Smart People?

[Oopkop]

I find this forums very ironic. Mainly because smart people don't believe in this superstitious crap. There are allot of unexplained things in the world, but this world is pretty much natural, just because you don't have a explanation for something does not mean you have to turn to supernatural as the cause.

In a typical sleep-paralysis episode, a person wakes up paralyzed, senses a presence in the room, feels fear or even terror, and may hear buzzing and humming noises or see strange lights. A visible or invisible entity may even sit on their chest, shaking, strangling, or prodding them. Attempts to fight the paralysis are usually unsuccessful. It is reputedly more effective to relax or try to move just the eyes or a single finger or toe.

The symptoms can sometimes include complete to partial paralysis of arms, legs and upper torso, a tight or heavy pressure on your chest sometimes with a choking sensation and almost always experienced as you are about to fall into sleep or just come out of sleep.
The most remarkable symptoms of SP are the accompanying audio and/or visual hallucinations often causing extreme terror and panic in it's sufferers, who more often than not mistakenly believe they are being visited by aliens, malevolent beings and other evil presences.

Research shows that SP is linked with REM (rapid eye movement) sleep. When in REM sleep you are usually dreaming, your body does not act out your dreams as you will hurt either yourself, or someone else, so evolution has worked its merry little way of getting your brain to switch off your muscles (so to speak) and relax you while dreaming, essentially paralyzing you to a degree.

The cause for a state of SP is when your mind wakes up, usually still in a semi-REM state, but your body is still relaxed and semi paralyzed, bringing on a the sometimes horrifying sensation of being paralyzed while still in a semi-dream state yet awake. The consequences of this state are usually nothing short of terrifying to individuals with their dreams suddenly becoming reality as they are trapped in an inbetween sate of consciousness. The usual result is panic to try to release oneself while sleep creeps around your brain like a slow fog trying to drag you back down to it's depths again. I know what it's like, I've suffered this myself.

There is a rational explanation for all the so called paranormal things out there.

[Angela]

Oh, okay, gosh, thanks! Welcome to the forum! Glad to know you're no longer suffering!

[Erin Pavlina]

So everyone whose mind wakes up in the middle of their dream just happens to be dreaming the same thing? That someone is in the room with them, sitting on the bed with them, shaking them, touching them etc? And malevolent too? That seems highly unlikely.

[Brutha]

Note: I don't believe in Ghosts and most things that are discussed in this subforum.

I find this forums very ironic. Mainly because smart people don't believe in this superstitious crap. There are allot of unexplained things in the world, but this world is pretty much natural, just because you don't have a explanation for something does not mean you have to turn to supernatural as the cause.

The reason that you hold that point of view is probably because the people around you hold it and it was taught you in school.

Expecting other people to have the same world view is very popular and thinking that other people who have other beliefs than you are either less intelligent or otherwise bad people is done by a lot of people.

If you would open your eyes, you will probably find on both sides of the public debate a lot of people that are more intelligent than you by measures like IQ, EQ, money made in life or academic credientials.

Another issue that you will find on this forum is that people are often more attached to actual results than to beliefs about reality.
It doesn't matter whether you heal pain through a placebo or through a pharmaceutical.
When the process dealt with the pain, it gets used again next time.
Story's are powerful weapons that solve a lot of problems without them needing to be objectivly true.

In a typical sleep-paralysis episode

While there certainly are people who have that experience and misinterpret it, that explanation doesn't address a lot of the effects you see discussed in this forum at all (like Emoto's water crystals).

[Oopkop]

Originally Posted by Brutha

Note:

If you would open your eyes, you will probably find on both sides of the public debate a lot of people that are more intelligent than you by measures like IQ, EQ, money made in life or academic credientials.

Another issue that you will find on this forum is that people are often more attached to actual results than to beliefs about reality.
It doesn't matter whether you heal pain through a placebo or through a pharmaceutical.

Ah yes, I appreciate the intellectual response. You are right, it was wrong of me to make the smart people comment, but i was trying to provoke responses. I agree with your assessments, belief can be a great facilitator in healing, but in reality it comes down to the power of the brain and how it is being used. Intention can be a very powerful force in the healing process.
Our thoughts become our actions and eventually our reality.

>The reason that you hold that point of view is probably because the people around you hold it and it was taught you in school.

As a child i was pretty gullible, but years of research enlightened me with a path of reason.

>Expecting other people to have the same world view is very popular and thinking that other people who have other beliefs than you are either less intelligent

With my comment i merely wanted to imply, that a smart person would go and look for answers he/she would not just accept the most common explanation(paranormal), but of course if your happy with the easy explanation that is your choice.

The paranormal consists of alleged occurrences or powers which, if actual, cannot be explained by our current understanding of physics. Proponents of both the supernatural and the paranormal often seem indistinguishable from one another, at least in their arguments and claims (not to mention their zeal for convincing others that they may be on to something). I'm a skeptic and i'm open to true paranormal event, but i have yet to hear, experience, touch, smell or see something that convinced me.

[Ninja]

If I hadn't listened to those apparently 'fake' spirits, I wouldn't have made it past age 15...

[Brutha]

Originally Posted by Oopkop

As a child i was pretty gullible, but years of research enlightened me with a path of reason.

For how many year do you now hold your beliefs?

With my comment i merely wanted to imply, that a smart person would go and look for answers he/she would not just accept the most common explanation(paranormal),

While there are certainly people like that that visit this forum, their are also quite a few that thought a lot about those questions.

but of course if your happy with the easy explanation that is your choice.

As I said above, I don't make that choice. But you should know that there are smart people who make it, after a lot of experience with dealing with that question.

(not to mention their zeal for convincing others that they may be on to something).

And you aren't showing your zeal for your beliefs at the moment by posting here?

I'm a skeptic and i'm open to true paranormal event, but i have yet to hear, experience, touch, smell or see something that convinced me.

Being completly without those experiences, why do you think you can accurately judge other people with those experiences?
Ignorance isn't bliss.

After having had experiences it is still another question of how you interpret those experiences but without them you don't can't really understand the people who had those experiences.

I have explored the rabbit hole, and there seems to be a reasonable explanation for everything, if you open up your mind of course.

What was your most strange experience in your exploration? How deep did you go?

Is there any evidence whatsoever to suggest that there actually is such a thing, or any way that I could test the idea? The answer to that question is always no.

Big Brain Theory: Have Cosmologists Lost Theirs? - New York Times suggest that the probabilty of you being a brain floating around somewhere in the comsos is higher than the probabilty of you being a human who lives on a planet with other humans.
Who do you test whether you aren't some boltzman brain which is connected to some computer that serve you with your daily experience and your memory of the past?

After all that is a lot more likely than you being a human, so the burdon of proof has to be: "What the proof for you being a human living on a planet?" Afterall that is a lot more unlikely.

You don't have any proof and have to take a leap of faith.

I'm here to see if someone can convince me of paranormal activities.

You will probably doubt the existence of any proof that someone could give you via the net and at the same time nobody can give you experiences without being with you in person.

>To the 150 iq man

I genius kid in china with iq of 210 still believes in santa claus, does that make smart people dumb? no. It makes you gullible

And that makes your starting assumption wrong.
That exactly what science is about: Testing assumptions.

Coming to a place and claiming to search truth doesn't pair well with making false statements in the process. Especially when you want to try to tell us that it doesn't matter that you make false statements.

[jawillie]

Originally Posted by Oopkop

There is a rational explanation for all the so called paranormal things out there.

That's awesome that you have your truth about life all squared away for yourself. You must not have any need to get defensive then.

[Mr.Mustache]

Originally Posted by Oopkop

There is a rational explanation for all the so called paranormal things out there.

Please enlighten us, all you've done is spout prejudice.

[responsibility]

If your definition of a smart person is someone who is an extreme materialist, then of course your not going to find a 'smart person' to believe in any paranormal phenomena, or any phenomena that can't be detected by current scientific instruments.

You talk about sleep paralysis and suddenly it means all paranormal phenomena is bunk and can be rationally explained? You can't expect to find evidence with your eyes closed . Here's Scientific evidence for survival of consciousness after death

Of course is is true that are some people out there who are delusional, but that doesn't mean to say all paranormal phenomena is then ludicrous.

[Paul C]

Originally Posted by Oopkop

There is a rational explanation for all the so called paranormal things out there.

Rational explanation? Something you might not yet be aware of is how logic is limited by the perception that you hold.

And to claim what you've said explains 'all' paranormal activity reveals what your current perceptions of reality are more clearly.

Stay around the forums for awhile. See if there's something which could change your outlook on things.

Edit: Now that I think about it- what is a smart person to you, Oopkop? If my definition of a smart person is different to yours, would I therefore be considered inferior in your eyes?

[VoodooChile]

I have an IQ of 150, and I believe in this stuff. How do explain that? Don't you think we have dealt with mindless and baseless posts like yours before? Please go find a forum where people actually care what you say.

[Oopkop]

>Scientific evidence for survival of consciousness after death

Lol, real scientist have already proven that those obe of near death is nothing more than a chemical reaction in the brain that causes hallucination's.

>To the 150 iq man

I genius kid in china with iq of 210 still believes in santa claus, does that make smart people dumb? no. It makes you gullible

There are millions of people in the world who have claimed to experience a paranormal, or supernatural event. These range from out of body experiences, claims of psychic powers, near death experiences, ghost sightings, answered prayers, miraculous healings, etc.

Many religious people claim that there is a supernatural realm, and point to some of the above examples as "proof", yet as I will show, these "proofs" are fraudulent because of these peoples' lack of knowledge about such events.

With the history of such phenomenon as lighting storms, hurricane like winds, droughts, etc. I have no doubt that the people of the past felt these things were miraculous signs of their creator, yet in our more enlightened time now (depending on how you look at it), we don't see anyone claiming these natural occurrences have a supernatural cause. The problem is, just as in the past, we have many unexplained things which we experience, or hear about, and we just don't have a lot of answers about them at this moment in time. Or we have no information at the current time whatsoever.

With such a history of human kind, I find it hard to believe that we are still using the old "god of the gaps" argument; using god (or whatever deity you believe in) as the explanation for something we know nothing about. This solves nothing, because you haven't even proven any god exists to begin with. We don't need to use some imaginary thing to explain it away.


The same arguments goes with supernatural events, james randi is a example that no so called supernatural can stand reasonble testing.

So many people believe in these so called psychics' supposed powers to contact the dead, and predict the future, but it's nothing but a big, elaborate magic show.

> to the psychic lady

There are basically two kinds of readings a "psychic" can perform: "Cold" or "Hot" readings. "Cold" readings are when a "psychic" doesn't know anything about a particular person, and must therefore, "fish" for information, by throwing out vague statements. Such an example could be that a "psychic" asks a group if there was anyone who lost someone by the name of Joe, John, or James. The more people that are present, ups the success rate of this kind of shot gun - like tactic. They throw out a few random, vague guesses, and hope that someone in the audience has lost someone who had that name, or some other derivative. Though, common sense should tell people that, if someone were truly psychic, they wouldn't need to "fish" for information like that!

Though, unknowing subjects gladly hand over, and confirm, anything which a "psychic" gets correct, which gives them something to grab on to, and use, to get more information from someone. For example, if the "psychic" asks if your loved one liked planes, and you answer yes, they will hone in on that information, and use it, and ask more questions, such as, "They were a piolet, weren't they?", and the audience member says "yes", and gladly hands this information over to the "psychic". The thing many people don't realize, is that they were the ones who told the "psychic" the information. The "psychic" asked a question...it wasn't a statement.

I myself went to psychic to debunk them, Shockingly most of the psychics i went to had a 70% accuracy. I wrote all the question down and proceeded to ask the same question to 10 of my friends again shockingly i hit home with about 70% It all comes down to the vagueness

many people who go to psycics subconsciously want to be fooled. They want to be able to contact their loved ones, and so when the "psychic" is throwing out all these incorrect guesses (as in a cold reading), the person will usually only remember the correct guesses, and not the wrong ones. This same phenomenon is also seen with supposed answered prayer. They only remember when their prayers were supposedly answered, and not when they weren't.

>OBE

Activity in one region of the brain could explain out-of-body experiences. Researchers in Switzerland have triggered the phenomenon using electrodes.

People describe out-of-body experiences as feeling that their consciousness becomes detached from their body, often floating above it. Because these lucid states are popularly linked to the paranormal, "a lot of people are reluctant to talk about them", says neurologist Olaf Blanke of Geneva University Hospital in Switzerland.

Blanke found that electrically stimulating one brain region — the right angular gyrus — repeatedly triggers out-of-body experiences. Blanke and his team were using electrodes to excite the brain of a woman being treated for epilepsy.

The right angular gyrus integrates visual information — the sight of your body — and information that creates the mind's representation of your body. This is based on balance and feedback from your limbs about their position in space.

>Please enlighten us, all you've done is spout prejudice.

The sun can reflect a image of a car or person through with the help of clouds up to 100 km's away. One natural way of explaining ghosts, another one is psychological reason.