Mystical anomolous experiences

[Cheerful Charlie]

http://news.yahoo.com/mystical-experiences-open-door-perception-brain-122354985.html
[h=1]Mystical Experiences Open a 'Door of Perception' in the Brain[/h] For Jordan Grafman, it was just a split-second vision.



"About 15 years ago, my mom died," Grafman told Live Science. "I was walking down the street to catch the bus at about 5 a.m., and I looked down the street and saw who I thought was my mom, although my mom had been dead for a week. I looked back, and whatever was there was gone."
That momentary flicker in perception intrigued Grafman, who is a cognitive neuroscientist and the director of brain injury research at the Rehabilitation Institute of Chicago.
"That, to me, was a mystical experience," Grafman said. "As a scientist who has seen something that, to me, seemed mystical, I'm interested in figuring out what happened to my brain."

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Interesting stuff.

 

[Atheos]

There's a lot of what I would consider to be relevant missing information in this story. Was it dark (which I would expect it to be in most places at 5:00 a.m.)? How far away was this apparition? How old was he at the time, and how attached to his mother? Obviously the experience had a profound effect on him, but hallucinations are a well known phenomenon although not well understood I suppose. The research they are doing is interesting as well.

 

[tantric]

A few years back, I decided to kick my methadone addiction. Since I know some shit, I used the dextromethorphan trick rather than going through withdrawal. This is a lot better than cold turkey, but not fun - it basically induces a visionary religious experience. In the midst of it a spirit called Dreaming Jaguar came to me and told me this: tomorrow, if you want, you can rationalize this away. That's what rationalization does. However, just because you can rationalize any experience, that doesn't mean that irrational things never happen. Then he cured my addiction and went away. I accepted it as a miracle - to do otherwise would be petty, I think.

 

[tantric]

A few years back, I decided to kick my methadone addiction. Since I know some shit, I used the dextromethorphan trick rather than going through withdrawal. This is a lot better than cold turkey, but not fun - it basically induces a visionary religious experience. In the midst of it a spirit called Dreaming Jaguar came to me and told me this: tomorrow, if you want, you can rationalize this away. That's what rationalization does. However, just because you can rationalize any experience, that doesn't mean that irrational things never happen. Then he cured my addiction and went away. I accepted it as a miracle - to do otherwise would be petty, I think.

 

[Tom Sawyer]

Egad. His parents named him Dreaming? Jaguars are assholes.

 

[Underseer]

http://news.yahoo.com/mystical-experiences-open-door-perception-brain-122354985.html
[h=1]Mystical Experiences Open a 'Door of Perception' in the Brain[/h] For Jordan Grafman, it was just a split-second vision.



"About 15 years ago, my mom died," Grafman told Live Science. "I was walking down the street to catch the bus at about 5 a.m., and I looked down the street and saw who I thought was my mom, although my mom had been dead for a week. I looked back, and whatever was there was gone."
That momentary flicker in perception intrigued Grafman, who is a cognitive neuroscientist and the director of brain injury research at the Rehabilitation Institute of Chicago.
"That, to me, was a mystical experience," Grafman said. "As a scientist who has seen something that, to me, seemed mystical, I'm interested in figuring out what happened to my brain."

----

Interesting stuff.

At least he's smart enough to assume that his brain did something to him. Of course, you would expect a neuroscientist to know better than to think something like that was real.

 

[tantric]

Egad. His parents named him Dreaming? Jaguars are assholes.

see, i like neo-primitive art...and painting murals. thus i painted this on my closet door:



taken from a mayan codex. in their symbology a flower/snake coming from someone's head indicates he's dreaming, like 'Zzzz' = sleeping in our comics. after the vision, i had it tattoo on my calf.

 

[couch_sloth]

For a few years, in my late teens, I was a Pentecostal Christian.

When I had my 'born again' experience, I had what I would now consider visual hallucinations. i. e. Colors seemed to become incredibly bright and rich. I was standing on a Persian rug when it happened and the designs on the rug were so vivid that they seemed like something alive.

About a year later, when I was praying to God asking for some guidance, I immediately heard the answer "Yes". It didn't seem like I just heard this in my head; the " yes" was audible, clear and out-loud.
As it turned out, the " Yes" answer by God was pretty shitty advice.

What both these circumstances had it common is that I had been under a lot of stress when they happened. I eventually came to the conclusion that these were hallucinations caused by the tremendous amount of stress I had put myself under.

 

[couch_sloth]

A few years back, I decided to kick my methadone addiction. Since I know some shit, I used the dextromethorphan trick rather than going through withdrawal. This is a lot better than cold turkey, but not fun - it basically induces a visionary religious experience. In the midst of it a spirit called Dreaming Jaguar came to me and told me this: tomorrow, if you want, you can rationalize this away. That's what rationalization does. However, just because you can rationalize any experience, that doesn't mean that irrational things never happen. Then he cured my addiction and went away. I accepted it as a miracle - to do otherwise would be petty, I think.

I've never heard of this dextromethorphan trick .
I've heard of LSD being used to treat alcoholism, by inducing an epiphany-like experience.
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2012/03/120308224524.htm