It is after one o'clock and you can't
sleep. Too much tossing and turning in bed because your legs started bothering
you from the hips to the outside two little toes/ the legs feel coated/wrapped
in a light weight yellow cardboard. The pain focus is from both hip joints to
knees as a focus and then down to ankles as a focus. Elsewhere, both wrists
ache. Sitting up seems to help more than lying down, at least at the moment.
You have the foot stand up and out with your heels just beyond the outer edge
of the padded stand. The pain from the lower back is slowly moving up the spine
as far up as to the middle back/bottom of the lungs. - Amorella
0121 hours.
Good translation of sensory observations, Amorella. Thank you. It is odd that
my thinly cardboarded legs feel packaged in yellow; a mustard yellow to be more
exact; mustard yellow below the knee, above the knee the cardboard is a lighter
yellow rather than duller. I have the Mac screen in low light. It is wonderful
to have each letter/number/symbol key notation lit. As I concentrate on the
whole of the keyboard layout my brain is somewhat relieved of the pain.
You find it awkward to using the pronoun 'I'
and the adjective 'my' brain in your last sentence, why is this, boy? -
Amorella
0134 hours. I
first used 'as one' and 'the' brain. Third person is more real to me than first
person in context of writing in the blog, that is, it is more natural even
though I suddenly realize that you, the Amorella, answer in third person also.
I like this because it is fairer or more just to have our conversation on an
equal playing field, so to speak.
If this is so, why did you ever think of me
as angelic-like or sometimes tiny alien-like. You do not consider yourself angelic
or alien? - Amorella
0142 hours.
That's true, but some sixty-five to seventy some years ago I began to feel I was
alien-like, that is, within myself I am a stranger in a strange land.
Do you mean you thought of your identity,
your heartansoulanmind as alien from your physical self? - Amorella
0146 hours.
Wow. That's right, Amorella, that's exactly right, very early on, say ages
three, four and five, I sensed I was two separate parts -- spiritual and
physical. Somewhere in that time I was told/taught that human beings have a
spiritual side and a physical side and I remember the reasoning I used -- the
physical I can see so the inside where my stomach and heart are, lives my
spiritual side. And, I also confusingly thought that because I came from my
mother's inside I was coated with her spiritualness, (yes, this is so) that I
was invisibly coated or painted with mother's spiritualness my physical self
was caught between the spirits. I remember this. This is exactly like I
constructed my sense of reality. It makes perfect sense even today. I remember
people (mostly mother or grandparents) telling me how the world I was living in
was. I took their concepts literarily. I could 'envision' in a literal level. I
can remember telling people who were explaining how the world is to me what I
thought about it and them saying I didn't make sense, that I didn't understand
what they were trying to say. (This is so right on) so arrogantly I felt my
construction of reality was real enough for me so I shut up and kept my ideas
to myself and learned to show I understood what other peoples; reality was so
since they were older and the majority I went along with it. This kind of thing
went on in my head up through my teen-age years, i.e. just keep your real mouth
shut and, like an actor, feed them what they want to hear. This combined with
the real mis-wiring in my brain added even more confusion. Astigmatism, for
example, allowed me to see stones move, or appear to move from time to time.
Faeries become more real when you see things move that don't. You know they
don't move; you've been taught that, but they move anyway. You just keep your
mouth shut and enjoy the private entertainment that your individual life
presents itself. Now, this is a personal revelation. It's no wonder I have such
a dark sense of humor. (0211)
In the morning you'll probably deny you
thought all this and assume you made it as a story, a diversion, because you
couldn't sleep. Why? Because you haven't been feeling any bodily pain while
writing. You haven't even noticed you have a body (weight) because you are not
here (in a sense) as your fingers move on the keys, Instead, you are in the
words, two-dimensional rather than three, you are as thought. What do you think
of that surmise, young man? - Amorella
0217 hours. I
think you have a sense of humor too, Amorella. I like you for that.
***
Nearly
dusk on a Saturday. You spent part of the morning getting 'house' acclimated by
reading your copy of the blueprints. You took a short afternoon jaunt over to
MacDonald's near I-75 and Tylersville, sat up about fifteen feet above the road
at McD's parking relaxing in the sunny
afternoon and watching the cars go by down on Tylersville while drinking Cokes.
- Amorella
1706 hours.
Basically, we frittered away the day. I never did have a nap.
You read an old article from BBC 'on why some
people still believe in the paranormal'. The concept of the paranormal still
bothers you. - Amorella
1713 hours. I
think I put the old article in the blog a couple of years ago. I don't know why
it came up on BBC today. I dislike the article because the author starts with a
story about how Winston Churchill said he saw the ghost of Abraham Lincoln in
the White House while he was staying in the room, actually in the nude after
taking a bath. Winston made a comment to the ghost and the ghost disappeared.
Drop in the old article then I have a
comment to make on your behavior. - Amorella
1720 hours. I
am really not interested in rereading the article, Amorella.
I want to make the comment in context to
your present attitude toward the article
on paranormal; something that you feel is real but perhaps misunderstood. -
Amorella
** **
· [BBC Future Video]
The psychology behind paranormal
beliefs
Almost 75% of people hold some sort of paranormal beliefs, including
some extremely bright individuals. So what makes the supernatural so appealing?
15 December 2017
Having
paranormal beliefs is impressively common, even among intelligent people like
Winston Churchill and Alan Turing.
[Our video
explains the deep psychological reasons for having such beliefs, and if you
want to find out more then read this story by David Robson.]
In the 21st Century, why do so many people still believe in
the paranormal? David Robson discovers that there’s good reason we hold
superstitions – and a few surprising benefits.
[Article
first published on BBC by David Robinson on 31 October 2016 below.]
Soon after
World War II, Winston Churchill was visiting the White House when he is said to
have had an uncanny experience. Having had a long bath with a Scotch and cigar,
he reportedly walked into the adjoining bedroom – only to be met by the ghost
of Abraham Lincoln. Unflappable, even while completely naked, Churchill
apparently announced: “Good evening, Mr President. You seem to have me at a
disadvantage.” The spirit smiled and vanished.
His supposed
contact with the supernatural puts Churchill in illustrious company. Arthur
Conan Doyle spoke to ghosts through mediums, while Alan Turing believed in telepathy. Three men
who were all known for their razor-sharp thinking, yet couldn’t stop themselves
from believing in the impossible. You may well join them. According to recent
surveys, as many as three quarters of Americans believe in the paranormal,
in some form, while nearly one in five claim to have actually seen a ghost.
Intrigued by
these persistent beliefs, psychologists have started to look at why some of us
can’t shake off old superstitions and folk-lore. Their findings may suggest
some hidden virtues to believing in the paranormal. At the very least, it
should cause you to question whether you hold more insidious beliefs about the
world.
Some
paranormal experiences are easily explainable, based on faulty activity in the
brain. Reports of poltergeists invisibly moving objects seem to be consistent
with damage to certain regions of the right hemisphere that are responsible for visual processing; certain forms of epilepsy,
meanwhile, can cause the spooky feeling that a presence is stalking you close by – perhaps underlying accounts
of faceless “shadow people” lurking in the surroundings.
Out-of-body
experiences, meanwhile, are now accepted neurological phenomena, while certain
visual illusions could confound the healthy brain and create mythical beings.
For example, one young Italian psychologist looked in the mirror one morning to
find a grizzled old man staring back at him. His
later experiments confirmed that the illusion is surprisingly common when you
look at your reflection in the half light, perhaps because the brain struggles
to construct the contours of your face, so it begins to try to fill in the
missing information – even if that leads to the appearance of skulls, old hags
or hideous animals.
So any
combination of exhaustion, drugs, alcohol, and tricks of the light could
contribute to single, isolated sightings, like that reported by Churchill. But
what about the experiences of people like Conan Doyle, who seemed to see
other-worldly actions on a day-to-day basis?
Protective shield
Psychologists
studying religion have long suspected that a belief in the paranormal can be a
kind of shield from the even harsher truths of the world. The idea is that when
something unexpected happens – a death, natural disaster, or job loss – the
brain scrambles around for answers, looking for meaning in the chaos. “It’s
such an aversive state that if it can’t gain control objectively, we will get
it by perceiving more structures around us, even if they don’t exist,” says
Jennifer Whitson at the University of Texas, who studies pattern perception,
and judgment and decision making. Even simply asking people to remember a time
when they felt out of control, can make people see illusory forces at work, she
has found. That included seeing patterns in the random movements of the stock
market, for example, but it could also manifest itself by linking two
unconnected events, such as the belief that “knocking on wood” for good luck
would improve your chances in a job interview.
Anthropomorphism
is another common way that we try to understand events, says Adam Waytz at
Northwestern University in Illinois. So we might think that a spirit lies
behind a storm or that a demon is causing us to get ill – rather than
acknowledging that we have no control over the matter; and if a branch is
tapping on your window, you might be more inclined to imagine that it is a
ghost sending you a message. “We create beliefs in ghosts, because we don’t
like believing that the universe is random,” says Waytz. Again, this seems to
be more common when we feel less control over our lives.
Given these
strange turns of the mind, might some people be naturally inclined to see
hidden patterns and motives, and could this explain why they are more
superstitious than others? It is a question that Tapani Riekki at the
University of Helsinki in Finland has tried to answer for the last few years.
He says that believers often welcome his research, since they genuinely can’t
understand why others don’t share their worldview. “They say that ’I don’t see
why other people don’t feel what I feel, or believe what I believe’,” he says.
Hidden faces
Riekki
recently asked sceptics and believers to view simple animations of moving
shapes, while lying in a brain scanner. He found paranormal believers were more
likely to see some kind of intention behind the movements – as if the shapes
were playing a game of “tag”, say – and this was reflected in greater brain activity in the regions normally associated
with “theory of mind” and understanding others’ motives. Riekki has also found
that people who believe in the supernatural are more likely to see hidden faces
in everyday photos – a finding confirmed by another team at the University of
Amsterdam, who showed that paranormal believers are more likely to imagine that
they had seen a walking figure in random light displays.
Added to this,
Riekki has found that believers may have weaker cognitive “inhibition”,
compared to sceptics. That’s the skill that allows you to quash unwanted
thoughts, so perhaps we are all spooked by strange coincidences and patterns
from time to time, but sceptics are better at pushing them aside. Riekki gives
the example of someone who is thinking about their mother, only for her to call
two minutes later. “Is it just that sceptics can laugh and say it is just
coincidence, and then think of something else?” he wonders. Significantly,
another paper reported that paranormal believers also tend to have greater confidence
in their decisions, even when they are based on ambiguous
information. So once they have latched onto the belief, you might be less
likely to let it go.
Even so, most
researchers agree that sceptics shouldn’t be too critical of people who harbour
these beliefs. After all, one study has found that various superstitions can
boost your performance in a range of skills. In one trial, bringing their favourite lucky
charm into a memory test significantly improved subjects’ recall,
since it seemed to increase their confidence in their own abilities. Another
experiment tested the subjects’ golf putting ability. Telling them that they
were using a “lucky” ball meant they were more likely to score than those
simply using any old ball. Even something as simple as saying “break a leg” or
“I’ll keep my fingers for you” improved the participants’ motor dexterity and
their ability to solve anagrams.
And even if
you think you are immune, you shouldn’t underestimate the power of suggestion.
Michael Nees at the Lafayette College in Pennsylvania recently asked a group of
students to listen to sound recordings from US ghost-hunting shows. Subtly
priming the volunteers with the thought that they were involved in a paranormal
study increased the number of voices they reported hearing in the fuzzy
recordings – despite the fact that they mostly reported being sceptics. It
seems that the merest expectation of hearing something spooky can set your mind
whirring.
Whitson’s
research, meanwhile, shows how easy it is for us all to imagine strange
happenings when we feel unsettled. Her latest experiment found that even
priming someone with a feeling of hope – normally considered a positive emotion
– can still increase people’s belief in the supernatural, or conspiracy
theories. The reason, she says, is that hope is still full of uncertainty; it
makes you question the future, compared to a feeling like anger where you might
be surer of your righteousness.
And if you
tell yourself that you have reasoned yourself out of superstitions and ghost
stories, you might still harbour other beliefs that are equally fanciful, she
says. It could be a full blown conspiracy theory about the government, or just
suspicions that your colleagues are ganging up on you, based on a few spurious
comments.
We can perhaps
see the brain’s ability to “spot” illusory patterns in the response to the
Ebola epidemic – such as the emergence of folk remedies (including the belief
that drinking salt water is a cure), fears in the West that it will spread
through air travel, and theories that it was created by industrialised
governments.
“It’s easy to
think of yourself as the one holding the rational cards, but it’s wiser to
understand that every one of us are going to be prone to those mistakes when we
feel like we are lacking control,” says Whitson. “We should all be ready to
evaluate our assumptions more thoughtfully.” As Churchill, Turing and Conan
Doyle showed us, even the most astute minds can be given to fancy from time to
time.
Selected
and edited from --http://www dot bbc dot com/future/story/20141030-the-truth-about-the-paranormal
** **
1736 hours. I assume
read this article a year ago or thereabouts on Halloween on BBC. The whole
concept is frustrating because the evidence is mostly hearsay. The evidence is
human felt and believed by some but it is understandable that none of these experiences
are provable by science and most can be explained away by science. In this blog
I have written about my own experiences with the paranormal but I also can
easily accept the fact that my mind misread/misinterpreted the experience just
like is mentioned in the article above. It is useless to go over and over
whether these paranormal experience are objectively real. Why bring this up,
Amorella? Believing something does not make that something objectively real.
I, the Amorella, wholeheartedly agree with
you on this.
1750 hours. Thus
with your comment, irony and humor reign once again.
Post. - Amorella
No comments:
Post a Comment