OK. Again, this is just an opener...But have been pondering this one for a while.

Regarding things that don't currently fit into text books, what I'm interested in is whether how we decode what we see/experience is at all shaped by how we view 'the world'? ie Are we applying our cultural/social/psychological filters? And is this because we have to give it form -of some kind- in order to see it, because how it would be without our filters would be beyond our range of comprehension or detection?

A recent personal example would be some strange experiences where I live. And no, I wasn't drunk. I experienced it all as a touch on the head, plus seeing a swirly energy which looked very dark and felt very threatening on a couple of occasions, furniture rattled and the air felt like it weighed about 100 tons...and then after a few days, I then saw a much lighter swirly thing that gave off positive vibes. Had never experienced anything quite like the energy things before. My daughter, 21, experienced seeing a dark hooded figure, giving off the same malevolent presence the dark swirly thing had given to me. Except she saw a figure and I saw a swirl of energy.

Now what is interesting about this...well, ok, to me! ....is that she interprets the world as 3D based. Things are personified. Devils. Ghosts. Angels. Good or evil. They would all be figures based on her interpretation. I see these things as largely negative or positive energy fields. And so we each saw pretty much what we would expect to see.

Except it also gets complicated. Because in the past, I have seen figures and more tangible stuff rather than the 'energy swirls' I saw recently. So has my gradual change in world view altered how I then see the unusual stuff? Or are each of these things different from each other and we saw different things but just at the same time?

Leading on from that would be the bigger question of what are these phenomena in their true form? Without our cultural/interpretative goggles? Would it blow our circuits to see them without our minds converting them into more reassuring formats? Would it be like trying to load a Spectrum 48K computer from 1980s with Windows 2007?

Or more importantly, am I wired from caffeine and overthinking/ talking complete twaddle?

No. Don't answer that. I am an old bag who is probably in need of a holiday

Goodnight forum!

Top thread!

I'm afraid I'm just not worldly enough to answer those questions, but it did make me think about that whole 'indiginous folk not even seeing incoming ships with white men on' thing.

I forget where I read it, but apparently it was recorded as a bit of a phenomena peculiar to exploration and colonisation at the time. Could just be a myth, but it did make me think about how we perceive things.

For example, if there are such things as "aliens" and they parked their craft over Big Ben, would we even 'see' it or would we just perceive a swirling mass of energy until we were actually told that is what it was?

I think you are correct in that it has a lot to do with how you view the world, generally. Anything that you 'see' is basically your senses trying to 'make sense' of energy, in a nutshell. I.e. I know my desk is just a swirling mass of energy, as is my physical self, but my senses perceive those atoms as being a solid desk and entirely seperate from my 'self'.

I'm assuming that's something we learn to do over time - who knows what newborns can actually 'see'? There are always stories for example, about children and animals being able to detect things your average adult is oblivious to.

this is a good thread.. peoples preconceptions color what they see, i think it is natural and normal. you can make yourself love everything or hate everything. so why not the way you perceive things. an unknown sensory input being decoded by your brain probably finds the closest associated memory to .. i cant think of the world. realityize it.

Good OP yet again Kat...but I would like to come at it from 180 degrees from the opposite direction.

Yes we accept this veil idea. Yes we accept that our level of perception has a lot to do with it.

I would like to throw in the mix this...a child has 'invisible friends'. Now these invisible friends appear to the child in a way so as not to frighten them. My daughter for example (who denies her psychic ability!) had various 'people' who would visit her. One began as Thomas the Tank Engine...he developed into a little boy called Thomas, it turns out, I wont bore you with details here, that it was my grandfather. He was known by his middle name of Victor (Vic) to all and sundry....Thomas was his first name.

I was very fortunate when I lived in Aberdeen to have been 'coached' by an incredibly amazing medium. She explained to me that 'spirit' will only make itself known in a guise that we can make sense of. She asked her longtime guide to show himself in his true form...she didn't ask again, as he appeared in a swirl of energy and in colours we know nothing of here in this dimension.

So...who's level of perception is really at work when we 'see' these things? Hmmmm

Jane

Jane - did you ever read a book called 'The Boy Who Saw True'? Some interesting bits in there about nature sprites and spirits generally from the point of view of someone growing up with that ability and not really understanding that not everyone else could see the same stuff.

I forget who wrote it...will have to dig it out.

Nope, sorry....but I am off into my garden where I know I have some, but just don't see them....clairsentient you see:)

Jane

It was first published in 1953 and never really attributed to an 'author'. The idea was that it was someone's journal/diary entries from a very young age. The copy I have is published by The CW Daniel Company Ltd.

I'll put it in recommended anyway.

C W Daniel don't exist anymore...they were bought over

Jane

Re the op, I see the swirly things quite frequently where I am. Most recently however, I was on my bed talking to someone on the phone and I actually got a face forming for the first time in ages.

It was a bit freaky-deaky but not really scary. I was chatting away, not really focusing on anything in the room particularly, when a head appeared around the corner of the wall where the bed is. It seemed to be a face I recognised but not immediately and I couldn't quite place it.

Anyway, as it got clearer, it started to develop a HUGE cheshire cat like grin on it. Once it recognised I'd clocked it it slowly shrank back around the corner and disappeared. The grin did put me on edge a bit, as it was a bit like a really exagerated cartoon grin, but then I'm thinking, If I were discarnate and trying to 'appear' to someone, I'd probably be focusing a lot of my energy on appearing "friendly" too. Hence the mahooosive grin.

I knew I knew the face from somewhere, so I went through some old photos I have, as generally speaking, when I see these folks, this is where I'm usually able to place them. Sure enough, there she was. It seemed to be the beautiful face of my great-great grandmother - minus the maniacal grin, obviously. I'd never met her but had seen plenty of photos of her.

I mention it because of the grin thing and how that could have easily have been 'decoded' as something slightly menacing. I also mention it because I think the swirly things you describe may actually be a pre-cursor to your senses making sense of whatever 'it' is, as with my floaty headed grandma above. That can be how it starts out, in my experience, limited as it is.

so this is related....

i was reading a news thing about big foot hunters:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-17615457

blah blah yawn...

but then i saw:

Some native American tribes in the north-west of America believe the
Sasquatch is real. Most think of him as a spiritual being, whose
appearance before man is meant to convey some kind of message.

One member of the Kentucky group told me he also thinks Bigfoot could be a spiritual manifestation.

ab origine wrote:

There are always stories for example, about children and animals being able to detect things your average adult is oblivious to.

I'll vouch for that. I had an interesting childhood to say the least.

Excellent thread I haven't had any experiences like you peeps
I had a dream once that my sisters nan was stabbed in the stomach by her son, and she died. When I woke up in the morning my sister phoned my mum and told her that her nan had died during the night from a burst stomach ulcer!
Now I have doubts now...Maybe I dreamed it the day after she died. I'm sure it was on the day or night.
Maybe that's the cold hard logic talking though, trying to deny it was an authentic prophetic type experience

irrepressible wrote:

Excellent thread I haven't had any experiences like you peeps
I had a dream once that my sisters nan was stabbed in the stomach by her son, and she died. When I woke up in the morning my sister phoned my mum and told her that her nan had died during the night from a burst stomach ulcer!
Now I have doubts now...Maybe I dreamed it the day after she died. I'm sure it was on the day or night.
Maybe that's the cold hard logic talking though, trying to deny it was an authentic prophetic type experience

EVERYBODY has "experiences". They just tend to get dismissed with logic.

Tell us more, Nettles!

Wow! great posts!

Where to start.... I remember reading about the indigenous people thing that Ab mentions too... That ties in quite well doesn't it? No frame of reference for what they saw. I also remember reading in one of DI's books about a hypnotist who told a guy that his daughter was invisible...and then the guy couldn't see her. He could even see objects placed behind the girl because his mind had been told she wasn't there. Can't remember the detail...or whether it was genuine...stage hypnotists always feel a bit fake to me because hypnotism isn't really quite so trance-like as it's made out to be...so who knows....

But bloody hell! The granny with the cheshire cat grin gave me the shivers Ab! I think I'll stick to the swirlies I would have been bricking it!!! even if later I discovered it was granny trying to do her best smile! Aaargh! I don't like big maniacal grins, which is why I hate clowns!

I have seen figures & things in the past...but never got a bad feeling with any of them. The bad feeling was only recently... And as we are a small group, I'll also admit that I saw what I used to call The Thunder Man....from the age of about 3 onwards...because he would appear with lots of light and loud noise...like thunder...and he had liquid black eyes...but he wasn't someone I was afraid of. Saw him again about 10 years ago from an adult perspective.... But that is another story...and one that I get embarassed talking about because it sounds mad! Aaargh. tricky... Next!

Jane, I had a childhood 'imaginary' friend called Anne who wasn't invisible to me and dressed like Alice from Alice in Wonderland! She told me to kill my goldfish by taking it out of its bowl...and I did...until I saw it struggling and put it back in! She was one girl with issues!

When I first read DI's stuff, the bit that grabbed me was the idea of the Matrix... because it implied this same idea about the world being a series of energies or frequencies which we each decode into our reality. We know already that light can be in waves or particles depending on observational effect...so it doesn't have to totally discount physics to entertain the idea of this applying to other things too. As Ab says, all matter is swirling atoms and energy anyway. Maybe the same principle we use to 'see' a table applies to the way we 'see' the less conventional stuff too? Michael Talbot's book The Holographic Universe has some interesting ideas around this decoding.

I love what you say about the medium, Jane. That is really interesting about it appearing in a form and colours we don't have in our 'dimension'. It also ties in with something I experienced to do with my weird thunderman. A scene I was familiar with...granny's old farm..but it wasn't and I knew it. The colours were too vivid and overly bright. But I was given this backdrop so as not scare me. The same idea of making it smething we can relate to.

Blinking nora people... It's SO good to be able to natter about this with you lot. I'm sure I've said this before but I bloody love this place! Mwhaha!

batou wrote:

so this is related....

i was reading a news thing about big foot hunters:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-17615457

blah blah yawn...

but then i saw:

Some native American tribes in the north-west of America believe the
Sasquatch is real. Most think of him as a spiritual being, whose
appearance before man is meant to convey some kind of message.

One member of the Kentucky group told me he also thinks Bigfoot could be a spiritual manifestation.

That's an interesting spin on it too. Do you reckon a Bigfoot has accidentally come across some humans occassionally and thought "what the f*ck!!" It makes me think a lot about 'dimensions' and the lines between them, whether real or imagined, blurring occassionally.

angelchemuel wrote:

Good OP yet again Kat...but I would like to come at it from 180 degrees from the opposite direction.

Yes we accept this veil idea. Yes we accept that our level of perception has a lot to do with it.

I would like to throw in the mix this...a child has 'invisible friends'. Now these invisible friends appear to the child in a way so as not to frighten them. My daughter for example (who denies her psychic ability!) had various 'people' who would visit her. One began as Thomas the Tank Engine...he developed into a little boy called Thomas, it turns out, I wont bore you with details here, that it was my grandfather. He was known by his middle name of Victor (Vic) to all and sundry....Thomas was his first name.

I was very fortunate when I lived in Aberdeen to have been 'coached' by an incredibly amazing medium. She explained to me that 'spirit' will only make itself known in a guise that we can make sense of. She asked her longtime guide to show himself in his true form...she didn't ask again, as he appeared in a swirl of energy and in colours we know nothing of here in this dimension.

So...who's level of perception is really at work when we 'see' these things? Hmmmm

Jane

That's a good way of thinking of it too. When my gran died I had some weird dreams for a bit afterwards. Most notably, I dreamed about meeting my gran, who was in perfect health. She then took me to a hospital where we visited my gran, who was lying in bed, seemingly recovering from whatever ailed her. I didn't striked me as odd at all, until I woke up and remembered it, that I was sat there, in a hospital room, with my gran who was perfectly healthy, and another version of my gran who was in the bed recuperating.

It just all seemed quite natural at the time!

ab origine wrote:

batou wrote:

so this is related....

i was reading a news thing about big foot hunters:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-17615457

blah blah yawn...

but then i saw:

Some native American tribes in the north-west of America believe the
Sasquatch is real. Most think of him as a spiritual being, whose
appearance before man is meant to convey some kind of message.

One member of the Kentucky group told me he also thinks Bigfoot could be a spiritual manifestation.

That's an interesting spin on it too. Do you reckon a Bigfoot has accidentally come across some humans occassionally and thought "what the f*ck!!" It makes me think a lot about 'dimensions' and the lines between them, whether real or imagined, blurring occassionally.

lol maybe

i posted a mitch hedburg video somewhere here, and he was talking about what if big foot actually was blurry. that would be a lot scarier to him, a big blurry out of focus ape walking about.

KattyKitt wrote:

Wow! great posts!

Where to start.... I remember reading about the indigenous people thing that Ab mentions too... That ties in quite well doesn't it? No frame of reference for what they saw. I also remember reading in one of DI's books about a hypnotist who told a guy that his daughter was invisible...and then the guy couldn't see her. He could even see objects placed behind the girl because his mind had been told she wasn't there. Can't remember the detail...or whether it was genuine...stage hypnotists always feel a bit fake to me because hypnotism isn't really quite so trance-like as it's made out to be...so who knows....

But bloody hell! The granny with the cheshire cat grin gave me the shivers Ab! I think I'll stick to the swirlies I would have been bricking it!!! even if later I discovered it was granny trying to do her best smile! Aaargh! I don't like big maniacal grins, which is why I hate clowns!

I have seen figures & things in the past...but never got a bad feeling with any of them. The bad feeling was only recently... And as we are a small group, I'll also admit that I saw what I used to call The Thunder Man....from the age of about 3 onwards...because he would appear with lots of light and loud noise...like thunder...and he had liquid black eyes...but he wasn't someone I was afraid of. Saw him again about 10 years ago from an adult perspective.... But that is another story...and one that I get embarassed talking about because it sounds mad! Aaargh. tricky... Next!

Jane, I had a childhood 'imaginary' friend called Anne who wasn't invisible to me and dressed like Alice from Alice in Wonderland! She told me to kill my goldfish by taking it out of its bowl...and I did...until I saw it struggling and put it back in! She was one girl with issues!

When I first read DI's stuff, the bit that grabbed me was the idea of the Matrix... because it implied this same idea about the world being a series of energies or frequencies which we each decode into our reality. We know already that light can be in waves or particles depending on observational effect...so it doesn't have to totally discount physics to entertain the idea of this applying to other things too. As Ab says, all matter is swirling atoms and energy anyway. Maybe the same principle we use to 'see' a table applies to the way we 'see' the less conventional stuff too? Michael Talbot's book The Holographic Universe has some interesting ideas around this decoding.

I love what you say about the medium, Jane. That is really interesting about it appearing in a form and colours we don't have in our 'dimension'. It also ties in with something I experienced to do with my weird thunderman. A scene I was familiar with...granny's old farm..but it wasn't and I knew it. The colours were too vivid and overly bright. But I was given this backdrop so as not scare me. The same idea of making it smething we can relate to.

Blinking nora people... It's SO good to be able to natter about this with you lot. I'm sure I've said this before but I bloody love this place! Mwhaha!

This is a great thread.

Tell us about the thunder man though - don't be embarrased! Look at the rubbish I've spouted on here so far. I must sound like a right loon, but in true loon style, I no longer care.

Start a new thread on him or put him in my scchhpoooky thread.

I don't do clowns either, by the by. None of this stuff truly scares me though, especially if you think about what it is that you are 'seeing'. Like I said, I could have ran screaming at the big grin but it occurred to me all the while that that is exactly what I would be trying to emphasise if I didn't want someone to be scared.

ab origine wrote:

batou wrote:

so this is related....
i was reading a news thing about big foot hunters:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-17615457
Some native American tribes in the north-west of America believe the
Sasquatch is real. Most think of him as a spiritual being, whose
appearance before man is meant to convey some kind of message.
One member of the Kentucky group told me he also thinks Bigfoot could be a spiritual manifestation.

That's an interesting spin on it too. Do you reckon a Bigfoot has accidentally come across some humans occassionally and thought "what the f*ck!!" It makes me think a lot about 'dimensions' and the lines between them, whether real or imagined, blurring occassionally.

I think that about ghosts too! Are we appearing to them in their own time...and they are thinking Aaargh! Time loop or glitch in the matrix!


[quote="batou"][quote="ab origine"]

batou wrote:

i posted a mitch hedburg video somewhere here, and he was talking about what if big foot actually was blurry. that would be a lot scarier to him, a big blurry out of focus ape walking about.

Now THAT is quite a concept! And perhaps we look blurry to them? Or maybe they have myths going back centuries about these bloody upstart Homo Sapien invaders who took over their lands and banished them off to remote areas of N America, China, Russian Steppes etc. No wonder they run away!

ab origine wrote:

This is a great thread.

Tell us about the thunder man though - don't be embarrased! Look at the rubbish I've spouted on here so far. I must sound like a right loon, but in true loon style, I no longer care.

Start a new thread on him or put him in my scchhpoooky thread.

I don't do clowns either, by the by. None of this stuff truly scares me though, especially if you think about what it is that you are 'seeing'. Like I said, I could have ran screaming at the big grin but it occurred to me all the while that that is exactly what I would be trying to emphasise if I didn't want someone to be scared.

Thunderman is less sccchhhpooky and more into the realms of all the ET stuff....and I get all waaaaaaaa if I talk about it...because the logical side of me thinks it must all have been something else...although there was some physical 'evidence'... pfdgfhjfgsfhfslfsfs!!!! Will have a brewage and decide whether this is the place to confront my inner whateverys about it! And I know you are right. It shouldn't matter. And you don't come across as a loon. Your posts make me laugh! So there!

Coolness. No pressure - I'm just nosey and I like your stories.