Longest Thread Ever

[Red]

I would love to hear it.

Some general observations. Awareness during sleep paralysis(ASP) is fairly common, and perhaps most of us experience it at least once in the course of our lives. It can be thought of as the body falling asleep, while the mind remains awake. Especially during REM sleep, when the motor functions are paralyzed to prevent physically acting out one's dreams.

Suffering from ASP to a chronic degree, lasting years, is far less common. It is mostly a phenomenon of youth, and generally fades away for older adults. I had it to a chronic degree from my teens into my 30's, at which point it became a far rarer occurance.

Generally speaking, it elicits a degree of emotional terror that can only be experienced to be appreciated. Most sufferers will agree it is hard to imagine a degree of sheer terror that could exceed ASP. This is quite evident if tou read Archie's experience of the Old Hag or witch, as he related in his Sleep Paralysis thread.

Despite its terrifying nature, it can sometimes be interpreted as a spiritual experience. This is because it often involves so-called Out of Body Experiences(OBE's). At times, these can actually be enjoyable, and some would interpret these as the extraction of an astral or emotional body from one's physical body. Or they can simply be seen as the hallucinatory experiences common to ASP to begin with. That said, it is easy to see why some would conclude they can use the onset of an ASP to initiate an OBE. It's a very common feature of the experience in general.

The Old Hag or witch interpretation of ASP can be traced to Scandinavian cultures. In our own era, it is quite evident to me that the so-called alien abduction phenomenon, so prevalent in late 20th-early 21st century Western culture, are, at least in many cases, a new interpretation of ASP in our own era of space exploration and UFO belief systems. To some degree, this seems to represent our own cultural interpretation of the age old phenomenon of ASP.

 

[idestroyedthetoilet]

Some general observations. Awareness during sleep paralysis(ASP) is fairly common, and perhaps most of us experience it at least once in the course of our lives. It can be thought of as the body falling asleep, while the mind remains awake. Especially during REM sleep, when the motor functions are paralyzed to prevent physically acting out one's dreams.

Suffering from ASP to a chronic degree, lasting years, is far less common. It is mostly a phenomenon of youth, and generally fades away for older adults. I had it to a chronic degree from my teens into my 30's, at which point it became a far rarer occurance.

Generally speaking, it elicits a degree of emotional terror that can only be experienced to be appreciated. Most sufferers will agree it is hard to imagine a degree of sheer terror that could exceed ASP. This is quite evident if tou read Archie's experience of the Old Hag or witch, as he related in his Sleep Paralysis thread.

Despite its terrifying nature, it can sometimes be interpreted as a spiritual experience. This is because it often involves so-called Out of Body Experiences(OBE's). At times, these can actually be enjoyable, and some would interpret these as the extraction of an astral or emotional body from one's physical body. Or they can simply be seen as the hallucinatory experiences common to ASP to begin with. That said, it is easy to see why some would conclude they can use the onset of an ASP to initiate an OBE. It's a very common feature of the experience in general.

The Old Hag or witch interpretation of ASP can be traced to Scandinavian cultures. In our own era, it is quite evident to me that the so-called alien abduction phenomenon, so prevalent in late 20th-early 21st century Western culture, are, at least in many cases, a new interpretation of ASP in our own era of space exploration and UFO belief systems. To some degree, this seems to represent our own cultural interpretation of the age old phenomenon of ASP.

I read it, and thanks for the responses. Correct, o do not experience this. When I have a lucid dream I know I'm doing it and wake up. It's obnoxious and creates long, sleepless nights. When I have a nightmare I wake up when my mind tells my body I need to respond. For example, my most recent one was getting attacked by a swarm of yellowjackets. Luckily I smacked into the wall instead of falling off the bed trying to roll away from them.

It sounds like it sucks; sorry people have to go through that.

 

[babe]

23,610 to 1553. You're only ahead 22,057.

history, n.

The story winners write when the losers are dead, or gone..... or not checking in.....

62,210 posts as of that date. Whereas, I'm at 9,982. Only 52,218 behind.

from being down "only" 22,057 back then, I've given up over 30,000 in the 'race', while you come in here to describe this thread as a massive self-abuse project.

yep. right on, bro.

I found something else to do. Committed to 50% of my 'work' in the sports forums.

I don't think the Jazz have the factors to repeat last year's amazing run, but by being steady and on the improve, with a little better position already, we can look forward to a WC conference series.

 

[Heathme]

This is a long thread

 

[babe]

This is a long thread

And about to get a bit longer.

Got a lot of stuff about "God" to say. OB might notice, but I won't summons him per se.

It's fun to talk expansively about Truth, Justice, The American Way, and God. A lot of other stuff without any definitions we can share as common ground will just tire me. "Social Justice" is one of those. "Racism" is another. Socialism, whatever that means is another.

 

[babe]

So some folks believe in time travel. You know, Whobies and the relativist wonks in physics.

Believing in time travel is less coherent with the physical world, and less supported by "science", than the existence of "God". An amazing statement, you say. Obvious turf rash for a brain.

So here is how it just isn't true. At any given point in time, there is no absolute difference in absolute time from one place to another. In terms of my PChem books, it is irreversible, and not path-dependent. People argue about a universal clock and whatnot, and theorize about what someone sees at point B as being some different "time". But there is no way to get there from here.

Whatever math says, or any scientific theory postulates, common sense and a coherent set of definitions, or a consistent language, would ordinarily require some demonstration or objective proof of the idea.

Nobody has ever been able to "get there" from one point in time and place, to an earlier, or later, time at any place, and back to our place and time, to prove it to us. Never been shown, never been done.

 

[babe]

Continuing the proof that some "science" is inconsistent with reality, because for whatever reason, some notion is seeming useful.... let's take up "evolution". Charles Darwin explicitly denied that his work Origin of Species had a proper use in disproving faith or religion generally, but it was widely and eagerly seized upon to do just that. First of all, we do not have any real "definition" of "God", and plenty of us don't wish to believe there even is one. Any fact of science mapped onto the subject of faith just goes out into empty space.... there is no point science can prove or disprove in the human imagination.

Biochemical realities of all living things pretty much determine that changes will occur, and there are a number of really improbable but factual principles that seem to bias the change towards a better "life" somehow. We can assume this all happens without any cause or help if we like, but it will always be an assumption, until we can somehow, someday, prove the causative factors. I think it will take a while.

Meanwhile, some proponents of other imagined "realities" like ideals of socialism or whatever, may take delight in disproving notions considered pious from millenia past, even while supposing their present extrapolations into the unknowns of our past are good enough to last.... well.... until the next researcher publishes a new paper, perhaps.

A good scientist can be perfectly conscious of data, reports, theories, and principles together with the reasons why they represent the best of what know, and perfectly willing to revise any of it when some new evidence or results are brought forward that in any way requires us to reconsider things. As a general rule, believers in "religion" are often required to defend old stuff to the death or whatever. I think it is just as legitimate to revise religious beliefs when better understanding or supporting facts are developed. It's just the human thing to learn, and change.

The "science" that is actually consistent with reality as we imagine it, must be moved along just as our pious religious convictions must move along. Religion will always be the set of beliefs which serve as an emotional, or spiritual, or societal steadying, just as science should always serve us in the material, logical, or factual realms as a measure useful in steadying our paths.

 

[babe]

I have elsewhere thrown out a rather arrogant boast that "atheism" is "nothing". OK, for a careful treatment of the subject. I know quite a few people have some rather definite beliefs about what it means to be an atheist. So, whatever. Just a human thing to believe something, for some reason, somehow.

But look at the word. "a" and "theist". So until we can define "theism", we can hardly define what it is not. Belief in some kind of being.... sentient, powerful, whatever..... or is it belief in some kind of non-being that "just is". The unknowable, as some use the term......

Some use it to specifically deny the validity of certain religions, like Christianity or whatever. And in that group, there are plenty who nevertheless embrace some of the values most Christians also embrace.
For all I really know, in terms of having proofs or logic that should be compelling(zilch), Jesus was a rich kid who sailed with the trading ships of his day to England and India, who studied in Greece, and learned a lot where ever he went. The English have a rich lore of Joseph of Arimathea being a merchant dealing in tin and copper. And a lot of Jesus' teachings seem to share something with some of the ancient writings of India.

There is now a body of evidence, metallurgical fingerprints, that show a lot of bronze age works used copper from Isle Royale of northern Michigan. Copper that was not smelted from ores, but has the same very pure content with an exact match of trace contaminants, to the unique copper or the northern borders of the US in the Great Lakes. Ore that was ground under ice sheets, concentrated in lava cracks of base rock, and reduced by biological hydrogen. So, anyway, so much for all we know about the past, or even Christianity.

Great Phoenician secrets, the greatest sailors of their day, who sailed around Africa, across the Atlantic, and kept little strongholds in the Mediterranean for doing business.

Really, "theism" is the ardent human wish for some coherent universal system of reality...... hmmmm..... and so is "Science". Not a lot of folks needing to profess AScientism, though. uhhmm.... maybe some flatearthers.

 

[babe]

So, today I talked to one of my favorite cousins. Don't see him much...... he lives in Florida, but is here today.

He can be counted on as willing to discuss the General Theory of Relativity with a Gnostic turn.

I don't have all the philosophers organized and indexed by name in my brain, but apparently there are some differing ideas out there. One has to do with the impact of consciousness, or observation, on the wave mechanics..... you may have run into this watching Dr. Who episodes, the whole alternate reality that follows each decision we make, everything we see or touch.... you know, the zillions of protracted scenarios of what ifs as actually being other universes, all because of an eyeball, a mouth.... creating divergent sequences.

While this may appear to be patent nonsense to most practical people, we do know that measuring and observing creates some kinds of changes in the status quo , or the flow of things. Most such relations involve quantum mechanics on the micro scales, not our physical ordinary world of everyday stuff.

There also may be some relations in this, at first glance, fantasical reality, and some of the stuff you will encounter on Coast to Coast about "remote viewing" and paranormal phenomena.

And stuff in the Bible, in Jesus' teachings, like "If you have the faith of a mustard seed(small), you can move mountains", changing water to wine (3 H2O => C2H5OH + 2He ) , which would figure as a nuclear reaction. I'm not going to add up the energies to declare exothermic or endothermic, just say it apparently is not going to blow up a wedding party. One Oxygen is not transmuted, but 2 Oxygen atoms are broken up into carbon atoms and an alpha particle. But my point here is to postulate that such a "miracle" would require a conscious power of some kind that can affect nuclear reactions.... I'm not asking you to believe it happens, but just citing this as one of the Gnostic features of early Christianity. The Old Testament has stuff about the Sun standing still, earthquakes, all kinds of pestilences, sticks and snakes, cooking oil that just doesn't quit...... all kinds of fantastic stuff. These age-old human beliefs fall into the class of Gnostic powers. The word Gnostic means, in Greek, what the word "knowing" means in English. It infers a connection at the mental level between the world and God, or the world and us. So God speaking, and creating a world with a word, is the ultimate Gnostic phenomena.

But the Whobies have outdone the Bible a zillion times, creating multiple universes of all kinds, and having a Tardus that can get there, and back, with a little whirling strobe and some circus sounds.

So it's all "good". We love Dr. Who, but "God" somehow makes us feel guilty or bad, so we can't talk about Him/Whatever.

So my friend today was talking about some new calculation about all the possible values our basic physical constants could have, in quantum mechanical math, and saying there are 500 million possible universes we can already "reach" mathematically, but it seems only one is compatible with "Life".

He also noted how scientists discussing string theory just won't go there, so to speak, rationally. As Life develops from lower to higher forms, certain kinds of consciousnesses become noted. We are the Homo Sapiens Sapiens, he says. The consious ones who are aware that we are conscious. A lot of scientists will discuss how perhaps we have only imagined the world, and how it otherwise may not even be a "real thing", but no one wants to talk about how in the world we can create stuff using our imagination, and our thumbs perhaps....And what fundamental limits there may be on us humans.

Mormons have a different idea of the creation than just God saying the word. Mormons believe the stuff was there from the beginning.... "matter cannot be created or made".... well.... uhmmm.... maybe that would be E as in mc2, mass and energy not being created or made. A Law of Conservation of Mass and Energy. Just organized, or applied. Mormons are still pretty Gnostic believers though. Not even talking about the original creation like most religions have gone to already, just talking about this world. We could still be forced to acknowledge an original "creation" by a total Gnostic event of God giving the Word.

 

[babe]

So a nephew of mine was in an accident. Driving crazy down a residential street at 120 mph in the middle of the night, he hit a curb and the vehicle went head over heels airborne. Nephew was thrown out. He went over a house into the next yard, into a large Spruce or somesuch, with ample boughs, and bounced around inside the tree. Unhurt. The car went over some landscape and landed, crushed, in a heap. Slid down some driveway and into a garage.

Not sure how a team of expert angels can do stuff like that, sometimes, and keep someone alive. It would have to be some kind of mental/spiritual capability to manipulate physical stuff in our dimensions, from theirs.

Gnosticism got a bad rap in early Christian development, but it's there in quite of lot of Christian lore nevertheless. Angels breaking jail open, winds driving ships on the seas, Jesus stopping Saul on the road to Damascus. Not to mention the mysteries of the apocalypse.

Shakespeake poetically cast it as "As a man thinketh in his own heart, so it he".... not sure that was Shakespeare. Norman Vincent Peale did a lot of postive preching on a rather expansive vein of what is possible if we believe.....

so there is one guy out there with a theory of relativity and consciousness, hypothesizing a link.....which is, at the core, what believing in God, or miracles, amounts to.

 

[olden_undercover]

Shakespeake poetically cast it as "As a man thinketh in his own heart, so it he".... not sure that was Shakespeare.

Pretty sure that's Proverbs 23:7. James Allen used it, in part, as the title to his classic book, 'As a Man Thinketh'.

Allen, Norman Vincent Peale-- you've read your share of old-school self-help, I take it.

 

[babe]

I haven't actually studied Shakespeare, and suffer from the notion that almost anything succinct about the human condition must be somewhere somehow from Shakespeare.....

The Allen book fell into my hands when I was maybe ten years old, and I actively sought out material from Norman Vincent Peale in the same time frame. I didn't then consider it bad to read stuff that was done with a view of helping people conduct their lives in a positive manner.

I also got some pretty serious old-school motivational stuff, which I remember rejecting with the thought that it didn't matter so much to "Think and Grow Rich"..... was that Napoleon Hill or who.

I also read William Shirer's "The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich", every page, when I was eleven. And then some books about the Nazi extermination camps.

 

[babe]

My friend referenced above has written a book, unpublished still, I think, which he sent me via a PDF file. He's pretty serious about the math, and the need for inclusion of some other operators in the equation which would "unify" the reality he believes in. He is LDS, and he is trying to establish as a matter of mathematical principle, an explanation for "spiritual" realities Mormons generally believe in.

Mormons have testimony meetings where people are free to rise and speak about their spiritual beliefs and give immediate reasons for substantiating the beliefs, but generally speak in terms like
"I know....." and some folks will say "Amen" albeit quite softly. Well, or at least "feel" the "Spirit" and draw support from it.

I grew up in a divided family..... Mom and Dad were not together. Mom took the kids to meetings, but never overtly preached anything. Dad was a scientist, and a very accomplished one, who tried to tell me not to let religion affect my reason..... Mom was notable for her unconditional love and self-sacrificing service to anyone in need..... Dad was notable for having good sense.

I did not feel like I was in a "cult" when I went to meetings, but I also generally had jobs or stuff to do, and didn't go much. I remember being devoutly impressed by a bishop, also a 3rd cousin, who would start testimony meetings by holding up his right hand and telling about how his hand was caught in the mechanism of a baler and crushed, and how the doctors were about to amputate it, but he got a blessing and it was healed.... over some fairly natural healing process and some normal time, I think..... so that it was fully restored.

Even my father..... when he spoke of such things..... would say stuff about how many times he should've died somehow. How as a child he fell under some horses hitched to wagon and not in good control at the moment, and he heard a voice clearly tell him to stay still. The horses were calmed, and he was unhurt. Another time, in a lab in Chicago working for the notable Dr. Urrey, while working with some stuff in a hood. He felt something pulling on his shoestring, and bent over to fix it..... at the exact moment the stuff in the hood exploded. My dad was unhurt, but a side of the lab was demolished. People came running to see who was killed.....

My dad's piety in telling me such stories was generally tied to some observation about me and how I should've been killed by the stupid thing I had done. Like when I found a military shell unexploded on the National Guard range, and played with it all the way home, some five miles, using it as a neat improvised 15-pound shot-put, and then threw it in the basement window well when I got home.

Dad called out the army bomb squad to remove it.

 

[Archie Moses]

If any of you are familiar with Forrest Fenn and his treasure located somewhere in MT, CO or NM, I've been thinking of doing something similar - but just not nearly as lucrative and Jazz related.

My thoughts are to hide a treasure consisting of some of my Jazz memorabilia e.g. old cards, jerseys, signed plaques, Jazz related items, and maybe some cash somewhere in Utah. I'd write a poem with clues as to where you could find it and make it a challenge. If no one could crack the poem, every month or so I could give new hints or specify a smaller search radius until the cache is found.

I think this would be fun as hell. Searching for Forrest's treasure has been an adventure for me fun and I've learned a ton during research to crack his poem (I have two pretty good solves, but will wait until next year to search.) Who's down?

Son of a bitch batstard. It's been found.


https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2020/jun/07/forrest-fenn-treasure-rocky-mountains-found

 

[babe]

Son of a bitch batstard. It's been found.


https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2020/jun/07/forrest-fenn-treasure-rocky-mountains-found

We deserve more information, the whole story.

Which treasure are you speaking of, your own..... which you gave us no clues for.... or the other guy's, Forrest Fenn's. And where was it found and by whom???? And what clues led to the discovery?

 

[babe]

Some general observations. Awareness during sleep paralysis(ASP) is fairly common, and perhaps most of us experience it at least once in the course of our lives. It can be thought of as the body falling asleep, while the mind remains awake. Especially during REM sleep, when the motor functions are paralyzed to prevent physically acting out one's dreams.

Suffering from ASP to a chronic degree, lasting years, is far less common. It is mostly a phenomenon of youth, and generally fades away for older adults. I had it to a chronic degree from my teens into my 30's, at which point it became a far rarer occurance.

Generally speaking, it elicits a degree of emotional terror that can only be experienced to be appreciated. Most sufferers will agree it is hard to imagine a degree of sheer terror that could exceed ASP. This is quite evident if tou read Archie's experience of the Old Hag or witch, as he related in his Sleep Paralysis thread.

Despite its terrifying nature, it can sometimes be interpreted as a spiritual experience. This is because it often involves so-called Out of Body Experiences(OBE's). At times, these can actually be enjoyable, and some would interpret these as the extraction of an astral or emotional body from one's physical body. Or they can simply be seen as the hallucinatory experiences common to ASP to begin with. That said, it is easy to see why some would conclude they can use the onset of an ASP to initiate an OBE. It's a very common feature of the experience in general.

The Old Hag or witch interpretation of ASP can be traced to Scandinavian cultures. In our own era, it is quite evident to me that the so-called alien abduction phenomenon, so prevalent in late 20th-early 21st century Western culture, are, at least in many cases, a new interpretation of ASP in our own era of space exploration and UFO belief systems. To some degree, this seems to represent our own cultural interpretation of the age old phenomenon of ASP.

I think I am the world's top expert on ASP, but it appears you don't know what it is at all. Asinine Spiritualist Professions. I'll tell you about it all some day when you're rational.

I don't ever get the kind of ASP you speak of, because I roll over regularly when asleep, and am aware of nothing. I used to have a sort of difficulty getting to sleep before 4 AM or waking up before 9 AM, though. I had to sorta distract my mind with nonsense to sleep when I needed it. I've found that Driving desert roads is just the kind of nonsense that works best. After Driving, the next best diversion that enables sleep is Movies.

For a while I had this recurring dream where I was driving at night, really fast, and could not find the brakes. That little sequence of white lines on black asphalt, and the headlights streaming. When I woke up, I'd have to check where I was, and see how far I'd gone. Sorry to disappoint my dear readers with non-dramatic endings, but the fact was I had pulled over when I was losing my ability to stay in my lane and maintain a constant speed. So I had those dreams, mostly, when I was parked safely in some pullout spot. When I get sleepy, my foot gets soft on that gas pedal and sometimes I get down to dangerously slow speeds, sorta parked in the road....

I have a dog with me nowadays, so I have to be considerate of others when I drive, and get home and feed the mutt and let him sleep like a human in a real bed.

 

[Archie Moses]

We deserve more information, the whole story.

Which treasure are you speaking of, your own..... which you gave us no clues for.... or the other guy's, Forrest Fenn's. And where was it found and by whom???? And what clues led to the discovery?

Forrest Fenn's. I quoted the wrong post.

 

[babe]

So who here knows what's going on at the Sinclair Station, in Elberta????

It's been fixed up a bit, with a picnic table in the back, a fenced yard, sorta like a park. Some Portapotties have been placed there. I've seen some really huge crowds gather there during the Great Shut-In, with police gathering around to sorta watch....



People out getting their pic taken in front of this iconic station.

 

[babe]

Another pic...

 

[babe]

Here's one of the thousands who've posed before this historic monument....