Experiences

[Étienne d'Angleterre]

Stephen,  fascinating post as others have said, do you mind if I ask if the objects on the table have/seem to have significance, and if so in what way?

Not in any obvious way no. They tend to be mundane things. The last time I went it was a digital alarm clock!

The strangest thing is the talking but not talking part of it. Impossible to describe.

As others have said thank you for the moving tale about the funeral.

[Walt Zingmatilder]

Certainly.

When I was meditating/journeying, I experienced a 'moment out of time'; approaching me from between the two boughs of a tree were a succession of goddesses - I recall Mary, Isis, Rhiannon, Freya, possibly Parvati, and others. They did not speak, but I was told that they were all the same Goddess, and everything was part of Her. I also recall a feeling of peace, and of being on the right path.

That's about as much detail as I remember of that one.

Note that I gave no conclusion, just a description of what I experienced.

Your turn.

ht
I think Gonners has asked the questions I would  have.

A profound marshalling of spiritual understanding/experience. Would you say?

[floo]

It's interesting that you apply christian terminology to it, though

ht

Probably because I was brought up by Christian parents and did the 'saved' bit as a kid.

[Nearly Sane]

Not in any obvious way no. They tend to be mundane things. The last time I went it was a digital alarm clock!

The strangest thing is the talking but not talking part of it. Impossible to describe.

As others have said thank you for the moving tale about the funeral.

I wonder were you to talk about each experience, if you might find some subconscious significance. I am neither a follower, or non follower of Jung, but it's often difficult to identify meaning by looking at the specific.

[Gonnagle]

Dear Horsethorn,

When time seems to stop and you see everything with an abnormal clarity.

Nope, I think I might be slightly envious, I have had times which I call little epiphanies, times when I suddenly realise I have been doing something the  wrong way or when I am doing a repetitious job, digging the allotment, time goes away, and it may sound strange but me and the spade are the only thing.

Gonnagle.

[Brownie]

It doesn't sound strange to me at all Gonnagle.  Cherish those experiences.  I could do with a few!

[Étienne d'Angleterre]

I wonder were you to talk about each experience, if you might find some subconscious significance. I am neither a follower, or non follower of Jung, but it's often difficult to identify meaning by looking at the specific.

If I were to hazard a guess I think I am talking about it to my self subconsciously.

I think the actual object is unimportant but it a metaphor for examining, feeling and thinking about the problem.

I never make a connection but I always fell that a problem has been resolved.

[Étienne d'Angleterre]

Dear Horsethorn,

Nope, I think I might be slightly envious, I have had times which I call little epiphanies, times when I suddenly realise I have been doing something the  wrong way or when I am doing a repetitious job, digging the allotment, time goes away, and it may sound strange but me and the spade are the only thing.

Gonnagle.

As Brownie says that sounds familiar, and do cherish those precious moments away from the, mostly, unimportant hustle and bustle of life.

Good luck to you 

[Gonnagle]

Dear Brownie,

Oh I do, which leads me onto ask, Horsethorn talks of feeling happy, mine was also happy, Stephen says comforting, good feelings, something in these moments are firing the old brain positively, what?? and why?

In those digging moments I don't feel anything, I am away, but afterwards there is a sense of joy, but that could be the first cracking open of a can of lager and a sense of job well done.

Gonnagle.

[horsethorn]

Oh, and while we are on here my differences of opinion with Vlad are known and long-standing  but this is a lovely idea for a thread, so doff of the hat, to Vlad.

It's interesting - I suggested this thread to Vlad, and yet he hasn't actually joined in, despite starting it...

ht

[horsethorn]

Not quite sure what you mean. I wasn't shown how to do it. I just remember a series of session of peace and quite when I was taking the opportunity to think about things, when one day I just seemed to travel away. Hard to describe really. Don't know where the relative or the object came from I just kind of arrived.

When I am there, it is not like real life but not like a dream either.

Very odd.

Journeying, guided visualisation et al are techniques used in various shamanic and pagan paths - usually with something rhythmic being played, such as drums or chanting - to settle the heart rate and brain function and allow the question or focus to be concentrated up, while remaining relaxed.

It's also (IMHO) similar to doing standing Chi Gung. A means of 'forgetting' the body.

If I were to hazard a guess I think I am talking about it to my self subconsciously.

I think the actual object is unimportant but it a metaphor for examining, feeling and thinking about the problem.

I never make a connection but I always fell that a problem has been resolved.

Yes, that's often how it works. Tarot is similar - it provides a "psychic mirror" for us to reflect our subconscious into manifestation.

ht

[horsethorn]

I think Gonners has asked the questions I would  have.

A profound marshalling of spiritual understanding/experience. Would you say?

Marshalling? I don't think it was quite that planned or organised

How about you? Are you going to describe your experience(s)?

ht

[Walt Zingmatilder]

Marshalling? I don't think it was quite that planned or organised

How about you? Are you going to describe your experience(s)?

ht

Certainly.
My experience starts with Sagans Cosmos and particular his idea of a cosmic community.
Very shortly after this I was given CS Lewis mere Christianity and recognised that the cosmic enthusiasm mediated through watching Sagan was a sense of the numinous.
Lewis also talks about God.God of course was for nutters and weak people or was it? That was something I had picked up unquestioningly picked up from my secular humanist roots.
God was now part of the numinous and something tied up to the Cosmos. Further reading of Lewis about God being in the dock. Awareness that God is also involved in morality. Phrase which chimes ! If you put God in the dock you find its you in the dock.
The Bible previously an old book strangely begins to become comprehensible.
Augustine's experience read, ringing words....make me a Christian but not yet.
Huge interest in what actually is the truth...Ringing words Pontius Pilate on truth.
Realisation that there is something behind Lewises and Christian writings.

Reading the bible. words that ring. Follow me and and behold I stand at the door freeze when realise that is true. Walk around in a focus on this which dissociates me from surroundings. Get a mental image of eating a pudding with no flavour as a metaphor for rejecting Christ.
Tell Jesus to take it all. Dissociation vanishes

[horsethorn]

Certainly.
My experience starts with Sagans Cosmos and particular his idea of a cosmic community.
Very shortly after this I was given CS Lewis mere Christianity and recognised that the cosmic enthusiasm mediated through watching Sagan was a sense of the numinous.
Lewis also talks about God.God of course was for nutters and weak people or was it? That was something I had picked up unquestioningly picked up from my secular humanist roots.
God was now part of the numinous and something tied up to the Cosmos. Further reading of Lewis about God being in the dock. Awareness that God is also involved in morality. Phrase which chimes ! If you put God in the dock you find its you in the dock.
The Bible previously an old book strangely begins to become comprehensible.
Augustine's experience read, ringing words....make me a Christian but not yet.
Huge interest in what actually is the truth...Ringing words Pontius Pilate on truth.
Realisation that there is something behind Lewises and Christian writings.

Reading the bible. words that ring. Follow me and and behold I stand at the door freeze when realise that is true. Walk around in a focus on this which dissociates me from surroundings. Get a mental image of eating a pudding with no flavour as a metaphor for rejecting Christ.
Tell Jesus to take it all. Dissociation vanishes

Interesting. So your claimed 'experience' was really just a process of reasoning.

Thanks.

ht

[Nearly Sane]

Interesting. So your claimed 'experience' was really just a process of reasoning.

Thanks.

ht

Not sure that is entirely fair. I think Vlad is doing a highlight  version of his journey which ends with the experience.
All experience when we try and express it is mediated through a form of reason unless we express through contemporary dance.

Vlad, dressed as a faun, watches a bank of TVS, with Sagan repeating Cosmos, Chaos in a loop. He leaps at the TVS, then hides, making himself as small as possible.


Next a lion, a witch and a  wardrobe (note challenge for costume dept) dance round him. The wardrobe puts on a judge's wig and the lion does a pas de trois into a dock. But SUDDENLY the Lion is replaced by the faun. It goes to swear on a large bevelled Bible but, the Bible shouts out 'not KJV but VladV'

From side stage a man wearing a sign saying I'm Augustine, me,  appears with a bell but walks off while smoking a joint.

The wardrobe takes off the wig and washes its hands

(on a a screen the disembodied heads of Dennett  Dawkins, Hitchens, and Harris can be seen can be seen repeating 'You can't handle the truth)


There is a knock on a door at side of stage. The faun jetes to it, it opens, the faun turns to the audience, shrugs and smiles and throws them a shiny polished turd, and walks through.


Curtain.


(apologies to Vlad if this offends. It isn't meant to and I hope it comes across as not  mocking of your experience. Rather just seeking to use that experiment as a piece of generalised idiocy)

[horsethorn]

Not sure that is entirely fair. I think Vlad is doing a highlight  version of his journey which ends with the experience.

Having reread it, you may be correct. Perhaps I was expecting something different, but it comes across as more of a thought process than what I would describe as an 'experience'. Maybe it's Vlad's overly sesquipedalian loquacity that is distracting me - it reads like a meta-rationalisation rather than a simple description.

All experience when we try and express it is mediated through a form of reason unless we express through contemporary dance.

Agreed - but I've tried to describe what I experienced with as little rationalisation as possible. It was quite interesting, going back to the 'source', as it were

ht

[Nearly Sane]

Having reread it, you may be correct. Perhaps I was expecting something different, but it comes across as more of a thought process than what I would describe as an 'experience'. Maybe it's Vlad's overly sesquipedalian loquacity that is distracting me - it reads like a meta-rationalisation rather than a simple description.

Agreed - but I've tried to describe what I experienced with as little rationalisation as possible. It was quite interesting, going back to the 'source', as it were

ht

One person's loquacity is another's shorthand.

[Bubbles]

This is a link to mine.

http://www.religionethics.co.uk/index.php?topic=10858.75

You have to scroll down to Jacks post.

Just saves me typing it all again.

i was just a kid, not had anymore like that since..

The only other occaision which was a bit odd was when time appeared to slow down for me, was when I was involved in a motorcycle accident when I was on the back and the bike slipped on a patch of diesel as we cornered on a stretch of dual carriage way.

It was like the six million dollar man where everything seemed to happen in slow motion.

I think that slow motion thing was something the brain does under stress.

[Étienne d'Angleterre]

Journeying is a specific meditation technique used in core shamanism

If you have any links could you send them though I would be very interested to hear more about it.

Yep. The information was transferred non-verbally

Same in mine. It feels a bit like talking but it isn't. Impossible to describe.

[Walt Zingmatilder]

Having reread it, you may be correct. Perhaps I was expecting something different, but it comes across as more of a thought process than what I would describe as an 'experience'. Maybe it's Vlad's overly sesquipedalian loquacity that is distracting me - it reads like a meta-rationalisation rather than a simple description.

Agreed - but I've tried to describe what I experienced with as little rationalisation as possible. It was quite interesting, going back to the 'source', as it were

ht

Who'd have thought it Horsethorn playing " my experience is better than your experience"............what next Horsethorn? "My experience is so great it has its own gravitational field"

Who'd have seen the critique coming?........well, I did.

[Étienne d'Angleterre]

Journeying, guided visualisation et al are techniques used in various shamanic and pagan paths - usually with something rhythmic being played, such as drums or chanting - to settle the heart rate and brain function and allow the question or focus to be concentrated up, while remaining relaxed.

That is very interesting.

Recently I have discovered that if I want to go to my other place I can bring on the experience by first having a period of silence and then listening to (or playing, although I am far from perfect)  a specific piece of music.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3yvv6vLQfEw

Like you suggest it has a very rhythmic theme. Temolos is a technique on the paino of producing a trembling like sound (sorry if you already new this, didn't want to sound patronising). As you can hear it is a repetitive sound all through the piece, except  for the first and last 30 seconds or so.

As the piece gets to about 1 min 30 secs I can start to feel myself dissociate from my body. By the time it gets to 2 min 30 secs I can only describe my feelings as transcendent. This then enables me to go on my journey.

It would be great to have a link to any other music/chanting etc. that you think might have a similar effect.

Very happy to give it a try and see what happens.

[Étienne d'Angleterre]

This is a link to mine.

http://www.religionethics.co.uk/index.php?topic=10858.75

You have to scroll down to Jacks post.

Just saves me typing it all again.

i was just a kid, not had anymore like that since..

The only other occaision which was a bit odd was when time appeared to slow down for me, was when I was involved in a motorcycle accident when I was on the back and the bike slipped on a patch of diesel as we cornered on a stretch of dual carriage way.

It was like the six million dollar man where everything seemed to happen in slow motion.

I think that slow motion thing was something the brain does under stress.

Hi, any chance of a post number?

[Walt Zingmatilder]

This is a link to mine.

http://www.religionethics.co.uk/index.php?topic=10858.75

You have to scroll down to Jacks post.

Just saves me typing it all again.

i was just a kid, not had anymore like that since..

The only other occaision which was a bit odd was when time appeared to slow down for me, was when I was involved in a motorcycle accident when I was on the back and the bike slipped on a patch of diesel as we cornered on a stretch of dual carriage way.

It was like the six million dollar man where everything seemed to happen in slow motion.

I think that slow motion thing was something the brain does under stress.

Had a similar experience on a National Express coach. The windscreen shattered as we were overtaking a Lorry. I could see the pieces of glass come up the aisle in very slow motion indeed.

[Bubbles]

Hi, any chance of a post number?

Try 113. 

[Bubbles]

Had a similar experience on a National Express coach. The windscreen shattered as we were overtaking a Lorry. I could see the pieces of glass come up the aisle in very slow motion indeed.

Yes apparently that one is common.


http://www.sciencefocus.com/qa/why-do-things-happen-slow-motion-when-you-have-accident