The Paranormal

[RMQualtrough]

Plane works - the brain cannot observe itself, or exist in the plane it builds.

That's entirely true, and a big fucking issue I have with psychologists. Neurologists and Psychiatrists are better, since they don't play pretend about it.

I personally feel psychology, counseling, and therapy is a scam field. Trying to change a physical organ with magic words seems akin to trying to fix a broken leg with voodoo.

I'm not even sure of this. What the fuck even is survival? If our present reality is just a thing our brain is creating, what are we "surviving?" Would it not in fact be better to die and thus be in Reality Prime?

Then of course, you would think things like how long most of humanity spent perpetually hopped up on shrooms and alcohol for literal millennia would have led to mass death, and yet somehow, it hasn't.

Minor powerlevel for a bit.... I used to know this guy. One weekend, me and some buds were staying at his house, and the guy started playing Contra III--a game he notoriously sucked at, and we saw his suckage in action.

Then he decided to get himself hopped up on benadryl and start hallucinating.... and while high, decided to play Contra III again.... and shockingly, he was suddenly kicking the game's ass. He even managed to reach the last boss.

When the high ended, he described the game to us but the scenes he thought he was playing were nothing like what we actually witnessed.

To this day it makes me question reality.

4-AcO-DMT (mushroom analog) made me perform incredibly on Call of Duty. The less paths a certain signal has to travel, perhaps the better it is for things like this. Contra is also a lot of quick snap judgements. Thinking has a high latency, while reflex and instinct is immediate and pre-logical.

His subconscious mind was playing the game while his conscious mind was off in cloud cuckoo land.

I find it very weird that there is an intelligent and aware portion of ourselves we don't have access to like that. You can communicate with it in dreams, as it is the dream characters who talk to you without any conscious input from you.

 

[Sailor Kim Jong Moon]

4-AcO-DMT (mushroom analog) made me perform incredibly on Call of Duty. The less paths a certain signal has to travel, perhaps the better it is for things like this. Contra is also a lot of quick snap judgements. Thinking has a high latency, while reflex and instinct is immediate and pre-logical.

His subconscious mind was playing the game while his conscious mind was off in cloud cuckoo land.

I find it very weird that there is an intelligent and aware portion of ourselves we don't have access to like that. You can communicate with it in dreams, as it is the dream characters who talk to you without any conscious input from you.

This is going to be a weird power level.

I experienced a family member’s death a year ago. It was a child suicide. The funeral was really hard.

I am NOT schizo. I don’t hear voices. I’m really normal.

However, the week after the funeral, I had incredibly complex auditory hallucinations.

I began working out in my garage - listening to upbeat music. I thought I heard someone outside the garage. The voice was a happy female voice that described detailed people and actions. It was thoroughly creative and highly, highly disturbing.

If you had given me an assignment to write a horror movie scene, I would not have been able to come up with the scenario the hallucination did. And immediately prior to this hallucination, I was listening to happy 90s country. (My guilty pleasure.)

It seemed so sentient and apart from myself that I could not believe it was created by my own mind. I immediately called a psychiatrist who said it was a result of grief and stress from the funeral I had just got back from.

Still, apart of me thinks it was just a demon or some other entity. The other part of me wonders how the brain - just the organ itself - could be so creative and coherent and complex without the input of consciousness or a “soul”.

I’ve not had any other hallucinations since and I don’t want to.

 

[FedPostalService]

owever, the week after the funeral, I had incredibly complex auditory hallucinations.

That’s called grief. It can hit people in weird ways and we really don’t talk about it in the west.

I’m really sorry to hear about your loss. I can’t imagine how horrific it is to deal with the loss of a young family member like that.

 

[Shadfan666xxx000]

I began working out in my garage - listening to upbeat music. I thought I heard someone outside the garage. The voice was a happy female voice that described detailed people and actions. It was thoroughly creative and highly, highly disturbing.

My brother went through something like this where he said he met the devil. He was a smooth, dark skinned black man with the most beautiful and deep voice you could ever imagine. He met this entity in similar circumstances to how you met yours even, right after a funeral for a family member. It seems that tragic deaths usually involve these things. What did she say to you exactly?

 

[Flan Handler]

Hearing about auditory hallucinations and the entities that show up on drug trips reminds me of a few enduring ideas that stay with me.

1. Julian Jaynes’ bicameral mind theory, where basically he suggests human consciousness developed from the right side of the brain ordering around the left side of the brain, and being interpreted as the voice of gods or kings by early humans. Consciousness, or human volition as we know it appeared 1000 bc-ish, so it’s a recent development.

Spoiler: Jaynes’ bicameral mind

According to Jaynes, prior to the emergence of consciousness, the human mind was bicameral i.e., it was split into two parts: a decision-making part and a follower part. Importantly, neither one of these separate parts was conscious. For simple actions, bicameral people were creatures of habit, following well-established routines and patterns of behaviour. Every so often, however, a situation would arise for which routines and habits were not sufficient. In these situations the decision-making part of the mind was recruited. This would direct behaviour by issuing an auditory command. Crucially, these commands were not regarded as self-generated. Instead, bicameral people experienced them as being issued by an external agent. For Jaynes, this property of the bicameral mind explains the origin of gods in human societies—humans regarded these auditory hallucinations as the words of their god(s).

2. Jerry Marzinsky, the state prison/hospital psychologist who interacted with hundreds of schizophrenics and eventually started asking some questions about the voices they all hear. Fascinating stuff. He believes there are external entities responsible for some of what we call schizophrenia. In his experience, meth was the the worst drug for initiating the negative entity experiences.

Spoiler: Long interview with Jerry M

These are just a few interesting ideas about how our brains might work, and that it might not all be in our heads.

 

[Sailor Kim Jong Moon]

My brother went through something like this where he said he met the devil. He was a smooth, dark skinned black man with the most beautiful and deep voice you could ever imagine. He met this entity in similar circumstances to how you met yours even, right after a funeral for a family member. It seems that tragic deaths usually involve these things. What did she say to you exactly?

Upbeat lady began talking about a little girl named Emma with a mother Renee. (I don’t know anyone named Renee.) The nice lady began to explain that Emma was “having issues with her mental health” and her mother brought her to the ER. They didn’t have a psych bed available - so the little girl had to stay in the ER for seven days before transfer. The voice sounded so normal. Even embarrassed to mention the little girl’s mental health as it hesitated.

At that point, I was 100% convinced it was my neighbor and standing near my garage talking to someone else. It didn’t sound like my neighbor - but my neighbor was a nice white lady. So, it fit.

I thought wow, what a coincidence. I just got back from a funeral. I was even thinking of ways to help - like maybe I could offer to bring to the trash to the road for the neighbors if they wanted to go and support their family friend. I remember thinking “is it odd, or is it God?”

And it seems like the moment I invoked “God” the voice got a lot darker. And sense of embarrassment or social norms left. Still upbeat white lady voice. It actually laughed and said

“oh, yeah! And did you hear about John’s brother? He was in a psychiatric ward, too. Yeah; he managed to get a furniture screw out of his psych bed. He used it to rip out his own throat! Haha!”

At that point, I was backing away from voice to the garage door. And I felt like something was seriously not right. Still thought the voice was a real person though. I ran out the door to the front yard and there was no one there. The neighbors cars weren’t even there. They weren’t even home. Just a totally empty street.

 

[Shadfan666xxx000]

@Sailor Kim Jong Moon well that doesn't sound quite like the devil. Good thing you dodged that bullet.

 

[Sailor Kim Jong Moon]

@Sailor Kim Jong Moon well that doesn't sound quite like the devil. Good thing you dodged that bullet.

It definitely FELT sentient. As if something was pulling me in with a sob story to pull the rug and shock me. And of course, how the hell does the subconscious mind act creatively without awareness? I never would’ve come up with the names and scenarios the voice did with my conscious mind.

It seriously makes me question consciousness. Or just chalk it up to the paranormal like I’m sure mankind has done for thousands of years.

 

[Shadfan666xxx000]

It definitely FELT sentient. As if something was pulling me in with a sob story to pull the rug and shock me. And of course, how the hell does the subconscious mind act creatively without awareness? I never would’ve come up with the names and scenarios the voice did with my conscious mind.

It seriously makes me question consciousness. Or just chalk it up to the paranormal like I’m sure mankind has done for thousands of years.

It's been very well established since the very beginning of psychology that our consciousness is simply the very tip top of our minds experiences and understanding. It's basically the GUI of the wider operating system that comprises the mind itself with all sorts of underlying processes and nodes working independently and ultimately really just relaying them through the consciousness for final approval and justification. The conscious itself does surprisingly little in the brainspace if you don't train it and become aware of what it really does.
As for paranormal answers, that thing was certainly malicious. It could be some kind of a weird piece of your brain speaking to you but I wouldn't write out some kind of spirit. It might have been some kind of demon or even a fae if we really want to dive into that kind of talk. In that case, your mind actually saved you by invoking God.

 

[Sailor Kim Jong Moon]

It's been very well established since the very beginning of psychology that our consciousness is simply the very tip top of our minds experiences and understanding. It's basically the GUI of the wider operating system that comprises the mind itself with all sorts of underlying processes and nodes working independently and ultimately really just relaying them through the consciousness for final approval and justification. The conscious itself does surprisingly little in the brainspace if you don't train it and become aware of what it really does.
As for paranormal answers, that thing was certainly malicious. It could be some kind of a weird piece of your brain speaking to you but I wouldn't write out some kind of spirit. It might have been some kind of demon or even a fae if we really want to dive into that kind of talk. In that case, your mind actually saved you by invoking God.

On the flip side, I’ve heard accounts of people under extreme survival situations or extreme emotional stress hallucinate voices that are helpful.

A voice that tells the lost mountain climber to do or not do something. A woman who is about to commit suicide due to marriage infidelity and then hallucinates a voice telling her otherwise.

One of the more interesting accounts is a swimmer in the ocean hallucinating a command voice to “get out of the water.” He didn’t understand why he heard and felt uneasy so ignored it to only be attacked by a shark soon after. I theorize the guy may have felt the vibrations of the shark nearby and his primal brain activated before his conscious mind could catch up. Which demonstrates the subconscious working without awareness.

This would all fit the theory of the bicameral mind - which is an interesting read.

Although, not exactly paranormal.

@Flan Handler I also do find that prison psychiatrist (Jerry Marzinsky) to be really interesting and wild. Pretty sure he’s buddies with another academic that got into a crazy meth addiction and began having wild auditory hallucinations. He claims the hallucinations correctly “guessed” a password he asked his friend to reset so he could test the knowledge of the voices. The password was something like “password123” so I was not impressed. His buddy has some good schizocow tendencies and they invoke the paranormal/demons all the time. If I had time I’d find the video and post it.

 

[skykiii]

4-AcO-DMT (mushroom analog) made me perform incredibly on Call of Duty. The less paths a certain signal has to travel, perhaps the better it is for things like this. Contra is also a lot of quick snap judgements. Thinking has a high latency, while reflex and instinct is immediate and pre-logical.

His subconscious mind was playing the game while his conscious mind was off in cloud cuckoo land.

I find it very weird that there is an intelligent and aware portion of ourselves we don't have access to like that. You can communicate with it in dreams, as it is the dream characters who talk to you without any conscious input from you.

In other words, Ultra Instinct is real.

But this makes me almost want to perform an experiment, and see how someone handles, say, a turn-based strategy game while on a benadryl bender. If they would suddenly be amazing at that as well, or if they would crash and burn.

.............

Noticing a lot of devil talk. I've mentioned it before but I met the devil in a dream once. He took the form of a moon or planet that was being held up by a tree (with branches standing in for hands). In the dream I was like "let me guess, you're gonna offer me something in exchange for my soul?" but Satan said "Actually, for your purposes, you're better off with God."

Heard several interpretations of that one in the past.

Here's a dream experience I think leans more towards the literal paranormal though: I had a dream where some shadowy creatures were coming into my room. However, I was fighting them off with the power of things that were sacred to me, and actually kicking ass. One of them tries a hail mary effort, and I wake up. As soon as I do, I hear a tap on a table near my bed: a garden spider had somehow landed or been dropped on it.

My instant thought was that the creature was attempting to become physical "reality" but the best it could manage was a part of it taking the form of this harmless (if big and scary by spider standards) arachnid. Which I just trapped in a cup and threw outside. A friend of mine though thinks this is likely a coincidence--the spider just happened to already be there and somehow made a noise. I think the timing is too uncanny though.

 

[Kung Pow]

The more I think about this paranormal stuff, the more I start to believe that what we really are is some kind of pattern in a grid, you might even call it a spirit or soul. Consider information like memes and simulated life, under the hood they are all just 0s and 1s, but, unlike us, their consistency isn't flesh or cells but data. They 'swim' across this virtual grid without ever having a persistent part to call its own, in fact this transformation might even be inseparable from what it really is in essence. The same could be said of us, the cells or atoms in our body might not be the same as the ones from when we were a baby, yet we have the natural concept of a self, I was that baby regardless of the changes.

If life as we know it exists in a 'grid', than how many more parallel, superior, inferior or co-located 'grids' might exist? What other consistencies can life have beyond our own? One could say that our minds are a kind of separated 'grid' that is connected with other 'grids' through a root cause, those being the natural forces that imbue in us those qualities of being vessels of very peculiar and alien life. Ghosts, spirits, angels and demons might not be external, but something that exists as potential patterns inside the natural forces.
If one day we master the creation of biological life, one mad scientist could give flesh to a demon or angel in his head, migrating it from a grid to another.

Sorry for the sperg posting.

 

[Spergerella Junior]

I will post later a written account by my father of a paranormal experience. Just need to dig up the file.

Til then, does anyone have thoughts on the paranormal in relation to creativity? For example, have you had an odd experience you feel lead to a burst of writing or painting or some other productive activity?

 

[Archeops]

Here's a dream experience I think leans more towards the literal paranormal though: I had a dream where some shadowy creatures were coming into my room.

Can you describe how these creatures looked outside of them being "shadowy"? Paranormal entities, regardless or origin or whether or not they're benign/beneficial/malevolent, can take on a shadow-like form due to it being one of the easier forms to manifest as.

However, I was fighting them off with the power of things that were sacred to me, and actually kicking ass.

This is somewhat standard for malevolent entities but people (especially those who are sensitive to the paranormal like mediums and psychics and aren't well-trained in their abilities) will often use basic prayer and sacred verses to push away paranormal entities in general when they get overwhelmed by whatever is happening to varying effects.

Oh, and as an aside to anyone experiencing paranormal phenomena in their homes: bring in a psychic medium if you can. They can give you insight on what exactly is causing it and give advice on how to deal with it.

One of them tries a hail mary effort, and I wake up. As soon as I do, I hear a tap on a table near my bed: a garden spider had somehow landed or been dropped on it.

This is somewhat worrying because some forms of insect infestations, especially vermin-related ones like flies or cockroaches, can be demonic in origin if no other natural explanation can be found.

But since this was just a single spider I doubt there was anything paranormal about it, especially if you were able to take it out of your house without issue and the event never happened again.

My instant thought was that the creature was attempting to become physical "reality" but the best it could manage was a part of it taking the form of this harmless (if big and scary by spider standards) arachnid.

Malevolent entities (or, to be more precise, demons and human spirits operating at that level) prefer manipulation tactics like affecting a person's mood/mental state, breaking apart an individual's relationship with friends and family, making people do things they wouldn't otherwise do via suggestion and temptation, and outright bodily possession. What could've happened, if the spider's appearance is paranormal in nature, is that the creature possessed it for a short while.

But since the spider, as far as I know, wasn't outright aggressive to you when picking it up and tossing it outside I'm still leaning towards it being a coincidence.

If one day we master the creation of biological life, one mad scientist could give flesh to a demon or angel in his head, migrating it from a grid to another.

That's something I've thought about every now and then and it basically boiled down to me saying that it should've happened already due to the advances we've made in cloning. A demon, angel, or other spiritual entity shouldn't give a shit about the kind of body it's presented so long as it can do what it wants or needs to do and it doesn't violate whatever "morals" or lack thereof that entity has.

But that last part is the devil in the details. A demon actively wants to damn the souls of the living and cause as much chaos as possible and the easiest way to do that is by breaking down people until they either start killing other people and/or themselves.

 

[Ewan McGregor]

Ultra Instinct

There is a primal, almost paranormal, ability to sense evil and danger that is these day muffled out by us being conditioned to avoid being prejudiced, judgemental and such towards other people, so people is more vulnerable than in the past.

But there are some people that you just want to avoid and, if you feel that, you must comply.

It's something that it's beyond avoiding somebody because of beliefs, race or whatever. It's a primal urge to keep that person far away, because their presence feels inherently dirty and dangerous. It is a very individual characteristic from the person even if the person shows traits that you can trace to other people to whom you might hold similar feelings.

And it usually happen that, when you feel this towards a person, it comes with a huge cognitive dissonance. Because you're not feeling this towards somebody obviously unhinged, troubled, evil or unpredictable, like a rambling homeless person or a Chris-chan/Jacob Sockness type, or a well-known and open criminal.

This is something that you will usually feel towards people who are otherwise normal and unassuming or even well-respected members of the community, people who are well-loved and whom showing antagonism towards would raise eyebrows.

But that last part is the devil in the details. A demon actively wants to damn the souls of the living and cause as much chaos as possible and the easiest way to do that is by breaking down people until they either start killing other people and/or themselves.

This. Demons will rarely reveal themselves as demons, otherwise the game is off.

I think I had a few run-ins with them, also in very ambiguous situations such as dreams and such.

 

[Male Idiot]

Your understanding of things is warped by the unique way that your brain "forms" it - in normal circumstances, the information is processed in a different order, to come to the same conclusion.

This maybe true in a linguistic sense, according to some fringe theories by local linguists.
They make the theory that language and culture shape thinking patterns, thus leading to different countries having different approaches to thinking and problem solving that goes beyond a mere cultural ethos.

But there are some people that you just want to avoid and, if you feel that, you must comply.

I don't know. I get along with people, but gypsies always make me have an internal fight or flight response, and they don't seem to like me either. And I am a good social chamaleon so I doubt my face screams "gas camp bow" and they pick up on it. Could just be the magic of racism.

 

[Doctor Love]

They make the theory that language and culture shape thinking patterns, thus leading to different countries having different approaches to thinking and problem solving that goes beyond a mere cultural ethos.

They do and it's part of it - but Britain is somewhat unique, except for some neighbouring countries like Germany, in that it has an unusual tolerance for weird shit. It isn't just linguistics.

Try to think of an equivalent to the concept of "the Eccentric" outside of Europe. That is, a proper noun to describe the universally tolerated, often well-known and sometimes extremely productive weirdos.

America inherited this trait, too, but it's something which barely exists outside of English culture - and something which is directly tied to both and their dominance on the world stage.

It flat-out doesn't exist elsewhere. "Cringe culture" is a primarily none-white activity, since the Anglo-American response to cringey behaviour is to bust out laughing.

I don't know. I get along with people, but gypsies always make me have an internal fight or flight response, and they don't seem to like me either. And I am a good social chamaleon so I doubt my face screams "gas camp bow" and they pick up on it. Could just be the magic of racism.

It is actually the magic of racism. If they're anything like Pakis, they can pick up on the attention that you give them.

They expect people will deliberately look away, so if you actually pay attention to them, they become uncomfortable. It is rather similar to gorillas, or dogs.

 

[Count Grishnackh]

Have you ever known people who are so negative, spiteful, and hateful that their presence just repulses you? Like literally makes you want to stay away from them, and feel drained when you have to be around them. What's interesting is to see their reaction, when put in the same room with someone who is extremely positive, and uplifting. Watch them cringe, clam up, get highly annoyed, or just leave. It's amazing the effects that the energies surrounding us can have.

 

[skykiii]

If life as we know it exists in a 'grid', than how many more parallel, superior, inferior or co-located 'grids' might exist?

One of those grids might enable a form of change. You might call it a Morphing Grid.

Can you describe how these creatures looked outside of them being "shadowy"?

Unfortunately I did not really get a good look at it. It just seemed like a kind of shadow.

This is somewhat standard for malevolent entities but people (especially those who are sensitive to the paranormal like mediums and psychics and aren't well-trained in their abilities) will often use basic prayer and sacred verses to push away paranormal entities in general when they get overwhelmed by whatever is happening to varying effects.

So here's the part that's not-so-standard:

When I said "things sacred to me," it wasn't religious versus... I remember calling on, like, cartoon and video game characters. And for some reason, this worked.

When I tell people the story, I tend to leave that part out because yeah, it can sound really silly that I fought back demons with what some would term "the power of consumerism." To me though it kinda makes sense in a way, because things only have as much meaning as what you give them--especially in a half-asleep state. And I do think stuff that is way more personal to me has more "power" than, say, some ancient Babylonian glyph from the Necronomicon that I only know about because some old book says is special.

I wonder if it works the other way as well though--I imagine a Babylonian spirit would respect the Babylonian symbol more, but the spirit of some prankster child who died in the 1980s might legit be more terrified of the Sword of Omens.

........................................................

So incidentally, I had another pseudo-experience.

The other day I was watching videos and thought about creating my own cryptid. I wound up drawing my idea of what a "fae" might look like if they were real and closer to the more scary interpretations (in practice though I wound up with this woman with a bit of a zig-zag mouth, so I guess one of those crooked smile type ghost women).

Later that day I needed a nap and lay down. I didn't even realize I had gone to sleep when I thought I heard my mom, which surprised me as my mom wasn't here that day... and she sounded like she was cackling like a witch (the sound had a definite direction to it to, like I could tell you what room it sounded like it was coming from). I tried to call for her but immediately had sleep paralysis, though I soon woke up.

It was more "weird" than "scary" (in general I don't get scared easily) but I almost immediately wondered if my drawing a made-up cryptid somehow caused this experience.

 

[Spergerella Junior]

Okay, sadly I cannot find my father’s typed up account of his childhood homes supposed haunting. I’ll have to scour an old hard drive some other time. But I will try to summarize his story.

My father insisted that his childhood home had what he called an Indian ghost living in the attic. He was autistic before it was cool, and spent a lot of time up there working on electrical experiments. (Later he went on to be an electrical engineer.)

He had told me about lights turning off and on at inopportune times, but I don’t find it that compelling considering he was a kid screwing around with wiring and bulbs.

He told me he always felt like something was up there with him though. He had an attic opening on his bedrooms closet. He started having frequent nightmares about a giant eyeball staring at him from the open ceiling door and telling him its name was Yaqui. It would warm him repeatedly to stay out of the attic, that space belonged to it.

He allegedly had a few more weird bulb burning out events up there and decided to move his stuff out of there.

He said the main event that made him move his crap out of the attic was one night when his parents were out the walls in the house started ‘breathing.’ He described it as the walls moving in and out like a stomach while he could hear loud inhaling and exhaling, while their pet Samoyed began to whine and whimper.

Pardon my typos. I’m on my phone. If I can find the write up I will share it.

I don’t know if I believe it, but I believe he believed it. But he also was the type of guy who raised me watching History’s Mysteries and Big Foot documentaries so…yeah.