Supernatural

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http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hypnagogic ... _paralysis


could be similar parts of the brain firing up for both events.

Hi legato

Read the work by Strassman and John Mack. They've put in the effort to examine this closely. People lying in bed experienced on DMT the same things that alien abductees reported. These encounters with aliens is probably due to sleep paralysis which is caused by an over abundance of DMT in the brain. After several hours of REM, our brain produces DMT which causes us to dream. Dreams in itself is a misunderstood phenomenon.
People in the amazon have reported similar experiences with aliens after taking ayauasca and they live as hunters and gatherers.

Magnus wrote:
The research conducted by Rick Strassman with DMT showed that people had similar experiences with aliens as abductees reported.
It may not make it less real. His theory is that it occurs in the consciousness and also in a dimension that we are not able to see. How can all these people report the same thing about aliens?



You have to read the research.

Magnus wrote:
I think people prefer the idea of aliens over other supernatural phenomenon because they can fit it neatly into their belief system.
There is much more to life as we know it. I don't think we are the most intelligent life in all the universe nor are our senses the best at deciphering reality. Reading Supernatural sheds new light on the alien phenomenon and makes it seem much more plausible in my opinion.




Everything can be explained, but what we are unable to at this time, we call it supernatural.
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Last edited by Magnus on 16 Dec 2008, 8:42 pm, edited 2 times in total.

Agreed, although I would say more like because they don't have been demonstrated to exist.


The thing that makes the claim more questionable is that it seems that several reports of alien abductions exist from that point forward, not before, heck, the Cold War seems to be what explains that phenomena, more than actual UFOs, in my view.


Exactly.

Magpie :

While I disagree with your definition of supernatural, if you mean "something that isn't explained" instead of "something that transcends the physical realm", then I don't have an objection in practice. It's just much easier if we use the same words to talk about the same things.

There's one major thing that bothers me about this whole "research" project, aside from the fact that Strassman is obviously a believer beforehand and, judging by his words, therefore biased to see things whether they are there or not.

Ironically, that's what hallucination is, too: perceiving things that do not represent reality. The fact that the human mind tends to respond to DMT in a certain way does not mean that the hallucinations are true. This inference is a huge fallacy.

An interesting theory about aliens is that if the mutiverse theory of quantum physics is true then basically there are several million aliens a lot closer than another planet, they're basically standing in the same spot you are just separated by the boundaries of different universes.

If alien life was more scientifically advanced and could travel between universes we would have UFOs.

It's also theorized that some of the hallucinations and dreams we have are actually our senses malfunctioning and allowing us to perceive those other universes. Our senses may have evolved explicitly to blind us to those places as since the matter there cannot interact with the matter here (without highly advanced technology) they would only serve as distractions and be anything but evolutionarily beneficial.

Just playing devil's advocate.

^I like that story...kind of like ghosts are supposed to work.

While I find the multiverse or infiniverse idea interesting and rather possible, I don't currently see any reason to believe it's true - seeing as there's no evidence for such a thing.



Of course we could, but this is a non sequitur. Also, let's look at this statement logically: A is infiniverse\multiverse existence, B is aliens that travel between universes.

Assuming A, B becomes plausible. Without A, B is insane. Where A has nothing to substantiate it, B has even less.



Another non sequitur. While it sounds like a cool idea, again assuming A, C becomes plausible. Without A, there is no C. Bottom line is you cannot use C to justify A when C follows from A.

A has no evidence or reason to believe the claim, it's mere speculation. In fact, we have more (as in, some) evidence for 11 (12?) dimensions than we do for multiple simultaneous universes.



I wish you would have made your argument a little harder to rebuke, but nice try nonetheless

Well as I said it was just a theory I heard mentioned and thought interesting I don't really know the details.

As for the rest you kept saying "assuming A, the B or C become possible" which is exactly what I was saying.. assuming the multiverse theory is true there are other theories that follow that can explain a lot.

http://www.dailygalaxy.com/my_weblog/20 ... the-m.html

is that anything? i remember an article from last year but this was all i could find...seems similar.


another article, similar content:

http://tech.uk.msn.com/news/article.asp ... id=6212162

skafather, thanks for the link. Claire333, I'm sorry you have trouble with deciphering reality sometimes. It must be very scary. However, maybe we should learn how to explore this more rather than just dismissing it as not being a part of reality. Dreams are not a part of reality, but they reveal very truthful facts about us which is a very valuable tool if we learn how to interpret it. There is no medication for schizophrenia that works completely.
Many commit suicide because they can't relate to the world. This research is important because it may help them come to grips with their mind and it might even prove to have a positive side to it.

legato asked why hallucinations have value. The discovery of DNA was made possible with the help of LSD. It is amazing to read all the accounts from modern people to hunters and gatherers who take a psychedelic and report spiral helixes that resemble DNA. Also, Einstein attributed much of his discoveries to his dream state mind.

Strassman started the research to see if there was psychiatric use for it, not to study aliens and the supernatural.

after re-reading it...the article is more an academic affair until someone is able to define what observation is and how observation could be manipulated, if at all.

That is another interesting thing. Observation actually affects the particle.

Huh? Gee...I did not mean to imply such. I have no trouble with reality. I am just spacey and spend too much time lost in my own thoughts and activities. I tend to tune out the world and I feel I need to be more connected to the world around me, but seem to have trouble with that. I can probably count on my fingers the number of dreams I have remembered in my adult life. I really do not concern myself with dreams. I have always wondered why anyone would care about random brain activity while sleeping, or why they would choose hallucinogenics while awake.

yeah but how does one define observation? is it the human interaction? is it any interaction of particles at all?


it's kinda schrödinger's cat but instead of simply the two variables...there's another variable now....observation. how is it defined and how can one observe something differently and potentially affect the results (if that's even possible...but it wouldn't entirely surprise me).

Magpie,

My objection isn't that hallucinogens don't have value, in fact I've come to a number of realizations about the beauty and nature of the world around me through interpretation of hallucinogenic trips (esp. mushrooms).

My objection is the idea that hallucinogens give you knowledge somehow. It's all about how we interpret the trip, and the rest of our experiences in life, to be sure. Any knowledge gained through interpretation of the trip was already in our mind somehow, we just needed provoking. Much like the Newton's apple, if you'll forgive the stretch - it wasn't the apple that told Newton the nature of gravity, it was the interpretation of the apple's action that led to a realization about gravity.