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I believe in the supernatural, although I think it may one day be able to be explained in natural terms. I believe physics and spirituality are one and the same, but we currently have a dualistic view of our world.
Experiences that lead me to believe in the supernatural:
I can tell when someone is in the room or comes up to me even though I can't see or hear them. Yes, sometimes I can feel their footsteps or smell their perfume or natural scent, but even when I don't have those cues, I can still feel their presence.
I can't read minds per se, but I'm very in tune to people's emotions and sometimes their thoughts too, if the thoughts are powerful enough. Examples that come to mind are when my dog really has to pee and when my wife is really angry. Mind you, I'm not reading body language or tone of voice as I'm totally blind and almost completely deaf.
I have a strong intuition, for example, today I had a strong feeling that I should take an alternate route. It turns out there was major construction on my regular route.
If I'm relaxed and focus hard enough, I can see people's auras in my mind's eye. I can usually vaguely feel them over the Internet too, but not as well as if they're in the same room.
I've had an OBE experience. I was wide awake during all of it, so it wasn't related to sleep paralysis.
I am not doubting that there might be scientific explanations for these phenomena that we just don't know about. But regardless of the origin or explanation, I find these events to be very real to me, and have talked to others who have had the same or similar experiences.
That was a great video! I have studied a little bit about the stages of sleep in Psych 101 but that course did not go into any detail about this phenomenon. Maybe the one I am doing now will, I really hope so, if not I will do my own private research on it because I suffered for so long with this. It doesn't happen so much now but occasionally when I am very tired I will hear my name called or other noises. This thread has really helped me because these experiences were the only thing that had me clinging to the idea of the supernatural. They were the reason I got into tarot and all of that other stuff because I was looking for an answer. I feel kind of stupid that I am 2 years into a psychology degree and I only put 2 and 2 together now.
I think the supernatural has an incredible sense of worth to consider it's being in the public eye, and the trust for the fame virtues of how society reads it to really BE the way of... take our Lady of Fatima; an ordinary failure of the society he is in couldn't have been questioned to have that kind of analogous experience.
But I do believe in the existence of supernatural and discoverable events.
The study you posted is not accessible without paying for it but I have access to academic data bases so I will look for studies on this, I would not consider wikipedia a credible source. The term projective catalepsy implies that the sensation is purely a biological anomaly that occurs within the brain thereby proving it not to be a supernatural experience. I will do some research on this when I have time and let you know what is really going on. I am actually studying neuroanatomy right now so I have all of the text books right here. Oh and just so you know, a basic truth of any scientific research is that correlation does not imply causation. In fact in this case it just means that there is a tendency for both experiences to occur in the same individual. This would suggest to me that the biological cause for both sensations is located in the same area of the brain or very close.
Well, I'm finding other stuff about this same thing and even though this came from wiki... looks like a credible source to me, but then again I'm not paying $20 to look at two pages.
Here's another article that talks about the same thing:
"Some of the experiences people have reported during sleep paralysis are: "I feel completely removed from myself," "feeling of being separated from my body," "eerie, rushing experiences," and hearing "hissing in the ears," and "roaring in the head." These events appear to be much like the OBE sensations of vibrations, strange noises, and drifting away from the physical body (Everett, 1983)."
One thing you need to know is this... we cannot perceive spiritual things with our material minds... and this makes sense when you think about it ... because the laws of the spirit are different than the laws of the material and, hence, the problem with science trying to figure it out.
It seems to me since this is such a widespread phenomena... people are becoming spiritually awakened. Take a look at the poll numbers at the beginning of this thread. When it was first posted, it was 3 to 1 against believing in anything supernatural... now those numbers have shifted.
This does not have to mean God. It can include karma, reincarnation, spirits, impersonal supernatural forces (like the Tao), magic, and so forth. It can also include the elements of Western religion like God, Miracles, Heaven, and Hell. I'm not voting in this poll to avoid biasing, etc.
I think most atheists here are rational-materialist or metaphysical naturalist (fancy way of saying "No God and also nothing supernatural of any kind.") but I thought I'd put this up there in case I'm wrong.
My answer is, "No, but I'd sure like to." I think that things like ghosts would be a lot of fun. I'm a big horror fan in general. But I don't believe those things exist, as much as I'd like them to. My fantastical desires just do not lead to beliefs (or I'd believe I can fly, turn invisible, that every woman wanted to make love to me, and all kinds of other things).
So far this thread is like 90% no so I'm thinking I worded it wrong as the God one was not so lopsided.
Yeah, that can be an annoying issue--trying to figure out how to word this question so that people do not give you Asperger's like answers. What I'd usually say is something like, "Do you believe in anything that is conventionally considered 'supernatural'?" . . . although even that can have problems, as then folks start arguing about whether particular things are conventionally considered "supernatural". It's almost impossible to avoid some people being difficult, lol.
I am just like doubting Thomas....I have to see some evidence before I'm going to believe in it wholeheartedly. I believe it is just down right silly to believe in things that have never been proven.
Almost everything I believe in has never been proved. I could be wrong that there is an external world, even. No way to prove that there is . . . I just do not worry about proofs.
Well, I'm finding other stuff about this same thing and even though this came from wiki... looks like a credible source to me, but then again I'm not paying $20 to look at two pages.
Here's another article that talks about the same thing:
"Some of the experiences people have reported during sleep paralysis are: "I feel completely removed from myself," "feeling of being separated from my body," "eerie, rushing experiences," and hearing "hissing in the ears," and "roaring in the head." These events appear to be much like the OBE sensations of vibrations, strange noises, and drifting away from the physical body (Everett, 1983)."
One thing you need to know is this... we cannot perceive spiritual things with our material minds... and this makes sense when you think about it ... because the laws of the spirit are different than the laws of the material and, hence, the problem with science trying to figure it out.
It seems to me since this is such a widespread phenomena... people are becoming spiritually awakened. Take a look at the poll numbers at the beginning of this thread. When it was first posted, it was 3 to 1 against believing in anything supernatural... now those numbers have shifted.
You obviously didn't look at the video Sanspeur posted and what amused me more is that you didn't even read your own article that you posted. It clearly shows that there is no evidence that these experiences are anything more than dreams in fact it draws the conclusion that they are little more than a wonderful little trip into the imagination. It was only a qualitative research anyway, no real data or analysis in it.
A quote from the article you posted...
Quote:
During a WILD, or sleep paralysis, the awake and alert mind
keeps up its good work of showing us the world it expects is out
there -- although it can no longer sense it. So, then we are in a
mental-dream-world. Possibly we feel the cessation of the
sensation of gravity as that part of sensory input shuts down,
and then feel that we are suddenly lighter and float up, rising
from the place where we know our real body to be lying still. The
room around us looks about the same, because that is our brain's
best guess about where we are. If we did not know that we had just fallen asleep, we might well think that we were awake, still
in touch with the physical world, and that something mighty
strange was happening -- a departure of the mind from the
physical body!
If indeed this sleep disorder is widespread, what does that have to do with any spiritual awakening? Have you any evidence that instances of this disorder are increasing in number? People are not becoming more "spiritually awakened", what on earth are you basing this statement on? It's a blanket statement with no substance to it designed to give your argument more credibility. And a poll on city data does not make a good argument either. Show me some real numbers from some properly conducted research and you might have something resembling an argument. Regardless of the outcome of this or any other poll, popularity does not indicate truth.
You seem to be forgetting that I suffered from this myself and totally thought that the hallucinations/dreams were supernatural until I looked at the research just in these last few days. I am speaking from my own experience here. I can see this from both sides and I know what makes more sense. Maybe the difference is that I am being taught at university to look at things a lot more critically and my mind is open enough to seriously look for the truth, not just try to confirm what I wish to be true.
You seem to be forgetting that I suffered from this myself and totally thought that the hallucinations/dreams were supernatural until I looked at the research just in these last few days. I am speaking from my own experience here. I can see this from both sides and I know what makes more sense. Maybe the difference is that I am being taught at university to look at things a lot more critically and my mind is open enough to seriously look for the truth, not just try to confirm what I wish to be true.
This tends to confirm my belief that it is the dominance of the left brain that interrupts our sensitivity to the right brain aspects of our reality. Our sensory system delimits our reality convincingly . . . but it records and senses less than 5% of our reality (baryonic content). Finding the "happy medium" (pun intended) between the two ways of experiencing our reality will be more and more difficult as our left brain dominance proceeds apace. Very sad.
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