... how I would assume I would look > after just waking up from sleep. The first person I called forth was > Lorene. "Show me Lorene" I asked. I waited ....... nothing. (hmmmm) "Ok, > then, show me Janice" I waited ..... the background of the mirror became > dark, and I could no longer see the reflection of the door behind me, or the > wall. (Ok, I thought, now something is going to happen) I waited and > waited ... but nothing did. "Alright, if not Lorene or Janice ... show me > Julia or Dorothy". This time my reflection changed into what you would see > looking at a film negative. It moved as I moved, which was strange enough > ... but I wasn't satisfied. It wasn't myself I wanted to see. So I started > repeating everyone's names over and over ... "Lorene, Janice, Julia, Dorothy > ...." (Something! Anything!) I continued until I began to get frustrated, > and then found myself back on the couch. > > I immediately went into another OBE, and sat up on the couch trying to pull > myself together. (When things move that quickly, you need to take a moment > or two to re-orient yourself) The living room was the same this time > around, but there was something added. In the top corner of the room > directly across from me, was the severed head of a woman ... and the head > was slowly turning (like a security video camera) and scanning the room. It > was facing away from me, moving slowly in my direction, as I sat there > stunned. When her features finally came into view, I saw that it was Julia. > I was frozen (I mean .. what does one say to a severed head?). Finally I > blurted out, "Julia, is this a lucid dream or an OBE?" (No discrepancy > quite this strange has ever occured in my OBEs ... so I had to ask) And she > winked at me. > > Sorry Janice, I didn't get out front to look for the ball. I thought of it > on the way to the bathroom, but I wasn't sure how long the OBE would last, > and opted for the mirror. After Julia's head showed up, I woke up > completely, and couldn't produce another OBE (I think her image kind of > stunned me). > > With time, I believe I'll be able to extend the length of my experiences to > their former, much longer, duration ... and I won't feel as if I'm under > time constraints. > > Trish ###### From: "Trish" Newsgroups: alt.out-of-body References: <38B347FC.66DA5F2B@privatei.com> Subject: Re: Mirror Mirror on the Wall ... Lines: 83 X-Newsreader: Microsoft Outlook Express 4.71.1712.3 X-MimeOLE: Produced By Microsoft MimeOLE V4.72.2106.4 Message-ID: X-Trace: 9ms/G7a/SRD3r5hzRJeo9fYicTXpgoTSMmOk5BrFfGtBkURl5scjZQNNJYiNcOz9h5cuPp0rLZ/S!Y/yUMjDNPKqghBTtui5NVWxGJc7wn8qHGSHz6Mx96QuDc2QjKMZ8PKTHeTsCSJJopM983EklYuzW!IWQ4Tw== X-Complaints-To: abuse@gte.net X-Abuse-Info: Please be sure to forward a copy of ALL headers X-Abuse-Info: Otherwise we will be unable to process your complaint properly NNTP-Posting-Date: Wed, 23 Feb 2000 03:39:27 GMT Distribution: world Date: Wed, 23 Feb 2000 03:39:27 GMT Path: chonsp.franklin.ch!pfaff.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!newsfeed-zh.ip-plus.net!news.ip-plus.net!News.Amsterdam.UnisourceCS!skynet.be!newsfeed.direct.ca!su-news-hub1.bbnplanet.com!washdc3-snh1.gtei.net!news.gtei.net!dfiatx1-snr1.gtei.net.POSTED!not-for-mail Xref: chonsp.franklin.ch alt.out-of-body:34090 The Original Ken wrote in message <38B347FC.66DA5F2B@privatei.com>... > > >Trish wrote: > >> >> Next thing I know, I'm awake, and the closing statement on the Diallo trial >> was coming to an end. The news commentator came on, and I reached for the >> remote control and turned the TV off (this was about 5 p.m. EST) The minute >> I placed my head back down, I went into a very easy relaxed vibrational >> state, and then went right into an OBE. >> >> My living room was exactly as I left it ... and I do note that the OBE >> originated in the living room where I fell asleep, not from my bedroom >> environment. > >Trish, you just blew my smelly socks off with this comment!!!! Do you realize >what you just said here?? What did I say? What did I say? As far as I am aware I have *never* had an OBE where >the room I exited to was different from the room I was in. If I'm in my >bedroom, I exit to my bedroom, if I'm on the couch (which I do occasionally) I >exit from the couch. I had an OBE once while I was in a cabin somewhere >sometime ago and I exited into the cabin. *Never* have I exited from my body >and been anywhere else but where I actually was. I don't know why I never saw >this before (being the brilliant person that I am) but this is really a >monumental observation. How many times have you woken at a friends house >thinking you were in your own bed? Oh I see now. Ok. : ) My OBEs originate "where I'm at" as well. I have heard of others who exit someplace else, and I've noticed this from time to time as well .... but they seem more like dreams of OBEs ... no high memory recall, and I don't even notice that I started out at the wrong place until after I wake up. Why would the mind always make you seem like >you were exiting from the location you are actually at rather than another room >or another place you had been at while on vacation or something like that! This >is astonishing! Brilliant!!! When you think about it ... you're right. Why *would* the mind always make you seem like you're exiting from the place you're at? Why? To make it seem more realistic to the physical? Why? My personal belief and expectation is that an OBE is *not* the physical environment ... so, for me, it wouldn't be a requirement. This depiction actually runs contrary to my expectations. Add this to commonplace doors being out of place for no damn good reason at all ...... hmmmmm > >Oh by the way, great OBE. Thanks for posting it. Congratulations. 'Bout time >eh? Thank you. I think I'm running about 1 per month now. A lot better than none at all. >I wonder if the head thing was a little left over from my comment about the >severed head from the radio shack thingy. Just a thought. Hahaha. Well, I think I knew that the time was right for Julia to be watching ... and that's how I envisioned her there. You and she seem to have a strong influence on my OBEs. (That radio shack thingy was kind of morbid) : ) Trish ###### From: "dorothy dunne" Newsgroups: alt.out-of-body References: Subject: Re: Mirror Mirror on the Wall ... Date: Tue, 22 Feb 2000 20:03:51 -0800 Lines: 103 X-Priority: 3 X-MSMail-Priority: Normal X-Newsreader: Microsoft Outlook Express 5.00.2615.200 X-MimeOLE: Produced By Microsoft MimeOLE V5.00.2615.200 NNTP-Posting-Host: sanduser1010.bossig.com Message-ID: <38b359b1@nntp-out.newsnerds.com> X-Trace: 22 Feb 2000 21:53:21 -0600, sanduser1010.bossig.com Path: chonsp.franklin.ch!pfaff.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!newsfeed-zh.ip-plus.net!news.ip-plus.net!News.Amsterdam.UnisourceCS!skynet.be!cyclone.bc.net!newsfeed.telusplanet.net!news-master.service.talkway.com!news-out.newszilla.com!nntp-in.newszilla.com!nntp-out.newsnerds.com!sanduser1010.bossig.com Xref: chonsp.franklin.ch alt.out-of-body:34070 Trish wrote in message news:rwFs4.466$Wl.21600@dfiatx1-snr1.gtei.net... > Julia, this one's for you! Let me know if you perceived anything. [snip Trish's account of her LD] > Next thing I know, I'm awake, and the closing statement on the Diallo trial > was coming to an end. The news commentator came on, and I reached for the > remote control and turned the TV off (this was about 5 p.m. EST) The minute > I placed my head back down, I went into a very easy relaxed vibrational > state, and then went right into an OBE. > > My living room was exactly as I left it ... and I do note that the OBE > originated in the living room where I fell asleep, not from my bedroom > environment. Since it was well lit, I could see everything clearly, and > didn't notice anything out of place. Feeling a time urgency, I went right > into my memory recalls .. (My full name, what is today?, what did I do at > work earlier today?, what time is it now?) I was headed for the bathroom > (the closest mirror) and that's all the time I had for memory recall. I > flipped on the bathroom light ... and the bathroom was exactly as it usually > is (colors, fixtures, etc) I looked into the mirror and noted my > reflection ... I was the same as I usually look, although I did note that my > eyes were red and a little bit glassy ... how I would assume I would look > after just waking up from sleep. The first person I called forth was > Lorene. "Show me Lorene" I asked. I waited ....... nothing. (hmmmm) "Ok, > then, show me Janice" I waited ..... the background of the mirror became > dark, and I could no longer see the reflection of the door behind me, or the > wall. (Ok, I thought, now something is going to happen) I waited and > waited ... but nothing did. "Alright, if not Lorene or Janice ... show me > Julia or Dorothy". This time my reflection changed into what you would see > looking at a film negative. It moved as I moved, which was strange enough > ... but I wasn't satisfied. It wasn't myself I wanted to see. So I started > repeating everyone's names over and over ... "Lorene, Janice, Julia, Dorothy > ...." (Something! Anything!) I continued until I began to get frustrated, > and then found myself back on the couch. > > I immediately went into another OBE, and sat up on the couch trying to pull > myself together. (When things move that quickly, you need to take a moment > or two to re-orient yourself) The living room was the same this time > around, but there was something added. In the top corner of the room > directly across from me, was the severed head of a woman ... and the head > was slowly turning (like a security video camera) and scanning the room. It > was facing away from me, moving slowly in my direction, as I sat there > stunned. When her features finally came into view, I saw that it was Julia. > I was frozen (I mean .. what does one say to a severed head?). Finally I > blurted out, "Julia, is this a lucid dream or an OBE?" (No discrepancy > quite this strange has ever occured in my OBEs ... so I had to ask) And she > winked at me. > > Sorry Janice, I didn't get out front to look for the ball. I thought of it > on the way to the bathroom, but I wasn't sure how long the OBE would last, > and opted for the mirror. After Julia's head showed up, I woke up > completely, and couldn't produce another OBE (I think her image kind of > stunned me). > > With time, I believe I'll be able to extend the length of my experiences to > their former, much longer, duration ... and I won't feel as if I'm under > time constraints. > > Trish Hello Trish, Five o'clock your time was 2:00 for me and after writing a quick e-mail to Julia telling her my whereabouts (I'm in Idaho), I lay down about 1:55 pm after setting my alarm for 2:40. (Had to pick my kids up from school at 2:45.) I managed to get partial SP and slight vibes, but my mental noise was too high for a really good go at it. However, at one point I felt a strong sinking sensation and pressure in my left ear and then I began to see a sort of washed out light color behind my eyelids. When you said you saw something that looked like a film negative when asking to see me or Julia, I wondered if that could be a correspondence of sorts. It would've been right around 2:30 (5:30 your time). Pretty vague, but oh well.... (btw. Trish, I have in interesting story about film negative images. I'll tell you about it some time...) I'm still planning to try it again tonight at 10:00 which will be 6:00 am for Julia. Still hoping to see you all out there! BTW, Trish, don't worry about the time; I think we can make the adjustments "on the other side". And that was strange about Julia's severed head! Ick! (Do you suppose that was PZ gumming up the works?) :-o Dorothy ###### Message-ID: <38B36254.3188A13B@privatei.com> From: The Original Ken X-Mailer: Mozilla 4.02 [en]C-DIAL (Win95; U) MIME-Version: 1.0 Newsgroups: alt.out-of-body Subject: Re: Mirror Mirror on the Wall ... References: <38B347FC.66DA5F2B@privatei.com> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Lines: 55 Date: Tue, 22 Feb 2000 21:30:12 -0700 NNTP-Posting-Host: 204.131.176.132 X-Trace: wormhole.dimensional.com 951280610 204.131.176.132 (Tue, 22 Feb 2000 21:36:50 MDT) NNTP-Posting-Date: Tue, 22 Feb 2000 21:36:50 MDT Organization: Interlink Advertising Path: chonsp.franklin.ch!pfaff.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!newsfeed-zh.ip-plus.net!news.ip-plus.net!News.Amsterdam.UnisourceCS!skynet.be!hermes.visi.com!news-out.visi.com!pulsar.dimensional.com!dimensional.com!wormhole.dimensional.com!not-for-mail Xref: chonsp.franklin.ch alt.out-of-body:34051 Trish wrote: > Oh I see now. Ok. : ) > > My OBEs originate "where I'm at" as well. I have heard of others who exit > someplace else, and I've noticed this from time to time as well .... but > they seem more like dreams of OBEs ... no high memory recall, and I don't > even notice that I started out at the wrong place until after I wake up. I've had OBEs of course where I exit blind (or more accurately in a fog) and get whisked off to some distant dimension, but during the OBEs where I go through the motion of vibes and separation and can see at the same time (with my physical eyes shut), what I see is always where I am. And another thing, when I do see it's always in the direction that I am physically lying. If I'm lying on my right side and I begin to see through closed lids, its always what I would expect to see if I had open my physical eyes while lying on my right side. There has never been an exception to this occurrence. This is really way cool. You would think sometimes you would be seeing the left side of the bed or the ceiling since chances are your brain wouldn't really know what position you were actually lying in. Very strange indeed. > When you think about it ... you're right. Why *would* the mind always make > you seem like you're exiting from the place you're at? Why? To make it > seem more realistic to the physical? Why? My personal belief and > expectation is that an OBE is *not* the physical environment ... so, for me, > it wouldn't be a requirement. This depiction actually runs contrary to my > expectations. > > Add this to commonplace doors being out of place for no damn good reason at > all ...... hmmmmm Hmmmm is right. accurate representation of your sleeping environment, and doors in the wrong place. There has just got to be some obvious connection here. > >I wonder if the head thing was a little left over from my comment about the > >severed head from the radio shack thingy. Just a thought. > > Hahaha. Well, I think I knew that the time was right for Julia to be > watching ... and that's how I envisioned her there. You and she seem to > have a strong influence on my OBEs. (That radio shack thingy was kind of > morbid) : ) Ah yes, morbid indeed, but then again what did you say your favorite movie was? ;-D Ken > > > Trish ###### From: hawksmoor@dial.pipex.com (Julia Hawkes-Moore) Newsgroups: alt.out-of-body Subject: Re: Mirror Mirror on the Wall ... Date: Wed, 23 Feb 2000 08:44:09 GMT Organization: UUNET WorldCom server (post doesn't reflect views of UUNET WorldCom Lines: 45 Message-ID: <38b39aa4.4218679@news.dial.pipex.com> References: Reply-To: hawksmoor@dial.pipex.com NNTP-Posting-Host: userai16.uk.uudial.com X-Trace: lure.pipex.net 951295983 14836 62.188.133.46 (23 Feb 2000 08:53:03 GMT) X-Complaints-To: abuse@uk.uu.net NNTP-Posting-Date: 23 Feb 2000 08:53:03 GMT X-Newsreader: Forte Free Agent 1.1/16.230 Path: chonsp.franklin.ch!pfaff.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!newsfeed-zh.ip-plus.net!news.ip-plus.net!News.Amsterdam.UnisourceCS!skynet.be!tank.news.pipex.net!pipex!tube.news.pipex.net!pipex!not-for-mail Xref: chonsp.franklin.ch alt.out-of-body:34075 On Wed, 23 Feb 2000 00:06:47 GMT, "Trish" wrote: >Julia, this one's for you! Let me know if you perceived anything. >Right after I posted a few messages into the group this afternoon, I signed >off and lay down on my living room couch to watch the prosecution's closing >statement on the Diallo trial. As the words droned on and on, I fell >asleep. Ha, as you mentioned earlier, this would have coincided with my 'practice run' before I went to sleep, rather than my dawn visit. I practiced by thinking about you all, planning the route, and concentrating on the object I wanted to show to all of you. >I immediately went into another OBE, and sat up on the couch trying to pull >myself together. (When things move that quickly, you need to take a moment >or two to re-orient yourself) The living room was the same this time >around, but there was something added. In the top corner of the room >directly across from me, was the severed head of a woman ... and the head >was slowly turning (like a security video camera) and scanning the room. It >was facing away from me, moving slowly in my direction, as I sat there >stunned. When her features finally came into view, I saw that it was Julia. >I was frozen (I mean .. what does one say to a severed head?). Finally I >blurted out, "Julia, is this a lucid dream or an OBE?" (No discrepancy >quite this strange has ever occured in my OBEs ... so I had to ask) And she >winked at me. Ha, that was me on my preliminary trip, then, looking out for you all then! When I arrive somewhere, I do scan the place slowly like that, looking from left to right. And I am a 'winker'! >Sorry Janice, I didn't get out front to look for the ball. I thought of it >on the way to the bathroom, but I wasn't sure how long the OBE would last, >and opted for the mirror. After Julia's head showed up, I woke up >completely, and couldn't produce another OBE (I think her image kind of >stunned me). What ball? I must have missed this post. But the object which I later 'collected' from you was circular. It was solid, like a disc, medal or coin, but I could see no patterns on it, too fuzzy. >With time, I believe I'll be able to extend the length of my experiences to >their former, much longer, duration ... and I won't feel as if I'm under >time constraints. I'm sure you will. Meditation does help enormously. ###### From: hawksmoor@dial.pipex.com (Julia Hawkes-Moore) Newsgroups: alt.out-of-body Subject: Re: Mirror Mirror on the Wall ... Date: Wed, 23 Feb 2000 09:38:15 GMT Organization: UUNET WorldCom server (post doesn't reflect views of UUNET WorldCom Lines: 22 Message-ID: <38b3a7d6.7593326@news.dial.pipex.com> References: <38b359b1@nntp-out.newsnerds.com> Reply-To: hawksmoor@dial.pipex.com NNTP-Posting-Host: userar28.uk.uudial.com X-Trace: lure.pipex.net 951299228 16879 62.188.136.187 (23 Feb 2000 09:47:08 GMT) X-Complaints-To: abuse@uk.uu.net NNTP-Posting-Date: 23 Feb 2000 09:47:08 GMT X-Newsreader: Forte Free Agent 1.1/16.230 Path: chonsp.franklin.ch!pfaff.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!newsfeed-zh.ip-plus.net!news.ip-plus.net!news.datacomm.ch!newscore.gigabell.net!news0.de.colt.net!colt.net!newspeer.clara.net!news.clara.net!news-lond.gip.net!news.gsl.net!gip.net!tank.news.pipex.net!pipex!tube.news.pipex.net!pipex!not-for-mail Xref: chonsp.franklin.ch alt.out-of-body:34076 On Tue, 22 Feb 2000 20:03:51 -0800, "dorothy dunne" wrote: >Five o'clock your time was 2:00 for me and after writing a quick e-mail to >Julia telling her my whereabouts (I'm in Idaho) Dorothy, I have not got this email; sorry but my winpmail has seized up yet again, so I can't get any email messages until my husband comes and puts all the codes in yet again. It never happens to him. I went to look at my atlas, and Idaho seems to be about where we went on the trip out, (are you in the SE corner?) so I look forward to hearing about your perceptions of my rather foggy night out! >I'm still planning to try it again tonight at 10:00 which will be 6:00 am >for Julia. Still hoping to see you all out there! > >BTW, Trish, don't worry about the time; I think we can make the adjustments >"on the other side". And that was strange about Julia's severed head! Ick! >(Do you suppose that was PZ gumming up the works?) :-o Ha! I did not feel even an inkling of his presence anywhere about at all! Love from Julia. ###### From: "Trish" Newsgroups: alt.out-of-body References: <38B347FC.66DA5F2B@privatei.com> <38B36254.3188A13B@privatei.com> Subject: Re: Mirror Mirror on the Wall ... Lines: 72 X-Newsreader: Microsoft Outlook Express 4.71.1712.3 X-MimeOLE: Produced By Microsoft MimeOLE V4.72.2106.4 Message-ID: X-Trace: +Sdx8blg0bkoitS4yxN8nP1iyLlhYRbs7uNaKOK9o/k+LlbKAI5fNjwkm+KQ077N3CsWKWN0uYeK!kctGgDMdEymaxf0f2GzMtgZTp+TM0pDoOBusPs9oc/cUffXudLDbPMbx3a+tf58qAV9rEYlrlhaC!jQ== X-Complaints-To: abuse@gte.net X-Abuse-Info: Please be sure to forward a copy of ALL headers X-Abuse-Info: Otherwise we will be unable to process your complaint properly NNTP-Posting-Date: Wed, 23 Feb 2000 12:32:22 GMT Distribution: world Date: Wed, 23 Feb 2000 12:32:22 GMT Path: chonsp.franklin.ch!pfaff.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!newsfeed-zh.ip-plus.net!news.ip-plus.net!news.datacomm.ch!newscore.gigabell.net!news.gigabell.net!newsfeed.nacamar.de!newsfeed.icl.net!news.freedom2surf.net!colt.net!nyc-news-feed1.bbnplanet.com!washdc3-snh1.gtei.net!news.gtei.net!dfiatx1-snr1.gtei.net.POSTED!not-for-mail Xref: chonsp.franklin.ch alt.out-of-body:34126 The Original Ken wrote in message <38B36254.3188A13B@privatei.com>... > > >Trish wrote: > >> Oh I see now. Ok. : ) >> >> My OBEs originate "where I'm at" as well. I have heard of others who exit >> someplace else, and I've noticed this from time to time as well .... but >> they seem more like dreams of OBEs ... no high memory recall, and I don't >> even notice that I started out at the wrong place until after I wake up. > >I've had OBEs of course where I exit blind (or more accurately in a fog) and get >whisked off to some distant dimension, but during the OBEs where I go through >the motion of vibes and separation and can see at the same time (with my >physical eyes shut), what I see is always where I am. And another thing, when I >do see it's always in the direction that I am physically lying. If I'm lying on >my right side and I begin to see through closed lids, its always what I would >expect to see if I had open my physical eyes while lying on my right side. >There has never been an exception to this occurrence. This is really way cool. >You would think sometimes you would be seeing the left side of the bed or the >ceiling since chances are your brain wouldn't really know what position you were >actually lying in. Very strange indeed. > >> When you think about it ... you're right. Why *would* the mind always make >> you seem like you're exiting from the place you're at? Why? To make it >> seem more realistic to the physical? Why? My personal belief and >> expectation is that an OBE is *not* the physical environment ... so, for me, >> it wouldn't be a requirement. This depiction actually runs contrary to my >> expectations. >> >> Add this to commonplace doors being out of place for no damn good reason at >> all ...... hmmmmm > >Hmmmm is right. accurate representation of your sleeping environment, and doors >in the wrong place. There has just got to be some obvious connection here. There's definitely something here, and I can't figure it out. >> >I wonder if the head thing was a little left over from my comment about the >> >severed head from the radio shack thingy. Just a thought. >> >> Hahaha. Well, I think I knew that the time was right for Julia to be >> watching ... and that's how I envisioned her there. You and she seem to >> have a strong influence on my OBEs. (That radio shack thingy was kind of >> morbid) : ) > >Ah yes, morbid indeed, but then again what did you say your favorite movie was? >;-D Ah yes. Ok. ; ) ###### From: "Trish" Newsgroups: alt.out-of-body References: <38b359b1@nntp-out.newsnerds.com> Subject: Re: Mirror Mirror on the Wall ... Lines: 121 X-Newsreader: Microsoft Outlook Express 4.71.1712.3 X-MimeOLE: Produced By Microsoft MimeOLE V4.72.2106.4 Message-ID: X-Trace: /whyfmdW6u7SB3pFsufCVC+Jr0RBjPomusCQRcRXrm9Qi11HjYYPyWOPDSd02wAopgyRNcd8TE3M!k1JIQ1aiuAz8BS6yOUZ5ljMl37bVj9rgC0+TUGFYZM0wyRLDPCvVUPopv5aTfTZX0AqX70P8pxiW!7mc= X-Complaints-To: abuse@gte.net X-Abuse-Info: Please be sure to forward a copy of ALL headers X-Abuse-Info: Otherwise we will be unable to process your complaint properly NNTP-Posting-Date: Wed, 23 Feb 2000 12:34:54 GMT Distribution: world Date: Wed, 23 Feb 2000 12:34:54 GMT Path: chonsp.franklin.ch!pfaff.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!newsfeed-zh.ip-plus.net!news.ip-plus.net!News.Amsterdam.UnisourceCS!newshunter!cosy.sbg.ac.at!news-feed.inet.tele.dk!bofh.vszbr.cz!newshub.northeast.verio.net!verio!cpk-news-hub1.bbnplanet.com!washdc3-snh1.gtei.net!news.gtei.net!dfiatx1-snr1.gtei.net.POSTED!not-for-mail Xref: chonsp.franklin.ch alt.out-of-body:34125 dorothy dunne wrote in message <38b359b1@nntp-out.newsnerds.com>... >Trish wrote in message >news:rwFs4.466$Wl.21600@dfiatx1-snr1.gtei.net... >> Julia, this one's for you! Let me know if you perceived anything. > >[snip Trish's account of her LD] > >> Next thing I know, I'm awake, and the closing statement on the Diallo >trial >> was coming to an end. The news commentator came on, and I reached for the >> remote control and turned the TV off (this was about 5 p.m. EST) The >minute >> I placed my head back down, I went into a very easy relaxed vibrational >> state, and then went right into an OBE. >> >> My living room was exactly as I left it ... and I do note that the OBE >> originated in the living room where I fell asleep, not from my bedroom >> environment. Since it was well lit, I could see everything clearly, and >> didn't notice anything out of place. Feeling a time urgency, I went right >> into my memory recalls .. (My full name, what is today?, what did I do at >> work earlier today?, what time is it now?) I was headed for the bathroom >> (the closest mirror) and that's all the time I had for memory recall. I >> flipped on the bathroom light ... and the bathroom was exactly as it >usually >> is (colors, fixtures, etc) I looked into the mirror and noted my >> reflection ... I was the same as I usually look, although I did note that >my >> eyes were red and a little bit glassy ... how I would assume I would look >> after just waking up from sleep. The first person I called forth was >> Lorene. "Show me Lorene" I asked. I waited ....... nothing. (hmmmm) >"Ok, >> then, show me Janice" I waited ..... the background of the mirror became >> dark, and I could no longer see the reflection of the door behind me, or >the >> wall. (Ok, I thought, now something is going to happen) I waited and >> waited ... but nothing did. "Alright, if not Lorene or Janice ... show me >> Julia or Dorothy". This time my reflection changed into what you would >see >> looking at a film negative. It moved as I moved, which was strange enough >> ... but I wasn't satisfied. It wasn't myself I wanted to see. So I >started >> repeating everyone's names over and over ... "Lorene, Janice, Julia, >Dorothy >> ...." (Something! Anything!) I continued until I began to get >frustrated, >> and then found myself back on the couch. >> >> I immediately went into another OBE, and sat up on the couch trying to >pull >> myself together. (When things move that quickly, you need to take a >moment >> or two to re-orient yourself) The living room was the same this time >> around, but there was something added. In the top corner of the room >> directly across from me, was the severed head of a woman ... and the head >> was slowly turning (like a security video camera) and scanning the room. >It >> was facing away from me, moving slowly in my direction, as I sat there >> stunned. When her features finally came into view, I saw that it was >Julia. >> I was frozen (I mean .. what does one say to a severed head?). Finally I >> blurted out, "Julia, is this a lucid dream or an OBE?" (No discrepancy >> quite this strange has ever occured in my OBEs ... so I had to ask) And >she >> winked at me. >> >> Sorry Janice, I didn't get out front to look for the ball. I thought of >it >> on the way to the bathroom, but I wasn't sure how long the OBE would last, >> and opted for the mirror. After Julia's head showed up, I woke up >> completely, and couldn't produce another OBE (I think her image kind of >> stunned me). >> >> With time, I believe I'll be able to extend the length of my experiences >to >> their former, much longer, duration ... and I won't feel as if I'm under >> time constraints. >> >> Trish > >Hello Trish, > >Five o'clock your time was 2:00 for me and after writing a quick e-mail to >Julia telling her my whereabouts (I'm in Idaho), I lay down about 1:55 pm >after setting my alarm for 2:40. (Had to pick my kids up from school at >2:45.) I managed to get partial SP and slight vibes, but my mental noise >was too high for a really good go at it. However, at one point I felt a >strong sinking sensation and pressure in my left ear and then I began to see >a sort of washed out light color behind my eyelids. When you said you saw >something that looked like a film negative when asking to see me or Julia, I >wondered if that could be a correspondence of sorts. It would've been right >around 2:30 (5:30 your time). Pretty vague, but oh well.... (btw. Trish, I >have in interesting story about film negative images. I'll tell you about it >some time...) Please tell me. : ) >I'm still planning to try it again tonight at 10:00 which will be 6:00 am >for Julia. Still hoping to see you all out there! > >BTW, Trish, don't worry about the time; I think we can make the adjustments >"on the other side". And that was strange about Julia's severed head! Ick! >(Do you suppose that was PZ gumming up the works?) :-o No ... not PZ. That was definitely a "me" thing. : ) Let us know how you do. Trish ###### From: "Trish" Newsgroups: alt.out-of-body References: <38b39aa4.4218679@news.dial.pipex.com> Subject: Re: Mirror Mirror on the Wall ... Lines: 67 X-Newsreader: Microsoft Outlook Express 4.71.1712.3 X-MimeOLE: Produced By Microsoft MimeOLE V4.72.2106.4 Message-ID: X-Trace: +L2tqBjRYqDzyA92pMlTshmkMGbN/T0ABoS1MtqR9XcujYPQ7PRqYG8V8SBbQBP+Kn2DLz6/DSCe!+DnTEUIV5LgFWVN+GjFrAUUvnF7QkE9v9rIXUSbwg2yDeNJcT5PH5aHWpNJWJotabg4i65RMvPgo!/Q== X-Complaints-To: abuse@gte.net X-Abuse-Info: Please be sure to forward a copy of ALL headers X-Abuse-Info: Otherwise we will be unable to process your complaint properly NNTP-Posting-Date: Wed, 23 Feb 2000 12:42:18 GMT Distribution: world Date: Wed, 23 Feb 2000 12:42:18 GMT Path: chonsp.franklin.ch!pfaff.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!newsfeed-zh.ip-plus.net!news.ip-plus.net!news.datacomm.ch!newscore.gigabell.net!news0.de.colt.net!colt.net!diablo.theplanet.net!londen1-snf1.gtei.net!washdc3-snh1.gtei.net!news.gtei.net!dfiatx1-snr1.gtei.net.POSTED!not-for-mail Xref: chonsp.franklin.ch alt.out-of-body:34123 Julia Hawkes-Moore wrote in message <38b39aa4.4218679@news.dial.pipex.com>... >On Wed, 23 Feb 2000 00:06:47 GMT, "Trish" wrote: >>Julia, this one's for you! Let me know if you perceived anything. > >>Right after I posted a few messages into the group this afternoon, I signed >>off and lay down on my living room couch to watch the prosecution's closing >>statement on the Diallo trial. As the words droned on and on, I fell >>asleep. > > Ha, as you mentioned earlier, this would have coincided with my >'practice run' before I went to sleep, rather than my dawn visit. >I practiced by thinking about you all, planning the route, and >concentrating on the object I wanted to show to all of you. I was amazed that it happened so fast! >>I immediately went into another OBE, and sat up on the couch trying to pull >>myself together. (When things move that quickly, you need to take a moment >>or two to re-orient yourself) The living room was the same this time >>around, but there was something added. In the top corner of the room >>directly across from me, was the severed head of a woman ... and the head >>was slowly turning (like a security video camera) and scanning the room. It >>was facing away from me, moving slowly in my direction, as I sat there >>stunned. When her features finally came into view, I saw that it was Julia. >>I was frozen (I mean .. what does one say to a severed head?). Finally I >>blurted out, "Julia, is this a lucid dream or an OBE?" (No discrepancy >>quite this strange has ever occured in my OBEs ... so I had to ask) And she >>winked at me. > > Ha, that was me on my preliminary trip, then, looking out for you >all then! When I arrive somewhere, I do scan the place slowly like >that, looking from left to right. And I am a 'winker'! ; ) > >>Sorry Janice, I didn't get out front to look for the ball. I thought of it >>on the way to the bathroom, but I wasn't sure how long the OBE would last, >>and opted for the mirror. After Julia's head showed up, I woke up >>completely, and couldn't produce another OBE (I think her image kind of >>stunned me). > > What ball? I must have missed this post. But the object which I >later 'collected' from you was circular. It was solid, like a disc, >medal or coin, but I could see no patterns on it, too fuzzy. Janice gave me an experiment to do to see if I could work with being able to manipulate the environment ... something I can't do in OBEs, but can do in Lucid Dreams. She suggested looking for a ball on my front lawn ... or actually creating it by going through the movements of bouncing or throwing, etc. Trish ###### From: "lorz" Newsgroups: alt.out-of-body References: <38b39aa4.4218679@news.dial.pipex.com> Subject: Re: Mirror Mirror on the Wall ... Lines: 85 X-Newsreader: Microsoft Outlook Express 4.72.3110.1 X-MimeOLE: Produced By Microsoft MimeOLE V4.72.3110.3 Message-ID: Date: Wed, 23 Feb 2000 11:40:13 -0500 NNTP-Posting-Host: 216.77.205.227 X-Trace: news3.mia 951324040 216.77.205.227 (Wed, 23 Feb 2000 11:40:40 EST) NNTP-Posting-Date: Wed, 23 Feb 2000 11:40:40 EST Path: chonsp.franklin.ch!pfaff.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!newsfeed-zh.ip-plus.net!news.ip-plus.net!News.Amsterdam.UnisourceCS!skynet.be!newsfeed00.sul.t-online.de!t-online.de!news-MUC.ecrc.net!netnews.com!europa.netcrusader.net!205.231.236.10!newspeer.monmouth.com!newsfeed.atl!news3.mia.POSTED!not-for-mail Xref: chonsp.franklin.ch alt.out-of-body:34140 Trish wrote in message ... : :Julia Hawkes-Moore wrote in message :<38b39aa4.4218679@news.dial.pipex.com>... :>On Wed, 23 Feb 2000 00:06:47 GMT, "Trish" wrote: :>>Julia, this one's for you! Let me know if you perceived anything. :> :>>Right after I posted a few messages into the group this afternoon, I :signed :>>off and lay down on my living room couch to watch the prosecution's :closing :>>statement on the Diallo trial. As the words droned on and on, I fell :>>asleep. :> :> Ha, as you mentioned earlier, this would have coincided with my :>'practice run' before I went to sleep, rather than my dawn visit. :>I practiced by thinking about you all, planning the route, and :>concentrating on the object I wanted to show to all of you. : :I was amazed that it happened so fast! : : :>>I immediately went into another OBE, and sat up on the couch trying to :pull :>>myself together. (When things move that quickly, you need to take a :moment :>>or two to re-orient yourself) The living room was the same this time :>>around, but there was something added. In the top corner of the room :>>directly across from me, was the severed head of a woman ... and the head :>>was slowly turning (like a security video camera) and scanning the room. :It :>>was facing away from me, moving slowly in my direction, as I sat there :>>stunned. When her features finally came into view, I saw that it was :Julia. :>>I was frozen (I mean .. what does one say to a severed head?). Finally I :>>blurted out, "Julia, is this a lucid dream or an OBE?" (No discrepancy :>>quite this strange has ever occured in my OBEs ... so I had to ask) And :she :>>winked at me. :> :> Ha, that was me on my preliminary trip, then, looking out for you :>all then! When I arrive somewhere, I do scan the place slowly like :>that, looking from left to right. And I am a 'winker'! : :; ) : : :> :>>Sorry Janice, I didn't get out front to look for the ball. I thought of :it :>>on the way to the bathroom, but I wasn't sure how long the OBE would last, :>>and opted for the mirror. After Julia's head showed up, I woke up :>>completely, and couldn't produce another OBE (I think her image kind of :>>stunned me). :> :> What ball? I must have missed this post. But the object which I :>later 'collected' from you was circular. It was solid, like a disc, :>medal or coin, but I could see no patterns on it, too fuzzy. : :Janice gave me an experiment to do to see if I could work with being able to :manipulate the environment ... something I can't do in OBEs, but can do in :Lucid Dreams. She suggested looking for a ball on my front lawn ... or :actually creating it by going through the movements of bouncing or throwing, :etc. : :Trish Hi Trish.. Janice, Dorothy, Julia... sorry you didn't see me, probably my fault. I got nowhere last night . i am afraid I didnt try too hard I was so sleepy I fell right out and dont remember a thing! argh.. I am also going to try again tonight to see any or all of you! Did you post a description of how Julia appeared to you? I didn't see it. I was wondering how close it was? I am going to try very hard tonight to see all of you and will also bring an object with me to show! Wish me luck.. help me out here Julia!! Thanks, Lorene ###### From: hawksmoor@dial.pipex.com (Julia Hawkes-Moore) Newsgroups: alt.out-of-body Subject: Re: Mirror Mirror on the Wall ... Date: Wed, 23 Feb 2000 18:02:24 GMT Organization: UUNET WorldCom server (post doesn't reflect views of UUNET WorldCom Lines: 18 Message-ID: <38b4201b.539473@news.dial.pipex.com> References: <38b39aa4.4218679@news.dial.pipex.com> Reply-To: hawksmoor@dial.pipex.com NNTP-Posting-Host: useraj95.uk.uudial.com X-Trace: lure.pipex.net 951329482 10171 62.188.133.224 (23 Feb 2000 18:11:22 GMT) X-Complaints-To: abuse@uk.uu.net NNTP-Posting-Date: 23 Feb 2000 18:11:22 GMT X-Newsreader: Forte Free Agent 1.1/16.230 Path: chonsp.franklin.ch!pfaff.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!newsfeed-zh.ip-plus.net!news.ip-plus.net!News.Amsterdam.UnisourceCS!newshunter!cosy.sbg.ac.at!news-feed.inet.tele.dk!bofh.vszbr.cz!newsfeeds.belnet.be!news.belnet.be!newsfeed.online.be!tank.news.pipex.net!pipex!tube.news.pipex.net!pipex!not-for-mail Xref: chonsp.franklin.ch alt.out-of-body:34145 On Wed, 23 Feb 2000 11:40:13 -0500, "lorz" wrote: >Hi Trish.. Janice, Dorothy, Julia... >sorry you didn't see me, probably my fault. I got nowhere last night . i am >afraid I didnt try too hard I was so sleepy I fell right out and dont >remember a thing! argh.. I am also going to try again tonight to see any or >all of you! >Did you post a description of how Julia appeared to you? I didn't see it. I >was wondering how close it was? Trish and I have seen each other's photos on the group website, but I am delighted that I saw you so clearly! >I am going to try very hard tonight to see >all of you and will also bring an object with me to show! >Wish me luck.. help me out here Julia!! I'll do my best: see you later! Love from Julia. ###### Message-ID: <38B44DC8.7126@not-here.net> From: Janice X-Mailer: Mozilla 3.01 (Win95; I) MIME-Version: 1.0 Newsgroups: alt.out-of-body Subject: Re: Mirror Mirror on the Wall ... References: Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Lines: 114 NNTP-Posting-Host: 207.103.34.8 X-Trace: tw11.nn.bcandid.com 951340438 207.103.34.8 (Wed, 23 Feb 2000 14:13:58 MST) NNTP-Posting-Date: Wed, 23 Feb 2000 14:13:58 MST Organization: bCandid - Powering the world's discussions - http://bCandid.com Date: Wed, 23 Feb 2000 21:13:59 GMT Path: chonsp.franklin.ch!pfaff.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!newsfeed-zh.ip-plus.net!news.ip-plus.net!News.Amsterdam.UnisourceCS!newshunter!cosy.sbg.ac.at!news-feed.inet.tele.dk!bofh.vszbr.cz!enews.sgi.com!nntp.msen.com!206.132.58.120.MISMATCH!gw22.nn.bcandid.com!hub12.nn.bcandid.com!tw11.nn.bcandid.com.POSTED!not-for-mail Xref: chonsp.franklin.ch alt.out-of-body:34135 Trish wrote: > > Julia, this one's for you! Let me know if you perceived anything. > > Right after I posted a few messages into the group this afternoon, I signed > off and lay down on my living room couch to watch the prosecution's closing > statement on the Diallo trial. As the words droned on and on, I fell > asleep. > > I found myself in a dream, in a vast hotel. A variety of people I know were > there ... my closest girlfriend, some people at work, and there was lots of > moving to and fro ... up and down staircases, elevators, etc. For some > reason I was feeling very woozy in the dream .. as if my equalibrium was out > of balance ... the pressure of moving up in the elevator almost levelled me > out. So I wandered around asking other people if they were feeling the same > way ... but no one had a clue what I was talking about. At last I met my > mother in the hotel lobby where she was sitting on one of the lounge sofas > reading a magazine. I sat next to her, and then laid my head in her lap, > asking her "Mom .. what's wrong with me? Why do I feel so woozy?" She > patted my head and smoothed my hair and then assured me, "It's ok hon ... > you're dreaming. It's just a dream." > > It's then that I sat up, looked at her incredibly and said "Mom, you're > right, this is a dream!!" ... So I jumped up and thanked her, and every > thing seemed to level out as I gained lucidity. I went in search of my > best friend and found her on a staircase, dressed as the Queen of Hearts. > What a laugh that was. She was wearing red stilleto heels. I tried > explaining to her that this was my dream, and that we could do what we liked > ... but as usual, my dream characters don't tend to catch on. I decided to > drop it, and told her I had to go ... there was something I had to do, and I > had to be awake to do it. Those silly dream characters - they hardly ever get it, do they? :D > Next thing I know, I'm awake, and the closing statement on the Diallo trial > was coming to an end. The news commentator came on, and I reached for the > remote control and turned the TV off (this was about 5 p.m. EST) The minute > I placed my head back down, I went into a very easy relaxed vibrational > state, and then went right into an OBE. > > My living room was exactly as I left it ... and I do note that the OBE > originated in the living room where I fell asleep, not from my bedroom > environment. My living room couch OBEs are like that too - they start in the living room. But now and then my bedroom OBEs are all wrong because they'll start out in the bedroom of my previous house, a discrepancy which I don't always even notice. > Since it was well lit, I could see everything clearly, and > didn't notice anything out of place. Feeling a time urgency, I went right > into my memory recalls .. (My full name, what is today?, what did I do at > work earlier today?, what time is it now?) Did you try, "What did I do yesterday?" or just "What did I do earlier today?" > I was headed for the bathroom > (the closest mirror) and that's all the time I had for memory recall. I > flipped on the bathroom light ... and the bathroom was exactly as it usually > is (colors, fixtures, etc) I looked into the mirror and noted my > reflection ... I was the same as I usually look, although I did note that my > eyes were red and a little bit glassy ... how I would assume I would look > after just waking up from sleep. The first person I called forth was > Lorene. "Show me Lorene" I asked. I waited ....... nothing. (hmmmm) "Ok, > then, show me Janice" I waited ..... the background of the mirror became > dark, and I could no longer see the reflection of the door behind me, or the > wall. Waaah ... I bring you darkness. :( > (Ok, I thought, now something is going to happen) I waited and > waited ... but nothing did. "Alright, if not Lorene or Janice ... show me > Julia or Dorothy". This time my reflection changed into what you would see > looking at a film negative. It moved as I moved, which was strange enough > ... but I wasn't satisfied. It wasn't myself I wanted to see. So I started > repeating everyone's names over and over ... "Lorene, Janice, Julia, Dorothy > ...." (Something! Anything!) I continued until I began to get frustrated, > and then found myself back on the couch. > > I immediately went into another OBE, and sat up on the couch trying to pull > myself together. (When things move that quickly, you need to take a moment > or two to re-orient yourself) The living room was the same this time > around, but there was something added. In the top corner of the room > directly across from me, was the severed head of a woman ... and the head > was slowly turning (like a security video camera) and scanning the room. It > was facing away from me, moving slowly in my direction, as I sat there > stunned. When her features finally came into view, I saw that it was Julia. > I was frozen (I mean .. what does one say to a severed head?). Finally I > blurted out, "Julia, is this a lucid dream or an OBE?" (No discrepancy > quite this strange has ever occured in my OBEs ... so I had to ask) And she > winked at me. Did you read the accounts I posted about my dreams of PZ, one of which featured disembodied heads popping up in midair and talking to each other? If so that may have helped suggest this image. > Sorry Janice, I didn't get out front to look for the ball. I thought of it > on the way to the bathroom, but I wasn't sure how long the OBE would last, > and opted for the mirror. After Julia's head showed up, I woke up > completely, and couldn't produce another OBE (I think her image kind of > stunned me). Not a problem. Work on that some other time. You've certainly demonstrated that you can get your OBE mirror to behave in a dreamlike way, even if it didn't do what you wanted (rather like mine). > With time, I believe I'll be able to extend the length of my experiences to > their former, much longer, duration ... and I won't feel as if I'm under > time constraints. I know about the time constraint thing. My friend Ruth and I have been known to flutter about madly in our OBE-type lucid dreams, thinking how we don't have much time before the experience will end. ###### Message-ID: <38B4501F.6B6C@not-here.net> From: Janice X-Mailer: Mozilla 3.01 (Win95; I) MIME-Version: 1.0 Newsgroups: alt.out-of-body Subject: Re: Mirror Mirror on the Wall ... References: <38B347FC.66DA5F2B@privatei.com> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Lines: 37 NNTP-Posting-Host: 207.103.34.8 X-Trace: tw11.nn.bcandid.com 951341037 207.103.34.8 (Wed, 23 Feb 2000 14:23:57 MST) NNTP-Posting-Date: Wed, 23 Feb 2000 14:23:57 MST Organization: bCandid - Powering the world's discussions - http://bCandid.com Date: Wed, 23 Feb 2000 21:23:57 GMT Path: chonsp.franklin.ch!pfaff.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!newsfeed-zh.ip-plus.net!news.ip-plus.net!News.Amsterdam.UnisourceCS!skynet.be!newsfeed00.sul.t-online.de!t-online.de!news-MUC.ecrc.net!netnews.com!newshub.northeast.verio.net!verio!news-out.cwix.com!newsfeed.cwix.com!cyclone-east.rr.com!news.rr.com!news-east.rr.com!portc05.blue.aol.com!gw12.bcandid.com.MISMATCH!gw22.nn.bcandid.com!hub12.nn.bcandid.com!tw11.nn.bcandid.com.POSTED!not-for-mail Xref: chonsp.franklin.ch alt.out-of-body:34136 The Original Ken wrote: > > Trish wrote: > > > > > Next thing I know, I'm awake, and the closing statement on the Diallo trial > > was coming to an end. The news commentator came on, and I reached for the > > remote control and turned the TV off (this was about 5 p.m. EST) The minute > > I placed my head back down, I went into a very easy relaxed vibrational > > state, and then went right into an OBE. > > > > My living room was exactly as I left it ... and I do note that the OBE > > originated in the living room where I fell asleep, not from my bedroom > > environment. > > Trish, you just blew my smelly socks off with this comment!!!! Do you realize > what you just said here?? As far as I am aware I have *never* had an OBE where > the room I exited to was different from the room I was in. If I'm in my > bedroom, I exit to my bedroom, if I'm on the couch (which I do occasionally) I > exit from the couch. I had an OBE once while I was in a cabin somewhere > sometime ago and I exited into the cabin. *Never* have I exited from my body > and been anywhere else but where I actually was. I don't know why I never saw > this before (being the brilliant person that I am) but this is really a > monumental observation. How many times have you woken at a friends house > thinking you were in your own bed? Why would the mind always make you seem like > you were exiting from the location you are actually at rather than another room > or another place you had been at while on vacation or something like that! This > is astonishing! Brilliant!!! Ken, don't get QUITE so excited. :D I've sometimes had OBEs take place in a different location than where I am sleeping. In fact when I was visiting in Texas one time I had little trouble *making* my OBEs be set back at home, simply by deliberately imagining myself to be in my bed at home. I also attempted to wander through the apartment where I was staying in Texas in some other OBEs while I was at it, and while I was able to make the OBE begin at the apartment I could not get the layout or details of the place quite right. ###### Message-ID: <38B458E2.6398@not-here.net> From: Janice X-Mailer: Mozilla 3.01 (Win95; I) MIME-Version: 1.0 Newsgroups: alt.out-of-body Subject: Re: Mirror Mirror on the Wall ... References: <38B347FC.66DA5F2B@privatei.com> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Lines: 83 NNTP-Posting-Host: 207.103.34.8 X-Trace: tw11.nn.bcandid.com 951343285 207.103.34.8 (Wed, 23 Feb 2000 15:01:25 MST) NNTP-Posting-Date: Wed, 23 Feb 2000 15:01:25 MST Organization: bCandid - Powering the world's discussions - http://bCandid.com Date: Wed, 23 Feb 2000 22:01:25 GMT Path: chonsp.franklin.ch!pfaff.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!newsfeed-zh.ip-plus.net!news.ip-plus.net!News.Amsterdam.UnisourceCS!skynet.be!newsfeed00.sul.t-online.de!t-online.de!diablo.theplanet.net!europa.netcrusader.net!206.132.58.120!gw22.nn.bcandid.com!hub12.nn.bcandid.com!tw11.nn.bcandid.com.POSTED!not-for-mail Xref: chonsp.franklin.ch alt.out-of-body:34134 Trish wrote: > > My OBEs originate "where I'm at" as well. I have heard of others who exit > someplace else, and I've noticed this from time to time as well .... but > they seem more like dreams of OBEs ... no high memory recall, and I don't > even notice that I started out at the wrong place until after I wake up. This "real OBEs" vs "dreams of OBEs" thing is just a continuum, in my opinion. When you have the OBEs where things don't start out in your current location and you don't even realize it until after you wake up, your overall awareness level was lower than usual at the time. But this doesn't necessarily mean that you are experiencing a completely different phenomenon than you are when you are more aware. When you are more aware, especially if you went into the OBE straight from being awake in a given environment, you would be more likely to reconstruct that environment close to accurately and to notice any discrepancies that happen to turn up as well. Attention, access to recent memories, and critical thinking ability are all interrelated and appear to be governed at least in part by the level of aminergic neurotransmitters in your brain. When this level is comparatively high (as when you go directly into the OBE/dream state from waking), you should tend to be better at all those functions. When it is low (as when you are very tired or are entering the OBE condition after partially waking from an ordinary dream), you should tend to be worse at all of them. > When you think about it ... you're right. Why *would* the mind always make > you seem like you're exiting from the place you're at? It doesn't. I have had some OBEs that start out someplace else and I may or may not realize it at the time. Even if I don't realize it I can be otherwise pretty lucid during the OBE. > Why? To make it > seem more realistic to the physical? Why? Not so much to make it seem more realistic, I think, as simply because when you go consciously into an OBE you are carrying into the experience a mental map that says where you are located. All that information is still active in your brain. As I mentioned in another post, I have been able to override that with some mental effort and make myself have OBEs set elsewhere intentionally. > My personal belief and > expectation is that an OBE is *not* the physical environment ... so, for me, > it wouldn't be a requirement. This depiction actually runs contrary to my > expectations. Which expectations, Trish? You have expectations from your own many past OB experiences, which for all these years have been taking place in a relatively realistic replica of your current environment. And again, expectation is never the sole determinant of the content of any perceptual experience. > Add this to commonplace doors being out of place for no damn good reason at > all ...... hmmmmm How do you know there's no damn good reason? Can you consciously remember every scene you may have seen on television or in reality that may have gratuitously blended with your current mental map of the immediate environment for the duration of your OBE? Do you completely rule out the possibility of symbolic content occurring in your OBEs? Or why should there necessarily be a *good* reason, anyway? The absence of any stable environment to anchor our perceptions once the physical senses are cut off should, in my view, lead to various inaccuracies in our reconstructions. > >Oh by the way, great OBE. Thanks for posting it. Congratulations. 'Bout > time > >eh? > > Thank you. I think I'm running about 1 per month now. A lot better than > none at all. > > >I wonder if the head thing was a little left over from my comment about the > >severed head from the radio shack thingy. Just a thought. > > Hahaha. Well, I think I knew that the time was right for Julia to be > watching ... and that's how I envisioned her there. You and she seem to > have a strong influence on my OBEs. (That radio shack thingy was kind of > morbid) : ) Hm, yes, I had forgotten that Ken had provided a strong severed head image here recently, too. ###### Message-ID: <38B45AAF.628F@not-here.net> From: Janice X-Mailer: Mozilla 3.01 (Win95; I) MIME-Version: 1.0 Newsgroups: alt.out-of-body Subject: Re: Mirror Mirror on the Wall ... References: <38B347FC.66DA5F2B@privatei.com> <38B36254.3188A13B@privatei.com> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Lines: 48 NNTP-Posting-Host: 207.103.34.8 X-Trace: tw11.nn.bcandid.com 951343741 207.103.34.8 (Wed, 23 Feb 2000 15:09:01 MST) NNTP-Posting-Date: Wed, 23 Feb 2000 15:09:01 MST Organization: bCandid - Powering the world's discussions - http://bCandid.com Date: Wed, 23 Feb 2000 22:09:01 GMT Path: chonsp.franklin.ch!pfaff.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!news-ge.switch.ch!news.maxwell.syr.edu!europa.netcrusader.net!206.132.58.120!gw22.nn.bcandid.com!hub12.nn.bcandid.com!tw11.nn.bcandid.com.POSTED!not-for-mail Xref: chonsp.franklin.ch alt.out-of-body:34179 The Original Ken wrote: > > I've had OBEs of course where I exit blind (or more accurately in a fog) and get > whisked off to some distant dimension, but during the OBEs where I go through > the motion of vibes and separation and can see at the same time (with my > physical eyes shut), what I see is always where I am. And another thing, when I > do see it's always in the direction that I am physically lying. If I'm lying on > my right side and I begin to see through closed lids, This description makes me smile fondly in reminiscence of my own "seeing through closed eyes" experiences. :) > its always what I would > expect to see if I had open my physical eyes while lying on my right side. > There has never been an exception to this occurrence. I've had some exceptions. Those exceptions are what helped me figure out that what I was taking to be my physical body in my OBEs was often itself just a mental model of a body. > This is really way cool. > You would think sometimes you would be seeing the left side of the bed or the > ceiling since chances are your brain wouldn't really know what position you were > actually lying in. Very strange indeed. It depends, I think, on how conscious you are during the transition. If you go directly into the OBE sequence from waking without a majot interruption of consciousness, then you should know your real location. If you happen to have dosed off for a bit in there, you may have moved around without realizing it and then you get things wrong when you perk up again and start the OBE routine again. This has happened to me often enough. > Hmmmm is right. accurate representation of your sleeping environment, and doors > in the wrong place. There has just got to be some obvious connection here. > > > >I wonder if the head thing was a little left over from my comment about the > > >severed head from the radio shack thingy. Just a thought. > > > > Hahaha. Well, I think I knew that the time was right for Julia to be > > watching ... and that's how I envisioned her there. You and she seem to > > have a strong influence on my OBEs. (That radio shack thingy was kind of > > morbid) : ) > > Ah yes, morbid indeed, but then again what did you say your favorite movie was? > ;-D Not "The Silence of the Lambs," I hope? ###### Message-ID: <38B47F9C.4275@not-here.net> From: Janice X-Mailer: Mozilla 3.01 (Win95; I) MIME-Version: 1.0 Newsgroups: alt.out-of-body Subject: Re: Mirror Mirror on the Wall ... References: Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Lines: 106 NNTP-Posting-Host: 207.103.34.8 X-Trace: tw11.nn.bcandid.com 951353195 207.103.34.8 (Wed, 23 Feb 2000 17:46:35 MST) NNTP-Posting-Date: Wed, 23 Feb 2000 17:46:35 MST Organization: bCandid - Powering the world's discussions - http://bCandid.com Date: Thu, 24 Feb 2000 00:46:36 GMT Path: chonsp.franklin.ch!pfaff.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!newsfeed-zh.ip-plus.net!news.ip-plus.net!News.Amsterdam.UnisourceCS!newshunter!cosy.sbg.ac.at!news-feed.inet.tele.dk!bofh.vszbr.cz!europa.netcrusader.net!206.132.58.120!gw22.nn.bcandid.com!hub12.nn.bcandid.com!tw11.nn.bcandid.com.POSTED!not-for-mail Xref: chonsp.franklin.ch alt.out-of-body:34167 All right, this is the moment you've all been waiting for ... Janice's experiment report. :) Around 1:00 AM EST I took a shower and got ready for bed, including bringing the cat in with me (he slept in the crook of my arm the whole time and made me rather uncomfortable). I closely examined the object that I was planning to keep in mind for the experiment, and actually took it to bed with me in case that would help, sitting it on my solar plexus and keeping one hand on it. I also brought a notepad and pencil and sat those on my abdomen where I could get to them quickly to write notes. I turned the light out at 1:10 AM EST and tried to relax. I decided that trying to think about Trish, Lorz, Dorothy, Julia and perhaps PZ as well was a bit of a tall order, so every time my thoughts wandered I tried to bring them back to Julia's experiment specifically and to picture my little object. My thoughts were rather unfocused, but I do not believe that I really fell sleep for more than a few seconds at a time within the time frame of the experiment. I did have a number of fleeting hypnagogic impressions, most of which I wrote down right after they occurred. Here are the hallucinatory vocalizations I recorded: "Are you" "Bogey man" "Liar" "That's enough" "Evidence" "Watch yourself" "Doctor" "You got two more minutes" In addition, the Romantics' song "Talking in Your Sleep" started going through my head at a point (I had heard it recently). And here are the hallucinatory visualizations: Upon thinking about how I used to be good at fantasizing scenes: An impression of myself sitting in a white wicker chair in a white room with white carpeting Upon thinking once of PZ: an impression of a fist punching at my left eye, which made me flinch - thanks, dude :D A context that is lost to me now: a small bag of potato chips After a while (I can't say for sure how long, because I couldn't see the clock without moving so much that it would be sure to rouse me too much), I dosed slightly then felt the famous vibe effect, which startled me awake. This caught my interest because I don't feel that effect very often any more. Since it continued for quite a while after I was fully awake, I studied it closely. It seemed as well as I could guess to be originating in my circulatory system, not my nervous system - something unusual about my blood flow. Anyway, it subsided eventually, first in my legs, and I dosed again. I jolted alert again at a point and the vibes were back, but I couldn't seem to move into sleep paralysis consciously with them going on like I used to do. Anyway, finally I roused one more time and wanted to get rid of the notebook that was on my abodomen. But I quickly realized that I was not using my physical arms to do so, but dream arms. There are subtle differences, but one can tell - no weight of clothing, no gravity to speak of, etc. I think I got my physical eyes open briefly while checking my state, because I saw a pile of laundry that it took me a few moments to remember was there; had I only been opening my dream eyes, I would most likely not have seen this pile because I truly did not remember that it was there. (Yeah, yeah, call it astral vision if you want. :) Anyway, I was now in the perfect setup for the OBE-type lucid dream I'd been wanting for the experiment, so I got up in the dream body. I had a hard time controlling it and thought ruefully of my bravado the night before in telling Gunnar how nowadays I just ignore "get up anyway" in my OBEs and let the dream body catch up to me when it will - ha! I actually stumbled into a wall at one point and ended up back with the sense of lying in bed and had to start over. This time I did better and went through the dream version of my upstairs hall and down the stairs to the living room. A rather pathetic version of my husband was slouched on the couch. Since I was wearing my pajamas in the dream I figured I could not just walk out the front door without inviting interference from this dream character, so I just said hi and walked through the house to the basement stairs. Flicking the light switch at the top of the stairs did increase the illumination a bit, so I went down. I remembered that I was supposed to be looking for a mirror, then falsely remembered that we had one on the east wall of the basement room. In keeping with that expectation, sure enough there it was. Thinking to try phrasing things more politely than I did last time, I looked in the mirror and said, "Mirror, can you show me Dorothy Dunne?" There was nothing but a slight change to the eyes again, as when I tried this last time when I asked to see Trish. Now I asked to see Trish this time. Again, nothing more than a little change, with the eyes getting smaller. I asked to see Lorz. Now, finally, I got a changed image - a pretty young woman with large eyes and loose shoulder-length, reddish hair (sort of like I imagine Trish, and not at all like Lorz's real appearance, as I found out when I read everyone else's reports later). For fun I also asked to see PZ. The image morphed into that of a round-faced, sullen looking fellow with very small eyes and straight dirty-blond hair with bangs. I thought that was amusing but knew it wasn't at all the way PZ looks, since I had seen his picture on the Internet the other night. I decided to go out the back door and see what might be going on in Dreamville. As I was walking through the utility room I wondered if I had left anyone out. When I realized that I had forgotten Julia, I woke up. Since I felt I had done my duty, I got up to check the time (I am too nearsighted to read it from my bed in the dark). It was 3:30 AM. I went back to bed. The cat moved, so I was able to get comfortable at last, and I let myself fall asleep normally without trying to remain alert or writing down my subsequent dreams. (There was one, however, that was about TienYen and a bunch of camels. :) ###### From: "Trish" Newsgroups: alt.out-of-body References: <38B44DC8.7126@not-here.net> Subject: Re: Mirror Mirror on the Wall ... Lines: 134 X-Newsreader: Microsoft Outlook Express 4.71.1712.3 X-MimeOLE: Produced By Microsoft MimeOLE V4.72.2106.4 Message-ID: X-Trace: /wmW58rFQ6JGrevOec8FmnrbXzLEWzhubWddFBHSOoa7T7+ZJst5Wr/t/sBnkBmkH9uImXeSDgJu!ZRcSSxRUgI24apiQhajWgfYWEFK0ripdB2jAtzqNNtLYc+h0qotq3Mfy5Jk+XwnKetD2J1Vzr81D!d2h/dsPBEQ== X-Complaints-To: abuse@gte.net X-Abuse-Info: Please be sure to forward a copy of ALL headers X-Abuse-Info: Otherwise we will be unable to process your complaint properly NNTP-Posting-Date: Thu, 24 Feb 2000 00:57:08 GMT Distribution: world Date: Thu, 24 Feb 2000 00:57:08 GMT Path: chonsp.franklin.ch!pfaff.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!newsfeed-zh.ip-plus.net!news.ip-plus.net!News.Amsterdam.UnisourceCS!skynet.be!newsfeed.icl.net!colt.net!nyc-news-feed1.bbnplanet.com!washdc3-snh1.gtei.net!news.gtei.net!dfiatx1-snr1.gtei.net.POSTED!not-for-mail Xref: chonsp.franklin.ch alt.out-of-body:34223 Janice wrote in message <38B44DC8.7126@not-here.net>... > >Those silly dream characters - they hardly ever get it, do they? :D Damn them. : ) > >> Next thing I know, I'm awake, and the closing statement on the Diallo trial >> was coming to an end. The news commentator came on, and I reached for the >> remote control and turned the TV off (this was about 5 p.m. EST) The minute >> I placed my head back down, I went into a very easy relaxed vibrational >> state, and then went right into an OBE. >> >> My living room was exactly as I left it ... and I do note that the OBE >> originated in the living room where I fell asleep, not from my bedroom >> environment. > >My living room couch OBEs are like that too - they start in the living >room. But now and then my bedroom OBEs are all wrong because they'll >start out in the bedroom of my previous house, a discrepancy which I >don't always even notice. > >> Since it was well lit, I could see everything clearly, and >> didn't notice anything out of place. Feeling a time urgency, I went right >> into my memory recalls .. (My full name, what is today?, what did I do at >> work earlier today?, what time is it now?) > >Did you try, "What did I do yesterday?" or just "What did I do earlier >today?" Sorry ... that's all I had time for by the time I got to the bathroom. Since I answered the others accurately, I feel confident I would have answered this one accurately as well. > >> I was headed for the bathroom >> (the closest mirror) and that's all the time I had for memory recall. I >> flipped on the bathroom light ... and the bathroom was exactly as it usually >> is (colors, fixtures, etc) I looked into the mirror and noted my >> reflection ... I was the same as I usually look, although I did note that my >> eyes were red and a little bit glassy ... how I would assume I would look >> after just waking up from sleep. The first person I called forth was >> Lorene. "Show me Lorene" I asked. I waited ....... nothing. (hmmmm) "Ok, >> then, show me Janice" I waited ..... the background of the mirror became >> dark, and I could no longer see the reflection of the door behind me, or the >> wall. > >Waaah ... I bring you darkness. :( No Janice. It was illuminating in a way ... the rest of the bathroom disappeared into darkness, but my image was clear and vibrant. Almost like you saying "look at yourself, not the environment" : ) >> (Ok, I thought, now something is going to happen) I waited and >> waited ... but nothing did. "Alright, if not Lorene or Janice ... show me >> Julia or Dorothy". This time my reflection changed into what you would see >> looking at a film negative. It moved as I moved, which was strange enough >> ... but I wasn't satisfied. It wasn't myself I wanted to see. So I started >> repeating everyone's names over and over ... "Lorene, Janice, Julia, Dorothy >> ...." (Something! Anything!) I continued until I began to get frustrated, >> and then found myself back on the couch. >> >> I immediately went into another OBE, and sat up on the couch trying to pull >> myself together. (When things move that quickly, you need to take a moment >> or two to re-orient yourself) The living room was the same this time >> around, but there was something added. In the top corner of the room >> directly across from me, was the severed head of a woman ... and the head >> was slowly turning (like a security video camera) and scanning the room. It >> was facing away from me, moving slowly in my direction, as I sat there >> stunned. When her features finally came into view, I saw that it was Julia. >> I was frozen (I mean .. what does one say to a severed head?). Finally I >> blurted out, "Julia, is this a lucid dream or an OBE?" (No discrepancy >> quite this strange has ever occured in my OBEs ... so I had to ask) And she >> winked at me. > >Did you read the accounts I posted about my dreams of PZ, one of which >featured disembodied heads popping up in midair and talking to each >other? If so that may have helped suggest this image. There is lots of beheadedness floating around lately. Seems I'm just adding to the mix. >> Sorry Janice, I didn't get out front to look for the ball. I thought of it >> on the way to the bathroom, but I wasn't sure how long the OBE would last, >> and opted for the mirror. After Julia's head showed up, I woke up >> completely, and couldn't produce another OBE (I think her image kind of >> stunned me). > >Not a problem. Work on that some other time. You've certainly >demonstrated that you can get your OBE mirror to behave in a dreamlike >way, even if it didn't do what you wanted (rather like mine). Yes. That I did. >> With time, I believe I'll be able to extend the length of my experiences to >> their former, much longer, duration ... and I won't feel as if I'm under >> time constraints. > >I know about the time constraint thing. My friend Ruth and I have been >known to flutter about madly in our OBE-type lucid dreams, thinking how >we don't have much time before the experience will end. Mmmhmm. I was making a mad dash for the bathroom thinking "For the love of God, don't let it end now!" : ) ###### From: "Trish" Newsgroups: alt.out-of-body References: <38B347FC.66DA5F2B@privatei.com> <38B36254.3188A13B@privatei.com> <38B45AAF.628F@not-here.net> Subject: Re: Mirror Mirror on the Wall ... Lines: 21 X-Newsreader: Microsoft Outlook Express 4.71.1712.3 X-MimeOLE: Produced By Microsoft MimeOLE V4.72.2106.4 Message-ID: X-Trace: /KiKeUW52iKfeJr2KBvPLOSlkTQIepuvvjVZfFyDfZAAcUBXSux1mozrOGS6X177TlCwh+TT2ZZe!BVPWHSfDVOPZ6jHTj64hvT7JhSswG1tdI0wszgs/KL4wq3Evgop7AiJfLACF7yfa05o5aXp4gZ4t!bOlCmhbe X-Complaints-To: abuse@gte.net X-Abuse-Info: Please be sure to forward a copy of ALL headers X-Abuse-Info: Otherwise we will be unable to process your complaint properly NNTP-Posting-Date: Thu, 24 Feb 2000 00:57:09 GMT Distribution: world Date: Thu, 24 Feb 2000 00:57:09 GMT Path: chonsp.franklin.ch!pfaff.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!news-ge.switch.ch!naxos.belnet.be!news.belnet.be!newsfeed.eurocyber.net!newsfeed.berkeley.edu!su-news-hub1.bbnplanet.com!washdc3-snh1.gtei.net!news.gtei.net!dfiatx1-snr1.gtei.net.POSTED!not-for-mail Xref: chonsp.franklin.ch alt.out-of-body:34225 Janice wrote in message <38B45AAF.628F@not-here.net>... >The Original Ken wrote: >> > Hahaha. Well, I think I knew that the time was right for Julia to be >> > watching ... and that's how I envisioned her there. You and she seem to >> > have a strong influence on my OBEs. (That radio shack thingy was kind of >> > morbid) : ) >> >> Ah yes, morbid indeed, but then again what did you say your favorite movie was? >> ;-D > >Not "The Silence of the Lambs," I hope? Oh Janice, you do know me! This is a close second though. It's "Natural Born Killers". ###### From: "Trish" Newsgroups: alt.out-of-body References: <38B47F9C.4275@not-here.net> Subject: Re: Mirror Mirror on the Wall ... Lines: 148 X-Newsreader: Microsoft Outlook Express 4.71.1712.3 X-MimeOLE: Produced By Microsoft MimeOLE V4.72.2106.4 Message-ID: X-Trace: /w5UwKURJzil6Cnm/AOdFYzBwevIHFy5deriV2uDvf0dyp4BC03X1zs0h/V4MIiHCGqMMoquxtPw!ciVgRA3xypWPp+hCBYDP9fy+Kll4ADIpR29By4jYqw3AD0rOEf52Fn4GR1/fwzRyNq6zp6nP9aH0!wkfoQQAR1Q== X-Complaints-To: abuse@gte.net X-Abuse-Info: Please be sure to forward a copy of ALL headers X-Abuse-Info: Otherwise we will be unable to process your complaint properly NNTP-Posting-Date: Thu, 24 Feb 2000 01:18:45 GMT Distribution: world Date: Thu, 24 Feb 2000 01:18:45 GMT Path: chonsp.franklin.ch!pfaff.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!newsfeed-zh.ip-plus.net!news.ip-plus.net!News.Amsterdam.UnisourceCS!newspeer.te.net!news.indigo.ie!diablo.theplanet.net!colt.net!nyc-news-feed1.bbnplanet.com!washdc3-snh1.gtei.net!news.gtei.net!dfiatx1-snr1.gtei.net.POSTED!not-for-mail Xref: chonsp.franklin.ch alt.out-of-body:34222 Janice wrote in message <38B47F9C.4275@not-here.net>... >All right, this is the moment you've all been waiting for ... Janice's >experiment report. :) Yay. : ) >Around 1:00 AM EST I took a shower and got ready for bed, including >bringing the cat in with me (he slept in the crook of my arm the whole >time and made me rather uncomfortable). I closely examined the object >that I was planning to keep in mind for the experiment, and actually >took it to bed with me in case that would help, sitting it on my solar >plexus and keeping one hand on it. I also brought a notepad and pencil >and sat those on my abdomen where I could get to them quickly to write >notes. I turned the light out at 1:10 AM EST and tried to relax. > >I decided that trying to think about Trish, Lorz, Dorothy, Julia and >perhaps PZ as well was a bit of a tall order, so every time my thoughts >wandered I tried to bring them back to Julia's experiment specifically >and to picture my little object. My thoughts were rather unfocused, but >I do not believe that I really fell sleep for more than a few seconds at >a time within the time frame of the experiment. I did have a number of >fleeting hypnagogic impressions, most of which I wrote down right after >they occurred. Here are the hallucinatory vocalizations I recorded: > >"Are you" >"Bogey man" >"Liar" >"That's enough" >"Evidence" >"Watch yourself" >"Doctor" >"You got two more minutes" Do those make any sense to you? (Do they ever make any sense to you?) I've never tried writing them down .. it might be fun. > >In addition, the Romantics' song "Talking in Your Sleep" started going >through my head at a point (I had heard it recently). Hahaha ... Thanks. Now you've got *me* going. > >And here are the hallucinatory visualizations: > >Upon thinking about how I used to be good at fantasizing scenes: An >impression of myself sitting in a white wicker chair in a white room >with white carpeting > >Upon thinking once of PZ: an impression of a fist punching at my left >eye, which made me flinch - thanks, dude :D > >A context that is lost to me now: a small bag of potato chips > >After a while (I can't say for sure how long, because I couldn't see the >clock without moving so much that it would be sure to rouse me too >much), I dosed slightly then felt the famous vibe effect, which startled >me awake. This caught my interest because I don't feel that effect very >often any more. Since it continued for quite a while after I was fully >awake, I studied it closely. It seemed as well as I could guess to be >originating in my circulatory system, not my nervous system - something >unusual about my blood flow. Nice observation there. Anyway, it subsided eventually, first in >my legs, and I dosed again. I jolted alert again at a point and the >vibes were back, but I couldn't seem to move into sleep paralysis >consciously with them going on like I used to do. > >Anyway, finally I roused one more time and wanted to get rid of the >notebook that was on my abodomen. But I quickly realized that I was not >using my physical arms to do so, but dream arms. There are subtle >differences, but one can tell - no weight of clothing, no gravity to >speak of, etc. I think I got my physical eyes open briefly while >checking my state, because I saw a pile of laundry that it took me a few >moments to remember was there; had I only been opening my dream eyes, I >would most likely not have seen this pile because I truly did not >remember that it was there. (Yeah, yeah, call it astral vision if you >want. :) Well, you would have observed it while awake. The memory would have been there. Wouldn't have had to been your physical eyes. Anyway, I was now in the perfect setup for the OBE-type lucid >dream I'd been wanting for the experiment, so I got up in the dream >body. I had a hard time controlling it and thought ruefully of my >bravado the night before in telling Gunnar how nowadays I just ignore >"get up anyway" in my OBEs and let the dream body catch up to me when it >will - ha! See .. your memories are there. You recalled a discussion with Gunnar the night before. I actually stumbled into a wall at one point and ended up >back with the sense of lying in bed and had to start over. This time I >did better and went through the dream version of my upstairs hall and >down the stairs to the living room. A rather pathetic version of my >husband was slouched on the couch. Since I was wearing my pajamas in >the dream I figured I could not just walk out the front door without >inviting interference from this dream character, so I just said hi and >walked through the house to the basement stairs. Did he say Hi back ? Flicking the light >switch at the top of the stairs did increase the illumination a bit, so >I went down. I remembered that I was supposed to be looking for a >mirror, then falsely remembered that we had one on the east wall of the >basement room. Did you notice anything else different at this time? In keeping with that expectation, sure enough there it >was. Thinking to try phrasing things more politely than I did last >time, I looked in the mirror and said, "Mirror, can you show me Dorothy >Dunne?" There was nothing but a slight change to the eyes again, as >when I tried this last time when I asked to see Trish. Now I asked to >see Trish this time. Again, nothing more than a little change, with the >eyes getting smaller. I asked to see Lorz. Now, finally, I got a >changed image - a pretty young woman with large eyes and loose >shoulder-length, reddish hair (sort of like I imagine Trish, and not at >all like Lorz's real appearance, as I found out when I read everyone >else's reports later). That's more me. Right now my hair is shoulder length and reddish brown. For fun I also asked to see PZ. The image >morphed into that of a round-faced, sullen looking fellow with very >small eyes and straight dirty-blond hair with bangs. I thought that was >amusing but knew it wasn't at all the way PZ looks, since I had seen his >picture on the Internet the other night. > >I decided to go out the back door and see what might be going on in >Dreamville. As I was walking through the utility room I wondered if I >had left anyone out. When I realized that I had forgotten Julia, I woke >up. Since I felt I had done my duty, I got up to check the time (I am >too nearsighted to read it from my bed in the dark). It was 3:30 AM. I >went back to bed. The cat moved, so I was able to get comfortable at >last, and I let myself fall asleep normally without trying to remain >alert or writing down my subsequent dreams. (There was one, however, >that was about TienYen and a bunch of camels. :) A good report. Thanks Janice. ###### Message-ID: <38B4881E.4BB7@not-here.net> From: Janice X-Mailer: Mozilla 3.01 (Win95; I) MIME-Version: 1.0 Newsgroups: alt.out-of-body Subject: Re: Mirror Mirror on the Wall ... References: <38B44DC8.7126@not-here.net> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Lines: 91 NNTP-Posting-Host: 207.103.34.8 X-Trace: tw11.nn.bcandid.com 951355371 207.103.34.8 (Wed, 23 Feb 2000 18:22:51 MST) NNTP-Posting-Date: Wed, 23 Feb 2000 18:22:51 MST Organization: bCandid - Powering the world's discussions - http://bCandid.com Date: Thu, 24 Feb 2000 01:22:54 GMT Path: chonsp.franklin.ch!pfaff.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!newsfeed-zh.ip-plus.net!news.ip-plus.net!News.Amsterdam.UnisourceCS!skynet.be!howland.erols.net!europa.netcrusader.net!206.132.58.120!gw22.nn.bcandid.com!hub12.nn.bcandid.com!tw11.nn.bcandid.com.POSTED!not-for-mail Xref: chonsp.franklin.ch alt.out-of-body:34175 Trish wrote: > > Janice wrote in message <38B44DC8.7126@not-here.net>... > > > > >Those silly dream characters - they hardly ever get it, do they? :D > > Damn them. : ) I can remember one time when I explained that I was having a dream to a character representing one of my junior high school teachers, he said, "I don't want it to be a dream. I want it to go on forever." {snip} > > > >Did you try, "What did I do yesterday?" or just "What did I do earlier > >today?" > > Sorry ... that's all I had time for by the time I got to the bathroom. > Since I answered the others accurately, I feel confident I would have > answered this one accurately as well. OK. I didn't even think to ask any memory questions in my OBE last night, so I have no room to talk. > >> I was headed for the bathroom > >> (the closest mirror) and that's all the time I had for memory recall. I > >> flipped on the bathroom light ... and the bathroom was exactly as it > usually > >> is (colors, fixtures, etc) I looked into the mirror and noted my > >> reflection ... I was the same as I usually look, although I did note that > my > >> eyes were red and a little bit glassy ... how I would assume I would look > >> after just waking up from sleep. The first person I called forth was > >> Lorene. "Show me Lorene" I asked. I waited ....... nothing. (hmmmm) > "Ok, > >> then, show me Janice" I waited ..... the background of the mirror became > >> dark, and I could no longer see the reflection of the door behind me, or > the > >> wall. > > > >Waaah ... I bring you darkness. :( > > No Janice. It was illuminating in a way ... the rest of the bathroom > disappeared into darkness, but my image was clear and vibrant. Almost like > you saying "look at yourself, not the environment" : ) OK. I feel much better now. :) {snip} > >Did you read the accounts I posted about my dreams of PZ, one of which > >featured disembodied heads popping up in midair and talking to each > >other? If so that may have helped suggest this image. > > There is lots of beheadedness floating around lately. Seems I'm just > adding to the mix. Yep. > > >> Sorry Janice, I didn't get out front to look for the ball. I thought of > it > >> on the way to the bathroom, but I wasn't sure how long the OBE would > last, > >> and opted for the mirror. After Julia's head showed up, I woke up > >> completely, and couldn't produce another OBE (I think her image kind of > >> stunned me). > > > >Not a problem. Work on that some other time. You've certainly > >demonstrated that you can get your OBE mirror to behave in a dreamlike > >way, even if it didn't do what you wanted (rather like mine). > > Yes. That I did. > > >> With time, I believe I'll be able to extend the length of my experiences > to > >> their former, much longer, duration ... and I won't feel as if I'm under > >> time constraints. > > > >I know about the time constraint thing. My friend Ruth and I have been > >known to flutter about madly in our OBE-type lucid dreams, thinking how > >we don't have much time before the experience will end. > > Mmmhmm. I was making a mad dash for the bathroom thinking "For the love of > God, don't let it end now!" : ) That's about right. One of the consequences of really being lucid (be that in a dream or an OBE) is that you know all too well that you're going to wake up before too long! ###### Message-ID: <38B48951.5DF5@not-here.net> From: Janice X-Mailer: Mozilla 3.01 (Win95; I) MIME-Version: 1.0 Newsgroups: alt.out-of-body Subject: Re: Mirror Mirror on the Wall ... References: <38B347FC.66DA5F2B@privatei.com> <38B36254.3188A13B@privatei.com> <38B45AAF.628F@not-here.net> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Lines: 29 NNTP-Posting-Host: 207.103.34.8 X-Trace: tw11.nn.bcandid.com 951355681 207.103.34.8 (Wed, 23 Feb 2000 18:28:01 MST) NNTP-Posting-Date: Wed, 23 Feb 2000 18:28:01 MST Organization: bCandid - Powering the world's discussions - http://bCandid.com Date: Thu, 24 Feb 2000 01:28:01 GMT Path: chonsp.franklin.ch!pfaff.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!newsfeed-zh.ip-plus.net!news.ip-plus.net!News.Amsterdam.UnisourceCS!newshunter!cosy.sbg.ac.at!news-feed.inet.tele.dk!bofh.vszbr.cz!europa.netcrusader.net!24.30.200.2!cyclone-east.rr.com!news.rr.com!news-east.rr.com!portc05.blue.aol.com!gw12.bcandid.com.MISMATCH!gw22.nn.bcandid.com!hub12.nn.bcandid.com!tw11.nn.bcandid.com.POSTED!not-for-mail Xref: chonsp.franklin.ch alt.out-of-body:34166 Trish wrote: > > Janice wrote in message <38B45AAF.628F@not-here.net>... > >The Original Ken wrote: > > >> > Hahaha. Well, I think I knew that the time was right for Julia to be > >> > watching ... and that's how I envisioned her there. You and she seem > to > >> > have a strong influence on my OBEs. (That radio shack thingy was kind > of > >> > morbid) : ) > >> > >> Ah yes, morbid indeed, but then again what did you say your favorite > movie was? > >> ;-D > > > >Not "The Silence of the Lambs," I hope? > > Oh Janice, you do know me! This is a close second though. It's "Natural > Born Killers". I never saw that one. I'm not really a gory movie fan, just a big Anthony Hopkins fan. In fact one of the recurrent characters in my lucid dreams is based on Anthony Hopkins. You would probably have enjoyed the Hannibal Lecter desktop theme that I put together for Halloween. It was a stitch having the computer say, "I do wish we could chat longer, but I'm having an old friend for dinner," when exiting Windows. ###### From: "Trish" Newsgroups: alt.out-of-body References: <38B44DC8.7126@not-here.net> Subject: Re: Mirror Mirror on the Wall ... Lines: 129 X-Newsreader: Microsoft Outlook Express 4.71.1712.3 X-MimeOLE: Produced By Microsoft MimeOLE V4.72.2106.4 Message-ID: X-Trace: /wh6lmCHry0lGRrfCG2/2xIgkNdH9IDQLeIcPA9+1sjlardYx+k6VPElf3+i9kzaePvXmYvqs8cF!eOAKsv7JwV09943ZXc6xKacT9TlQyEEXCSENKV5AtIWmQHqwQEw8QsAD0zLLFxz+bioeRUKin9ZM!c+ovvJ4kcA== X-Complaints-To: abuse@gte.net X-Abuse-Info: Please be sure to forward a copy of ALL headers X-Abuse-Info: Otherwise we will be unable to process your complaint properly NNTP-Posting-Date: Thu, 24 Feb 2000 03:06:14 GMT Distribution: world Date: Thu, 24 Feb 2000 03:06:14 GMT Path: chonsp.franklin.ch!pfaff.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!newsfeed-zh.ip-plus.net!news.ip-plus.net!News.Amsterdam.UnisourceCS!skynet.be!logbridge.uoregon.edu!su-news-hub1.bbnplanet.com!washdc3-snh1.gtei.net!news.gtei.net!dfiatx1-snr1.gtei.net.POSTED!not-for-mail Xref: chonsp.franklin.ch alt.out-of-body:34227 -----Original Message----- From: Janice Newsgroups: alt.out-of-body Date: Wednesday, February 23, 2000 5:01 PM Subject: Re: Mirror Mirror on the Wall ... >Trish wrote: >> >> My OBEs originate "where I'm at" as well. I have heard of others who exit >> someplace else, and I've noticed this from time to time as well .... but >> they seem more like dreams of OBEs ... no high memory recall, and I don't >> even notice that I started out at the wrong place until after I wake up. > >This "real OBEs" vs "dreams of OBEs" thing is just a continuum, in my >opinion. When you have the OBEs where things don't start out in your >current location and you don't even realize it until after you wake up, >your overall awareness level was lower than usual at the time. But this >doesn't necessarily mean that you are experiencing a completely >different phenomenon than you are when you are more aware. When you are >more aware, especially if you went into the OBE straight from being >awake in a given environment, you would be more likely to reconstruct >that environment close to accurately and to notice any discrepancies >that happen to turn up as well. Attention, access to recent memories, >and critical thinking ability are all interrelated and appear to be >governed at least in part by the level of aminergic neurotransmitters in >your brain. When this level is comparatively high (as when you go >directly into the OBE/dream state from waking), you should tend to be >better at all those functions. When it is low (as when you are very >tired or are entering the OBE condition after partially waking from an >ordinary dream), you should tend to be worse at all of them. Ok .. so what's an aminergic neurotransmitter? >> When you think about it ... you're right. Why *would* the mind always make >> you seem like you're exiting from the place you're at? > >It doesn't. I have had some OBEs that start out someplace else and I >may or may not realize it at the time. Even if I don't realize it I can >be otherwise pretty lucid during the OBE. Well this makes it even stranger. How could a person be very lucid in some ways, but never realize that they're someplace else? Selective lucidity? >> Why? To make it >> seem more realistic to the physical? Why? > >Not so much to make it seem more realistic, I think, as simply because >when you go consciously into an OBE you are carrying into the experience >a mental map that says where you are located. All that information is >still active in your brain. As I mentioned in another post, I have been >able to override that with some mental effort and make myself have OBEs >set elsewhere intentionally. How do you do this Janice? Do you visualize it before going to sleep? >> My personal belief and >> expectation is that an OBE is *not* the physical environment ... so, for me, >> it wouldn't be a requirement. This depiction actually runs contrary to my >> expectations. > >Which expectations, Trish? You have expectations from your own many >past OB experiences, which for all these years have been taking place in >a relatively realistic replica of your current environment. And again, >expectation is never the sole determinant of the content of any >perceptual experience. Sometimes expectation yes. Sometimes expectation no. So in this case my expectations of it not being the actual physical are over-ridden by expectations and habitualization of seeing a relatively stable pseudo-replica environment - with something extra added in the mix. Someone please. Hit me over the head right now and put me out of my misery. Just do it quickly. >> Add this to commonplace doors being out of place for no damn good reason at >> all ...... hmmmmm > >How do you know there's no damn good reason? Can you consciously >remember every scene you may have seen on television or in reality that >may have gratuitously blended with your current mental map of the >immediate environment for the duration of your OBE? Do you completely >rule out the possibility of symbolic content occurring in your OBEs? Or >why should there necessarily be a *good* reason, anyway? The absence of >any stable environment to anchor our perceptions once the physical >senses are cut off should, in my view, lead to various inaccuracies in >our reconstructions. Earlier you said that my OBEs occur in a fairly realistic setting because I'm accustomed to seeing it. Now you suggest that model can be disrupted by any whim or fancy. It's all just a free for all based on the level of neurotransmitters in the brain that govern awareness. I can live with this. So how do we increase or decrease these levels? >> >Oh by the way, great OBE. Thanks for posting it. Congratulations. 'Bout >> time >> >eh? >> >> Thank you. I think I'm running about 1 per month now. A lot better than >> none at all. >> >> >I wonder if the head thing was a little left over from my comment about the >> >severed head from the radio shack thingy. Just a thought. >> >> Hahaha. Well, I think I knew that the time was right for Julia to be >> watching ... and that's how I envisioned her there. You and she seem to >> have a strong influence on my OBEs. (That radio shack thingy was kind of >> morbid) : ) > >Hm, yes, I had forgotten that Ken had provided a strong severed head >image here recently, too. Could have had some inter-relatedness to the vision of my girlfriend as the "Queen of Hearts". ###### From: "Lorz" Newsgroups: alt.out-of-body References: <38B47F9C.4275@not-here.net> Subject: Re: Mirror Mirror on the Wall ... Lines: 40 X-Priority: 3 X-MSMail-Priority: Normal X-Newsreader: Microsoft Outlook Express 5.00.2615.200 X-MimeOLE: Produced By Microsoft MimeOLE V5.00.2615.200 Message-ID: Date: Wed, 23 Feb 2000 22:23:26 -0500 NNTP-Posting-Host: 216.78.240.36 X-Trace: news1.mia 951362805 216.78.240.36 (Wed, 23 Feb 2000 22:26:45 EST) NNTP-Posting-Date: Wed, 23 Feb 2000 22:26:45 EST Path: chonsp.franklin.ch!pfaff.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!newsfeed-zh.ip-plus.net!news.ip-plus.net!News.Amsterdam.UnisourceCS!skynet.be!hermes.visi.com!news-out.visi.com!newspeer.monmouth.com!newsfeed.atl!news1.mia.POSTED!not-for-mail Xref: chonsp.franklin.ch alt.out-of-body:34197 Janice wrote in message news:38B47F9C.4275@not-here.net... : basement room. In keeping with that expectation, sure enough there it : was. Thinking to try phrasing things more politely than I did last : time, I looked in the mirror and said, "Mirror, can you show me Dorothy : Dunne?" There was nothing but a slight change to the eyes again, as : when I tried this last time when I asked to see Trish. Now I asked to : see Trish this time. Again, nothing more than a little change, with the : eyes getting smaller. I asked to see Lorz. Now, finally, I got a : changed image - a pretty young woman with large eyes and loose : shoulder-length, reddish hair (sort of like I imagine Trish, and not at : all like Lorz's real appearance, as I found out when I read everyone : else's reports later Hey but I AM a pretty young woman!!! :) : had left anyone out. When I realized that I had forgotten Julia, I woke : up. Since I felt I had done my duty, I got up to check the time (I am : too nearsighted to read it from my bed in the dark). It was 3:30 AM. I : went back to bed. The cat moved, so I was able to get comfortable at : last, and I let myself fall asleep normally without trying to remain : alert or writing down my subsequent dreams. (There was one, however, : that was about TienYen and a bunch of camels. :) Funny Janice.. OK dammit, I AM .. I AM... I AM going to "see" ya's tonight!! (I hope!) I'll report tomorrow! Lorene ###### Message-ID: <38B4B3F4.7A4@not-here.net> From: Janice X-Mailer: Mozilla 3.01 (Win95; I) MIME-Version: 1.0 Newsgroups: alt.out-of-body Subject: Re: Mirror Mirror on the Wall ... References: <38B47F9C.4275@not-here.net> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Lines: 24 NNTP-Posting-Host: 207.103.34.8 X-Trace: tw11.nn.bcandid.com 951366593 207.103.34.8 (Wed, 23 Feb 2000 21:29:53 MST) NNTP-Posting-Date: Wed, 23 Feb 2000 21:29:53 MST Organization: bCandid - Powering the world's discussions - http://bCandid.com Date: Thu, 24 Feb 2000 04:29:53 GMT Path: chonsp.franklin.ch!pfaff.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!newsfeed-zh.ip-plus.net!news.ip-plus.net!News.Amsterdam.UnisourceCS!skynet.be!news-spur1.maxwell.syr.edu!news.maxwell.syr.edu!europa.netcrusader.net!206.132.58.120!gw22.nn.bcandid.com!hub12.nn.bcandid.com!tw11.nn.bcandid.com.POSTED!not-for-mail Xref: chonsp.franklin.ch alt.out-of-body:34242 Lorz wrote: > > Janice wrote in message > news:38B47F9C.4275@not-here.net... > > > > : basement room. In keeping with that expectation, sure enough there it > : was. Thinking to try phrasing things more politely than I did last > : time, I looked in the mirror and said, "Mirror, can you show me Dorothy > : Dunne?" There was nothing but a slight change to the eyes again, as > : when I tried this last time when I asked to see Trish. Now I asked to > : see Trish this time. Again, nothing more than a little change, with the > : eyes getting smaller. I asked to see Lorz. Now, finally, I got a > : changed image - a pretty young woman with large eyes and loose > : shoulder-length, reddish hair (sort of like I imagine Trish, and not at > : all like Lorz's real appearance, as I found out when I read everyone > : else's reports later > > Hey but I AM a pretty young woman!!! :) Well I'm glad to hear it. :D I didn't mean that I don't see you as pretty too, of course. But I've been picturing you with short dark hair. ###### Message-ID: <38B4BD65.7C7C@not-here.net> From: Janice X-Mailer: Mozilla 3.01 (Win95; I) MIME-Version: 1.0 Newsgroups: alt.out-of-body Subject: Re: Mirror Mirror on the Wall ... References: <38B44DC8.7126@not-here.net> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Lines: 169 NNTP-Posting-Host: 207.103.34.8 X-Trace: tw11.nn.bcandid.com 951369012 207.103.34.8 (Wed, 23 Feb 2000 22:10:12 MST) NNTP-Posting-Date: Wed, 23 Feb 2000 22:10:12 MST Organization: bCandid - Powering the world's discussions - http://bCandid.com Date: Thu, 24 Feb 2000 05:10:13 GMT Path: chonsp.franklin.ch!pfaff.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!news-ge.switch.ch!enews.sgi.com!nntp.msen.com!206.132.58.120.MISMATCH!gw22.nn.bcandid.com!hub12.nn.bcandid.com!tw11.nn.bcandid.com.POSTED!not-for-mail Xref: chonsp.franklin.ch alt.out-of-body:34181 Trish wrote: > > -----Original Message----- > From: Janice > Newsgroups: alt.out-of-body > Date: Wednesday, February 23, 2000 5:01 PM > Subject: Re: Mirror Mirror on the Wall ... > > >Trish wrote: > >> > >> My OBEs originate "where I'm at" as well. I have heard of others who > exit > >> someplace else, and I've noticed this from time to time as well .... but > >> they seem more like dreams of OBEs ... no high memory recall, and I don't > >> even notice that I started out at the wrong place until after I wake up. > > > >This "real OBEs" vs "dreams of OBEs" thing is just a continuum, in my > >opinion. When you have the OBEs where things don't start out in your > >current location and you don't even realize it until after you wake up, > >your overall awareness level was lower than usual at the time. But this > >doesn't necessarily mean that you are experiencing a completely > >different phenomenon than you are when you are more aware. When you are > >more aware, especially if you went into the OBE straight from being > >awake in a given environment, you would be more likely to reconstruct > >that environment close to accurately and to notice any discrepancies > >that happen to turn up as well. Attention, access to recent memories, > >and critical thinking ability are all interrelated and appear to be > >governed at least in part by the level of aminergic neurotransmitters in > >your brain. When this level is comparatively high (as when you go > >directly into the OBE/dream state from waking), you should tend to be > >better at all those functions. When it is low (as when you are very > >tired or are entering the OBE condition after partially waking from an > >ordinary dream), you should tend to be worse at all of them. > > Ok .. so what's an aminergic neurotransmitter? I thought I went into that recently - maybe you missed that post. Basically (and any passing neuroscientists are welcome to correct any gross errors I may make in saying this) neurotransmitters carry chemical messages from one neuron to another. The aminergic neurotransmitters, such as serotonin and norepinephrine, are abundant in the waking state. These are thought to be responsible for sustaining such functions as attention, critical thinking, and access to memory. The level of these aminergic neurotransmitters typically goes down during sleep and reaches an all-time low during REM sleep, when the aminergic neurons in the brainstem appear to be recharging their batteries, as it were, building up a fresh supply of amines for the next day's waking activity. Meanwhile, during dreaming the brain is awash in a different type of chemical - acetylcholine, produced by the cholinergic neurons in the brainstem. The aminergic and cholinergic neurotransmitters are thought by some neurophysiologists, J. Allan Hobson in particular (who is a bit of a friend of mine) to exist in a dynamic balance, the various tippings of which produce our various conscious states. Being lucid in a dream may entail "stealing" some of the regenerating supply of amines. > >> When you think about it ... you're right. Why *would* the mind always > make > >> you seem like you're exiting from the place you're at? > > > >It doesn't. I have had some OBEs that start out someplace else and I > >may or may not realize it at the time. Even if I don't realize it I can > >be otherwise pretty lucid during the OBE. > > Well this makes it even stranger. How could a person be very lucid in some > ways, but never realize that they're someplace else? Selective lucidity? Yes. It's pretty easy to be fooled by the evidence of your senses if you don't think to question it, and accept that you really are where you seem to be. I'm probably just too complacent in that regard. > >> Why? To make it > >> seem more realistic to the physical? Why? > > > >Not so much to make it seem more realistic, I think, as simply because > >when you go consciously into an OBE you are carrying into the experience > >a mental map that says where you are located. All that information is > >still active in your brain. As I mentioned in another post, I have been > >able to override that with some mental effort and make myself have OBEs > >set elsewhere intentionally. > > How do you do this Janice? Do you visualize it before going to sleep? No, I impose my will and my strong memories of certain locations on the relatively dark and formless state in which some of my OBEs start out, acting as if I'm somewhere else. Then when the visuals come in, I'm "there" instead of "here." > >> My personal belief and > >> expectation is that an OBE is *not* the physical environment ... so, for > me, > >> it wouldn't be a requirement. This depiction actually runs contrary to > my > >> expectations. > > > >Which expectations, Trish? You have expectations from your own many > >past OB experiences, which for all these years have been taking place in > >a relatively realistic replica of your current environment. And again, > >expectation is never the sole determinant of the content of any > >perceptual experience. > > Sometimes expectation yes. Sometimes expectation no. Oh, expectations of one kind or another are probably always there, but they are competing with various other sources of suggestion. > So in this case my expectations of it not being the actual physical are > over-ridden by expectations and habitualization of seeing a relatively > stable pseudo-replica environment - with something extra added in the mix. Something like that. How concrete is the idea of "this is not the actual physical," after all? It leaves some leeway, but aren't you still expecting that you're going to end up in a scene pretty similar to the physical? > Someone please. Hit me over the head right now and put me out of my misery. > Just do it quickly. Aw, come on, it's not that bad, is it? :) > >> Add this to commonplace doors being out of place for no damn good reason > at > >> all ...... hmmmmm > > > >How do you know there's no damn good reason? Can you consciously > >remember every scene you may have seen on television or in reality that > >may have gratuitously blended with your current mental map of the > >immediate environment for the duration of your OBE? Do you completely > >rule out the possibility of symbolic content occurring in your OBEs? Or > >why should there necessarily be a *good* reason, anyway? The absence of > >any stable environment to anchor our perceptions once the physical > >senses are cut off should, in my view, lead to various inaccuracies in > >our reconstructions. > > Earlier you said that my OBEs occur in a fairly realistic setting because > I'm accustomed to seeing it. Now you suggest that model can be disrupted by > any whim or fancy. I'm suggesting that the local OBE environment will rarely be a perfect match to the physical one because other suggestion factors can creep into the mix of ingredients that your world-modeling ability is using to reconstruct the world. But it should still tend to be fairly realistic because of your strong memories of the scene, yes. > It's all just a free for all based on the level of neurotransmitters in the > brain that govern awareness. I can live with this. So how do we increase > or decrease these levels? In daily waking experience, you can decrease them by using them up with a lot of mental activity. You can probably increase them, I would guess, by nodding off briefly once in a while. Caffeine is rather similar molecularly to aminergic compounds, so it tends to interact with your brain in a similar way to aminergic compounds and make you feel more awake. The best way to increase the level of aminergic compounds available for dreaming, I think, is the napping technique. If you sleep for several hours then get up for a while, your brain will have been alert and bathed in amines. Thus there should be a fair number of them still running around in there when you fall asleep again, which you can make use of to be lucid in your dreams. Or so the theory goes. But then there's that nagging problem of depression and neurochemical imbalance, which makes me wonder how safe it is to screw around with this stuff in excess or over the long term. > >Hm, yes, I had forgotten that Ken had provided a strong severed head > >image here recently, too. > > Could have had some inter-relatedness to the vision of my girlfriend as the > "Queen of Hearts". Maybe so. ###### Message-ID: <38B4C939.35ED@not-here.net> From: Janice X-Mailer: Mozilla 3.01 (Win95; I) MIME-Version: 1.0 Newsgroups: alt.out-of-body Subject: Re: Mirror Mirror on the Wall ... References: <38B44DC8.7126@not-here.net> <38B4BD65.7C7C@not-here.net> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Lines: 12 NNTP-Posting-Host: 207.103.34.8 X-Trace: tw11.nn.bcandid.com 951372037 207.103.34.8 (Wed, 23 Feb 2000 23:00:37 MST) NNTP-Posting-Date: Wed, 23 Feb 2000 23:00:37 MST Organization: bCandid - Powering the world's discussions - http://bCandid.com Date: Thu, 24 Feb 2000 06:00:38 GMT Path: chonsp.franklin.ch!pfaff.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!newsfeed-zh.ip-plus.net!news.ip-plus.net!News.Amsterdam.UnisourceCS!newshunter!cosy.sbg.ac.at!news-feed.inet.tele.dk!bofh.vszbr.cz!europa.netcrusader.net!24.30.200.2!cyclone-east.rr.com!news.rr.com!news-east.rr.com!portc05.blue.aol.com!gw12.bcandid.com.MISMATCH!gw22.nn.bcandid.com!hub12.nn.bcandid.com!tw11.nn.bcandid.com.POSTED!not-for-mail Xref: chonsp.franklin.ch alt.out-of-body:34177 Janice wrote: > > Trish wrote: > > Ok .. so what's an aminergic neurotransmitter? > > I thought I went into that recently - maybe you missed that post. {snip virtually everything} Stupid news server tricks again! This post never appeared as unread; I only found it when I asked to see all messages. ###### Message-ID: <38B4CCC9.726D@not-here.net> From: Janice X-Mailer: Mozilla 3.01 (Win95; I) MIME-Version: 1.0 Newsgroups: alt.out-of-body Subject: Re: Mirror Mirror on the Wall ... References: <38B47F9C.4275@not-here.net> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Lines: 171 NNTP-Posting-Host: 207.103.34.8 X-Trace: tw11.nn.bcandid.com 951372950 207.103.34.8 (Wed, 23 Feb 2000 23:15:50 MST) NNTP-Posting-Date: Wed, 23 Feb 2000 23:15:50 MST Organization: bCandid - Powering the world's discussions - http://bCandid.com Date: Thu, 24 Feb 2000 06:15:51 GMT Path: chonsp.franklin.ch!pfaff.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!newsfeed-zh.ip-plus.net!news.ip-plus.net!News.Amsterdam.UnisourceCS!skynet.be!newspump.monmouth.com!newspeer.monmouth.com!nntp.msen.com!206.132.58.120.MISMATCH!gw22.nn.bcandid.com!hub12.nn.bcandid.com!tw11.nn.bcandid.com.POSTED!not-for-mail Xref: chonsp.franklin.ch alt.out-of-body:34180 Trish wrote: > > Janice wrote in message <38B47F9C.4275@not-here.net>... > >All right, this is the moment you've all been waiting for ... Janice's > >experiment report. :) > > Yay. : ) > > >Around 1:00 AM EST I took a shower and got ready for bed, including > >bringing the cat in with me (he slept in the crook of my arm the whole > >time and made me rather uncomfortable). I closely examined the object > >that I was planning to keep in mind for the experiment, and actually > >took it to bed with me in case that would help, sitting it on my solar > >plexus and keeping one hand on it. I also brought a notepad and pencil > >and sat those on my abdomen where I could get to them quickly to write > >notes. I turned the light out at 1:10 AM EST and tried to relax. > > > >I decided that trying to think about Trish, Lorz, Dorothy, Julia and > >perhaps PZ as well was a bit of a tall order, so every time my thoughts > >wandered I tried to bring them back to Julia's experiment specifically > >and to picture my little object. My thoughts were rather unfocused, but > >I do not believe that I really fell sleep for more than a few seconds at > >a time within the time frame of the experiment. I did have a number of > >fleeting hypnagogic impressions, most of which I wrote down right after > >they occurred. Here are the hallucinatory vocalizations I recorded: > > > >"Are you" > >"Bogey man" > >"Liar" > >"That's enough" > >"Evidence" > >"Watch yourself" > >"Doctor" > >"You got two more minutes" > > Do those make any sense to you? (Do they ever make any sense to you?) I've > never tried writing them down .. it might be fun. "Are you" and "Liar" seemed like smart-assed answers to the thoughts I was thinking at the time. "That's enough," "Watch yourself" and "You got two more minutes" seemed like they may have been coming from some sort of latent paranoia about psychic experiments. I used to get a lot of exceptionally silly hypnagogic comments. I'll write some of them up for you if you like. > >In addition, the Romantics' song "Talking in Your Sleep" started going > >through my head at a point (I had heard it recently). > > Hahaha ... Thanks. Now you've got *me* going. > > > > >And here are the hallucinatory visualizations: > > > >Upon thinking about how I used to be good at fantasizing scenes: An > >impression of myself sitting in a white wicker chair in a white room > >with white carpeting > > > >Upon thinking once of PZ: an impression of a fist punching at my left > >eye, which made me flinch - thanks, dude :D > > > >A context that is lost to me now: a small bag of potato chips > > > >After a while (I can't say for sure how long, because I couldn't see the > >clock without moving so much that it would be sure to rouse me too > >much), I dosed slightly then felt the famous vibe effect, which startled > >me awake. This caught my interest because I don't feel that effect very > >often any more. Since it continued for quite a while after I was fully > >awake, I studied it closely. It seemed as well as I could guess to be > >originating in my circulatory system, not my nervous system - something > >unusual about my blood flow. > > Nice observation there. > > Anyway, it subsided eventually, first in > >my legs, and I dosed again. I jolted alert again at a point and the > >vibes were back, but I couldn't seem to move into sleep paralysis > >consciously with them going on like I used to do. > > > >Anyway, finally I roused one more time and wanted to get rid of the > >notebook that was on my abodomen. But I quickly realized that I was not > >using my physical arms to do so, but dream arms. There are subtle > >differences, but one can tell - no weight of clothing, no gravity to > >speak of, etc. I think I got my physical eyes open briefly while > >checking my state, because I saw a pile of laundry that it took me a few > >moments to remember was there; had I only been opening my dream eyes, I > >would most likely not have seen this pile because I truly did not > >remember that it was there. (Yeah, yeah, call it astral vision if you > >want. :) > > Well, you would have observed it while awake. The memory would have been > there. Wouldn't have had to been your physical eyes. I really couldn't remember its existence for several seconds. But I guess the memory of it may have been there in the back of my mind, latent, as it were, and just not explicitly accessible to me. > Anyway, I was now in the perfect setup for the OBE-type lucid > >dream I'd been wanting for the experiment, so I got up in the dream > >body. I had a hard time controlling it and thought ruefully of my > >bravado the night before in telling Gunnar how nowadays I just ignore > >"get up anyway" in my OBEs and let the dream body catch up to me when it > >will - ha! > > See .. your memories are there. You recalled a discussion with Gunnar the > night before. Yep, some recent memories were obviously there. > I actually stumbled into a wall at one point and ended up > >back with the sense of lying in bed and had to start over. This time I > >did better and went through the dream version of my upstairs hall and > >down the stairs to the living room. A rather pathetic version of my > >husband was slouched on the couch. Since I was wearing my pajamas in > >the dream I figured I could not just walk out the front door without > >inviting interference from this dream character, so I just said hi and > >walked through the house to the basement stairs. > > Did he say Hi back ? No, he was just grinning like an idiot. > Flicking the light > >switch at the top of the stairs did increase the illumination a bit, so > >I went down. I remembered that I was supposed to be looking for a > >mirror, then falsely remembered that we had one on the east wall of the > >basement room. > > Did you notice anything else different at this time? No. My vision was kind of blurry, for one thing. > In keeping with that expectation, sure enough there it > >was. Thinking to try phrasing things more politely than I did last > >time, I looked in the mirror and said, "Mirror, can you show me Dorothy > >Dunne?" There was nothing but a slight change to the eyes again, as > >when I tried this last time when I asked to see Trish. Now I asked to > >see Trish this time. Again, nothing more than a little change, with the > >eyes getting smaller. I asked to see Lorz. Now, finally, I got a > >changed image - a pretty young woman with large eyes and loose > >shoulder-length, reddish hair (sort of like I imagine Trish, and not at > >all like Lorz's real appearance, as I found out when I read everyone > >else's reports later). > > That's more me. Right now my hair is shoulder length and reddish brown. OK. > For fun I also asked to see PZ. The image > >morphed into that of a round-faced, sullen looking fellow with very > >small eyes and straight dirty-blond hair with bangs. I thought that was > >amusing but knew it wasn't at all the way PZ looks, since I had seen his > >picture on the Internet the other night. > > > >I decided to go out the back door and see what might be going on in > >Dreamville. As I was walking through the utility room I wondered if I > >had left anyone out. When I realized that I had forgotten Julia, I woke > >up. Since I felt I had done my duty, I got up to check the time (I am > >too nearsighted to read it from my bed in the dark). It was 3:30 AM. I > >went back to bed. The cat moved, so I was able to get comfortable at > >last, and I let myself fall asleep normally without trying to remain > >alert or writing down my subsequent dreams. (There was one, however, > >that was about TienYen and a bunch of camels. :) > > A good report. Thanks Janice. You're welcome. I didn't find this response from you until I requested to see all messages. Like one of my own recent posts, it never showed up as new/unread. I'm getting very grumpy about this. :-( ###### From: Janice Newsgroups: alt.out-of-body Subject: Re: Mirror Mirror on the Wall ... Date: Thu, 24 Feb 2000 03:43:07 -0500 Organization: http://extra.newsguy.com Lines: 17 Message-ID: <38B4EF1B.5541@not-here.net> References: <38B44DC8.7126@not-here.net> <38B4BD65.7C7C@not-here.net> <38B4C939.35ED@not-here.net> NNTP-Posting-Host: async106.starlinx.com Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-Mailer: Mozilla 3.01 (Win95; I) Path: chonsp.franklin.ch!pfaff.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!newsfeed-zh.ip-plus.net!news.ip-plus.net!News.Amsterdam.UnisourceCS!skynet.be!news-spur1.maxwell.syr.edu!news.maxwell.syr.edu!newsfeed.berkeley.edu!pln-w!spln!extra.newsguy.com!newsp.newsguy.com!enews3 Xref: chonsp.franklin.ch alt.out-of-body:34171 Janice wrote: > > Janice wrote: > > > > Trish wrote: > > > > Ok .. so what's an aminergic neurotransmitter? > > > > I thought I went into that recently - maybe you missed that post. > > {snip virtually everything} > > Stupid news server tricks again! This post never appeared as unread; I > only found it when I asked to see all messages. And to make matters even worse, Trish's posts aren't appearing at all on my back up news server. ###### From: Janice Newsgroups: alt.out-of-body Subject: Re: Mirror Mirror on the Wall ... Date: Thu, 24 Feb 2000 15:27:45 -0500 Organization: http://extra.newsguy.com Lines: 18 Message-ID: <38B59441.34FF@not-here.net> References: <38B44DC8.7126@not-here.net> <38B4BD65.7C7C@not-here.net> NNTP-Posting-Host: async140.starlinx.com Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-Mailer: Mozilla 3.01 (Win95; I) Path: chonsp.franklin.ch!pfaff.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!newsfeed-zh.ip-plus.net!news.ip-plus.net!news.datacomm.ch!newscore.gigabell.net!newsfeed00.sul.t-online.de!t-online.de!diablo.theplanet.net!europa.netcrusader.net!128.223.220.30!logbridge.uoregon.edu!newsfeed.berkeley.edu!pln-w!spln!extra.newsguy.com!newsp.newsguy.com!enews1 Xref: chonsp.franklin.ch alt.out-of-body:34252 Janice wrote: > > Well this makes it even stranger. How could a person be very lucid in some > > ways, but never realize that they're someplace else? Selective lucidity? > > Yes. It's pretty easy to be fooled by the evidence of your senses if > you don't think to question it, and accept that you really are where you > seem to be. I'm probably just too complacent in that regard. Oh, and also, various parts of the brain that are responsible for different cognitive functions could potentially be differentially activated, whatever the overall level of amines available, so someone might end up capable of analytical thought but not capable of remembering where he or she really went to bed, say. (I wish I weren't the one hypothesizing all this stuff, since my knowledge of the technical workings of the brain is fairly primitive, but at least I'm trying.) ###### From: hawksmoor@dial.pipex.com (Julia Hawkes-Moore) Newsgroups: alt.out-of-body Subject: Re: Mirror Mirror on the Wall ... Date: Thu, 24 Feb 2000 21:14:37 GMT Organization: UUNET WorldCom server (post doesn't reflect views of UUNET WorldCom Lines: 36 Message-ID: <38b59e14.1652803@news.dial.pipex.com> References: <38B47F9C.4275@not-here.net> Reply-To: hawksmoor@dial.pipex.com NNTP-Posting-Host: useran45.uk.uudial.com X-Trace: lure.pipex.net 951427424 2168 62.188.135.62 (24 Feb 2000 21:23:44 GMT) X-Complaints-To: abuse@uk.uu.net NNTP-Posting-Date: 24 Feb 2000 21:23:44 GMT X-Newsreader: Forte Free Agent 1.1/16.230 Path: chonsp.franklin.ch!pfaff.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!newsfeed-zh.ip-plus.net!news.ip-plus.net!news.datacomm.ch!newscore.gigabell.net!newsfeed.tli.de!newsfeed.gamma.ru!Gamma.RU!tank.news.pipex.net!pipex!tube.news.pipex.net!pipex!not-for-mail Xref: chonsp.franklin.ch alt.out-of-body:34299 On Thu, 24 Feb 2000 00:46:36 GMT, Janice wrote: >All right, this is the moment you've all been waiting for ... Janice's >experiment report. :) >I decided that trying to think about Trish, Lorz, Dorothy, Julia and >perhaps PZ as well was a bit of a tall order, so every time my thoughts >wandered I tried to bring them back to Julia's experiment specifically >and to picture my little object. I too think that we were attempting rather too much. But it was helpful for refocusing that I also kept returning to 'my object'. >My thoughts were rather unfocused, but >I do not believe that I really fell sleep for more than a few seconds at >a time within the time frame of the experiment. I did have a number of >fleeting hypnagogic impressions, most of which I wrote down right after >they occurred. Here are the hallucinatory vocalizations I recorded: >And here are the hallucinatory visualizations: Nothing there that rings any bells with me. > As I was walking through the utility room I wondered if I >had left anyone out. When I realized that I had forgotten Julia, I woke >up. Pah! >Since I felt I had done my duty, I got up to check the time (I am >too nearsighted to read it from my bed in the dark). It was 3:30 AM. I >went back to bed. The cat moved, so I was able to get comfortable at >last, and I let myself fall asleep normally without trying to remain >alert or writing down my subsequent dreams. (There was one, however, >that was about TienYen and a bunch of camels. :) Hmmm. Good try. I'm glad you were able to see Trish, anyway! Love from Julia. ###### Message-ID: <38B5D399.BB4@not-here.net> From: Janice X-Mailer: Mozilla 3.01 (Win95; I) MIME-Version: 1.0 Newsgroups: alt.out-of-body Subject: Re: Mirror Mirror on the Wall ... References: <38B47F9C.4275@not-here.net> <38b59e14.1652803@news.dial.pipex.com> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Lines: 50 NNTP-Posting-Host: 207.103.34.8 X-Trace: tw11.nn.bcandid.com 951440233 207.103.34.8 (Thu, 24 Feb 2000 17:57:13 MST) NNTP-Posting-Date: Thu, 24 Feb 2000 17:57:13 MST Organization: bCandid - Powering the world's discussions - http://bCandid.com Date: Fri, 25 Feb 2000 00:57:14 GMT Path: chonsp.franklin.ch!pfaff.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!newsfeed-zh.ip-plus.net!news.ip-plus.net!news.datacomm.ch!newscore.gigabell.net!news.ndh.net!newsfeed.tli.de!newsfeed.cwix.com!cyclone-east.rr.com!news.rr.com!news-east.rr.com!portc05.blue.aol.com!gw12.bcandid.com.MISMATCH!gw22.nn.bcandid.com!hub12.nn.bcandid.com!tw11.nn.bcandid.com.POSTED!not-for-mail Xref: chonsp.franklin.ch alt.out-of-body:34315 Julia Hawkes-Moore wrote: > > On Thu, 24 Feb 2000 00:46:36 GMT, Janice wrote: > >All right, this is the moment you've all been waiting for ... Janice's > >experiment report. :) > > >I decided that trying to think about Trish, Lorz, Dorothy, Julia and > >perhaps PZ as well was a bit of a tall order, so every time my thoughts > >wandered I tried to bring them back to Julia's experiment specifically > >and to picture my little object. > > I too think that we were attempting rather too much. But it was > helpful for refocusing that I also kept returning to 'my object'. Perhaps we should just pair off individually and see how we do. Trish and I seem to have a pretty good rapport. > >My thoughts were rather unfocused, but > >I do not believe that I really fell sleep for more than a few seconds at > >a time within the time frame of the experiment. I did have a number of > >fleeting hypnagogic impressions, most of which I wrote down right after > >they occurred. Here are the hallucinatory vocalizations I recorded: > >And here are the hallucinatory visualizations: > > Nothing there that rings any bells with me. > > > As I was walking through the utility room I wondered if I > >had left anyone out. When I realized that I had forgotten Julia, I woke > >up. > > Pah! Pah indeed! After all my hard work returning my thoughts to you repeatedly before I fell asleep, when it came down to the real business at hand I forgot you. > >Since I felt I had done my duty, I got up to check the time (I am > >too nearsighted to read it from my bed in the dark). It was 3:30 AM. I > >went back to bed. The cat moved, so I was able to get comfortable at > >last, and I let myself fall asleep normally without trying to remain > >alert or writing down my subsequent dreams. (There was one, however, > >that was about TienYen and a bunch of camels. :) > > Hmmm. Good try. I'm glad you were able to see Trish, anyway! > Love from Julia. I'm glad I eventually got the dream mirror to do something interesting! I used to have a lot of fun with them in the past. I've never been good at going through them into other scenes, though, which was a specialty of a friend of mine. ###### Message-ID: <38B5F81E.8466EBF@privatei.com> From: The Original Ken X-Mailer: Mozilla 4.02 [en]C-DIAL (Win95; U) MIME-Version: 1.0 Newsgroups: alt.out-of-body Subject: Re: Mirror Mirror on the Wall ... References: <38B347FC.66DA5F2B@privatei.com> <38B4501F.6B6C@not-here.net> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Lines: 58 Date: Thu, 24 Feb 2000 20:33:50 -0700 NNTP-Posting-Host: 204.131.176.175 X-Trace: wormhole.dimensional.com 951450063 204.131.176.175 (Thu, 24 Feb 2000 20:41:03 MDT) NNTP-Posting-Date: Thu, 24 Feb 2000 20:41:03 MDT Organization: Interlink Advertising Path: chonsp.franklin.ch!pfaff.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!newsfeed-zh.ip-plus.net!news.ip-plus.net!News.Amsterdam.UnisourceCS!skynet.be!hermes.visi.com!news-out.visi.com!pulsar.dimensional.com!dimensional.com!wormhole.dimensional.com!not-for-mail Xref: chonsp.franklin.ch alt.out-of-body:34266 Janice wrote: > The Original Ken wrote: > > > > Trish wrote: > > > > > > > > Next thing I know, I'm awake, and the closing statement on the Diallo trial > > > was coming to an end. The news commentator came on, and I reached for the > > > remote control and turned the TV off (this was about 5 p.m. EST) The minute > > > I placed my head back down, I went into a very easy relaxed vibrational > > > state, and then went right into an OBE. > > > > > > My living room was exactly as I left it ... and I do note that the OBE > > > originated in the living room where I fell asleep, not from my bedroom > > > environment. > > > > Trish, you just blew my smelly socks off with this comment!!!! Do you realize > > what you just said here?? As far as I am aware I have *never* had an OBE where > > the room I exited to was different from the room I was in. If I'm in my > > bedroom, I exit to my bedroom, if I'm on the couch (which I do occasionally) I > > exit from the couch. I had an OBE once while I was in a cabin somewhere > > sometime ago and I exited into the cabin. *Never* have I exited from my body > > and been anywhere else but where I actually was. I don't know why I never saw > > this before (being the brilliant person that I am) but this is really a > > monumental observation. How many times have you woken at a friends house > > thinking you were in your own bed? Why would the mind always make you seem like > > you were exiting from the location you are actually at rather than another room > > or another place you had been at while on vacation or something like that! This > > is astonishing! Brilliant!!! > > Ken, don't get QUITE so excited. :D Sorry, I tend to have quite an active adrenaline system. :) > I've sometimes had OBEs take place > in a different location than where I am sleeping. In fact when I was > visiting in Texas one time I had little trouble *making* my OBEs be set > back at home, simply by deliberately imagining myself to be in my bed at > home. I also attempted to wander through the apartment where I was > staying in Texas in some other OBEs while I was at it, and while I was > able to make the OBE begin at the apartment I could not get the layout > or details of the place quite right. I was certainly only speaking from personal experience, and since I've had hundreds of OBEs it is quite a database to draw from. Most of my OBEs are what you would call WILDs. Typically I would wake up, perhaps get out of bed or perhaps not, get back into bed, close my eyes and then experience within a few seconds or minutes the beginnings of an OBE, vibrations, then separation, with my physical eyes always closed. The fact that even with closed eyes my vision was identical to what it would be had I opened my eyes is what got me here in Trish's comment. Now in your comment above, were these WILDs or OBEs from a dream? If it is the latter, then this doesn't count. If the former, then there are apparently exceptions to this observation. Ken ###### Message-ID: <38B5FF68.574A@not-here.net> From: Janice X-Mailer: Mozilla 3.01 (Win95; I) MIME-Version: 1.0 Newsgroups: alt.out-of-body Subject: Re: Mirror Mirror on the Wall ... References: <38B347FC.66DA5F2B@privatei.com> <38B4501F.6B6C@not-here.net> <38B5F81E.8466EBF@privatei.com> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Lines: 68 NNTP-Posting-Host: 207.103.34.8 X-Trace: tw11.nn.bcandid.com 951451445 207.103.34.8 (Thu, 24 Feb 2000 21:04:05 MST) NNTP-Posting-Date: Thu, 24 Feb 2000 21:04:05 MST Organization: bCandid - Powering the world's discussions - http://bCandid.com Date: Fri, 25 Feb 2000 04:04:06 GMT Path: chonsp.franklin.ch!pfaff.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!newsfeed-zh.ip-plus.net!news.ip-plus.net!News.Amsterdam.UnisourceCS!newspeer.te.net!news.indigo.ie!news-out.cwix.com!newsfeed.cwix.com!europa.netcrusader.net!206.132.58.120!gw22.nn.bcandid.com!hub12.nn.bcandid.com!tw11.nn.bcandid.com.POSTED!not-for-mail Xref: chonsp.franklin.ch alt.out-of-body:34257 The Original Ken wrote: > > Janice wrote: > > > The Original Ken wrote: > > > > > > Trish wrote: > > > > > > > > > > > Next thing I know, I'm awake, and the closing statement on the Diallo trial > > > > was coming to an end. The news commentator came on, and I reached for the > > > > remote control and turned the TV off (this was about 5 p.m. EST) The minute > > > > I placed my head back down, I went into a very easy relaxed vibrational > > > > state, and then went right into an OBE. > > > > > > > > My living room was exactly as I left it ... and I do note that the OBE > > > > originated in the living room where I fell asleep, not from my bedroom > > > > environment. > > > > > > Trish, you just blew my smelly socks off with this comment!!!! Do you realize > > > what you just said here?? As far as I am aware I have *never* had an OBE where > > > the room I exited to was different from the room I was in. If I'm in my > > > bedroom, I exit to my bedroom, if I'm on the couch (which I do occasionally) I > > > exit from the couch. I had an OBE once while I was in a cabin somewhere > > > sometime ago and I exited into the cabin. *Never* have I exited from my body > > > and been anywhere else but where I actually was. I don't know why I never saw > > > this before (being the brilliant person that I am) but this is really a > > > monumental observation. How many times have you woken at a friends house > > > thinking you were in your own bed? Why would the mind always make you seem like > > > you were exiting from the location you are actually at rather than another room > > > or another place you had been at while on vacation or something like that! This > > > is astonishing! Brilliant!!! > > > > Ken, don't get QUITE so excited. :D > > Sorry, I tend to have quite an active adrenaline system. :) > > > I've sometimes had OBEs take place > > in a different location than where I am sleeping. In fact when I was > > visiting in Texas one time I had little trouble *making* my OBEs be set > > back at home, simply by deliberately imagining myself to be in my bed at > > home. I also attempted to wander through the apartment where I was > > staying in Texas in some other OBEs while I was at it, and while I was > > able to make the OBE begin at the apartment I could not get the layout > > or details of the place quite right. > > I was certainly only speaking from personal experience, and since I've had hundreds > of OBEs it is quite a database to draw from. Most of my OBEs are what you would call > WILDs. Typically I would wake up, perhaps get out of bed or perhaps not, get back > into bed, close my eyes and then experience within a few seconds or minutes the > beginnings of an OBE, vibrations, then separation, with my physical eyes always > closed. The fact that even with closed eyes my vision was identical to what it would > be had I opened my eyes is what got me here in Trish's comment. Now in your comment > above, were these WILDs or OBEs from a dream? If it is the latter, then this doesn't > count. If the former, then there are apparently exceptions to this observation. > > Ken At least some of the experiences I'm talking about were definitely WILDs, pretty similar to what you're describing. I've had hundreds of the thingees too; I wouldn't even be surprised if it was more like thousands, considering how much I used to indulge in them. What fun would a rule be without some exceptions? :) See if you can make yourself to start out in another location sometime. It can lead to some curious sensations, apparently because your brain is confused by conflicting information. ###### From: Janice Newsgroups: alt.out-of-body Subject: Re: Mirror Mirror on the Wall ... Date: Fri, 25 Feb 2000 06:11:49 -0500 Organization: http://extra.newsguy.com Lines: 21 Message-ID: <38B66375.336C@not-here.net> References: <38B47F9C.4275@not-here.net> <38b59e14.1652803@news.dial.pipex.com> <38B5D399.BB4@not-here.net> NNTP-Posting-Host: async99.starlinx.com Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-Mailer: Mozilla 3.01 (Win95; I) Path: chonsp.franklin.ch!pfaff.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!newsfeed-zh.ip-plus.net!news.ip-plus.net!News.Amsterdam.UnisourceCS!newshunter!cosy.sbg.ac.at!news-feed.inet.tele.dk!bofh.vszbr.cz!newspeer.monmouth.com!pln-e!spln!extra.newsguy.com!newsp.newsguy.com!enews3 Xref: chonsp.franklin.ch alt.out-of-body:34248 Janice wrote: > > Julia Hawkes-Moore wrote: > > > > On Thu, 24 Feb 2000 00:46:36 GMT, Janice wrote: > > >All right, this is the moment you've all been waiting for ... Janice's > > >experiment report. :) > > > > >I decided that trying to think about Trish, Lorz, Dorothy, Julia and > > >perhaps PZ as well was a bit of a tall order, so every time my thoughts > > >wandered I tried to bring them back to Julia's experiment specifically > > >and to picture my little object. > > > > I too think that we were attempting rather too much. But it was > > helpful for refocusing that I also kept returning to 'my object'. > > Perhaps we should just pair off individually and see how we do. Trish > and I seem to have a pretty good rapport. Another possibility would be to set up a rotating schedule for pairing off with different individuals. ###### Message-ID: <38B6A29B.84C0A1FC@privatei.com> From: The Original Ken X-Mailer: Mozilla 4.02 [en]C-DIAL (Win95; U) MIME-Version: 1.0 Newsgroups: alt.out-of-body Subject: Re: Mirror Mirror on the Wall ... References: <38B347FC.66DA5F2B@privatei.com> <38B4501F.6B6C@not-here.net> <38B5F81E.8466EBF@privatei.com> <38B5FF68.574A@not-here.net> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Lines: 40 Date: Fri, 25 Feb 2000 08:41:15 -0700 NNTP-Posting-Host: 204.131.176.198 X-Trace: wormhole.dimensional.com 951493725 204.131.176.198 (Fri, 25 Feb 2000 08:48:45 MDT) NNTP-Posting-Date: Fri, 25 Feb 2000 08:48:45 MDT Organization: Interlink Advertising Path: chonsp.franklin.ch!pfaff.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!news-ge.switch.ch!news-fra1.dfn.de!news-koe1.dfn.de!news.ruhrgebiet.individual.net!newspump.monmouth.com!newspeer.monmouth.com!hermes.visi.com!news-out.visi.com!pulsar.dimensional.com!dimensional.com!wormhole.dimensional.com!not-for-mail Xref: chonsp.franklin.ch alt.out-of-body:34275 Janice wrote: > The Original Ken wrote: > > > > > I was certainly only speaking from personal experience, and since I've had hundreds > > of OBEs it is quite a database to draw from. Most of my OBEs are what you would call > > WILDs. Typically I would wake up, perhaps get out of bed or perhaps not, get back > > into bed, close my eyes and then experience within a few seconds or minutes the > > beginnings of an OBE, vibrations, then separation, with my physical eyes always > > closed. The fact that even with closed eyes my vision was identical to what it would > > be had I opened my eyes is what got me here in Trish's comment. Now in your comment > > above, were these WILDs or OBEs from a dream? If it is the latter, then this doesn't > > count. If the former, then there are apparently exceptions to this observation. > > > > Ken > > At least some of the experiences I'm talking about were definitely > WILDs, pretty similar to what you're describing. I've had hundreds of > the thingees too; I wouldn't even be surprised if it was more like > thousands, considering how much I used to indulge in them. > > What fun would a rule be without some exceptions? :) The fun of being a valid theory? :) > See if you can make yourself to start out in another location sometime. > It can lead to some curious sensations, apparently because your brain is > confused by conflicting information. It's worth a try to see what these sensations are that you mention here, but isn't this just an exercise in forcing the experience to become more subjective due to the power of suggestion? I'm trying to go the other way. I would like to get better at making the experience less subjective. Ken ###### Message-ID: <38B6DF44.1A63@not-here.net> From: Janice X-Mailer: Mozilla 3.01 (Win95; I) MIME-Version: 1.0 Newsgroups: alt.out-of-body Subject: Re: Mirror Mirror on the Wall ... References: <38B347FC.66DA5F2B@privatei.com> <38B4501F.6B6C@not-here.net> <38B5F81E.8466EBF@privatei.com> <38B5FF68.574A@not-here.net> <38B6A29B.84C0A1FC@privatei.com> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Lines: 55 NNTP-Posting-Host: 207.103.34.8 X-Trace: tw11.nn.bcandid.com 951508752 207.103.34.8 (Fri, 25 Feb 2000 12:59:12 MST) NNTP-Posting-Date: Fri, 25 Feb 2000 12:59:12 MST Organization: bCandid - Powering the world's discussions - http://bCandid.com Date: Fri, 25 Feb 2000 19:59:14 GMT Path: chonsp.franklin.ch!pfaff.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!newsfeed-zh.ip-plus.net!news.ip-plus.net!News.Amsterdam.UnisourceCS!skynet.be!news-spur1.maxwell.syr.edu!news.maxwell.syr.edu!newsfeed.skycache.com!gw22.nn.bcandid.com!hub12.nn.bcandid.com!tw11.nn.bcandid.com.POSTED!not-for-mail Xref: chonsp.franklin.ch alt.out-of-body:34330 The Original Ken wrote: > > Janice wrote: > > > The Original Ken wrote: > > > > > > > > I was certainly only speaking from personal experience, and since I've had hundreds > > > of OBEs it is quite a database to draw from. Most of my OBEs are what you would call > > > WILDs. Typically I would wake up, perhaps get out of bed or perhaps not, get back > > > into bed, close my eyes and then experience within a few seconds or minutes the > > > beginnings of an OBE, vibrations, then separation, with my physical eyes always > > > closed. The fact that even with closed eyes my vision was identical to what it would > > > be had I opened my eyes is what got me here in Trish's comment. Now in your comment > > > above, were these WILDs or OBEs from a dream? If it is the latter, then this doesn't > > > count. If the former, then there are apparently exceptions to this observation. > > > > > > Ken > > > > At least some of the experiences I'm talking about were definitely > > WILDs, pretty similar to what you're describing. I've had hundreds of > > the thingees too; I wouldn't even be surprised if it was more like > > thousands, considering how much I used to indulge in them. > > > > What fun would a rule be without some exceptions? :) > > The fun of being a valid theory? :) You just have to expand your theory to account for the exceptions. You've really never had any "seeing through closed eyes" experiences where you spotted at least some small discrepancy in the view of your room? What really got to me where the ones where I would think I had opened my physical eyes and see a discrepancy, since that showed that what I took to be my physical body was itself sometimes a dream body. Maybe it helps that I was usually doing this sort of thing in the daytime, when there is more detail to see. > > See if you can make yourself to start out in another location sometime. > > It can lead to some curious sensations, apparently because your brain is > > confused by conflicting information. > > It's worth a try to see what these sensations are that you mention here, but isn't this > just an exercise in forcing the experience to become more subjective due to the power of > suggestion? I'm trying to go the other way. I would like to get better at making the > experience less subjective. You can always go back to trying to make it less subjective, of course. If you do try making yourself start out in another location as an experiment, I think it would be best to be sleeping somewhere unusual and try to imagine yourself in your usual sleeping location. That's how I've done it (like being in Texas and making my OBE start as if I had been in my bed at home). I think it would be much harder to be lying in your usual spot and trying to pretend to yourself that you're somewhere else. ###### From: "Trish" Newsgroups: alt.out-of-body References: <38B44DC8.7126@not-here.net> <38B4BD65.7C7C@not-here.net> Subject: Re: Mirror Mirror on the Wall ... Lines: 82 X-Newsreader: Microsoft Outlook Express 4.71.1712.3 X-MimeOLE: Produced By Microsoft MimeOLE V4.72.2106.4 Message-ID: X-Trace: 9mr0rfdlRZNrIDaCApHtteoKFuDHlU3zyBfpInhCsShd4ZKsvF11O2VU+tB8aOvkQTJg9ZdwFY4i!XRdlwYDAOdcd6iMMH70CLljfNasahcLB1zSSLxWQWGY4cTBwtgJTeHsBtDRPoyE8zBJpAoIV5LOP!seCESA== X-Complaints-To: abuse@gte.net X-Abuse-Info: Please be sure to forward a copy of ALL headers X-Abuse-Info: Otherwise we will be unable to process your complaint properly NNTP-Posting-Date: Sat, 26 Feb 2000 01:04:45 GMT Distribution: world Date: Sat, 26 Feb 2000 01:04:46 GMT Path: chonsp.franklin.ch!pfaff.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!news-ge.switch.ch!news.maxwell.syr.edu!colt.net!nyc-news-feed1.bbnplanet.com!washdc3-snh1.gtei.net!news.gtei.net!dfiatx1-snr1.gtei.net.POSTED!not-for-mail Xref: chonsp.franklin.ch alt.out-of-body:34379 Janice wrote in message <38B4BD65.7C7C@not-here.net>... >Trish wrote: >> Ok .. so what's an aminergic neurotransmitter? > >I thought I went into that recently - maybe you missed that post. >Basically (and any passing neuroscientists are welcome to correct any >gross errors I may make in saying this) neurotransmitters carry chemical >messages from one neuron to another. The aminergic neurotransmitters, >such as serotonin and norepinephrine, are abundant in the waking state. >These are thought to be responsible for sustaining such functions as >attention, critical thinking, and access to memory. The level of these >aminergic neurotransmitters typically goes down during sleep and reaches >an all-time low during REM sleep, when the aminergic neurons in the >brainstem appear to be recharging their batteries, as it were, building >up a fresh supply of amines for the next day's waking activity. >Meanwhile, during dreaming the brain is awash in a different type of >chemical - acetylcholine, produced by the cholinergic neurons in the >brainstem. The aminergic and cholinergic neurotransmitters are thought >by some neurophysiologists, J. Allan Hobson in particular (who is a bit >of a friend of mine) to exist in a dynamic balance, the various tippings >of which produce our various conscious states. Being lucid in a dream >may entail "stealing" some of the regenerating supply of amines. Don't antidepressant medications affect serotonin and norepinephrine? Is this why I couldn't get to sleep while on them you think? Wouldn't it stand to reason that by working with these neurotransmitters we could recreate various states of consciousness? >> How do you do this Janice? Do you visualize it before going to sleep? > >No, I impose my will and my strong memories of certain locations on the >relatively dark and formless state in which some of my OBEs start out, >acting as if I'm somewhere else. Then when the visuals come in, I'm >"there" instead of "here." Dark and formless. That's foreign to me. >Oh, expectations of one kind or another are probably always there, but >they are competing with various other sources of suggestion. I just have to giggle at all of this Janice. I keep getting the impression that there are a bunch of gremlins floating around in my mind, wrecking havoc on one another. If you think about it, the dichotomy of these psychological suggestions/expectations can be just as "kooky" as some of the more metaphysical propositions .... but we don't view it this way because we think of it as "brain stuff". Either way it's strange. >> So in this case my expectations of it not being the actual physical are >> over-ridden by expectations and habitualization of seeing a relatively >> stable pseudo-replica environment - with something extra added in the mix. > >Something like that. How concrete is the idea of "this is not the >actual physical," after all? It leaves some leeway, but aren't you >still expecting that you're going to end up in a scene pretty similar to >the physical? Yes, (but like I said) except for those times when I'll jump right into a WILD. It defies my expectation ... and as you say, perhaps some other suggestion is at work here, or my awareness level isn't "up to" my expectation. But it doesn't give me much to work with. From what I can tell, to keep a higher awareness level, one would sacrifice control. Or to gain control, you sacrifice awareness. Unless, of course, we can "train" ourselves to have both. >> Someone please. Hit me over the head right now and put me out of my misery. >> Just do it quickly. > >Aw, come on, it's not that bad, is it? :) Ok ... you try being me. : ) ###### From: "Trish" Newsgroups: alt.out-of-body References: <38B47F9C.4275@not-here.net> <38B4CCC9.726D@not-here.net> Subject: Re: Mirror Mirror on the Wall ... Lines: 99 X-Newsreader: Microsoft Outlook Express 4.71.1712.3 X-MimeOLE: Produced By Microsoft MimeOLE V4.72.2106.4 Message-ID: <%TFt4.2000$395.21345@dfiatx1-snr1.gtei.net> X-Trace: 9/OW2cTvQVG7JH25C65KUsaaMgIcrT0kOxMdVHDJ9OyTQVd5bg9wjK5fI2GewEaiwgT7mUqj+l+Y!DOolplpznjH7txF1zTizKQMGiCCiC17nVN0sxrhBY5tdf8b3c53f+HeaXEefa8TfGTBgP7t6LVLo!hUDF/A== X-Complaints-To: abuse@gte.net X-Abuse-Info: Please be sure to forward a copy of ALL headers X-Abuse-Info: Otherwise we will be unable to process your complaint properly NNTP-Posting-Date: Sat, 26 Feb 2000 01:20:59 GMT Distribution: world Date: Sat, 26 Feb 2000 01:20:59 GMT Path: chonsp.franklin.ch!pfaff.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!newsfeed-zh.ip-plus.net!news.ip-plus.net!News.Amsterdam.UnisourceCS!skynet.be!newsfeed.stanford.edu!paloalto-snf1.gtei.net!su-news-hub1.bbnplanet.com!washdc3-snh1.gtei.net!news.gtei.net!dfiatx1-snr1.gtei.net.POSTED!not-for-mail Xref: chonsp.franklin.ch alt.out-of-body:34376 Janice wrote in message <38B4CCC9.726D@not-here.net>... Here are the hallucinatory vocalizations I recorded: >> > >> >"Are you" >> >"Bogey man" >> >"Liar" >> >"That's enough" >> >"Evidence" >> >"Watch yourself" >> >"Doctor" >> >"You got two more minutes" >> >> Do those make any sense to you? (Do they ever make any sense to you?) I've >> never tried writing them down .. it might be fun. > >"Are you" and "Liar" seemed like smart-assed answers to the thoughts I >was thinking at the time. "That's enough," "Watch yourself" and "You >got two more minutes" seemed like they may have been coming from some >sort of latent paranoia about psychic experiments. > >I used to get a lot of exceptionally silly hypnagogic comments. I'll >write some of them up for you if you like. Yes, please. I'd like to try this myself, just for fun. >> >> Well, you would have observed it while awake. The memory would have been >> there. Wouldn't have had to been your physical eyes. > >I really couldn't remember its existence for several seconds. But I >guess the memory of it may have been there in the back of my mind, >latent, as it were, and just not explicitly accessible to me. Well, sure. I don't "remember" every object in my room ... but for the most part, they're there when I have an OBE. > >> Anyway, I was now in the perfect setup for the OBE-type lucid >> >dream I'd been wanting for the experiment, so I got up in the dream >> >body. I had a hard time controlling it and thought ruefully of my >> >bravado the night before in telling Gunnar how nowadays I just ignore >> >"get up anyway" in my OBEs and let the dream body catch up to me when it >> >will - ha! >> >> See .. your memories are there. You recalled a discussion with Gunnar the >> night before. > >Yep, some recent memories were obviously there. Tsk. Tsk. And you say you can't remember what happened yesterday. >> I actually stumbled into a wall at one point and ended up >> >back with the sense of lying in bed and had to start over. This time I >> >did better and went through the dream version of my upstairs hall and >> >down the stairs to the living room. A rather pathetic version of my >> >husband was slouched on the couch. Since I was wearing my pajamas in >> >the dream I figured I could not just walk out the front door without >> >inviting interference from this dream character, so I just said hi and >> >walked through the house to the basement stairs. >> >> Did he say Hi back ? > >No, he was just grinning like an idiot. At you? Or well ... just grinning like an idiot? >> Flicking the light >> >switch at the top of the stairs did increase the illumination a bit, so >> >I went down. I remembered that I was supposed to be looking for a >> >mirror, then falsely remembered that we had one on the east wall of the >> >basement room. >> >> Did you notice anything else different at this time? > >No. My vision was kind of blurry, for one thing. Well, you went from an accurate memory about Gunnar ... to an inaccurate memory of your own home. See what I mean about the strangeness of this? Seems that your home would be the more solid memory, but that's not what you recalled. Either that, or you started with a sharper, more OBE like awareness, and after a while it became more dream-like. As you said ............ >> In keeping with that expectation, sure enough there it >> >was. ............. it seems that you accepted the misplaced mirror. Did this acceptance cause a shift in awareness, or did the shift in awareness cause the acceptance of the mirror? ###### From: "Trish" Newsgroups: alt.out-of-body References: <38B347FC.66DA5F2B@privatei.com> <38B4501F.6B6C@not-here.net> <38B5F81E.8466EBF@privatei.com> <38B5FF68.574A@not-here.net> <38B6A29B.84C0A1FC@privatei.com> <38B6DF44.1A63@not-here.net> Subject: Re: Mirror Mirror on the Wall ... Lines: 71 X-Newsreader: Microsoft Outlook Express 4.71.1712.3 X-MimeOLE: Produced By Microsoft MimeOLE V4.72.2106.4 Message-ID: X-Trace: +SQ/lpOO6lLbmZRDTYcO5QAG/lLYnPFEvX0Qf28b271T45jH1Zua5Hlm/Nd/GDdx/++54M5GYiMT!35XzZtjZQj2tGHwb90k2GgNxnZmmUZ3m/SBUTHARXEw55i1rx7MTt5poVPiQgJdGjqxhGxBOITAE!ePy2Eg== X-Complaints-To: abuse@gte.net X-Abuse-Info: Please be sure to forward a copy of ALL headers X-Abuse-Info: Otherwise we will be unable to process your complaint properly NNTP-Posting-Date: Sat, 26 Feb 2000 01:26:08 GMT Distribution: world Date: Sat, 26 Feb 2000 01:26:08 GMT Path: chonsp.franklin.ch!pfaff.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!newsfeed-zh.ip-plus.net!news.ip-plus.net!News.Amsterdam.UnisourceCS!skynet.be!newsfeed.stanford.edu!newsfeed.berkeley.edu!news-feeder.wcg.net!WCG!easynews!crtntx1-snh1.gtei.net!washdc3-snh1.gtei.net!news.gtei.net!dfiatx1-snr1.gtei.net.POSTED!not-for-mail Xref: chonsp.franklin.ch alt.out-of-body:34378 Janice wrote in message <38B6DF44.1A63@not-here.net>... >The Original Ken wrote: >> >> Janice wrote: >> >> > The Original Ken wrote: >> > >> > > >> > > I was certainly only speaking from personal experience, and since I've had hundreds >> > > of OBEs it is quite a database to draw from. Most of my OBEs are what you would call >> > > WILDs. Typically I would wake up, perhaps get out of bed or perhaps not, get back >> > > into bed, close my eyes and then experience within a few seconds or minutes the >> > > beginnings of an OBE, vibrations, then separation, with my physical eyes always >> > > closed. The fact that even with closed eyes my vision was identical to what it would >> > > be had I opened my eyes is what got me here in Trish's comment. Now in your comment >> > > above, were these WILDs or OBEs from a dream? If it is the latter, then this doesn't >> > > count. If the former, then there are apparently exceptions to this observation. >> > > >> > > Ken >> > >> > At least some of the experiences I'm talking about were definitely >> > WILDs, pretty similar to what you're describing. I've had hundreds of >> > the thingees too; I wouldn't even be surprised if it was more like >> > thousands, considering how much I used to indulge in them. >> > >> > What fun would a rule be without some exceptions? :) >> >> The fun of being a valid theory? :) > >You just have to expand your theory to account for the exceptions. > >You've really never had any "seeing through closed eyes" experiences >where you spotted at least some small discrepancy in the view of your >room? What really got to me where the ones where I would think I had >opened my physical eyes and see a discrepancy, since that showed that >what I took to be my physical body was itself sometimes a dream body. >Maybe it helps that I was usually doing this sort of thing in the >daytime, when there is more detail to see. > >> > See if you can make yourself to start out in another location sometime. >> > It can lead to some curious sensations, apparently because your brain is >> > confused by conflicting information. >> >> It's worth a try to see what these sensations are that you mention here, but isn't this >> just an exercise in forcing the experience to become more subjective due to the power of >> suggestion? I'm trying to go the other way. I would like to get better at making the >> experience less subjective. He's got a point here Janice. >You can always go back to trying to make it less subjective, of course. Now how would someone do this? You're saying that even my objective experiences are subjective. ###### Message-ID: <38B74C7A.1CF2@not-here.net> From: Janice X-Mailer: Mozilla 3.01 (Win95; I) MIME-Version: 1.0 Newsgroups: alt.out-of-body Subject: Re: Mirror Mirror on the Wall ... References: <38B347FC.66DA5F2B@privatei.com> <38B4501F.6B6C@not-here.net> <38B5F81E.8466EBF@privatei.com> <38B5FF68.574A@not-here.net> <38B6A29B.84C0A1FC@privatei.com> <38B6DF44.1A63@not-here.net> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Lines: 77 NNTP-Posting-Host: 207.103.34.8 X-Trace: tw11.nn.bcandid.com 951536710 207.103.34.8 (Fri, 25 Feb 2000 20:45:10 MST) NNTP-Posting-Date: Fri, 25 Feb 2000 20:45:10 MST Organization: bCandid - Powering the world's discussions - http://bCandid.com Date: Sat, 26 Feb 2000 03:45:11 GMT Path: chonsp.franklin.ch!pfaff.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!newsfeed-zh.ip-plus.net!news.ip-plus.net!News.Amsterdam.UnisourceCS!uunet!ams.uu.net!ffx.uu.net!portc05.blue.aol.com!gw12.bcandid.com.MISMATCH!gw22.nn.bcandid.com!hub12.nn.bcandid.com!tw11.nn.bcandid.com.POSTED!not-for-mail Xref: chonsp.franklin.ch alt.out-of-body:34338 Trish wrote: > > Janice wrote in message <38B6DF44.1A63@not-here.net>... > >The Original Ken wrote: > >> > >> Janice wrote: > >> > >> > The Original Ken wrote: > >> > > >> > > > >> > > I was certainly only speaking from personal experience, and since > I've had hundreds > >> > > of OBEs it is quite a database to draw from. Most of my OBEs are > what you would call > >> > > WILDs. Typically I would wake up, perhaps get out of bed or perhaps > not, get back > >> > > into bed, close my eyes and then experience within a few seconds or > minutes the > >> > > beginnings of an OBE, vibrations, then separation, with my physical > eyes always > >> > > closed. The fact that even with closed eyes my vision was identical > to what it would > >> > > be had I opened my eyes is what got me here in Trish's comment. Now > in your comment > >> > > above, were these WILDs or OBEs from a dream? If it is the latter, > then this doesn't > >> > > count. If the former, then there are apparently exceptions to this > observation. > >> > > > >> > > Ken > >> > > >> > At least some of the experiences I'm talking about were definitely > >> > WILDs, pretty similar to what you're describing. I've had hundreds of > >> > the thingees too; I wouldn't even be surprised if it was more like > >> > thousands, considering how much I used to indulge in them. > >> > > >> > What fun would a rule be without some exceptions? :) > >> > >> The fun of being a valid theory? :) > > > >You just have to expand your theory to account for the exceptions. > > > >You've really never had any "seeing through closed eyes" experiences > >where you spotted at least some small discrepancy in the view of your > >room? What really got to me where the ones where I would think I had > >opened my physical eyes and see a discrepancy, since that showed that > >what I took to be my physical body was itself sometimes a dream body. > >Maybe it helps that I was usually doing this sort of thing in the > >daytime, when there is more detail to see. > > > >> > See if you can make yourself to start out in another location sometime. > >> > It can lead to some curious sensations, apparently because your brain > is > >> > confused by conflicting information. > >> > >> It's worth a try to see what these sensations are that you mention here, > but isn't this > >> just an exercise in forcing the experience to become more subjective due > to the power of > >> suggestion? I'm trying to go the other way. I would like to get better > at making the > >> experience less subjective. > > He's got a point here Janice. He's free to not bother with my experiment suggestion if it's too out of line with his goals. > >You can always go back to trying to make it less subjective, of course. > > Now how would someone do this? You're saying that even my objective > experiences are subjective. All I told Ken was that he could go back to *trying* to make it less subjective, whether or not that is possible. At this point, yes, I do think OBEs are subjective experiences. This does not mean I can't be proven wrong. ###### Message-ID: <38B7540E.537F@not-here.net> From: Janice X-Mailer: Mozilla 3.01 (Win95; I) MIME-Version: 1.0 Newsgroups: alt.out-of-body Subject: Re: Mirror Mirror on the Wall ... References: <38B47F9C.4275@not-here.net> <38B4CCC9.726D@not-here.net> <%TFt4.2000$395.21345@dfiatx1-snr1.gtei.net> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Lines: 120 NNTP-Posting-Host: 207.103.34.8 X-Trace: tw11.nn.bcandid.com 951538651 207.103.34.8 (Fri, 25 Feb 2000 21:17:31 MST) NNTP-Posting-Date: Fri, 25 Feb 2000 21:17:31 MST Organization: bCandid - Powering the world's discussions - http://bCandid.com Date: Sat, 26 Feb 2000 04:17:31 GMT Path: chonsp.franklin.ch!pfaff.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!newsfeed-zh.ip-plus.net!news.ip-plus.net!News.Amsterdam.UnisourceCS!uunet!ams.uu.net!ffx.uu.net!portc05.blue.aol.com!cyclone-east.rr.com!news.rr.com!news-east.rr.com!europa.netcrusader.net!206.132.58.120!gw22.nn.bcandid.com!hub12.nn.bcandid.com!tw11.nn.bcandid.com.POSTED!not-for-mail Xref: chonsp.franklin.ch alt.out-of-body:34325 Trish wrote: > > Janice wrote in message <38B4CCC9.726D@not-here.net>... > > > >I used to get a lot of exceptionally silly hypnagogic comments. I'll > >write some of them up for you if you like. > > Yes, please. I'd like to try this myself, just for fun. Here are some of my all-time favorite funny ones: "In a bog-foot town." "Oh me, to open my mouth." "But neither does he mind his own business!" "Jacint was a coolant man, first to meet his scaffold." "I got a shamble I wanna ride with ya." "He's the Keeper of the Universe, and I'm just the gardener or something." "Skylight of the Buffaloes" "Your potato-sauce people." "Mr. North Pole Santa Claus." "You don't get credit for a local from a laddie." "I'm not allowed any more memories." "She gathers men to forbidden chambers to do her bidding." "Yankee in the shaft with noodles." "He who sells ideas makes good glassware." "I don't want to exchange my teeth." "A lean fish suckled a nudy fawn." "Ye olde bitter bread." "What do you want for $28 apiece?" "Beer is like younger men - you can't get too much of them." "Ride, Liffey! It has taken but a crow to overkill his name." [Maybe I was channeling James Joyce :)] "Spiritual, schmiritual; let's have fun." "We'll have electronic candy monitors fill every drink and gin." "Love is a purple cow." > >> Well, you would have observed it while awake. The memory would have been > >> there. Wouldn't have had to been your physical eyes. > > > >I really couldn't remember its existence for several seconds. But I > >guess the memory of it may have been there in the back of my mind, > >latent, as it were, and just not explicitly accessible to me. > > Well, sure. I don't "remember" every object in my room ... but for the most > part, they're there when I have an OBE. Cool. > >> See .. your memories are there. You recalled a discussion with Gunnar > the > >> night before. > > > >Yep, some recent memories were obviously there. > > Tsk. Tsk. And you say you can't remember what happened yesterday. > I seem to be able to remember intentions and thoughts from the day before while I'm dreaming better than things I physically did. > >> Did he say Hi back ? > > > >No, he was just grinning like an idiot. > > At you? Or well ... just grinning like an idiot? His eyes tracked me, but I think he was grinning from the outset, before I said anything. > >> Flicking the light > >> >switch at the top of the stairs did increase the illumination a bit, so > >> >I went down. I remembered that I was supposed to be looking for a > >> >mirror, then falsely remembered that we had one on the east wall of the > >> >basement room. > >> > >> Did you notice anything else different at this time? > > > >No. My vision was kind of blurry, for one thing. > > Well, you went from an accurate memory about Gunnar ... to an inaccurate > memory of your own home. See what I mean about the strangeness of this? > Seems that your home would be the more solid memory, but that's not what you > recalled. Well, it is strange, but memory is not a unitary thing. There are all different kinds of memory and they appear to be supported by different parts of the brain. Someone can experience brain damage in one spot and end up with amnesia for recent events yet still have no trouble remembering people's telephone numbers, for example. > Either that, or you started with a sharper, more OBE like awareness, and > after a while it became more dream-like. As you said ............ It could be that. Yet I did correctly remember my experiment intention of asking the mirror to show me people and almost remembered to ask it to show everyone - I just remembered about Julia a bit too late. And I remembered, even though I didn't turn out to have time to do so before waking up, that I wanted to go out to the Dream Learning Center for another experiment (which I did today and posted in the "For Dorothy" thread). Now in my lucid dreams today, I recognized discrepancies instantly on several occasions - when I exited my room and found myself in a random building, when I got out of bed and found myself in my mother's bedroom, and when I found myself in my mother's living room but the furniture was all wrong - perhaps because I wasn't as tired. > > >> In keeping with that expectation, sure enough there it > >> >was. > > ............. it seems that you accepted the misplaced mirror. Did this > acceptance cause a shift in awareness, or did the shift in awareness cause > the acceptance of the mirror? I think it's more likely that the dip in my awareness level occurred first. I accepted the misplaced mirror because I had got it into my head that one was going to be there before I was in any position to see it, so when I did see it it was like a "confirmation" of my false memory. If I had just come across it without having been expecting it to be there, then it would more likely have stood out as a discrepancy. ###### Message-ID: <38B75752.700A@not-here.net> From: Janice X-Mailer: Mozilla 3.01 (Win95; I) MIME-Version: 1.0 Newsgroups: alt.out-of-body Subject: Re: Mirror Mirror on the Wall ... References: <38B44DC8.7126@not-here.net> <38B4BD65.7C7C@not-here.net> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Lines: 99 NNTP-Posting-Host: 207.103.34.8 X-Trace: tw11.nn.bcandid.com 951539486 207.103.34.8 (Fri, 25 Feb 2000 21:31:26 MST) NNTP-Posting-Date: Fri, 25 Feb 2000 21:31:26 MST Organization: bCandid - Powering the world's discussions - http://bCandid.com Date: Sat, 26 Feb 2000 04:31:27 GMT Path: chonsp.franklin.ch!pfaff.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!newsfeed-zh.ip-plus.net!news.ip-plus.net!News.Amsterdam.UnisourceCS!skynet.be!howland.erols.net!europa.netcrusader.net!206.132.58.120!gw22.nn.bcandid.com!hub12.nn.bcandid.com!tw11.nn.bcandid.com.POSTED!not-for-mail Xref: chonsp.franklin.ch alt.out-of-body:34317 Trish wrote: > > Janice wrote in message <38B4BD65.7C7C@not-here.net>... > >Trish wrote: > > >> Ok .. so what's an aminergic neurotransmitter? > > > >I thought I went into that recently - maybe you missed that post. > >Basically (and any passing neuroscientists are welcome to correct any > >gross errors I may make in saying this) neurotransmitters carry chemical > >messages from one neuron to another. The aminergic neurotransmitters, > >such as serotonin and norepinephrine, are abundant in the waking state. > >These are thought to be responsible for sustaining such functions as > >attention, critical thinking, and access to memory. The level of these > >aminergic neurotransmitters typically goes down during sleep and reaches > >an all-time low during REM sleep, when the aminergic neurons in the > >brainstem appear to be recharging their batteries, as it were, building > >up a fresh supply of amines for the next day's waking activity. > >Meanwhile, during dreaming the brain is awash in a different type of > >chemical - acetylcholine, produced by the cholinergic neurons in the > >brainstem. The aminergic and cholinergic neurotransmitters are thought > >by some neurophysiologists, J. Allan Hobson in particular (who is a bit > >of a friend of mine) to exist in a dynamic balance, the various tippings > >of which produce our various conscious states. Being lucid in a dream > >may entail "stealing" some of the regenerating supply of amines. > > Don't antidepressant medications affect serotonin and norepinephrine? Is > this why I couldn't get to sleep while on them you think? They sure do, and it may very well be why you couldn't get to sleep while on them. > Wouldn't it stand to reason that by working with these neurotransmitters we > could recreate various states of consciousness? Sure. It's already possible to send someone directly into REM sleep by giving them a drug mimicking acetylcholine. > >> How do you do this Janice? Do you visualize it before going to sleep? > > > >No, I impose my will and my strong memories of certain locations on the > >relatively dark and formless state in which some of my OBEs start out, > >acting as if I'm somewhere else. Then when the visuals come in, I'm > >"there" instead of "here." > > Dark and formless. That's foreign to me. Yes, you tend to get thrown across the room, as I recall. :) > >Oh, expectations of one kind or another are probably always there, but > >they are competing with various other sources of suggestion. > > I just have to giggle at all of this Janice. I keep getting the impression > that there are a bunch of gremlins floating around in my mind, > wrecking havoc on one another. If you think about it, the dichotomy of > these psychological suggestions/expectations can be just as "kooky" as some > of the more metaphysical propositions .... but we don't view it this way > because we think of it as "brain stuff". Either way it's strange. LOL! You know you've arrived when your ideas are considered kooky even by people who have OBEs. But sure, it's plenty strange. I can't pretend to understand it all. I just do my best to convey the way I've come to see it. And one of the nicer attributes of this "suggestion theory," I think, is that it does allow for the possibility that some unconventional sources of suggestion can also get into the mix that influences the content of one's experiences, such as psychic perceptions if those exist. > >> So in this case my expectations of it not being the actual physical are > >> over-ridden by expectations and habitualization of seeing a relatively > >> stable pseudo-replica environment - with something extra added in the > mix. > > > >Something like that. How concrete is the idea of "this is not the > >actual physical," after all? It leaves some leeway, but aren't you > >still expecting that you're going to end up in a scene pretty similar to > >the physical? > > Yes, (but like I said) except for those times when I'll jump right into a > WILD. It defies my expectation ... and as you say, perhaps some other > suggestion is at work here, or my awareness level isn't "up to" my > expectation. But it doesn't give me much to work with. > > From what I can tell, to keep a higher awareness level, one would sacrifice > control. Or to gain control, you sacrifice awareness. Unless, of course, > we can "train" ourselves to have both. It would be fun to try, wouldn't it? > >> Someone please. Hit me over the head right now and put me out of my > misery. > >> Just do it quickly. > > > >Aw, come on, it's not that bad, is it? :) > > Ok ... you try being me. : ) Only if you try being me, too. :) ###### Message-ID: <38B7FB8B.81BF1272@privatei.com> From: The Original Ken X-Mailer: Mozilla 4.02 [en]C-DIAL (Win95; U) MIME-Version: 1.0 Newsgroups: alt.out-of-body Subject: Re: Mirror Mirror on the Wall ... References: <38B44DC8.7126@not-here.net> <38B4BD65.7C7C@not-here.net> <38B75752.700A@not-here.net> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Lines: 15 Date: Sat, 26 Feb 2000 09:12:59 -0700 NNTP-Posting-Host: 204.131.176.161 X-Trace: wormhole.dimensional.com 951582063 204.131.176.161 (Sat, 26 Feb 2000 09:21:03 MDT) NNTP-Posting-Date: Sat, 26 Feb 2000 09:21:03 MDT Organization: Interlink Advertising Path: chonsp.franklin.ch!pfaff.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!newsfeed-zh.ip-plus.net!news.ip-plus.net!News.Amsterdam.UnisourceCS!skynet.be!hermes.visi.com!news-out.visi.com!pulsar.dimensional.com!dimensional.com!wormhole.dimensional.com!not-for-mail Xref: chonsp.franklin.ch alt.out-of-body:34353 Janice wrote: > Trish wrote: > > > > > Ok ... you try being me. : ) > > Only if you try being me, too. :) OK, time for both of you to have an OBE and swap bodies. Ken ###### Message-ID: <38B839D2.7F5D@not-here.net> From: Janice X-Mailer: Mozilla 3.01 (Win95; I) MIME-Version: 1.0 Newsgroups: alt.out-of-body Subject: Re: Mirror Mirror on the Wall ... References: <38B44DC8.7126@not-here.net> <38B4BD65.7C7C@not-here.net> <38B75752.700A@not-here.net> <38B7FB8B.81BF1272@privatei.com> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Lines: 22 NNTP-Posting-Host: 207.103.34.8 X-Trace: tw11.nn.bcandid.com 951597469 207.103.34.8 (Sat, 26 Feb 2000 13:37:49 MST) NNTP-Posting-Date: Sat, 26 Feb 2000 13:37:49 MST Organization: bCandid - Powering the world's discussions - http://bCandid.com Date: Sat, 26 Feb 2000 20:37:49 GMT Path: chonsp.franklin.ch!pfaff.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!news-ge.switch.ch!enews.sgi.com!paloalto-snf1.gtei.net!news.gtei.net!newsfeed.stanford.edu!logbridge.uoregon.edu!europa.netcrusader.net!206.132.58.120!gw22.nn.bcandid.com!hub12.nn.bcandid.com!tw11.nn.bcandid.com.POSTED!not-for-mail Xref: chonsp.franklin.ch alt.out-of-body:34419 The Original Ken wrote: > > Janice wrote: > > > Trish wrote: > > > > > > > > Ok ... you try being me. : ) > > > > Only if you try being me, too. :) > > OK, time for both of you to have an OBE and swap bodies. > > Ken Hey, yeah, we could test your theory. I'll place my imaginative bet and say that even if consciousness somehow originates outside the brain, you wouldn't be able to tell that we swapped places, because all the memories etc. encoded in our brains would reshape that consciousness to conform with what's now hardwired in there. ###### Message-ID: <38B877E9.94BB7682@privatei.com> From: The Original Ken X-Mailer: Mozilla 4.02 [en]C-DIAL (Win95; U) MIME-Version: 1.0 Newsgroups: alt.out-of-body Subject: Re: Mirror Mirror on the Wall ... References: <38B44DC8.7126@not-here.net> <38B4BD65.7C7C@not-here.net> <38B75752.700A@not-here.net> <38B7FB8B.81BF1272@privatei.com> <38B839D2.7F5D@not-here.net> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Lines: 54 Date: Sat, 26 Feb 2000 18:03:38 -0700 NNTP-Posting-Host: 204.131.176.190 X-Trace: wormhole.dimensional.com 951613950 204.131.176.190 (Sat, 26 Feb 2000 18:12:30 MDT) NNTP-Posting-Date: Sat, 26 Feb 2000 18:12:30 MDT Organization: Interlink Advertising Path: chonsp.franklin.ch!pfaff.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!newsfeed-zh.ip-plus.net!news.ip-plus.net!news.datacomm.ch!newscore.gigabell.net!newsfeed00.sul.t-online.de!newsfeed01.sul.t-online.de!t-online.de!newsfeed.tli.de!newsfeed.enteract.com!hermes.visi.com!news-out.visi.com!pulsar.dimensional.com!dimensional.com!wormhole.dimensional.com!not-for-mail Xref: chonsp.franklin.ch alt.out-of-body:34430 Janice wrote: > The Original Ken wrote: > > > > Janice wrote: > > > > > Trish wrote: > > > > > > > > > > > Ok ... you try being me. : ) > > > > > > Only if you try being me, too. :) > > > > OK, time for both of you to have an OBE and swap bodies. > > > > Ken > > Hey, yeah, we could test your theory. > > I'll place my imaginative bet and say that even if consciousness somehow > originates outside the brain, you wouldn't be able to tell that we > swapped places, because all the memories etc. encoded in our brains > would reshape that consciousness to conform with what's now hardwired in > there. This is actually something I have discussed numerous times with various believers and skeptics (and beer drinkers down at the local pub (hey we discuss this kind of stuff in bars in Boulder)). It is a very important question in my opinion. I would have to agree with you 100% that my whole life history would change in an instant. I would have different friends, job, sense of worth (or lack thereof). But where I think we might disagree is that even though my history would change, I would be somewhere where I wasn't before, namely in this new body. Because of this, I would say a true swap took place although there would seemingly be no way to prove it. I posted an OBE I had about 6 months ago in this NG where I was in some small town USA (felt like New England) and at some point during the OBE I had completely lost my awareness and memory of my real life existence. I had for the duration of the OBE become someone else, with a different job, etc. I didn't even know I was having an OBE until an unusual occurrence happened toward the end of it (the magnetic wind came along and abruptly pull me away, bringing me around to what was going on). This (to a degree) is the same experiment that you are proposing. And, as I expected, my sense of self was right there along with my new body. I knew what it was like to be this person and I was seeing the world through the eyes of this person, but I also *was* this person. That notwithstanding it was still me, in a different body. Ken ###### Message-ID: <38B8CB53.62F8@not-here.net> From: Janice X-Mailer: Mozilla 3.01 (Win95; I) MIME-Version: 1.0 Newsgroups: alt.out-of-body Subject: Re: Mirror Mirror on the Wall ... References: <38B44DC8.7126@not-here.net> <38B4BD65.7C7C@not-here.net> <38B75752.700A@not-here.net> <38B7FB8B.81BF1272@privatei.com> <38B839D2.7F5D@not-here.net> <38B877E9.94BB7682@privatei.com> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Lines: 59 NNTP-Posting-Host: 207.103.34.8 X-Trace: tw11.nn.bcandid.com 951634719 207.103.34.8 (Sat, 26 Feb 2000 23:58:39 MST) NNTP-Posting-Date: Sat, 26 Feb 2000 23:58:39 MST Organization: bCandid - Powering the world's discussions - http://bCandid.com Date: Sun, 27 Feb 2000 06:58:40 GMT Path: chonsp.franklin.ch!pfaff.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!newsfeed-zh.ip-plus.net!news.ip-plus.net!news.datacomm.ch!newscore.gigabell.net!newsfeed.tli.de!news.maxwell.syr.edu!newsfeed.skycache.com!gw22.nn.bcandid.com!hub12.nn.bcandid.com!tw11.nn.bcandid.com.POSTED!not-for-mail Xref: chonsp.franklin.ch alt.out-of-body:34415 The Original Ken wrote: > > Janice wrote: > > > The Original Ken wrote: > > > > > > Janice wrote: > > > > > > > Trish wrote: > > > > > > > > > > > > > > Ok ... you try being me. : ) > > > > > > > > Only if you try being me, too. :) > > > > > > OK, time for both of you to have an OBE and swap bodies. > > > > > > Ken > > > > Hey, yeah, we could test your theory. > > > > I'll place my imaginative bet and say that even if consciousness somehow > > originates outside the brain, you wouldn't be able to tell that we > > swapped places, because all the memories etc. encoded in our brains > > would reshape that consciousness to conform with what's now hardwired in > > there. > > This is actually something I have discussed numerous times with various > believers and skeptics (and beer drinkers down at the local pub (hey we > discuss this kind of stuff in bars in Boulder)). It is a very important > question in my opinion. I would have to agree with you 100% that my whole > life history would change in an instant. I would have different friends, > job, sense of worth (or lack thereof). But where I think we might disagree > is that even though my history would change, I would be somewhere where I > wasn't before, namely in this new body. Because of this, I would say a true > swap took place although there would seemingly be no way to prove it. > > I posted an OBE I had about 6 months ago in this NG where I was in some > small town USA (felt like New England) and at some point during the OBE I > had completely lost my awareness and memory of my real life existence. I > had for the duration of the OBE become someone else, with a different job, > etc. I didn't even know I was having an OBE until an unusual occurrence > happened toward the end of it (the magnetic wind came along and abruptly > pull me away, bringing me around to what was going on). This (to a degree) > is the same experiment that you are proposing. And, as I expected, my sense > of self was right there along with my new body. I knew what it was like to > be this person and I was seeing the world through the eyes of this person, > but I also *was* this person. That notwithstanding it was still me, in a > different body. There is no way to prove, however, that you were really inhabiting another physical body; it may have been a dream body. People have been known to get totally absorbed in new personas in their dreams. In any case, when I care to imagine that consciousness originates outside the body, I picture it more as an undifferentiated field of awareness that only takes on any kind of "selfhood" when it is articulated through the nervous system of a living creature. But it's fun to imagine other possibilities. ###### From: "Trish" Newsgroups: alt.out-of-body References: <38B47F9C.4275@not-here.net> <38B4CCC9.726D@not-here.net> <%TFt4.2000$395.21345@dfiatx1-snr1.gtei.net> <38B7540E.537F@not-here.net> Subject: Re: Mirror Mirror on the Wall ... Lines: 44 X-Newsreader: Microsoft Outlook Express 4.71.1712.3 X-MimeOLE: Produced By Microsoft MimeOLE V4.72.2106.4 Message-ID: X-Trace: +rnM+nFvbwJ7cVHiafo61qyESc15zwkOwo7h2fMXUpG34ATWLJN2NAG2so3xSUcdHpN/N9nVsvdU!nfStGdp+6ccoXpWKD1kD4qCMyuukrTXZW5N5PW6cILMd2yZ6LVq38n8cZK6sH98yxYhkkjBA2xcF!ZJUiZZjd X-Complaints-To: abuse@gte.net X-Abuse-Info: Please be sure to forward a copy of ALL headers X-Abuse-Info: Otherwise we will be unable to process your complaint properly NNTP-Posting-Date: Sun, 27 Feb 2000 14:22:45 GMT Distribution: world Date: Sun, 27 Feb 2000 14:22:45 GMT Path: chonsp.franklin.ch!pfaff.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!newsfeed-zh.ip-plus.net!news.ip-plus.net!News.Amsterdam.UnisourceCS!skynet.be!howland.erols.net!cpk-news-hub1.bbnplanet.com!washdc3-snh1.gtei.net!news.gtei.net!dfiatx1-snr1.gtei.net.POSTED!not-for-mail Xref: chonsp.franklin.ch alt.out-of-body:34455 Janice wrote in message <38B7540E.537F@not-here.net>... >Trish wrote: >> >> Janice wrote in message <38B4CCC9.726D@not-here.net>... >> > >> >I used to get a lot of exceptionally silly hypnagogic comments. I'll >> >write some of them up for you if you like. >> >> Yes, please. I'd like to try this myself, just for fun. > >Here are some of my all-time favorite funny ones: > >"In a bog-foot town." >"Oh me, to open my mouth." >"But neither does he mind his own business!" >"Jacint was a coolant man, first to meet his scaffold." >"I got a shamble I wanna ride with ya." >"He's the Keeper of the Universe, and I'm just the gardener or >something." >"Skylight of the Buffaloes" >"Your potato-sauce people." >"Mr. North Pole Santa Claus." >"You don't get credit for a local from a laddie." >"I'm not allowed any more memories." >"She gathers men to forbidden chambers to do her bidding." >"Yankee in the shaft with noodles." >"He who sells ideas makes good glassware." >"I don't want to exchange my teeth." >"A lean fish suckled a nudy fawn." >"Ye olde bitter bread." >"What do you want for $28 apiece?" >"Beer is like younger men - you can't get too much of them." >"Ride, Liffey! It has taken but a crow to overkill his name." [Maybe I >was channeling James Joyce :)] >"Spiritual, schmiritual; let's have fun." >"We'll have electronic candy monitors fill every drink and gin." >"Love is a purple cow." HA! You should make a book, "Maxims from the edge". ###### From: "Trish" Newsgroups: alt.out-of-body References: <38B44DC8.7126@not-here.net> <38B4BD65.7C7C@not-here.net> <38B75752.700A@not-here.net> Subject: Re: Mirror Mirror on the Wall ... Lines: 91 X-Newsreader: Microsoft Outlook Express 4.71.1712.3 X-MimeOLE: Produced By Microsoft MimeOLE V4.72.2106.4 Message-ID: X-Trace: 9/t7PR4EMMZ4Fh1lFapQSqzB4xgNO4g19MlXxpBeCJHlps+2eVdFFWgpo1e1R5Oq8Nho1z+3rY6Y!uRvwLKa8fqUb+xuuNODeL8aF099YHIRdvSw52D0tVqxboDzlUQUSSjkzMZLUjUHDFRJLqRIKHl5e!W9D65r4F X-Complaints-To: abuse@gte.net X-Abuse-Info: Please be sure to forward a copy of ALL headers X-Abuse-Info: Otherwise we will be unable to process your complaint properly NNTP-Posting-Date: Sun, 27 Feb 2000 14:33:44 GMT Distribution: world Date: Sun, 27 Feb 2000 14:33:44 GMT Path: chonsp.franklin.ch!pfaff.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!newsfeed-zh.ip-plus.net!news.ip-plus.net!News.Amsterdam.UnisourceCS!newspeer.te.net!news.indigo.ie!diablo.theplanet.net!europa.netcrusader.net!4.1.16.34!cpk-news-hub1.bbnplanet.com!washdc3-snh1.gtei.net!news.gtei.net!dfiatx1-snr1.gtei.net.POSTED!not-for-mail Xref: chonsp.franklin.ch alt.out-of-body:34450 Janice wrote in message <38B75752.700A@not-here.net>... >Trish wrote: >> >> Janice wrote in message <38B4BD65.7C7C@not-here.net>... >> >Trish wrote: >> >> >> Ok .. so what's an aminergic neurotransmitter? >> > >> >I thought I went into that recently - maybe you missed that post. >> >Basically (and any passing neuroscientists are welcome to correct any >> >gross errors I may make in saying this) neurotransmitters carry chemical >> >messages from one neuron to another. The aminergic neurotransmitters, >> >such as serotonin and norepinephrine, are abundant in the waking state. >> >These are thought to be responsible for sustaining such functions as >> >attention, critical thinking, and access to memory. The level of these >> >aminergic neurotransmitters typically goes down during sleep and reaches >> >an all-time low during REM sleep, when the aminergic neurons in the >> >brainstem appear to be recharging their batteries, as it were, building >> >up a fresh supply of amines for the next day's waking activity. >> >Meanwhile, during dreaming the brain is awash in a different type of >> >chemical - acetylcholine, produced by the cholinergic neurons in the >> >brainstem. The aminergic and cholinergic neurotransmitters are thought >> >by some neurophysiologists, J. Allan Hobson in particular (who is a bit >> >of a friend of mine) to exist in a dynamic balance, the various tippings >> >of which produce our various conscious states. Being lucid in a dream >> >may entail "stealing" some of the regenerating supply of amines. >> >> Don't antidepressant medications affect serotonin and norepinephrine? Is >> this why I couldn't get to sleep while on them you think? > >They sure do, and it may very well be why you couldn't get to sleep >while on them. You'd think that by affecting these levels at different intervals with medication would produce a variety of altered states of consciousness. Guess you have to be able to fall asleep first. > >> Wouldn't it stand to reason that by working with these neurotransmitters we >> could recreate various states of consciousness? > >Sure. It's already possible to send someone directly into REM sleep by >giving them a drug mimicking acetylcholine. What drug is this?? > >> >> How do you do this Janice? Do you visualize it before going to sleep? >> > >> >No, I impose my will and my strong memories of certain locations on the >> >relatively dark and formless state in which some of my OBEs start out, >> >acting as if I'm somewhere else. Then when the visuals come in, I'm >> >"there" instead of "here." >> >> Dark and formless. That's foreign to me. > >Yes, you tend to get thrown across the room, as I recall. :) > >> >Oh, expectations of one kind or another are probably always there, but >> >they are competing with various other sources of suggestion. >> >> I just have to giggle at all of this Janice. I keep getting the impression >> that there are a bunch of gremlins floating around in my mind, >> wrecking havoc on one another. If you think about it, the dichotomy of >> these psychological suggestions/expectations can be just as "kooky" as some >> of the more metaphysical propositions .... but we don't view it this way >> because we think of it as "brain stuff". Either way it's strange. > >LOL! You know you've arrived when your ideas are considered kooky even >by people who have OBEs. You have arrived Janice. : ) Welcome. > >But sure, it's plenty strange. I can't pretend to understand it all. I >just do my best to convey the way I've come to see it. And one of the >nicer attributes of this "suggestion theory," I think, is that it does >allow for the possibility that some unconventional sources of suggestion >can also get into the mix that influences the content of one's >experiences, such as psychic perceptions if those exist. It all seems rather externalized, in the sense that it's based on suggestions that are not in the forefront of our minds. I'd love to see the reports of someone who has MPD and OBEs. ###### Message-ID: <38B96972.1406@not-here.net> From: Janice X-Mailer: Mozilla 3.01 (Win95; I) MIME-Version: 1.0 Newsgroups: alt.out-of-body Subject: Re: Mirror Mirror on the Wall ... References: <38B47F9C.4275@not-here.net> <38B4CCC9.726D@not-here.net> <%TFt4.2000$395.21345@dfiatx1-snr1.gtei.net> <38B7540E.537F@not-here.net> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Lines: 61 NNTP-Posting-Host: 207.103.34.8 X-Trace: tw11.nn.bcandid.com 951675196 207.103.34.8 (Sun, 27 Feb 2000 11:13:16 MST) NNTP-Posting-Date: Sun, 27 Feb 2000 11:13:16 MST Organization: bCandid - Powering the world's discussions - http://bCandid.com Date: Sun, 27 Feb 2000 18:13:16 GMT Path: chonsp.franklin.ch!pfaff.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!newsfeed-zh.ip-plus.net!news.ip-plus.net!News.Amsterdam.UnisourceCS!skynet.be!newsfeed00.sul.t-online.de!t-online.de!diablo.theplanet.net!europa.netcrusader.net!206.132.58.120!gw22.nn.bcandid.com!hub12.nn.bcandid.com!tw11.nn.bcandid.com.POSTED!not-for-mail Xref: chonsp.franklin.ch alt.out-of-body:34463 Trish wrote: > > Janice wrote in message <38B7540E.537F@not-here.net>... > >Trish wrote: > >> > >> Janice wrote in message <38B4CCC9.726D@not-here.net>... > >> > > >> >I used to get a lot of exceptionally silly hypnagogic comments. I'll > >> >write some of them up for you if you like. > >> > >> Yes, please. I'd like to try this myself, just for fun. > > > >Here are some of my all-time favorite funny ones: > > > >"In a bog-foot town." > >"Oh me, to open my mouth." > >"But neither does he mind his own business!" > >"Jacint was a coolant man, first to meet his scaffold." > >"I got a shamble I wanna ride with ya." > >"He's the Keeper of the Universe, and I'm just the gardener or > >something." > >"Skylight of the Buffaloes" > >"Your potato-sauce people." > >"Mr. North Pole Santa Claus." > >"You don't get credit for a local from a laddie." > >"I'm not allowed any more memories." > >"She gathers men to forbidden chambers to do her bidding." > >"Yankee in the shaft with noodles." > >"He who sells ideas makes good glassware." > >"I don't want to exchange my teeth." > >"A lean fish suckled a nudy fawn." > >"Ye olde bitter bread." > >"What do you want for $28 apiece?" > >"Beer is like younger men - you can't get too much of them." > >"Ride, Liffey! It has taken but a crow to overkill his name." [Maybe I > >was channeling James Joyce :)] > >"Spiritual, schmiritual; let's have fun." > >"We'll have electronic candy monitors fill every drink and gin." > >"Love is a purple cow." > > HA! You should make a book, "Maxims from the edge". I've heard a few less totally ridiculous ones as well, such as: "Your first concern is death. To die, is to live." "Emotions cradle the power of being, to be disclosed." "Integrating pain for harmonious holistic growth." [These three were some New Agey ones I heard while I was depressed.] "Sleep of Countless Beauties" "Clover of Delight" "Mine is the color of his dreams." "Drift off into the starry blue rift." [Some sort of poetic ones.] "Reality and truth are illusions." "All the world is an endless skein of meaning, and we have but to unravel it." "It's not the depth of the message, it's the message of the aftermath." [Some sort of philosophical ones. To me the last one meant that messages themselves are not as important as what we make of them.] ###### Message-ID: <38B96F9C.57C8@not-here.net> From: Janice X-Mailer: Mozilla 3.01 (Win95; I) MIME-Version: 1.0 Newsgroups: alt.out-of-body Subject: Re: Mirror Mirror on the Wall ... References: <38B44DC8.7126@not-here.net> <38B4BD65.7C7C@not-here.net> <38B75752.700A@not-here.net> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Lines: 68 NNTP-Posting-Host: 207.103.34.8 X-Trace: tw11.nn.bcandid.com 951676775 207.103.34.8 (Sun, 27 Feb 2000 11:39:35 MST) NNTP-Posting-Date: Sun, 27 Feb 2000 11:39:35 MST Organization: bCandid - Powering the world's discussions - http://bCandid.com Date: Sun, 27 Feb 2000 18:39:35 GMT Path: chonsp.franklin.ch!pfaff.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!newsfeed-zh.ip-plus.net!news.ip-plus.net!News.Amsterdam.UnisourceCS!newspeer.te.net!news.indigo.ie!news-out.cwix.com!newsfeed.cwix.com!cyclone-east.rr.com!news.rr.com!news-east.rr.com!portc05.blue.aol.com!gw12.bcandid.com.MISMATCH!gw22.nn.bcandid.com!hub12.nn.bcandid.com!tw11.nn.bcandid.com.POSTED!not-for-mail Xref: chonsp.franklin.ch alt.out-of-body:34470 Trish wrote: > > Janice wrote in message <38B75752.700A@not-here.net>... > >Trish wrote: > >> > >> Don't antidepressant medications affect serotonin and norepinephrine? Is > >> this why I couldn't get to sleep while on them you think? > > > >They sure do, and it may very well be why you couldn't get to sleep > >while on them. > > You'd think that by affecting these levels at different intervals with > medication would produce a variety of altered states of consciousness. > Guess you have to be able to fall asleep first. Well, since neurotransmitter imbalances are involved in depression, schizophrenia, and other mental health conditions it doesn't strike me as a safe thing to play with. If this subject interests you, see if you can hunt down a copy of Hobson's "The Chemistry of Conscious States," which I recommended to Lorz. > >> Wouldn't it stand to reason that by working with these neurotransmitters > we > >> could recreate various states of consciousness? > > > >Sure. It's already possible to send someone directly into REM sleep by > >giving them a drug mimicking acetylcholine. > > What drug is this?? Carbachol. > >> >Oh, expectations of one kind or another are probably always there, but > >> >they are competing with various other sources of suggestion. > >> > >> I just have to giggle at all of this Janice. I keep getting the > impression > >> that there are a bunch of gremlins floating around in my mind, > >> wrecking havoc on one another. If you think about it, the dichotomy of > >> these psychological suggestions/expectations can be just as "kooky" as > some > >> of the more metaphysical propositions .... but we don't view it this way > >> because we think of it as "brain stuff". Either way it's strange. > > > >LOL! You know you've arrived when your ideas are considered kooky even > >by people who have OBEs. > > You have arrived Janice. : ) Welcome. Well, considering that people who have OBEs seem to be taking more interest in my ideas than the scientists are, I do have to scratch my head and wonder a bit ... > > > >But sure, it's plenty strange. I can't pretend to understand it all. I > >just do my best to convey the way I've come to see it. And one of the > >nicer attributes of this "suggestion theory," I think, is that it does > >allow for the possibility that some unconventional sources of suggestion > >can also get into the mix that influences the content of one's > >experiences, such as psychic perceptions if those exist. > > It all seems rather externalized, in the sense that it's based on > suggestions that are not in the forefront of our minds. I'd love to see the > reports of someone who has MPD and OBEs. Scary. You know, I did once read a book by someone with MPD who had some OBEs or LDs in which she could converse with her "selves". Maybe I can track down what it was called. ###### Message-ID: <38B979F2.3BA2DAF@privatei.com> From: The Original Ken X-Mailer: Mozilla 4.02 [en]C-DIAL (Win95; U) MIME-Version: 1.0 Newsgroups: alt.out-of-body Subject: Re: Mirror Mirror on the Wall ... References: <38B47F9C.4275@not-here.net> <38B4CCC9.726D@not-here.net> <%TFt4.2000$395.21345@dfiatx1-snr1.gtei.net> <38B7540E.537F@not-here.net> <38B96972.1406@not-here.net> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Lines: 73 Date: Sun, 27 Feb 2000 12:24:34 -0700 NNTP-Posting-Host: 204.131.176.139 X-Trace: wormhole.dimensional.com 951680078 204.131.176.139 (Sun, 27 Feb 2000 12:34:38 MDT) NNTP-Posting-Date: Sun, 27 Feb 2000 12:34:38 MDT Organization: Interlink Advertising Path: chonsp.franklin.ch!pfaff.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!newsfeed-zh.ip-plus.net!news.ip-plus.net!News.Amsterdam.UnisourceCS!skynet.be!hermes.visi.com!news-out.visi.com!pulsar.dimensional.com!dimensional.com!wormhole.dimensional.com!not-for-mail Xref: chonsp.franklin.ch alt.out-of-body:34471 Janice wrote: > > >Here are some of my all-time favorite funny ones: > > > > > >"In a bog-foot town." > > >"Oh me, to open my mouth." > > >"But neither does he mind his own business!" > > >"Jacint was a coolant man, first to meet his scaffold." > > >"I got a shamble I wanna ride with ya." > > >"He's the Keeper of the Universe, and I'm just the gardener or > > >something." > > >"Skylight of the Buffaloes" > > >"Your potato-sauce people." > > >"Mr. North Pole Santa Claus." > > >"You don't get credit for a local from a laddie." > > >"I'm not allowed any more memories." > > >"She gathers men to forbidden chambers to do her bidding." > > >"Yankee in the shaft with noodles." > > >"He who sells ideas makes good glassware." > > >"I don't want to exchange my teeth." > > >"A lean fish suckled a nudy fawn." > > >"Ye olde bitter bread." > > >"What do you want for $28 apiece?" > > >"Beer is like younger men - you can't get too much of them." > > >"Ride, Liffey! It has taken but a crow to overkill his name." [Maybe I > > >was channeling James Joyce :)] > > >"Spiritual, schmiritual; let's have fun." > > >"We'll have electronic candy monitors fill every drink and gin." > > >"Love is a purple cow." > > > > HA! You should make a book, "Maxims from the edge". > > I've heard a few less totally ridiculous ones as well, such as: > > "Your first concern is death. To die, is to live." > "Emotions cradle the power of being, to be disclosed." > "Integrating pain for harmonious holistic growth." > [These three were some New Agey ones I heard while I was depressed.] > > "Sleep of Countless Beauties" > "Clover of Delight" > "Mine is the color of his dreams." > "Drift off into the starry blue rift." > [Some sort of poetic ones.] > > "Reality and truth are illusions." > "All the world is an endless skein of meaning, and we have but to > unravel it." > "It's not the depth of the message, it's the message of the aftermath." > [Some sort of philosophical ones. To me the last one meant that > messages themselves are not as important as what we make of them.] Wow Janice, this is good stuff! I can only recall one or two times when I have heard any verbalization during hypnogogic imagery. I wish I could post some of my visuals though. I have had some real whoppers. Something I find rather interesting is that some of my best visuals took on the form of primitive shapes which I found to be similar to descriptions of what people with synesthesia see (Synesthesia is where people see tastes and hear smells and so on). In addition these primitive forms have been found to come from the limbic system rather than the cortex and appear to be hardwired since they are common in all people. I have had cortex style visualizations as well (construction of elegant tunnels that my sight (not body) could move through. I wonder if some of these sillier verbalizations of yours are Limbic based primitives as well. (I am speculating here since I have not read about verbal primitives only visual ones.) Do you attribute the abundance of your verbalizations to your exceptional handle of and delight with the english language? Ken ###### Message-ID: <38B9846E.1C3E@not-here.net> From: Janice X-Mailer: Mozilla 3.01 (Win95; I) MIME-Version: 1.0 Newsgroups: alt.out-of-body Subject: Re: Mirror Mirror on the Wall ... References: <38B47F9C.4275@not-here.net> <38B4CCC9.726D@not-here.net> <%TFt4.2000$395.21345@dfiatx1-snr1.gtei.net> <38B7540E.537F@not-here.net> <38B96972.1406@not-here.net> <38B979F2.3BA2DAF@privatei.com> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Lines: 91 NNTP-Posting-Host: 207.103.34.8 X-Trace: tw11.nn.bcandid.com 951682106 207.103.34.8 (Sun, 27 Feb 2000 13:08:26 MST) NNTP-Posting-Date: Sun, 27 Feb 2000 13:08:26 MST Organization: bCandid - Powering the world's discussions - http://bCandid.com Date: Sun, 27 Feb 2000 20:08:26 GMT Path: chonsp.franklin.ch!pfaff.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!newsfeed-zh.ip-plus.net!news.ip-plus.net!news.datacomm.ch!newscore.gigabell.net!newsfeed00.sul.t-online.de!t-online.de!diablo.theplanet.net!europa.netcrusader.net!206.132.58.120!gw22.nn.bcandid.com!hub12.nn.bcandid.com!tw11.nn.bcandid.com.POSTED!not-for-mail Xref: chonsp.franklin.ch alt.out-of-body:34468 The Original Ken wrote: > > Janice wrote: > > > > >Here are some of my all-time favorite funny ones: > > > > > > > >"In a bog-foot town." > > > >"Oh me, to open my mouth." > > > >"But neither does he mind his own business!" > > > >"Jacint was a coolant man, first to meet his scaffold." > > > >"I got a shamble I wanna ride with ya." > > > >"He's the Keeper of the Universe, and I'm just the gardener or > > > >something." > > > >"Skylight of the Buffaloes" > > > >"Your potato-sauce people." > > > >"Mr. North Pole Santa Claus." > > > >"You don't get credit for a local from a laddie." > > > >"I'm not allowed any more memories." > > > >"She gathers men to forbidden chambers to do her bidding." > > > >"Yankee in the shaft with noodles." > > > >"He who sells ideas makes good glassware." > > > >"I don't want to exchange my teeth." > > > >"A lean fish suckled a nudy fawn." > > > >"Ye olde bitter bread." > > > >"What do you want for $28 apiece?" > > > >"Beer is like younger men - you can't get too much of them." > > > >"Ride, Liffey! It has taken but a crow to overkill his name." [Maybe I > > > >was channeling James Joyce :)] > > > >"Spiritual, schmiritual; let's have fun." > > > >"We'll have electronic candy monitors fill every drink and gin." > > > >"Love is a purple cow." > > > > > > HA! You should make a book, "Maxims from the edge". > > > > I've heard a few less totally ridiculous ones as well, such as: > > > > "Your first concern is death. To die, is to live." > > "Emotions cradle the power of being, to be disclosed." > > "Integrating pain for harmonious holistic growth." > > [These three were some New Agey ones I heard while I was depressed.] > > > > "Sleep of Countless Beauties" > > "Clover of Delight" > > "Mine is the color of his dreams." > > "Drift off into the starry blue rift." > > [Some sort of poetic ones.] > > > > "Reality and truth are illusions." > > "All the world is an endless skein of meaning, and we have but to > > unravel it." > > "It's not the depth of the message, it's the message of the aftermath." > > [Some sort of philosophical ones. To me the last one meant that > > messages themselves are not as important as what we make of them.] > > Wow Janice, this is good stuff! I can only recall one or two times when I > have heard any verbalization during hypnogogic imagery. I wish I could post > some of my visuals though. I have had some real whoppers. Something I find > rather interesting is that some of my best visuals took on the form of > primitive shapes which I found to be similar to descriptions of what people > with synesthesia see (Synesthesia is where people see tastes and hear smells > and so on). In addition these primitive forms have been found to come from the > limbic system rather than the cortex and appear to be hardwired since they are > common in all people. Yes, I remember reading about those - I think it was in a book called "The 3-Pound Universe," which you'd probably enjoy. > I have had cortex style visualizations as well > (construction of elegant tunnels that my sight (not body) could move through. I > wonder if some of these sillier verbalizations of yours are Limbic based > primitives as well. (I am speculating here since I have not read about verbal > primitives only visual ones.) Even the silly ones seem a bit too complex and creative for the limbic system. Some of them seem to be my own drowsy thoughts in sort of a stream-of-consciousness effect (I think the "endless skein of meaning" one was like that); others intrude on my own thoughts. Maybe they come from some verbal processing area of my cortex going into random-firing mode. My hypnagogic visions have more commonly featured complex images, rather like dream scene "stills" or "clips," than shapes. > Do you attribute the abundance of your verbalizations to your exceptional > handle of and delight with the english language? Since I'm very verbally oriented, there may well be some connection. Funny thought - if these are verbalizations from the dead, they don't speak very well, in general, for the prevailing state of consciousness in the afterlife. :) ###### Message-ID: <38B98443.F5D830F6@privatei.com> From: The Original Ken X-Mailer: Mozilla 4.02 [en]C-DIAL (Win95; U) MIME-Version: 1.0 Newsgroups: alt.out-of-body Subject: Re: Mirror Mirror on the Wall ... References: <38B44DC8.7126@not-here.net> <38B4BD65.7C7C@not-here.net> <38B75752.700A@not-here.net> <38B7FB8B.81BF1272@privatei.com> <38B839D2.7F5D@not-here.net> <38B877E9.94BB7682@privatei.com> <38B8CB53.62F8@not-here.net> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Lines: 91 Date: Sun, 27 Feb 2000 13:08:35 -0700 NNTP-Posting-Host: 204.131.176.168 X-Trace: wormhole.dimensional.com 951682720 204.131.176.168 (Sun, 27 Feb 2000 13:18:40 MDT) NNTP-Posting-Date: Sun, 27 Feb 2000 13:18:40 MDT Organization: Interlink Advertising Path: chonsp.franklin.ch!pfaff.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!newsfeed-zh.ip-plus.net!news.ip-plus.net!News.Amsterdam.UnisourceCS!skynet.be!hermes.visi.com!news-out.visi.com!pulsar.dimensional.com!dimensional.com!wormhole.dimensional.com!not-for-mail Xref: chonsp.franklin.ch alt.out-of-body:34472 Janice wrote: > The Original Ken wrote: > > > > Janice wrote: > > > > > The Original Ken wrote: > > > > > > > > Janice wrote: > > > > > > > > > Trish wrote: I wonder why we are all writing about what the other person wrote about the other person. :) > > Ken wrote: > > This is actually something I have discussed numerous times with various > > believers and skeptics (and beer drinkers down at the local pub (hey we > > discuss this kind of stuff in bars in Boulder)). It is a very important > > question in my opinion. I would have to agree with you 100% that my whole > > life history would change in an instant. I would have different friends, > > job, sense of worth (or lack thereof). But where I think we might disagree > > is that even though my history would change, I would be somewhere where I > > wasn't before, namely in this new body. Because of this, I would say a true > > swap took place although there would seemingly be no way to prove it. > > > > I posted an OBE I had about 6 months ago in this NG where I was in some > > small town USA (felt like New England) and at some point during the OBE I > > had completely lost my awareness and memory of my real life existence. I > > had for the duration of the OBE become someone else, with a different job, > > etc. I didn't even know I was having an OBE until an unusual occurrence > > happened toward the end of it (the magnetic wind came along and abruptly > > pull me away, bringing me around to what was going on). This (to a degree) > > is the same experiment that you are proposing. And, as I expected, my sense > > of self was right there along with my new body. I knew what it was like to > > be this person and I was seeing the world through the eyes of this person, > > but I also *was* this person. That notwithstanding it was still me, in a > > different body. > Janice wrote: > There is no way to prove, however, that you were really inhabiting > another physical body; it may have been a dream body. People have been > known to get totally absorbed in new personas in their dreams. I don't think this diminishes the importance of this observation. I mean during OBEs where we retain our personality we are drawing from (at least to a degree) the memories formed in our physical brain. This is not unusual, but to take on a new personality complete with different memories is a bit strange since this would have to mean that 1. we improvised these memories on the spot or 2. we are drawing from a completely different set of subconscious memories that are imagination based, or 3. we are accessing the memories of someone else's brain, or 4. we are accessing memories of our own previous lives or 5. memories are not brain based but cosmic consciousness based but formed into real memories by the brain and we are accessing the cosmic consciousness normally directed to another person. Now if it turns out that #3 or #5 is true then swapping with a dream body and swapping with another person would have the same result. > In any case, when I care to imagine that consciousness originates > outside the body, I picture it more as an undifferentiated field of > awareness that only takes on any kind of "selfhood" when it is > articulated through the nervous system of a living creature. But it's > fun to imagine other possibilities. I agree with you 100% here. Like I said once before, it may be the case that the undifferentiated field of awareness (excellent phrase by the way) is actually a field of pure emotion, without any language or ability to reason. I even venture to guess that this field is indivisible (a singularity) yet is capable of producing the illusion of separateness (personal ego) when interacting with a physical brain. I have strong reasons for believing it is a singularity, but I won't go into that here. Now the $60,000 question in my mind is whether the personal ego produced by the integration of the singularity and the brain is a separate "object" that is literally created once the integration takes place and cannot be destroyed regardless of the fate of the brain or if the personal ego is as temporary as the brain and ceases to exist once the brain dies, and if so, can the same personal ego be once again resurrected when a new brain/singularity is once again formed and if so what determines whether a new integration will produce the same 'ol ego or a new one? If we find the first case to be true then the ego would theoretically be truly transferable as suggested by these OBE type swappings. If we find the second case to be true but find that resurrection is not physically possible, then I would be inclined to think that swapping cannot take place. If resurrection is possible then I would be inclined to think that swapping can take place but only to a brain/singularity interface that is "conducive" to resurrecting the same 'ol ego (whatever that mechanism may be which is way outside my ability to surmise at this point). Ken ###### Message-ID: <38B98799.E427F80B@privatei.com> From: The Original Ken X-Mailer: Mozilla 4.02 [en]C-DIAL (Win95; U) MIME-Version: 1.0 Newsgroups: alt.out-of-body Subject: Re: Mirror Mirror on the Wall ... References: <38B47F9C.4275@not-here.net> <38B4CCC9.726D@not-here.net> <%TFt4.2000$395.21345@dfiatx1-snr1.gtei.net> <38B7540E.537F@not-here.net> <38B96972.1406@not-here.net> <38B979F2.3BA2DAF@privatei.com> <38B9846E.1C3E@not-here.net> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Lines: 102 Date: Sun, 27 Feb 2000 13:22:50 -0700 NNTP-Posting-Host: 204.131.176.168 X-Trace: wormhole.dimensional.com 951683522 204.131.176.168 (Sun, 27 Feb 2000 13:32:02 MDT) NNTP-Posting-Date: Sun, 27 Feb 2000 13:32:02 MDT Organization: Interlink Advertising Path: chonsp.franklin.ch!pfaff.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!news-ge.switch.ch!news-fra1.dfn.de!news-fra.pop.de!news-FFM2.ecrc.net!newsfeed.enteract.com!hermes.visi.com!news-out.visi.com!pulsar.dimensional.com!dimensional.com!wormhole.dimensional.com!not-for-mail Xref: chonsp.franklin.ch alt.out-of-body:34474 Janice wrote: > The Original Ken wrote: > > > > Janice wrote: > > > > > > >Here are some of my all-time favorite funny ones: > > > > > > > > > >"In a bog-foot town." > > > > >"Oh me, to open my mouth." > > > > >"But neither does he mind his own business!" > > > > >"Jacint was a coolant man, first to meet his scaffold." > > > > >"I got a shamble I wanna ride with ya." > > > > >"He's the Keeper of the Universe, and I'm just the gardener or > > > > >something." > > > > >"Skylight of the Buffaloes" > > > > >"Your potato-sauce people." > > > > >"Mr. North Pole Santa Claus." > > > > >"You don't get credit for a local from a laddie." > > > > >"I'm not allowed any more memories." > > > > >"She gathers men to forbidden chambers to do her bidding." > > > > >"Yankee in the shaft with noodles." > > > > >"He who sells ideas makes good glassware." > > > > >"I don't want to exchange my teeth." > > > > >"A lean fish suckled a nudy fawn." > > > > >"Ye olde bitter bread." > > > > >"What do you want for $28 apiece?" > > > > >"Beer is like younger men - you can't get too much of them." > > > > >"Ride, Liffey! It has taken but a crow to overkill his name." [Maybe I > > > > >was channeling James Joyce :)] > > > > >"Spiritual, schmiritual; let's have fun." > > > > >"We'll have electronic candy monitors fill every drink and gin." > > > > >"Love is a purple cow." > > > > > > > > HA! You should make a book, "Maxims from the edge". > > > > > > I've heard a few less totally ridiculous ones as well, such as: > > > > > > "Your first concern is death. To die, is to live." > > > "Emotions cradle the power of being, to be disclosed." > > > "Integrating pain for harmonious holistic growth." > > > [These three were some New Agey ones I heard while I was depressed.] > > > > > > "Sleep of Countless Beauties" > > > "Clover of Delight" > > > "Mine is the color of his dreams." > > > "Drift off into the starry blue rift." > > > [Some sort of poetic ones.] > > > > > > "Reality and truth are illusions." > > > "All the world is an endless skein of meaning, and we have but to > > > unravel it." > > > "It's not the depth of the message, it's the message of the aftermath." > > > [Some sort of philosophical ones. To me the last one meant that > > > messages themselves are not as important as what we make of them.] > > > > Wow Janice, this is good stuff! I can only recall one or two times when I > > have heard any verbalization during hypnogogic imagery. I wish I could post > > some of my visuals though. I have had some real whoppers. Something I find > > rather interesting is that some of my best visuals took on the form of > > primitive shapes which I found to be similar to descriptions of what people > > with synesthesia see (Synesthesia is where people see tastes and hear smells > > and so on). In addition these primitive forms have been found to come from the > > limbic system rather than the cortex and appear to be hardwired since they are > > common in all people. > > Yes, I remember reading about those - I think it was in a book called > "The 3-Pound Universe," which you'd probably enjoy. > > > I have had cortex style visualizations as well > > (construction of elegant tunnels that my sight (not body) could move through. I > > wonder if some of these sillier verbalizations of yours are Limbic based > > primitives as well. (I am speculating here since I have not read about verbal > > primitives only visual ones.) > > Even the silly ones seem a bit too complex and creative for the limbic > system. Some of them seem to be my own drowsy thoughts in sort of a > stream-of-consciousness effect (I think the "endless skein of meaning" > one was like that); others intrude on my own thoughts. Maybe they come > from some verbal processing area of my cortex going into random-firing > mode. > > My hypnagogic visions have more commonly featured complex images, rather > like dream scene "stills" or "clips," than shapes. > > > Do you attribute the abundance of your verbalizations to your exceptional > > handle of and delight with the english language? > > Since I'm very verbally oriented, there may well be some connection. > > Funny thought - if these are verbalizations from the dead, they don't > speak very well, in general, for the prevailing state of consciousness > in the afterlife. :) Movies such as "A Christmas Carol" seem to portray spirits that moan a lot. Maybe it will all come down to this. :) Ken ###### Message-ID: <38B98DD7.56A0@not-here.net> From: Janice X-Mailer: Mozilla 3.01 (Win95; I) MIME-Version: 1.0 Newsgroups: alt.out-of-body Subject: Re: Mirror Mirror on the Wall ... References: <38B44DC8.7126@not-here.net> <38B4BD65.7C7C@not-here.net> <38B75752.700A@not-here.net> <38B7FB8B.81BF1272@privatei.com> <38B839D2.7F5D@not-here.net> <38B877E9.94BB7682@privatei.com> <38B8CB53.62F8@not-here.net> <38B98443.F5D830F6@privatei.com> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Lines: 107 NNTP-Posting-Host: 207.103.34.8 X-Trace: tw11.nn.bcandid.com 951684514 207.103.34.8 (Sun, 27 Feb 2000 13:48:34 MST) NNTP-Posting-Date: Sun, 27 Feb 2000 13:48:34 MST Organization: bCandid - Powering the world's discussions - http://bCandid.com Date: Sun, 27 Feb 2000 20:48:35 GMT Path: chonsp.franklin.ch!pfaff.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!newsfeed-zh.ip-plus.net!news.ip-plus.net!News.Amsterdam.UnisourceCS!skynet.be!newsfeed00.sul.t-online.de!t-online.de!diablo.theplanet.net!europa.netcrusader.net!206.132.58.120!gw22.nn.bcandid.com!hub12.nn.bcandid.com!tw11.nn.bcandid.com.POSTED!not-for-mail Xref: chonsp.franklin.ch alt.out-of-body:34467 The Original Ken wrote: > > Janice wrote: > > > The Original Ken wrote: > > > > > > Janice wrote: > > > > > > > The Original Ken wrote: > > > > > > > > > > Janice wrote: > > > > > > > > > > > Trish wrote: > > I wonder why we are all writing about what the other person wrote about the other > person. :) > Must be some kind of cosmic synchronicity. :) > > > Ken wrote: > > > This is actually something I have discussed numerous times with various > > > believers and skeptics (and beer drinkers down at the local pub (hey we > > > discuss this kind of stuff in bars in Boulder)). It is a very important > > > question in my opinion. I would have to agree with you 100% that my whole > > > life history would change in an instant. I would have different friends, > > > job, sense of worth (or lack thereof). But where I think we might disagree > > > is that even though my history would change, I would be somewhere where I > > > wasn't before, namely in this new body. Because of this, I would say a true > > > swap took place although there would seemingly be no way to prove it. > > > > > > I posted an OBE I had about 6 months ago in this NG where I was in some > > > small town USA (felt like New England) and at some point during the OBE I > > > had completely lost my awareness and memory of my real life existence. I > > > had for the duration of the OBE become someone else, with a different job, > > > etc. I didn't even know I was having an OBE until an unusual occurrence > > > happened toward the end of it (the magnetic wind came along and abruptly > > > pull me away, bringing me around to what was going on). This (to a degree) > > > is the same experiment that you are proposing. And, as I expected, my sense > > > of self was right there along with my new body. I knew what it was like to > > > be this person and I was seeing the world through the eyes of this person, > > > but I also *was* this person. That notwithstanding it was still me, in a > > > different body. > > > Janice wrote: > > There is no way to prove, however, that you were really inhabiting > > another physical body; it may have been a dream body. People have been > > known to get totally absorbed in new personas in their dreams. > > I don't think this diminishes the importance of this observation. I mean during > OBEs where we retain our personality we are drawing from (at least to a degree) > the memories formed in our physical brain. This is not unusual, but to take on a > new personality complete with different memories is a bit strange since this would > have to mean that 1. we improvised these memories on the spot or 2. we are drawing > from a completely different set of subconscious memories that are imagination > based, or 3. we are accessing the memories of someone else's brain, or 4. we are > accessing memories of our own previous lives or 5. memories are not brain based > but cosmic consciousness based but formed into real memories by the brain and we > are accessing the cosmic consciousness normally directed to another person. Now > if it turns out that #3 or #5 is true then swapping with a dream body and swapping > with another person would have the same result. Just to put in a good word for possibilities #1 and #2, any good fiction writer or even good actor could tell you that it's not all that difficult to create a baseline personality then just "know" all sorts of things about it. They all fall into place from the initial premise, because of various personality patterns or structures that we internalize - sort of like shaking iron filings around a magnetic field. > > In any case, when I care to imagine that consciousness originates > > outside the body, I picture it more as an undifferentiated field of > > awareness that only takes on any kind of "selfhood" when it is > > articulated through the nervous system of a living creature. But it's > > fun to imagine other possibilities. > > I agree with you 100% here. Like I said once before, it may be the case that > the undifferentiated field of awareness (excellent phrase by the way) is actually > a field of pure emotion, without any language or ability to reason. I even > venture to guess that this field is indivisible (a singularity) yet is capable of > producing the illusion of separateness (personal ego) when interacting with a > physical brain. I have strong reasons for believing it is a singularity, but I > won't go into that here. I wouldn't want to constrain it to emotion, myself. Emotion seems to be a body-based perception. I prefer to imagine the universal field as just awareness, plain and simple. One of my favorite mental tricks is to detach from my own emotions to a calm center that is always peaceable, aware yet non-feeling, non-judgemental. > Now the $60,000 question in my mind is whether the personal ego produced by the > integration of the singularity and the brain is a separate "object" that is > literally created once the integration takes place and cannot be destroyed > regardless of the fate of the brain or if the personal ego is as temporary as the > brain and ceases to exist once the brain dies, and if so, can the same personal > ego be once again resurrected when a new brain/singularity is once again formed > and if so what determines whether a new integration will produce the same 'ol ego > or a new one? If we find the first case to be true then the ego would > theoretically be truly transferable as suggested by these OBE type swappings. If > we find the second case to be true but find that resurrection is not physically > possible, then I would be inclined to think that swapping cannot take place. If > resurrection is possible then I would be inclined to think that swapping can take > place but only to a brain/singularity interface that is "conducive" to > resurrecting the same 'ol ego (whatever that mechanism may be which is way outside > my ability to surmise at this point). Too hard. :) Maybe I can get my husband to contribute some thoughts, since he likes to think about this sort of thing. ###### From: "Jay" Subject: Re: Mirror Mirror on the Wall ... Newsgroups: alt.out-of-body References: <38B44DC8.7126@not-here.net> <38B4BD65.7C7C@not-here.net> <38B75752.700A@not-here.net> <38B7FB8B.81BF1272@privatei.com> <38B839D2.7F5D@not-here.net> <38B877E9.94BB7682@privatei.com> <38B8CB53.62F8@not-here.net> <38B98443.F5D830F6@privatei.com> <38B98DD7.56A0@not-here.net> Message-ID: <01bf8179$98739200$722267cf@default> X-Newsreader: Microsoft Internet News 4.70.1161 Lines: 60 NNTP-Posting-Host: 207.103.34.8 X-Trace: tw11.nn.bcandid.com 951693731 207.103.34.8 (Sun, 27 Feb 2000 16:22:11 MST) NNTP-Posting-Date: Sun, 27 Feb 2000 16:22:11 MST Organization: bCandid - Powering the world's discussions - http://bCandid.com Date: Sun, 27 Feb 2000 23:22:13 GMT Path: chonsp.franklin.ch!pfaff.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!newsfeed-zh.ip-plus.net!news.ip-plus.net!News.Amsterdam.UnisourceCS!skynet.be!europa.netcrusader.net!206.132.58.120!gw22.nn.bcandid.com!hub12.nn.bcandid.com!tw11.nn.bcandid.com.POSTED!not-for-mail Xref: chonsp.franklin.ch alt.out-of-body:34495 > The Original Ken wrote: > > Now the $60,000 question in my mind is whether the personal ego produced by the > > integration of the singularity and the brain is a separate "object" that is > > literally created once the integration takes place and cannot be destroyed > > regardless of the fate of the brain or if the personal ego is as temporary as the > > brain and ceases to exist once the brain dies, and if so, can the same personal > > ego be once again resurrected when a new brain/singularity is once again formed > > and if so what determines whether a new integration will produce the same 'ol ego > > or a new one? If we find the first case to be true then the ego would > > theoretically be truly transferable as suggested by these OBE type swappings. If > > we find the second case to be true but find that resurrection is not physically > > possible, then I would be inclined to think that swapping cannot take place. If > > resurrection is possible then I would be inclined to think that swapping can take > > place but only to a brain/singularity interface that is "conducive" to > > resurrecting the same 'ol ego (whatever that mechanism may be which is way outside > > my ability to surmise at this point). Janice wrote: > Too hard. :) Maybe I can get my husband to contribute some thoughts, > since he likes to think about this sort of thing. Now-a-days one would have to call it the $1,000,000 question. Psychology tells us there is no homunculus, no little man in the big man, but that the self is itself a construct or best guess as to the real identity of the so-called individual. Religious and mystical traditions emphasize that the real identities of individuals are their souls, and that these are not divided but rather united on that level, unlike physical bodies. Islam for instance says "We come from God and to Him we return," which means, one would assume, that the soul does survive death because is was only "looking through the eyes of the body" the whole time during life, and typically becomes confused as to its true identity because of that. In this sense, we are all a part of the essential "I am," and only become "I am this" or "I am that" because of such confusion. Lucid dreaming is important spiritually, from this point of view, because we can realize we still have an identity even when we aren't directly in touch with our bodies and can't remember many of the details of our everyday life. The whole question of reincarnation would depend upon souls being fairly discrete themselves, like little homunculi. (But a lot of what we usually take to be ourselves does most likely die with the deaths of our bodies.) I personally would not ascribe to that point of view myself, since it would seem to be trying to apply a worldly parallel where none need be assumed. I would therefore also remain skeptical of any literal interpretation of OBEs. There are simpler explanations, even if one favors the idea of the soul. ###### From: "Trish" Newsgroups: alt.out-of-body References: <38B44DC8.7126@not-here.net> <38B4BD65.7C7C@not-here.net> <38B75752.700A@not-here.net> <38B96F9C.57C8@not-here.net> Subject: Re: Mirror Mirror on the Wall ... Lines: 43 X-Newsreader: Microsoft Outlook Express 4.71.1712.3 X-MimeOLE: Produced By Microsoft MimeOLE V4.72.2106.4 Message-ID: X-Trace: +r4CDi8BuN2eRwDbOvvEej+NAhdIldYSN/U538Mxhpc5Dgk+YCZYhoEh7xVrKIh+NztGbDl6+aO9!01vjxkaTMWGjTVPn/t49+zKOGtzjYKa7+GtJmdbi2Q1L6C7pNkOed0jQBBpSbmpmP+lDP4TgDCt3!twoOGVzh X-Complaints-To: abuse@gte.net X-Abuse-Info: Please be sure to forward a copy of ALL headers X-Abuse-Info: Otherwise we will be unable to process your complaint properly NNTP-Posting-Date: Mon, 28 Feb 2000 02:55:08 GMT Distribution: world Date: Mon, 28 Feb 2000 02:55:08 GMT Path: chonsp.franklin.ch!pfaff.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!news-ge.switch.ch!news.maxwell.syr.edu!hermes.visi.com!news-out.visi.com!cam-news-hub1.bbnplanet.com!washdc3-snh1.gtei.net!news.gtei.net!dfiatx1-snr1.gtei.net.POSTED!not-for-mail Xref: chonsp.franklin.ch alt.out-of-body:34519 Janice wrote in message <38B96F9C.57C8@not-here.net>... >Trish wrote: >> >Sure. It's already possible to send someone directly into REM sleep by >> >giving them a drug mimicking acetylcholine. >> >> What drug is this?? > >Carbachol. And what does it do? I've run a search, but I find a lot of confusing abstracts. >> >> You have arrived Janice. : ) Welcome. > >Well, considering that people who have OBEs seem to be taking more >interest in my ideas than the scientists are, I do have to scratch my >head and wonder a bit ... Don't scratch too hard. I don't think they're too interested either way. You've given a huge bite of food for thought, and only get begrudgingly canned replies. They seem more interested in patrolling the scientific process, rather than disseminating any new theories. >> It all seems rather externalized, in the sense that it's based on >> suggestions that are not in the forefront of our minds. I'd love to see the >> reports of someone who has MPD and OBEs. > >Scary. You know, I did once read a book by someone with MPD who had >some OBEs or LDs in which she could converse with her "selves". Maybe I >can track down what it was called. If you can, let me know. ###### From: "Trish" Newsgroups: alt.out-of-body References: <38B47F9C.4275@not-here.net> <38B4CCC9.726D@not-here.net> <%TFt4.2000$395.21345@dfiatx1-snr1.gtei.net> <38B7540E.537F@not-here.net> <38B96972.1406@not-here.net> Subject: Re: Mirror Mirror on the Wall ... Lines: 70 X-Newsreader: Microsoft Outlook Express 4.71.1712.3 X-MimeOLE: Produced By Microsoft MimeOLE V4.72.2106.4 Message-ID: <9wlu4.5436$oO6.66066@dfiatx1-snr1.gtei.net> X-Trace: +SWaIsgAyuvKmVVU2ff/RytiXW6jpJPjd+LZSy999Zovopy3EwhlUD9JRvPc+j1fgAuA+jnp1OUX!24hHMDoebGrcgZ/oeseA33sOsNQBckEZ2+CCCgFaH5OffYr7Ny+qIhMfTKw2IJpz3Y+6yzyUGXif!/yoSUU7r X-Complaints-To: abuse@gte.net X-Abuse-Info: Please be sure to forward a copy of ALL headers X-Abuse-Info: Otherwise we will be unable to process your complaint properly NNTP-Posting-Date: Mon, 28 Feb 2000 02:59:17 GMT Distribution: world Date: Mon, 28 Feb 2000 02:59:17 GMT Path: chonsp.franklin.ch!pfaff.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!newsfeed-zh.ip-plus.net!news.ip-plus.net!News.Amsterdam.UnisourceCS!skynet.be!newsfeed.direct.ca!su-news-hub1.bbnplanet.com!crtntx1-snh1.gtei.net!washdc3-snh1.gtei.net!news.gtei.net!dfiatx1-snr1.gtei.net.POSTED!not-for-mail Xref: chonsp.franklin.ch alt.out-of-body:34516 Janice wrote in message <38B96972.1406@not-here.net>... >Trish wrote: >> >> Janice wrote in message <38B7540E.537F@not-here.net>... >> >Trish wrote: >> >> >> >> Janice wrote in message <38B4CCC9.726D@not-here.net>... >> >> > >> >> >I used to get a lot of exceptionally silly hypnagogic comments. I'll >> >> >write some of them up for you if you like. >> >> >> >> Yes, please. I'd like to try this myself, just for fun. >> > >> >Here are some of my all-time favorite funny ones: >> > >> >"In a bog-foot town." >> >"Oh me, to open my mouth." >> >"But neither does he mind his own business!" >> >"Jacint was a coolant man, first to meet his scaffold." >> >"I got a shamble I wanna ride with ya." >> >"He's the Keeper of the Universe, and I'm just the gardener or >> >something." >> >"Skylight of the Buffaloes" >> >"Your potato-sauce people." >> >"Mr. North Pole Santa Claus." >> >"You don't get credit for a local from a laddie." >> >"I'm not allowed any more memories." >> >"She gathers men to forbidden chambers to do her bidding." >> >"Yankee in the shaft with noodles." >> >"He who sells ideas makes good glassware." >> >"I don't want to exchange my teeth." >> >"A lean fish suckled a nudy fawn." >> >"Ye olde bitter bread." >> >"What do you want for $28 apiece?" >> >"Beer is like younger men - you can't get too much of them." >> >"Ride, Liffey! It has taken but a crow to overkill his name." [Maybe I >> >was channeling James Joyce :)] >> >"Spiritual, schmiritual; let's have fun." >> >"We'll have electronic candy monitors fill every drink and gin." >> >"Love is a purple cow." >> >> HA! You should make a book, "Maxims from the edge". > >I've heard a few less totally ridiculous ones as well, such as: > >"Your first concern is death. To die, is to live." >"Emotions cradle the power of being, to be disclosed." >"Integrating pain for harmonious holistic growth." >[These three were some New Agey ones I heard while I was depressed.] > >"Sleep of Countless Beauties" >"Clover of Delight" >"Mine is the color of his dreams." >"Drift off into the starry blue rift." >[Some sort of poetic ones.] > >"Reality and truth are illusions." >"All the world is an endless skein of meaning, and we have but to >unravel it." >"It's not the depth of the message, it's the message of the aftermath." >[Some sort of philosophical ones. To me the last one meant that >messages themselves are not as important as what we make of them.] That last one was a jewel. I can't recall any off the top of my head, but at the end of an OBE one time, "someone" leaned in close to me and stated "If you want to have and OBE, you *have* to take your seat belt off!" Guess they were words to take with me, "for next time". (or something) : ) ###### Message-ID: <38B9F247.3D19@not-here.net> From: Janice X-Mailer: Mozilla 3.01 (Win95; I) MIME-Version: 1.0 Newsgroups: alt.out-of-body Subject: Re: Mirror Mirror on the Wall ... References: <38B44DC8.7126@not-here.net> <38B4BD65.7C7C@not-here.net> <38B75752.700A@not-here.net> <38B96F9C.57C8@not-here.net> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Lines: 61 NNTP-Posting-Host: 207.103.34.8 X-Trace: tw11.nn.bcandid.com 951710226 207.103.34.8 (Sun, 27 Feb 2000 20:57:06 MST) NNTP-Posting-Date: Sun, 27 Feb 2000 20:57:06 MST Organization: bCandid - Powering the world's discussions - http://bCandid.com Date: Mon, 28 Feb 2000 03:57:06 GMT Path: chonsp.franklin.ch!pfaff.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!news-ge.switch.ch!news.maxwell.syr.edu!europa.netcrusader.net!206.132.58.120!gw22.nn.bcandid.com!hub12.nn.bcandid.com!tw11.nn.bcandid.com.POSTED!not-for-mail Xref: chonsp.franklin.ch alt.out-of-body:34480 Trish wrote: > > Janice wrote in message <38B96F9C.57C8@not-here.net>... > >Trish wrote: > > > > >> >Sure. It's already possible to send someone directly into REM sleep by > >> >giving them a drug mimicking acetylcholine. > >> > >> What drug is this?? > > > >Carbachol. > > And what does it do? I've run a search, but I find a lot of confusing > abstracts. Well, here's the simplest explanation that I can find: "When drugs that imitate acetylcholine are injected into the blood of a sleeping person, the first REM period occurs earlier than expected. It may also be more intense (have more REMs), and it is associated with dreaming. In a cat, where the same kinds of drug can be introduced directly into the REM trigger zone of the brain stem, the effects are much more dramatic: REM sleep may occur within a few minutes--with no intervening non-REM sleep--and may last for two and one-half hours. These chemically induced periods are also more intense--having more REMs and more PGO waves--than normal." --from J. Allan Hobson, *The Dreaming Brain* (Basic Books, 1988), p. 201 Other drugs that have been experimented with in this way besides carbachol are pilocarpine and bethenechol. > >> You have arrived Janice. : ) Welcome. > > > >Well, considering that people who have OBEs seem to be taking more > >interest in my ideas than the scientists are, I do have to scratch my > >head and wonder a bit ... > > Don't scratch too hard. I don't think they're too interested either way. > You've given a huge bite of food for thought, and only get begrudgingly > canned replies. They seem more interested in patrolling the scientific > process, rather than disseminating any new theories. Oh, well. Their loss. > >> It all seems rather externalized, in the sense that it's based on > >> suggestions that are not in the forefront of our minds. I'd love to see > the > >> reports of someone who has MPD and OBEs. > > > >Scary. You know, I did once read a book by someone with MPD who had > >some OBEs or LDs in which she could converse with her "selves". Maybe I > >can track down what it was called. > > If you can, let me know. My sister should remember, since the book was written by someone she knows. ###### Message-ID: <38B9F281.7082@not-here.net> From: Janice X-Mailer: Mozilla 3.01 (Win95; I) MIME-Version: 1.0 Newsgroups: alt.out-of-body Subject: Re: Mirror Mirror on the Wall ... References: <38B47F9C.4275@not-here.net> <38B4CCC9.726D@not-here.net> <%TFt4.2000$395.21345@dfiatx1-snr1.gtei.net> <38B7540E.537F@not-here.net> <38B96972.1406@not-here.net> <9wlu4.5436$oO6.66066@dfiatx1-snr1.gtei.net> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Lines: 72 NNTP-Posting-Host: 207.103.34.8 X-Trace: tw11.nn.bcandid.com 951710283 207.103.34.8 (Sun, 27 Feb 2000 20:58:03 MST) NNTP-Posting-Date: Sun, 27 Feb 2000 20:58:03 MST Organization: bCandid - Powering the world's discussions - http://bCandid.com Date: Mon, 28 Feb 2000 03:58:04 GMT Path: chonsp.franklin.ch!pfaff.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!news-ge.switch.ch!naxos.belnet.be!news.belnet.be!newsfeed.eurocyber.net!newspump.monmouth.com!newspeer.monmouth.com!europa.netcrusader.net!206.132.58.120!gw22.nn.bcandid.com!hub12.nn.bcandid.com!tw11.nn.bcandid.com.POSTED!not-for-mail Xref: chonsp.franklin.ch alt.out-of-body:34479 Trish wrote: > > Janice wrote in message <38B96972.1406@not-here.net>... > >Trish wrote: > >> > >> Janice wrote in message <38B7540E.537F@not-here.net>... > >> >Trish wrote: > >> >> > >> >> Janice wrote in message <38B4CCC9.726D@not-here.net>... > >> >> > > >> >> >I used to get a lot of exceptionally silly hypnagogic comments. I'll > >> >> >write some of them up for you if you like. > >> >> > >> >> Yes, please. I'd like to try this myself, just for fun. > >> > > >> >Here are some of my all-time favorite funny ones: > >> > > >> >"In a bog-foot town." > >> >"Oh me, to open my mouth." > >> >"But neither does he mind his own business!" > >> >"Jacint was a coolant man, first to meet his scaffold." > >> >"I got a shamble I wanna ride with ya." > >> >"He's the Keeper of the Universe, and I'm just the gardener or > >> >something." > >> >"Skylight of the Buffaloes" > >> >"Your potato-sauce people." > >> >"Mr. North Pole Santa Claus." > >> >"You don't get credit for a local from a laddie." > >> >"I'm not allowed any more memories." > >> >"She gathers men to forbidden chambers to do her bidding." > >> >"Yankee in the shaft with noodles." > >> >"He who sells ideas makes good glassware." > >> >"I don't want to exchange my teeth." > >> >"A lean fish suckled a nudy fawn." > >> >"Ye olde bitter bread." > >> >"What do you want for $28 apiece?" > >> >"Beer is like younger men - you can't get too much of them." > >> >"Ride, Liffey! It has taken but a crow to overkill his name." [Maybe I > >> >was channeling James Joyce :)] > >> >"Spiritual, schmiritual; let's have fun." > >> >"We'll have electronic candy monitors fill every drink and gin." > >> >"Love is a purple cow." > >> > >> HA! You should make a book, "Maxims from the edge". > > > >I've heard a few less totally ridiculous ones as well, such as: > > > >"Your first concern is death. To die, is to live." > >"Emotions cradle the power of being, to be disclosed." > >"Integrating pain for harmonious holistic growth." > >[These three were some New Agey ones I heard while I was depressed.] > > > >"Sleep of Countless Beauties" > >"Clover of Delight" > >"Mine is the color of his dreams." > >"Drift off into the starry blue rift." > >[Some sort of poetic ones.] > > > >"Reality and truth are illusions." > >"All the world is an endless skein of meaning, and we have but to > >unravel it." > >"It's not the depth of the message, it's the message of the aftermath." > >[Some sort of philosophical ones. To me the last one meant that > >messages themselves are not as important as what we make of them.] > > That last one was a jewel. I can't recall any off the top of my head, but > at the end of an OBE one time, "someone" leaned in close to me and stated > "If you want to have and OBE, you *have* to take your seat belt off!" > Guess they were words to take with me, "for next time". (or something) : ) Considering how you sometimes get hurled across the room, I would think you should give some serious thought to putting a seatbelt ON! :D ###### From: John Fitzsimons Newsgroups: alt.out-of-body Subject: Re: Mirror Mirror on the Wall ... Date: Mon, 28 Feb 2000 22:46:26 +1100 Organization: Optus Internet Lines: 47 Message-ID: <188kbsgnm28vsrvtko83cl3cbatajcn5dg@4ax.com> References: <38B44DC8.7126@not-here.net> <38B4BD65.7C7C@not-here.net> <38B75752.700A@not-here.net> <38B7FB8B.81BF1272@privatei.com> <38B839D2.7F5D@not-here.net> NNTP-Posting-Host: ocmax12-188.dialup.optusnet.com.au Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-Trace: news1.mpx.com.au 951738283 13612 198.142.45.188 (28 Feb 2000 11:44:43 GMT) X-Complaints-To: abuse@optusnet.com.au NNTP-Posting-Date: 28 Feb 2000 11:44:43 GMT X-Posting-Agent: Hamster/1.3.13.0 X-Newsreader: Forte Agent 1.8/32.542 Path: chonsp.franklin.ch!pfaff.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!news-ge.switch.ch!news1.sunrise.ch!news.nextra.ch!newsfeed1.online.no!newsfeed.online.no!news-spur1.maxwell.syr.edu!news.maxwell.syr.edu!intgwpad.nntp.telstra.net!news1.optus.net.au!optus!news.mpx.com.au!not-for-mail Xref: chonsp.franklin.ch alt.out-of-body:34525 On Sat, 26 Feb 2000 20:37:49 GMT, Janice wrote: >The Original Ken wrote: >> Janice wrote: >> > Trish wrote: >> > > Ok ... you try being me. : ) >> > Only if you try being me, too. :) >> OK, time for both of you to have an OBE and swap bodies. >> Ken >Hey, yeah, we could test your theory. >I'll place my imaginative bet and say that even if consciousness somehow >originates outside the brain, you wouldn't be able to tell that we >swapped places, That would depend on how much your spirit consciousness occupied the other body and vica versa. Both physical bodies would appear to be the same as before if looked at in a cursory manner. Someone watching clairvoyantly may pick up the change though. >because all the memories etc. encoded in our brains >would reshape that consciousness to conform with what's now hardwired in >there. Consciousness isn't hard wired. People exist not only without a physical brain but without a physical body. If you were fully occupying the other body then your vocal expression, mannerisms, outlook etc. would often be evident, and vica versa. This change of "personality" would be considered by some to suggest that both people who owned the physical bodies were suffering from a multiple personality disorder. Regards, John. -- **************************************************** ,-._|\ John Fitzsimons - Melbourne, Australia. / Oz \ johnf@melbpc.org.au, Fidonet 3:633/309 \_,--.x/ http://www.vicnet.net.au/~johnf/welcome.htm v http://www.alphalink.com.au/~johnf/ ###### From: Janice Newsgroups: alt.out-of-body Subject: Re: Mirror Mirror on the Wall ... Date: Mon, 28 Feb 2000 08:27:39 -0500 Organization: http://extra.newsguy.com Lines: 62 Message-ID: <38BA77CB.200E@not-here.net> References: <38B44DC8.7126@not-here.net> <38B4BD65.7C7C@not-here.net> <38B75752.700A@not-here.net> <38B7FB8B.81BF1272@privatei.com> <38B839D2.7F5D@not-here.net> <188kbsgnm28vsrvtko83cl3cbatajcn5dg@4ax.com> NNTP-Posting-Host: async106.starlinx.com Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-Mailer: Mozilla 3.01 (Win95; I) Path: chonsp.franklin.ch!pfaff.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!newsfeed-zh.ip-plus.net!news.ip-plus.net!news.datacomm.ch!newscore.gigabell.net!dca1-hub1.news.digex.net!intermedia!newsfeed.berkeley.edu!pln-w!spln!extra.newsguy.com!newsp.newsguy.com!enews4 Xref: chonsp.franklin.ch alt.out-of-body:34484 John Fitzsimons wrote: > > On Sat, 26 Feb 2000 20:37:49 GMT, Janice wrote: > > >The Original Ken wrote: > > >> Janice wrote: > > >> > Trish wrote: > > >> > > Ok ... you try being me. : ) > > >> > Only if you try being me, too. :) > > >> OK, time for both of you to have an OBE and swap bodies. > > >> Ken > > >Hey, yeah, we could test your theory. > > >I'll place my imaginative bet and say that even if consciousness somehow > >originates outside the brain, you wouldn't be able to tell that we > >swapped places, > > That would depend on how much your spirit consciousness occupied the > other body and vica versa. Both physical bodies would appear to be the > same as before if looked at in a cursory manner. Someone watching > clairvoyantly may pick up the change though. > > >because all the memories etc. encoded in our brains > >would reshape that consciousness to conform with what's now hardwired in > >there. > > Consciousness isn't hard wired. I didn't say it was. I said that memories etc. are. Conscious activity, including perception and learning, alters the brain. If one takes a look at a newborn animal's brain, the neurons are practically randomized. Only gradually do they form into neat pathways in response to the particular sensory stimuli received by the animal, and become sheathed in myelin, at which point changes are more difficult. There are parts of the human brain, particularly those associated with speech and hearing, that remain plastic for over two years. Even after myelinization, particular neurons are constantly busy strengthening their connections to one another in response to learning situations. > People exist not only without a > physical brain but without a physical body. If you were fully > occupying the other body then your vocal expression, mannerisms, > outlook etc. would often be evident, and vica versa. This change of > "personality" would be considered by some to suggest that both > people who owned the physical bodies were suffering from a multiple > personality disorder. Since I'm only imagining the external consciousness scenario anyway, I'll try to accommodate your perspective for a moment and imagine souls that survive death with their consciousness and memories intact. It would not necessarily follow that such souls do not, in life, also impress all their memories into their brains for additional support, in which case any invading soul should have access to those memories. Depending on the relative strength or weakness of its own memories, I would imagine that in time it could be almost totally absorbed. ###### Message-ID: <38BB45A7.4DAE07E5@privatei.com> From: The Original Ken X-Mailer: Mozilla 4.02 [en]C-DIAL (Win95; U) MIME-Version: 1.0 Newsgroups: alt.out-of-body Subject: Re: Mirror Mirror on the Wall ... References: <38B44DC8.7126@not-here.net> <38B4BD65.7C7C@not-here.net> <38B75752.700A@not-here.net> <38B7FB8B.81BF1272@privatei.com> <38B839D2.7F5D@not-here.net> <38B877E9.94BB7682@privatei.com> <38B8CB53.62F8@not-here.net> <38B98443.F5D830F6@privatei.com> <38B98DD7.56A0@not-here.net> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Lines: 95 Date: Mon, 28 Feb 2000 21:05:59 -0700 NNTP-Posting-Host: 204.131.176.181 X-Trace: wormhole.dimensional.com 951797841 204.131.176.181 (Mon, 28 Feb 2000 21:17:21 MST) NNTP-Posting-Date: Mon, 28 Feb 2000 21:17:21 MST Organization: Interlink Advertising Path: chonsp.franklin.ch!pfaff.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!newsfeed-zh.ip-plus.net!news.ip-plus.net!News.Amsterdam.UnisourceCS!newspeer.te.net!news.indigo.ie!diablo.theplanet.net!europa.netcrusader.net!209.98.98.64!hermes.visi.com!news-out.visi.com!pulsar.dimensional.com!dimensional.com!wormhole.dimensional.com!not-for-mail Xref: chonsp.franklin.ch alt.out-of-body:34549 Janice wrote: > The Original Ken wrote: > > I don't think this diminishes the importance of this observation. I mean during > > OBEs where we retain our personality we are drawing from (at least to a degree) > > the memories formed in our physical brain. This is not unusual, but to take on a > > new personality complete with different memories is a bit strange since this would > > have to mean that 1. we improvised these memories on the spot or 2. we are drawing > > from a completely different set of subconscious memories that are imagination > > based, or 3. we are accessing the memories of someone else's brain, or 4. we are > > accessing memories of our own previous lives or 5. memories are not brain based > > but cosmic consciousness based but formed into real memories by the brain and we > > are accessing the cosmic consciousness normally directed to another person. Now > > if it turns out that #3 or #5 is true then swapping with a dream body and swapping > > with another person would have the same result. > > Just to put in a good word for possibilities #1 and #2, any good fiction > writer or even good actor could tell you that it's not all that > difficult to create a baseline personality then just "know" all sorts of > things about it. They all fall into place from the initial premise, > because of various personality patterns or structures that we > internalize - sort of like shaking iron filings around a magnetic field. Hmmm, that's interesting. I would have to say that during the OBE I still seemed to have retained my inquisitive nature and a few other aspects of my base personality. It was really just the memories more than anything that were totally replaced. But why did my usual memories totally vanish and why did these new ones come about without me having to really make a conscious effort to make them (as an actor would)? > > > In any case, when I care to imagine that consciousness originates > > > outside the body, I picture it more as an undifferentiated field of > > > awareness that only takes on any kind of "selfhood" when it is > > > articulated through the nervous system of a living creature. But it's > > > fun to imagine other possibilities. > > > > I agree with you 100% here. Like I said once before, it may be the case that > > the undifferentiated field of awareness (excellent phrase by the way) is actually > > a field of pure emotion, without any language or ability to reason. I even > > venture to guess that this field is indivisible (a singularity) yet is capable of > > producing the illusion of separateness (personal ego) when interacting with a > > physical brain. I have strong reasons for believing it is a singularity, but I > > won't go into that here. > > I wouldn't want to constrain it to emotion, myself. Emotion seems to be > a body-based perception. I prefer to imagine the universal field as > just awareness, plain and simple. One of my favorite mental tricks is > to detach from my own emotions to a calm center that is always > peaceable, aware yet non-feeling, non-judgemental. On a few occasions I have had OBEs where I found myself seemingly able to comprehend vast amounts of unknowable knowledge via pure emotion rather than thought as if the language of higher understanding is emotion. I speculated once that the human form is limited in the number of emotions it knows, perhaps a dozen or so, but if this limitation is lifted, perhaps there a thousands or millions of emotions which define great concepts. This leads me to think that the field may be an emotion based phenomenon. Also it does not seem to me as if emotion has temporal characteristics as does thought, nor does it have spatial characteristics. I think anything describing the "field" has to be free from both of these things. > > Now the $60,000 question in my mind is whether the personal ego produced by the > > integration of the singularity and the brain is a separate "object" that is > > literally created once the integration takes place and cannot be destroyed > > regardless of the fate of the brain or if the personal ego is as temporary as the > > brain and ceases to exist once the brain dies, and if so, can the same personal > > ego be once again resurrected when a new brain/singularity is once again formed > > and if so what determines whether a new integration will produce the same 'ol ego > > or a new one? If we find the first case to be true then the ego would > > theoretically be truly transferable as suggested by these OBE type swappings. If > > we find the second case to be true but find that resurrection is not physically > > possible, then I would be inclined to think that swapping cannot take place. If > > resurrection is possible then I would be inclined to think that swapping can take > > place but only to a brain/singularity interface that is "conducive" to > > resurrecting the same 'ol ego (whatever that mechanism may be which is way outside > > my ability to surmise at this point). > > Too hard. :) Maybe I can get my husband to contribute some thoughts, > since he likes to think about this sort of thing. It was even harder to write (and rewrite and rewrite). Just had a new thought. If the personal ego is a product of memory (among other things) and if during an OBE such as the one I had, I am presented with a whole new history and voided of the memories I had, yet was still able to retain my personal ego, then wouldn't this imply that people that suffer from MPD also retain their personal ego during personality changes? And just as a bonus question, if memory isn't the mechanism that creates the unique personal ego as has been suggested by several of the skeptics, then do we need to look for a new mechanism? Ken ###### Message-ID: <38BB49B7.5A36B93D@privatei.com> From: The Original Ken X-Mailer: Mozilla 4.02 [en]C-DIAL (Win95; U) MIME-Version: 1.0 Newsgroups: alt.out-of-body Subject: Re: Mirror Mirror on the Wall ... References: <38B44DC8.7126@not-here.net> <38B4BD65.7C7C@not-here.net> <38B75752.700A@not-here.net> <38B7FB8B.81BF1272@privatei.com> <38B839D2.7F5D@not-here.net> <38B877E9.94BB7682@privatei.com> <38B8CB53.62F8@not-here.net> <38B98443.F5D830F6@privatei.com> <38B98DD7.56A0@not-here.net> <01bf8179$98739200$722267cf@default> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Lines: 83 Date: Mon, 28 Feb 2000 21:23:19 -0700 NNTP-Posting-Host: 204.131.176.181 X-Trace: wormhole.dimensional.com 951798809 204.131.176.181 (Mon, 28 Feb 2000 21:33:29 MST) NNTP-Posting-Date: Mon, 28 Feb 2000 21:33:29 MST Organization: Interlink Advertising Path: chonsp.franklin.ch!pfaff.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!news-ge.switch.ch!news.bme.hu!news.iif.hu!newscore.univie.ac.at!194.25.134.126.MISMATCH!newsfeed01.sul.t-online.de!t-online.de!newsfeed.tli.de!newsfeed.enteract.com!hermes.visi.com!news-out.visi.com!pulsar.dimensional.com!dimensional.com!wormhole.dimensional.com!not-for-mail Xref: chonsp.franklin.ch alt.out-of-body:34548 Jay wrote: > > The Original Ken wrote: > > > Now the $60,000 question in my mind is whether the personal ego > produced by the > > > integration of the singularity and the brain is a separate "object" > that is > > > literally created once the integration takes place and cannot be > destroyed > > > regardless of the fate of the brain or if the personal ego is as > temporary as the > > > brain and ceases to exist once the brain dies, and if so, can the same > personal > > > ego be once again resurrected when a new brain/singularity is once > again formed > > > and if so what determines whether a new integration will produce the > same 'ol ego > > > or a new one? If we find the first case to be true then the ego would > > > theoretically be truly transferable as suggested by these OBE type > swappings. If > > > we find the second case to be true but find that resurrection is not > physically > > > possible, then I would be inclined to think that swapping cannot take > place. If > > > resurrection is possible then I would be inclined to think that > swapping can take > > > place but only to a brain/singularity interface that is "conducive" to > > > resurrecting the same 'ol ego (whatever that mechanism may be which is > way outside > > > my ability to surmise at this point). > > Janice wrote: > > Too hard. :) Maybe I can get my husband to contribute some thoughts, > > since he likes to think about this sort of thing. > > Now-a-days one would have to call it the $1,000,000 question. > > Psychology tells us there is no homunculus, no little man in the big man, > but that the self is itself a construct or best guess as to the real > identity of the so-called individual. Religious and mystical traditions > emphasize that the real identities of individuals are their souls, and that > these are not divided but rather united on that level, unlike physical > bodies. Islam for instance says "We come from God and to Him we return," > which means, one would assume, that the soul does survive death because is > was only "looking through the eyes of the body" the whole time during life, > and typically becomes confused as to its true identity because of that. There are some that suggest that although confusion results, it is a necessary part of the "I am's" learning curve. Without the human experience the "I am" might not be confused, but it might certainly be "clueless". :) > In > this sense, we are all a part of the essential "I am," and only become "I > am this" or "I am that" because of such confusion. Lucid dreaming is > important spiritually, from this point of view, because we can realize we > still have an identity even when we aren't directly in touch with our > bodies and can't remember many of the details of our everyday life. Yes, this certainly seems to be one of the greater payoffs of LDs and OBEs. > The whole question of reincarnation would depend upon souls being fairly > discrete themselves, like little homunculi. (But a lot of what we usually > take to be ourselves does most likely die with the deaths of our bodies.) > I personally would not ascribe to that point of view myself, since it would > seem to be trying to apply a worldly parallel where none need be assumed. Not only that, but this is an infinite recursion. You die, find yourself in a new world just like the old world and you are still sitting there wondering what happens when you die. So you die again only to find yourself asking the same question again and again ad infinitum. I'm not just referring to reincarnation but also to the concept of a soul, that supposedly goes off to live on a new world. > I would therefore also remain skeptical of any literal interpretation of > OBEs. There are simpler explanations, even if one favors the idea of the > soul. Yes, there are, but I suspect that unlike me you consider those simpler explanations to be biologically based perhaps? Ken ###### Message-ID: <38BB4CB9.54BCEA5F@privatei.com> From: The Original Ken X-Mailer: Mozilla 4.02 [en]C-DIAL (Win95; U) MIME-Version: 1.0 Newsgroups: alt.out-of-body Subject: Re: Mirror Mirror on the Wall ... References: <38B347FC.66DA5F2B@privatei.com> <38B4501F.6B6C@not-here.net> <38B5F81E.8466EBF@privatei.com> <38B5FF68.574A@not-here.net> <38B6A29B.84C0A1FC@privatei.com> <38B6DF44.1A63@not-here.net> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Lines: 61 Date: Mon, 28 Feb 2000 21:36:09 -0700 NNTP-Posting-Host: 204.131.176.181 X-Trace: wormhole.dimensional.com 951799581 204.131.176.181 (Mon, 28 Feb 2000 21:46:21 MST) NNTP-Posting-Date: Mon, 28 Feb 2000 21:46:21 MST Organization: Interlink Advertising Path: chonsp.franklin.ch!pfaff.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!newsfeed-zh.ip-plus.net!news.ip-plus.net!News.Amsterdam.UnisourceCS!skynet.be!hermes.visi.com!news-out.visi.com!pulsar.dimensional.com!dimensional.com!wormhole.dimensional.com!not-for-mail Xref: chonsp.franklin.ch alt.out-of-body:34550 Janice wrote: > The Original Ken wrote: > > > > > At least some of the experiences I'm talking about were definitely > > > WILDs, pretty similar to what you're describing. I've had hundreds of > > > the thingees too; I wouldn't even be surprised if it was more like > > > thousands, considering how much I used to indulge in them. > > > > > > What fun would a rule be without some exceptions? :) > > > > The fun of being a valid theory? :) > > You just have to expand your theory to account for the exceptions. Arrrgh, special cases, I hate them. > You've really never had any "seeing through closed eyes" experiences > where you spotted at least some small discrepancy in the view of your > room? What really got to me where the ones where I would think I had > opened my physical eyes and see a discrepancy, since that showed that > what I took to be my physical body was itself sometimes a dream body. > Maybe it helps that I was usually doing this sort of thing in the > daytime, when there is more detail to see. There are certainly discrepancies, but usually for me they occur as I get on with the adventure. One time I had an OBE from my living room couch in the afternoon with the balcony shades pulled. As I began the OBE the living room detail was quite accurate, several guitars, a lamp, a synthesizer, stereo speakers with plants on top, TV, VCR, etc, etc, so much you would think the brain would be overloaded with this memory test, but it did not seem to be. Then I rolled out and drifted out through the window to the balcony, then things started to change and the view of the buildings below were different than they usually are and IIRC it had turned to night. > > > See if you can make yourself to start out in another location sometime. > > > It can lead to some curious sensations, apparently because your brain is > > > confused by conflicting information. > > > > It's worth a try to see what these sensations are that you mention here, but isn't this > > just an exercise in forcing the experience to become more subjective due to the power of > > suggestion? I'm trying to go the other way. I would like to get better at making the > > experience less subjective. > > You can always go back to trying to make it less subjective, of course. > If you do try making yourself start out in another location as an > experiment, I think it would be best to be sleeping somewhere unusual > and try to imagine yourself in your usual sleeping location. That's how > I've done it (like being in Texas and making my OBE start as if I had > been in my bed at home). I think it would be much harder to be lying in > your usual spot and trying to pretend to yourself that you're somewhere > else. If I get a chance I'll try it, but if I am already seeing the accurate representation of the environment, wouldn't it be next to impossible to change it? Or are you suggesting making this effort after the vibrations begin but before opening your eyes? Ken ###### Message-ID: <38BB57C0.29FF@not-here.net> From: Janice X-Mailer: Mozilla 3.01 (Win95; I) MIME-Version: 1.0 Newsgroups: alt.out-of-body Subject: Re: Mirror Mirror on the Wall ... References: <38B347FC.66DA5F2B@privatei.com> <38B4501F.6B6C@not-here.net> <38B5F81E.8466EBF@privatei.com> <38B5FF68.574A@not-here.net> <38B6A29B.84C0A1FC@privatei.com> <38B6DF44.1A63@not-here.net> <38BB4CB9.54BCEA5F@privatei.com> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Lines: 67 NNTP-Posting-Host: 207.103.34.8 X-Trace: tw11.nn.bcandid.com 951801738 207.103.34.8 (Mon, 28 Feb 2000 22:22:18 MST) NNTP-Posting-Date: Mon, 28 Feb 2000 22:22:18 MST Organization: bCandid - Powering the world's discussions - http://bCandid.com Date: Tue, 29 Feb 2000 05:22:19 GMT Path: chonsp.franklin.ch!pfaff.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!newsfeed-zh.ip-plus.net!news.ip-plus.net!News.Amsterdam.UnisourceCS!skynet.be!europa.netcrusader.net!206.132.58.120!gw22.nn.bcandid.com!hub12.nn.bcandid.com!tw11.nn.bcandid.com.POSTED!not-for-mail Xref: chonsp.franklin.ch alt.out-of-body:34542 The Original Ken wrote: > > Janice wrote: > > > The Original Ken wrote: > > > > > > > At least some of the experiences I'm talking about were definitely > > > > WILDs, pretty similar to what you're describing. I've had hundreds of > > > > the thingees too; I wouldn't even be surprised if it was more like > > > > thousands, considering how much I used to indulge in them. > > > > > > > > What fun would a rule be without some exceptions? :) > > > > > > The fun of being a valid theory? :) > > > > You just have to expand your theory to account for the exceptions. > > Arrrgh, special cases, I hate them. > > > You've really never had any "seeing through closed eyes" experiences > > where you spotted at least some small discrepancy in the view of your > > room? What really got to me where the ones where I would think I had > > opened my physical eyes and see a discrepancy, since that showed that > > what I took to be my physical body was itself sometimes a dream body. > > Maybe it helps that I was usually doing this sort of thing in the > > daytime, when there is more detail to see. > > There are certainly discrepancies, but usually for me they occur as I get on with the > adventure. One time I had an OBE from my living room couch in the afternoon with the balcony > shades pulled. As I began the OBE the living room detail was quite accurate, several guitars, > a lamp, a synthesizer, stereo speakers with plants on top, TV, VCR, etc, etc, so much you would > think the brain would be overloaded with this memory test, but it did not seem to be. Then I > rolled out and drifted out through the window to the balcony, then things started to change and > the view of the buildings below were different than they usually are and IIRC it had turned to > night. Cool. Assuming for the moment that this is a memory model in action rather than a kind of second sight, I wonder just how long it can hold together before things start randomizing? It might be interesting to try to stay in one small spot during an OBE and see how long you can sustain the perfectly accurate picture. > > > > See if you can make yourself to start out in another location sometime. > > > > It can lead to some curious sensations, apparently because your brain is > > > > confused by conflicting information. > > > > > > It's worth a try to see what these sensations are that you mention here, but isn't this > > > just an exercise in forcing the experience to become more subjective due to the power of > > > suggestion? I'm trying to go the other way. I would like to get better at making the > > > experience less subjective. > > > > You can always go back to trying to make it less subjective, of course. > > If you do try making yourself start out in another location as an > > experiment, I think it would be best to be sleeping somewhere unusual > > and try to imagine yourself in your usual sleeping location. That's how > > I've done it (like being in Texas and making my OBE start as if I had > > been in my bed at home). I think it would be much harder to be lying in > > your usual spot and trying to pretend to yourself that you're somewhere > > else. > > If I get a chance I'll try it, but if I am already seeing the accurate representation of the > environment, wouldn't it be next to impossible to change it? Or are you suggesting making this > effort after the vibrations begin but before opening your eyes? Yes, definitely do it before opening your eyes. It's hard enough to override your memory of where you are without having a visual representation competing for attention too. ###### From: "Jay" Newsgroups: alt.out-of-body Subject: Re: Mirror Mirror on the Wall ... Date: 29 Feb 2000 10:25:14 GMT Organization: http://extra.newsguy.com Lines: 15 Message-ID: <01bf829f$65e3c4a0$662267cf@default> References: <38B44DC8.7126@not-here.net> <38B4BD65.7C7C@not-here.net> <38B75752.700A@not-here.net> <38B7FB8B.81BF1272@privatei.com> <38B839D2.7F5D@not-here.net> <38B877E9.94BB7682@privatei.com> <38B8CB53.62F8@not-here.net> <38B98443.F5D830F6@privatei.com> <38B98DD7.56A0@not-here.net> <01bf8179$98739200$722267cf@default> <38BB49B7.5A36B93D@privatei.com> NNTP-Posting-Host: async102.starlinx.com X-Newsreader: Microsoft Internet News 4.70.1161 Path: chonsp.franklin.ch!pfaff.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!newsfeed-zh.ip-plus.net!news.ip-plus.net!news.datacomm.ch!newscore.gigabell.net!newsfeed.tli.de!news.maxwell.syr.edu!newsfeed.cwix.com!pln-e!spln!extra.newsguy.com!newsp.newsguy.com!enews2 Xref: chonsp.franklin.ch alt.out-of-body:34551 Jay wrote: > > I would therefore also remain skeptical of any literal interpretation of > > OBEs. There are simpler explanations, even if one favors the idea of the > > soul. The Original Ken wrote: > Yes, there are, but I suspect that unlike me you consider those simpler > explanations to be biologically based perhaps? > Ken Janice has already discussed such explanations. ###### From: Janice Newsgroups: alt.out-of-body Subject: Re: Mirror Mirror on the Wall ... Date: Tue, 29 Feb 2000 13:05:06 -0500 Organization: http://extra.newsguy.com Lines: 119 Message-ID: <38BC0A52.2658@not-here.net> References: <38B44DC8.7126@not-here.net> <38B4BD65.7C7C@not-here.net> <38B75752.700A@not-here.net> <38B7FB8B.81BF1272@privatei.com> <38B839D2.7F5D@not-here.net> <38B877E9.94BB7682@privatei.com> <38B8CB53.62F8@not-here.net> <38B98443.F5D830F6@privatei.com> <38B98DD7.56A0@not-here.net> <38BB45A7.4DAE07E5@privatei.com> NNTP-Posting-Host: async161.starlinx.com Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-Mailer: Mozilla 3.01 (Win95; I) Path: chonsp.franklin.ch!pfaff.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!newsfeed-zh.ip-plus.net!news.ip-plus.net!News.Amsterdam.UnisourceCS!newshunter!cosy.sbg.ac.at!news-feed.inet.tele.dk!bofh.vszbr.cz!newsfeed.stanford.edu!newsfeed.berkeley.edu!pln-w!spln!extra.newsguy.com!newsp.newsguy.com!enews3 Xref: chonsp.franklin.ch alt.out-of-body:34584 The Original Ken wrote: > > Janice wrote: > > > The Original Ken wrote: > > > > I don't think this diminishes the importance of this observation. I mean during > > > OBEs where we retain our personality we are drawing from (at least to a degree) > > > the memories formed in our physical brain. This is not unusual, but to take on a > > > new personality complete with different memories is a bit strange since this would > > > have to mean that 1. we improvised these memories on the spot or 2. we are drawing > > > from a completely different set of subconscious memories that are imagination > > > based, or 3. we are accessing the memories of someone else's brain, or 4. we are > > > accessing memories of our own previous lives or 5. memories are not brain based > > > but cosmic consciousness based but formed into real memories by the brain and we > > > are accessing the cosmic consciousness normally directed to another person. Now > > > if it turns out that #3 or #5 is true then swapping with a dream body and swapping > > > with another person would have the same result. > > > > Just to put in a good word for possibilities #1 and #2, any good fiction > > writer or even good actor could tell you that it's not all that > > difficult to create a baseline personality then just "know" all sorts of > > things about it. They all fall into place from the initial premise, > > because of various personality patterns or structures that we > > internalize - sort of like shaking iron filings around a magnetic field. > > Hmmm, that's interesting. I would have to say that during the OBE I still seemed to > have retained my inquisitive nature and a few other aspects of my base personality. It > was really just the memories more than anything that were totally replaced. But why did > my usual memories totally vanish and why did these new ones come about without me having > to really make a conscious effort to make them (as an actor would)? One possibility is that you weren't relying all that much on your conscious mind, but instead absorbed in some subconscious creative or autosuggestive process - sort of like when someone is hypnotized. I've had all sorts of false memories crop up in dreams, so this may have been an extreme version of that phenomenon, a kind of rationalization by your brain for the unusual context you found yourself in. In other words, maybe you created a character to inhabit and didn't have access to your regular memories for some reason, so your brain came up with enough of them as needed to give you a comfortable sense of identity. > > > > In any case, when I care to imagine that consciousness originates > > > > outside the body, I picture it more as an undifferentiated field of > > > > awareness that only takes on any kind of "selfhood" when it is > > > > articulated through the nervous system of a living creature. But it's > > > > fun to imagine other possibilities. > > > > > > I agree with you 100% here. Like I said once before, it may be the case that > > > the undifferentiated field of awareness (excellent phrase by the way) is actually > > > a field of pure emotion, without any language or ability to reason. I even > > > venture to guess that this field is indivisible (a singularity) yet is capable of > > > producing the illusion of separateness (personal ego) when interacting with a > > > physical brain. I have strong reasons for believing it is a singularity, but I > > > won't go into that here. > > > > I wouldn't want to constrain it to emotion, myself. Emotion seems to be > > a body-based perception. I prefer to imagine the universal field as > > just awareness, plain and simple. One of my favorite mental tricks is > > to detach from my own emotions to a calm center that is always > > peaceable, aware yet non-feeling, non-judgemental. > > On a few occasions I have had OBEs where I found myself seemingly able to comprehend > vast amounts of unknowable knowledge via pure emotion rather than thought as if the > language of higher understanding is emotion. I speculated once that the human form is > limited in the number of emotions it knows, perhaps a dozen or so, but if this > limitation is lifted, perhaps there a thousands or millions of emotions which define > great concepts. This leads me to think that the field may be an emotion based > phenomenon. My Vulcan ancestry is recoiling from the very prospect. > Also it does not seem to me as if emotion has temporal characteristics as > does thought, nor does it have spatial characteristics. I think anything describing the > "field" has to be free from both of these things. I think "awareness" would qualify by those standards. > > > Now the $60,000 question in my mind is whether the personal ego produced by the > > > integration of the singularity and the brain is a separate "object" that is > > > literally created once the integration takes place and cannot be destroyed > > > regardless of the fate of the brain or if the personal ego is as temporary as the > > > brain and ceases to exist once the brain dies, and if so, can the same personal > > > ego be once again resurrected when a new brain/singularity is once again formed > > > and if so what determines whether a new integration will produce the same 'ol ego > > > or a new one? If we find the first case to be true then the ego would > > > theoretically be truly transferable as suggested by these OBE type swappings. If > > > we find the second case to be true but find that resurrection is not physically > > > possible, then I would be inclined to think that swapping cannot take place. If > > > resurrection is possible then I would be inclined to think that swapping can take > > > place but only to a brain/singularity interface that is "conducive" to > > > resurrecting the same 'ol ego (whatever that mechanism may be which is way outside > > > my ability to surmise at this point). > > > > Too hard. :) Maybe I can get my husband to contribute some thoughts, > > since he likes to think about this sort of thing. > > It was even harder to write (and rewrite and rewrite). > > Just had a new thought. If the personal ego is a product of memory (among other things) > and if during an OBE such as the one I had, I am presented with a whole new history and > voided of the memories I had, yet was still able to retain my personal ego, then > wouldn't this imply that people that suffer from MPD also retain their personal ego > during personality changes? This may be a myth, but I think there's always supposed to be one personality that has an integrated memory of what all the other personalities do. > And just as a bonus question, if memory isn't the > mechanism that creates the unique personal ego as has been suggested by several of the > skeptics, then do we need to look for a new mechanism? Memory is certainly vital to maintaining your everyday ego. But since we are robbed of a lot of our memories during ordinary dreaming due to neurochemical changes, the relative deactivation of certain memory-related areas of the brain, and the radical shift in context, yet we still usually retain a sense of self, there must be more to it than memory alone. ###### X-Posting-Agent: Hamster/1.3.13.0 From: John Fitzsimons Newsgroups: alt.out-of-body Subject: Re: Mirror Mirror on the Wall ... Message-ID: References: <38B44DC8.7126@not-here.net> <38B4BD65.7C7C@not-here.net> <38B75752.700A@not-here.net> <38B96F9C.57C8@not-here.net> X-Newsreader: Forte Agent 1.8/32.542 MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Lines: 19 Date: Wed, 01 Mar 2000 08:20:18 +1100 NNTP-Posting-Host: 203.26.98.222 X-Complaints-To: abuse@telstra.net X-Trace: nsw.nnrp.telstra.net 951859252 203.26.98.222 (Wed, 01 Mar 2000 08:20:52 EST) NNTP-Posting-Date: Wed, 01 Mar 2000 08:20:52 EST Organization: Customer of Telstra Big Pond Direct Path: chonsp.franklin.ch!pfaff.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!newsfeed-zh.ip-plus.net!news.ip-plus.net!News.Amsterdam.UnisourceCS!skynet.be!newsfeed.berkeley.edu!intgwpad.nntp.telstra.net!nsw.nnrp.telstra.net!not-for-mail Xref: chonsp.franklin.ch alt.out-of-body:34629 On Sun, 27 Feb 2000 18:39:35 GMT, Janice wrote: < snip > >You know, I did once read a book by someone with MPD who had >some OBEs or LDs in which she could converse with her "selves". Maybe I >can track down what it was called. If some of her "selves" were simply people in her aura then that would hardly be very surprising. :-) Regards, John. -- **************************************************** ,-._|\ John Fitzsimons - Melbourne, Australia. / Oz \ johnf@melbpc.org.au, Fidonet 3:633/309 \_,--.x/ http://www.vicnet.net.au/~johnf/welcome.htm v http://www.alphalink.com.au/~johnf/ ###### X-Posting-Agent: Hamster/1.3.13.0 From: John Fitzsimons Newsgroups: alt.out-of-body Subject: Re: Mirror Mirror on the Wall ... Message-ID: References: <38B44DC8.7126@not-here.net> <38B4BD65.7C7C@not-here.net> <38B75752.700A@not-here.net> <38B7FB8B.81BF1272@privatei.com> <38B839D2.7F5D@not-here.net> <188kbsgnm28vsrvtko83cl3cbatajcn5dg@4ax.com> <38BA77CB.200E@not-here.net> X-Newsreader: Forte Agent 1.8/32.542 MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Lines: 55 Date: Wed, 01 Mar 2000 08:20:19 +1100 NNTP-Posting-Host: 203.26.98.222 X-Complaints-To: abuse@telstra.net X-Trace: nsw.nnrp.telstra.net 951859248 203.26.98.222 (Wed, 01 Mar 2000 08:20:48 EST) NNTP-Posting-Date: Wed, 01 Mar 2000 08:20:48 EST Organization: Customer of Telstra Big Pond Direct Path: chonsp.franklin.ch!pfaff.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!news-ge.switch.ch!news.maxwell.syr.edu!intgwpad.nntp.telstra.net!nsw.nnrp.telstra.net!not-for-mail Xref: chonsp.franklin.ch alt.out-of-body:34630 On Mon, 28 Feb 2000 08:27:39 -0500, Janice wrote: >John Fitzsimons wrote: Hi Janice, < snip > >> People exist not only without a >> physical brain but without a physical body. If you were fully >> occupying the other body then your vocal expression, mannerisms, >> outlook etc. would often be evident, and vica versa. This change of >> "personality" would be considered by some to suggest that both >> people who owned the physical bodies were suffering from a multiple >> personality disorder. >Since I'm only imagining the external consciousness scenario anyway, >I'll try to accommodate your perspective for a moment and imagine souls >that survive death with their consciousness and memories intact. It >would not necessarily follow that such souls do not, in life, also >impress all their memories into their brains for additional support, This does tend to occur to some degree. In the manner of "thought-forms" and/or changes in the etheric vehicle. >in which case any invading soul should have access to those memories. >Depending on the relative strength or weakness of its own memories, The "dominant personality" is only superficially dictated by the relative strengths/weaknesses of each. This is due to a number of reasons. The outgoing personality can "allow" more control over their physical form. This is essentially the effective difference between a "light trance" medium and a "deep trance" one. One can have the ability to dominate their own physical vehicle but choose to temporarily let go of this control. >I would imagine that in time it could be almost totally absorbed. The degree that an entity stamps it's own personality on a physical body depends on a number of factors. The degree that an incoming entity has access to past memories also varies. In (spirit obsession/ possession) cases of MPD where an entity knows any of the "history" of the "host" it is often due to that incoming entity being around the person for some considerable time. Not because "memories", as such, are being accessed. Regards, John. -- **************************************************** ,-._|\ John Fitzsimons - Melbourne, Australia. / Oz \ johnf@melbpc.org.au, Fidonet 3:633/309 \_,--.x/ http://www.vicnet.net.au/~johnf/welcome.htm v http://www.alphalink.com.au/~johnf/ ###### Message-ID: <38BC4B7A.4DD5@not-here.net> From: Janice X-Mailer: Mozilla 3.01 (Win95; I) MIME-Version: 1.0 Newsgroups: alt.out-of-body Subject: Re: Mirror Mirror on the Wall ... References: <38B44DC8.7126@not-here.net> <38B4BD65.7C7C@not-here.net> <38B75752.700A@not-here.net> <38B96F9C.57C8@not-here.net> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Lines: 16 NNTP-Posting-Host: 207.103.34.8 X-Trace: tw11.nn.bcandid.com 951864130 207.103.34.8 (Tue, 29 Feb 2000 15:42:10 MST) NNTP-Posting-Date: Tue, 29 Feb 2000 15:42:10 MST Organization: bCandid - Powering the world's discussions - http://bCandid.com Date: Tue, 29 Feb 2000 22:42:10 GMT Path: chonsp.franklin.ch!pfaff.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!news-ge.switch.ch!isdnet!newsfeed.cwix.com!cyclone-east.rr.com!news.rr.com!news-east.rr.com!portc05.blue.aol.com!gw12.bcandid.com.MISMATCH!gw22.nn.bcandid.com!hub12.nn.bcandid.com!tw11.nn.bcandid.com.POSTED!not-for-mail Xref: chonsp.franklin.ch alt.out-of-body:34593 John Fitzsimons wrote: > > On Sun, 27 Feb 2000 18:39:35 GMT, Janice wrote: > > < snip > > > >You know, I did once read a book by someone with MPD who had > >some OBEs or LDs in which she could converse with her "selves". Maybe I > >can track down what it was called. > > If some of her "selves" were simply people in her aura then that would > hardly be very surprising. :-) If I remember right, she was eventually able to integrate her personality, so they probably were not. But she did think one of them was an angel. ###### Message-ID: <38BC7CE8.281E@not-here.net> From: Janice X-Mailer: Mozilla 3.01 (Win95; I) MIME-Version: 1.0 Newsgroups: alt.out-of-body Subject: Re: Mirror Mirror on the Wall ... References: <38B44DC8.7126@not-here.net> <38B4BD65.7C7C@not-here.net> <38B75752.700A@not-here.net> <38B7FB8B.81BF1272@privatei.com> <38B839D2.7F5D@not-here.net> <188kbsgnm28vsrvtko83cl3cbatajcn5dg@4ax.com> <38BA77CB.200E@not-here.net> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Lines: 56 NNTP-Posting-Host: 207.103.34.8 X-Trace: tw11.nn.bcandid.com 951876784 207.103.34.8 (Tue, 29 Feb 2000 19:13:04 MST) NNTP-Posting-Date: Tue, 29 Feb 2000 19:13:04 MST Organization: bCandid - Powering the world's discussions - http://bCandid.com Date: Wed, 01 Mar 2000 02:13:06 GMT Path: chonsp.franklin.ch!pfaff.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!news-ge.switch.ch!news.maxwell.syr.edu!europa.netcrusader.net!206.132.58.120!gw22.nn.bcandid.com!hub12.nn.bcandid.com!tw11.nn.bcandid.com.POSTED!not-for-mail Xref: chonsp.franklin.ch alt.out-of-body:34590 John Fitzsimons wrote: > > On Mon, 28 Feb 2000 08:27:39 -0500, Janice > wrote: > > >John Fitzsimons wrote: > > Hi Janice, > > < snip > Yeah, yeah. Just call you "Scissors," right? ;-) > >> People exist not only without a > >> physical brain but without a physical body. If you were fully > >> occupying the other body then your vocal expression, mannerisms, > >> outlook etc. would often be evident, and vica versa. This change of > >> "personality" would be considered by some to suggest that both > >> people who owned the physical bodies were suffering from a multiple > >> personality disorder. > > >Since I'm only imagining the external consciousness scenario anyway, > >I'll try to accommodate your perspective for a moment and imagine souls > >that survive death with their consciousness and memories intact. It > >would not necessarily follow that such souls do not, in life, also > >impress all their memories into their brains for additional support, > > This does tend to occur to some degree. In the manner of > "thought-forms" and/or changes in the etheric vehicle. > > >in which case any invading soul should have access to those memories. > >Depending on the relative strength or weakness of its own memories, > > The "dominant personality" is only superficially dictated by the > relative strengths/weaknesses of each. This is due to a number of > reasons. The outgoing personality can "allow" more control over their > physical form. This is essentially the effective difference between a > "light trance" medium and a "deep trance" one. One can have the > ability to dominate their own physical vehicle but choose to > temporarily let go of this control. How do they know how "temporarily" it will be? Doesn't sound like a good hobby to me. > >I would imagine that in time it could be almost totally absorbed. > > The degree that an entity stamps it's own personality on a physical > body depends on a number of factors. The degree that an incoming > entity has access to past memories also varies. In (spirit obsession/ > possession) cases of MPD where an entity knows any of the "history" > of the "host" it is often due to that incoming entity being around the > person for some considerable time. Not because "memories", as such, > are being accessed. Why would they be hanging around someone for so long? Wouldn't that get rather boring? ###### Message-ID: <38BC9A57.5A7BFF5@privatei.com> From: The Original Ken X-Mailer: Mozilla 4.02 [en]C-DIAL (Win95; U) MIME-Version: 1.0 Newsgroups: alt.out-of-body Subject: Re: Mirror Mirror on the Wall ... References: <38B44DC8.7126@not-here.net> <38B4BD65.7C7C@not-here.net> <38B75752.700A@not-here.net> <38B7FB8B.81BF1272@privatei.com> <38B839D2.7F5D@not-here.net> <38B877E9.94BB7682@privatei.com> <38B8CB53.62F8@not-here.net> <38B98443.F5D830F6@privatei.com> <38B98DD7.56A0@not-here.net> <38BB45A7.4DAE07E5@privatei.com> <38BC0A52.2658@not-here.net> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Lines: 105 Date: Tue, 29 Feb 2000 21:19:35 -0700 NNTP-Posting-Host: 204.131.176.154 X-Trace: wormhole.dimensional.com 951885078 204.131.176.154 (Tue, 29 Feb 2000 21:31:18 MST) NNTP-Posting-Date: Tue, 29 Feb 2000 21:31:18 MST Organization: Interlink Advertising Path: chonsp.franklin.ch!pfaff.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!news-ge.switch.ch!news.maxwell.syr.edu!hermes.visi.com!news-out.visi.com!pulsar.dimensional.com!dimensional.com!wormhole.dimensional.com!not-for-mail Xref: chonsp.franklin.ch alt.out-of-body:34601 Janice wrote: > The Original Ken wrote: > > > > Hmmm, that's interesting. I would have to say that during the OBE I still seemed to > > have retained my inquisitive nature and a few other aspects of my base personality. It > > was really just the memories more than anything that were totally replaced. But why did > > my usual memories totally vanish and why did these new ones come about without me having > > to really make a conscious effort to make them (as an actor would)? > > One possibility is that you weren't relying all that much on your > conscious mind, but instead absorbed in some subconscious creative or > autosuggestive process - sort of like when someone is hypnotized. I don't know what it's like to be hypnotized, but during this particular episode I was very conscious, quite able to make my own decisions and felt the full depth of being "alive". I not only had no memories of my real circumstance, but wasn't even aware that there was another circumstance to remember. 100% new person. > I've > had all sorts of false memories crop up in dreams, so this may have been > an extreme version of that phenomenon, a kind of rationalization by your > brain for the unusual context you found yourself in. It is a possibility. I had an OBE a couple of days ago about a woman I know that I learned was just diagnosed with cancer. I thought I might try and help her during an OBE in whatever way I could and surprisingly I was able to have an OBE the same night I was given the news (possible induction method implied here since I've been dry for about 2 months now). During the OBE however I thought she was in a hospital in Florida when I know for a fact that she is still in Colorado. I ended up flying to Florida in the OBE searching her out using whatever beacon I could at the time. I was unable to find her. Why I thought she might be in Florida is curious. It was an interesting OBE nonetheless and lasted a good hour or so. > In other words, > maybe you created a character to inhabit and didn't have access to your > regular memories for some reason, so your brain came up with enough of > them as needed to give you a comfortable sense of identity. One thing I didn't mention is that when I first arrived at this New England location after flying there from my bedroom, I had full consciousness and memory of my existence. It was during the OBE while I was at the location, that I lost my memory and became this new person. Although this very same phenomenon takes place in Alzheimer's where the patient remembers an old home she used to live in but has no knowledge of her current home. Still, it's different because the Alz patient relies on old memories where this is not the OBE. And of course in Alz there is neuron distruction which isn't the case during OBEs. > > > > > > I wouldn't want to constrain it to emotion, myself. Emotion seems to be > > > a body-based perception. I prefer to imagine the universal field as > > > just awareness, plain and simple. One of my favorite mental tricks is > > > to detach from my own emotions to a calm center that is always > > > peaceable, aware yet non-feeling, non-judgemental. > > > > On a few occasions I have had OBEs where I found myself seemingly able to comprehend > > vast amounts of unknowable knowledge via pure emotion rather than thought as if the > > language of higher understanding is emotion. I speculated once that the human form is > > limited in the number of emotions it knows, perhaps a dozen or so, but if this > > limitation is lifted, perhaps there a thousands or millions of emotions which define > > great concepts. This leads me to think that the field may be an emotion based > > phenomenon. > > My Vulcan ancestry is recoiling from the very prospect. HAHAHAHAHA!!! Good one. > > Also it does not seem to me as if emotion has temporal characteristics as > > does thought, nor does it have spatial characteristics. I think anything describing the > > "field" has to be free from both of these things. > > I think "awareness" would qualify by those standards. Awareness and emotion may be more closely related than I had originally thought. After all, if you void yourself of words, what is left but awareness and emotion. > > > > Just had a new thought. If the personal ego is a product of memory (among other things) > > and if during an OBE such as the one I had, I am presented with a whole new history and > > voided of the memories I had, yet was still able to retain my personal ego, then > > wouldn't this imply that people that suffer from MPD also retain their personal ego > > during personality changes? > > This may be a myth, but I think there's always supposed to be one > personality that has an integrated memory of what all the other > personalities do. Even if this is the case, then it leans even more toward supporting the case of retention of ego. > > And just as a bonus question, if memory isn't the > > mechanism that creates the unique personal ego as (several of the skeptics have suggested > it is) , then do we need to look for a new mechanism? > > Memory is certainly vital to maintaining your everyday ego. But since > we are robbed of a lot of our memories during ordinary dreaming due to > neurochemical changes, the relative deactivation of certain > memory-related areas of the brain, and the radical shift in context, yet > we still usually retain a sense of self, there must be more to it than > memory alone. I am being led to believe this as well. Now, what might those additional factors be? Ken ###### Message-ID: <38BD5BEC.279B@not-here.net> From: Janice X-Mailer: Mozilla 3.01 (Win95; I) MIME-Version: 1.0 Newsgroups: alt.out-of-body Subject: Re: Mirror Mirror on the Wall ... References: <38B44DC8.7126@not-here.net> <38B4BD65.7C7C@not-here.net> <38B75752.700A@not-here.net> <38B7FB8B.81BF1272@privatei.com> <38B839D2.7F5D@not-here.net> <38B877E9.94BB7682@privatei.com> <38B8CB53.62F8@not-here.net> <38B98443.F5D830F6@privatei.com> <38B98DD7.56A0@not-here.net> <38BB45A7.4DAE07E5@privatei.com> <38BC0A52.2658@not-here.net> <38BC9A57.5A7BFF5@privatei.com> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Lines: 139 NNTP-Posting-Host: 207.103.34.8 X-Trace: tw11.nn.bcandid.com 951933888 207.103.34.8 (Wed, 01 Mar 2000 11:04:48 MST) NNTP-Posting-Date: Wed, 01 Mar 2000 11:04:48 MST Organization: bCandid - Powering the world's discussions - http://bCandid.com Date: Wed, 01 Mar 2000 18:04:48 GMT Path: chonsp.franklin.ch!pfaff.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!newsfeed-zh.ip-plus.net!news.ip-plus.net!news.datacomm.ch!newscore.gigabell.net!news0.de.colt.net!colt.net!newsfeed.icl.net!newsfeed.icl.net!netnews.com!howland.erols.net!gate.bcandid.com.MISMATCH!gw12.nn.bcandid.com!gate.bCandid.com!hub22.nn.bcandid.com!hub12.nn.bcandid.com!tw11.nn.bcandid.com.POSTED!not-for-mail Xref: chonsp.franklin.ch alt.out-of-body:34594 The Original Ken wrote: > > Janice wrote: > > > The Original Ken wrote: > > > > > > Hmmm, that's interesting. I would have to say that during the OBE I still seemed to > > > have retained my inquisitive nature and a few other aspects of my base personality. It > > > was really just the memories more than anything that were totally replaced. But why did > > > my usual memories totally vanish and why did these new ones come about without me having > > > to really make a conscious effort to make them (as an actor would)? > > > > One possibility is that you weren't relying all that much on your > > conscious mind, but instead absorbed in some subconscious creative or > > autosuggestive process - sort of like when someone is hypnotized. > > I don't know what it's like to be hypnotized, but during this particular episode I was very > conscious, quite able to make my own decisions and felt the full depth of being "alive". I > not only had no memories of my real circumstance, but wasn't even aware that there was another > circumstance to remember. 100% new person. Oh, you don't have to go into a fog when you're in an autosuggestive state, including hypnosis; you're quite conscious, just role-playing very heavily to the point that anything that contradicts your current situation is more or less excluded from your awareness. It's fascinating to listen to a really good actor talk about how they become the role while they're playing it and can have a hard time thinking of or returning to their wakaday selves. But no one would accuse them of being anything less than fully conscious. Now, in a dream the situation is a bit different, because you haven't been working on the role and ingraining it into your mind; it just comes up spontaneously. But there are still similarities. Sounds like a fun thing to experiment with, actually - to see just how deeply one can get into dream role-playing. > > I've > > had all sorts of false memories crop up in dreams, so this may have been > > an extreme version of that phenomenon, a kind of rationalization by your > > brain for the unusual context you found yourself in. > > It is a possibility. I had an OBE a couple of days ago about a woman I know that I learned > was just diagnosed with cancer. I thought I might try and help her during an OBE in whatever > way I could and surprisingly I was able to have an OBE the same night I was given the news > (possible induction method implied here since I've been dry for about 2 months now). During > the OBE however I thought she was in a hospital in Florida when I know for a fact that she is > still in Colorado. I ended up flying to Florida in the OBE searching her out using whatever > beacon I could at the time. I was unable to find her. Why I thought she might be in Florida > is curious. It was an interesting OBE nonetheless and lasted a good hour or so. So you definitely have memory/lucidity lapses from time to time in your OBEs. Interesting. I certainly was tangled in a web of false memories in a nonlucid dream today, in which I was planning a trip to New York where I was going to meet Jayne Gackenbach, who was a manager for actors, and I hoped to get to see some filming. Plus I "remembered" that some home recordings I'd done one time had impressed a certain recording company ... it was quite a muddle, yet I truly thought I remembered all this nonsense. > > In other words, > > maybe you created a character to inhabit and didn't have access to your > > regular memories for some reason, so your brain came up with enough of > > them as needed to give you a comfortable sense of identity. > > One thing I didn't mention is that when I first arrived at this New England location after > flying there from my bedroom, I had full consciousness and memory of my existence. It was > during the OBE while I was at the location, that I lost my memory and became this new person. > Although this very same phenomenon takes place in Alzheimer's where the patient remembers an > old home she used to live in but has no knowledge of her current home. Still, it's different > because the Alz patient relies on old memories where this is not the OBE. And of course in > Alz there is neuron distruction which isn't the case during OBEs. So you became the person gradually, after arriving and wandering around the locale for a while. Would it be correct to assume that as you saw places, things and people, you seemed to know what and who they were? Or were you actually having thoughts on the order of, "I have to meet Sally tonight for dinner" and "Better go over to the shop around the corner because I need some bread"? > > > > > > > > I wouldn't want to constrain it to emotion, myself. Emotion seems to be > > > > a body-based perception. I prefer to imagine the universal field as > > > > just awareness, plain and simple. One of my favorite mental tricks is > > > > to detach from my own emotions to a calm center that is always > > > > peaceable, aware yet non-feeling, non-judgemental. > > > > > > On a few occasions I have had OBEs where I found myself seemingly able to comprehend > > > vast amounts of unknowable knowledge via pure emotion rather than thought as if the > > > language of higher understanding is emotion. I speculated once that the human form is > > > limited in the number of emotions it knows, perhaps a dozen or so, but if this > > > limitation is lifted, perhaps there a thousands or millions of emotions which define > > > great concepts. This leads me to think that the field may be an emotion based > > > phenomenon. > > > > My Vulcan ancestry is recoiling from the very prospect. > > HAHAHAHAHA!!! Good one. > > > > Also it does not seem to me as if emotion has temporal characteristics as > > > does thought, nor does it have spatial characteristics. I think anything describing the > > > "field" has to be free from both of these things. > > > > I think "awareness" would qualify by those standards. > > Awareness and emotion may be more closely related than I had originally thought. After all, > if you void yourself of words, what is left but awareness and emotion. What can be really fun is to sort of detach your awareness from your own verbal thinking as you're falling asleep, and listen to your mind come up with a stream-of-consciousness saga. > > > Just had a new thought. If the personal ego is a product of memory (among other things) > > > and if during an OBE such as the one I had, I am presented with a whole new history and > > > voided of the memories I had, yet was still able to retain my personal ego, then > > > wouldn't this imply that people that suffer from MPD also retain their personal ego > > > during personality changes? > > > > This may be a myth, but I think there's always supposed to be one > > personality that has an integrated memory of what all the other > > personalities do. > > Even if this is the case, then it leans even more toward supporting the case of retention of > ego. Yes. > > > And just as a bonus question, if memory isn't the > > > mechanism that creates the unique personal ego as (several of the skeptics have suggested > > it is) , then do we need to look for a new mechanism? > > > > Memory is certainly vital to maintaining your everyday ego. But since > > we are robbed of a lot of our memories during ordinary dreaming due to > > neurochemical changes, the relative deactivation of certain > > memory-related areas of the brain, and the radical shift in context, yet > > we still usually retain a sense of self, there must be more to it than > > memory alone. > > I am being led to believe this as well. Now, what might those additional factors be? Well, there may be a kind of personal awareness or sense of being that doesn't really require memories in order to exist, only to shape it. ###### From: John Fitzsimons Newsgroups: alt.out-of-body Subject: Re: Mirror Mirror on the Wall ... Date: Sun, 05 Mar 2000 22:51:58 +1100 Organization: Optus Internet Lines: 51 Message-ID: <04g4cskvqvnvb493ge3amee3d9icsnchal@4ax.com> References: <38B44DC8.7126@not-here.net> <38B4BD65.7C7C@not-here.net> <38B75752.700A@not-here.net> <38B7FB8B.81BF1272@privatei.com> <38B839D2.7F5D@not-here.net> <188kbsgnm28vsrvtko83cl3cbatajcn5dg@4ax.com> <38BA77CB.200E@not-here.net> <38BC7CE8.281E@not-here.net> NNTP-Posting-Host: ocmax7-152.dialup.optusnet.com.au Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-Trace: news1.mpx.com.au 952257014 29288 198.142.40.152 (5 Mar 2000 11:50:14 GMT) X-Complaints-To: abuse@optusnet.com.au NNTP-Posting-Date: 5 Mar 2000 11:50:14 GMT X-Posting-Agent: Hamster/1.3.13.0 X-Newsreader: Forte Agent 1.8/32.542 Path: chonsp.franklin.ch!pfaff.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!news-ge.switch.ch!news.maxwell.syr.edu!newsfeed.berkeley.edu!intgwpad.nntp.telstra.net!news1.optus.net.au!optus!news.mpx.com.au!not-for-mail Xref: chonsp.franklin.ch alt.out-of-body:35051 On Wed, 01 Mar 2000 02:13:06 GMT, Janice wrote: >John Fitzsimons wrote: >> On Mon, 28 Feb 2000 08:27:39 -0500, Janice >> wrote: < snip > >> >in which case any invading soul should have access to those memories. >> >Depending on the relative strength or weakness of its own memories, >> The "dominant personality" is only superficially dictated by the >> relative strengths/weaknesses of each. This is due to a number of >> reasons. The outgoing personality can "allow" more control over their >> physical form. This is essentially the effective difference between a >> "light trance" medium and a "deep trance" one. One can have the >> ability to dominate their own physical vehicle but choose to >> temporarily let go of this control. >How do they know how "temporarily" it will be? How long someone is in trance is dependent on the discarnate people involved, the medium and the physical person whose job it is to keep an eye on the medium and ensure that things are done correctly < snip > >> In (spirit obsession/ >> possession) cases of MPD where an entity knows any of the "history" >> of the "host" it is often due to that incoming entity being around the >> person for some considerable time. Not because "memories", as such, >> are being accessed. >Why would they be hanging around someone for so long? Wouldn't that get >rather boring? It can do but when one isn't physical any longer the perception of time can vary. Many years can seem like a short period while many minutes can seem like a very long time. Boredom is only one of a number of "problems" that someone who is earthbound has. Not necessarily the worst. Regards, John. -- **************************************************** ,-._|\ John Fitzsimons - Melbourne, Australia. / Oz \ johnf@melbpc.org.au, Fidonet 3:633/309 \_,--.x/ http://www.vicnet.net.au/~johnf/welcome.htm v http://www.alphalink.com.au/~johnf/