Jamadara,
Still, I suspect subjectivity is the key to understanding OBEs, alien abductions, leprechaun sightings, God, etc--I think the fact that millions of people have been abducted yet we still have nothing we collectively regard as "proof" (I don't subscribe to many conspiracy theories) maybe telling enough--and so it does not seem unreasonable to me that biochemical reactions that induce/influence/enhance/emphasize/etc subjective activity--such as trances, dreams, hypnagogic, etc--may have something to do with abduction experiences. And I suspect false memory is not far off from all that, either.
I agree with you that subjectivity is a hot key for many things.
But do we understand "subjectivity" and can accept it's diversity?
I don't think so. We slowly come to the discovery that subjectivity can be very different in humans while it is not exclusive to a pretty similar objectivity that is shared with others.
Simple example:
Not many people will disagree if they are in front of the same tree or a cube, but look what happens if they are in front of the same person.
You cannot really know, how huge the difference is until you have been exposed to a lot of people. Then you know for sure, it says little what people really think of you.
If you have that experience you become aware, that very little what you think you are, is actually experienced by others.
In fact under that kind of feedback it seems that you don't exist at all, and people fabricate a sort of existance of you to which they also respond. Works either way, negative or positive.
And amazingly those images are created in the very first seconds after you first meet someone.
From a certain point on you realize that hardly anybody see's you the way you experience yourself, those that come close are your friends and your loved ones.
It is a sad truth , but we do appear a lot of our lives as an unvoluntarily hologram in the subjectivity of others.
With magic as the only little control about those holograms.
It is none of our making, but our very existance evokes a response, imageforming in the mind of others.
And so we become virtual realities in the minds of others. Everybody we meet. The more we meet, the more others agree about ourselves , the more the hologram gets dense and therefore real. ( idols, heroes)
Some people adopt and become the hologram they recognizes best and let go of most internal definition of themselves. They fall in love with the mirrorimage others provide or get sucked into it.
A illustration to...... subjectivity, I hope. Not that you need it, it just frustrates me, so I write it of my chest.
What we are is again another discussion.
Now while I am fully open to an explanation of the UFO phenomena in the realms of the subjective,
which can be plenty as we are both aware, I don't want to dismiss an explanation in the realm of the objective and they come rare.
So far I have just two options in that realm:
1) real Aliens/UFOs
2) mindcontrol or more friendly mindinfluence
I practically regard the first for zero-chance.
The second I don't know.
First critic regarding that subject: Waha.... conspiracysyndrom .... get out of here...
Diving beyond:
It still seems odd that despite that the phenomena alien/ufo is all over the world, we still can say,
that the USA and Southamerica is affected the most.
Susan had only 12 subjects in Britain. Hallejuyah.
In Britain for christ sakes, were they have ghosttourism?
The land of haunted houses and mediums?
If all those phenomena come down to suggestions and beliefs, that country should have a carpet of UFO's in the sky
and Blair should by now confess that he is a puppet of alien influence and traumatised by multiple abductions.
What is my point you might be asking?
It is a point that I hardly don't want to belief at all, because it is outrageous in it's possibility.
My point is that considering a certain locality of *most* phenomena
it can be possible that external mindinfluence is in the game. By whom or why I couldn't really say.
What also leads me into that direction of thinking are my own experiences in that regard, pretty sequencial for years in dreams, reinforcing under drugs or in regressionexperiments , but stopping the very night I found human influence behind it in a dream.
All started after I "saw" a ufo pretty close real life, with a witness by the way. We are talking 1976 -1996.
Nothing special to tell about that one, except that it was huge, extreemly beautiful and orange, fiery with a dash of magenta glow.
But in the 90ties I was already experienced in many different techniques and still had not a handle on this one.
I took it also mostly pretty cool by the way. All in all, those experiences never got priority regarding others.
Mostly found it odd that they kept repeating and had no control, but I never had any victim feelings or stuff,
I am too curious for that, besides I have no nightmares, because I see them for what they are, just a different sort of dream and as interesting as those who have a more comfortable script.
Next if you translate the most common experiences into subconscious messages you might get something like this:
abduction: against will
sexual manipulation : mental manipulation
doctors room : research experiment
genetic manipulation: attempt of mental change
alien: unknown someone
ufo: technology
Most messages from the aliens : Don't mess with your planet anymore, create a mutation, love. Why would they have a mesage in the first place? Seems odd.
And so on... oh well I just might have found a belief that banishes those experiences.
Should I turn it into money?
But my point stays that they seem not to be able to be willed, which doesn't point towards a subjective experience.
What I am saying is that I am very willing to accept that I have caused all those experiences,
but while I know that I have caused a lot of other experiences that are similar intensive or strange, I don't still know about those.
I am also not afraid to demystify the experiences, in the contrary. I think it is kind of cool to find out what they really could be. Part of the fun.
That was kinda my point.
Let us assume that AAEs (alien abduction experiences) require a higher degree of belief in their objective existences than OBEs (not too difficult to suppose if we take into account the media-induced pressure to prove aliens--and conspiracies to hide them--exist). Let us also assume that most people do not think it is possible to will something into existence (magically), without good, ol' elbow-greasy hard work. It might not then occur to people who have AAEs that they can will them to happen. People who can OBE at will might be so caught up in their astral planes that people-collecting spaceships seem to pass by them (but I suspect there exists a lot of people who believes in both OBEs and AAEs, as both have close proximity to a paranormal attractor).
Your link is not working.
Yeap. Also a very good point.
In my case that would be seeing an UFO, and after that recreating it, without the idea that it can.
Which of course I hadn't, because I had years of atheist indoctrination behind my back, after catholic indoctrination
to complete the picture. I had no idea back then about anything really, as I was highly physical orientated.
My only gods were outragious guys and I think that I filled my time with worshipping them and founding a new religion
with any new god. Have you any idea how many gods walk on this planet?
Well joke aside, it still leaves the question why it only stopped after I found that the phenomena of human origin.
Was that my own? It can be.
However what I have seen has led me to the belief that the whole phenomena appears due to an occult/spiritual influence of a group of people. And it may have well started with Crowley, as Monkey once mentioned.
Which kinds of relates to your caught in the astral plane idea, but from a different angle.
If that is true, as far I am concerned now: Happy abducting guys, I couldn't care less.
It mainly keeps the door open to external influence in this phenomena.
Of course, this is all just conjecture based on my experience and intuiting what makes sense to me. I'm just saying that I don't feel that the fact that I can walk down to my favorite book store and acquire an OBE how-to book, but I cannot do the same for AAEs (I can, however, find several books containing dubious AAE evidence), implies the two are unrelated.
Yes. A valid point.
However you cannot get a how to AAE book, can you?
If get some good OBErs to replicate the AAE experience, I will be convinced.
Nope the funny part is that it usually hits more non-believers then believers.
So do OBEs and lucid dreams. I have read several reports from people who experienced one or the other (or both) without having heard of it/them before, or who did not think such experiences were real.
I see your point of mine being pointless.
I am not entirely convinced yet, because so far as I know most OBE experiences have been replicated by others.
Recent polls 4 millions abductees? Even if it is a gros overestimate like Susan says , what are we still talking. Half of it?
Two millions. That is a lot of people.
And if it is true what Susan also says, many abductees don't want to report or be researched, how can the above number be an exageration?
Susan has difficulties to find subjects for her research and can get only 12 from the 24 in Britain?
How many people do you think have had at least one lucid dream in their lifetimes? Now, what % of that group do you think knocks on TLI's doors, wanting to be experimented on/with, or even replies to TLI's published calls for volunteer subjects and dream reports?
No idea . Do they know? Or estimate?
I was pointing out the huge difference between American and British belief.
A girl once raved about her friends' psychic powers, and I asked, why don't your friends exhibit their extraordinary abilities to the satisfaction of some credible scientist so we can put the debate of whether such abilities exist or not behind us (really, I don't think it's that simple)? She said that they had no interest in being lab rats for BS (my paraphrase). So there we have it: the debate goes on.
Most psychic test boil down to reading cards upside down or stuff like that. They also involve inhibition of the natural senses. As psychism is an extension of those, what can one expect as result? So far I have never read of a test of which I thought hmm that is pretty - real life like. So it is a waste of time really.
Besides psychism is highly unpredicatable. Like my rather stupid questions: Do you wear two earrings?
Because to me, it seems that you do. I hope you do, because otherwise I have to wonder what the little lights mean
on your ears, astrally I mean.
You may have noticed that humans do cut flowers because they appreaciate
their beauty.
A practice I have discouraged my daughter from continuing. Humans destroy many things to get we want, and I suspect it is not so different than when a predator kills its prey to perpetuate itself. Appetite. Desire. Drive. I do not claim to comprehend the intricacies of such wonderful and terrible things, but I do suppose it is fortunate for us and other living things that in addition to desire, we also have forethought, compassion, and--perhaps most importantly--choice.
Which mirrors your integrity and consequence to a great extent. Sobriety - one of Castaneda's better ideas.
However.... Flower even if they are cut are said to have the quality to absorb negative energy and emit positive.
They emit pure light. They are not for nothing used as offers in many temples.
Also the flower is from the air-element of the plantkingdom. Their fragrance has powerfull qualities, as fragrance reaches the lymbic part of the brain. I have brought Lotus from Egypt. They have found bottles of fragrances of Lotus in the tombs, that hadn't lost their qualities for over 1000 of years. Amazing isn't it?
Probably many flowers have lost their lifes for one of those bottles, but I will handle it as a treasure and do with it for the rest of my life. The magical quality of Lotusflower is enorm and highly protective.
Now how is that for indulgence? I still feel guilty, but I couldn't resist !
Next watching the dying flower teaches us our own destiny and makes us more aware of our short time in life.
Silverbear my teacher was a flowerman, he painted them and the little elfs to keep his spirit.
Must have helped, he died without suffering, despite his cancer, went easy as the wind.
He always said it is the most beautiful thing on earth. Flowers teach also abundance, some plants will even make more, if you cut them. He said that we are flowers really.
Ah, may be he was just a sentimental fool?
So I hope that at times you allow your daughter to have some flowers in her room, because it inspires to flower herself.
Sorry had to bring across SB ideas here, I practically heard his voice. Maybe your daughter is highly sensitive or has an extreme sense of beauty. I wouldn't really know. But just reading about your daughter brings a swarm of images
of sunny days and fields with flowers, and SB teaching also medical herbs to her. So maybe she has a little plantperson
inside. I really don't know how to interpret those images.
But all in all I agree with you here. It breaks my heart to see those beauties sold in supermarkets as if they had no value at all.
