Thread: full disclosure

Twenty odd years ago I phoned a draconian psychiatric hospital and said to the person on the phone that they needed to send someone to come and collect me. Instead they said I needed to see my doctor first. I saw my doctor and he said I needed to stop doing such a huge amount of drugs and if I did I would be alright

Thanks for your honesty and forwardness Shadow

I don't see what mental illness has to do with dreaming, except maybe when it comes to telling dream from reality. What are you insinuating?

Originally Posted by MikalMan

I don't see what mental illness has to do with dreaming, except maybe when it comes to telling dream from reality. What are you insinuating?

ShadwOfWind

I agree and thanx for bringing it up.

Disociative Disorder with Imaginitive Reconstruction and Borderline Personality

is the full label I got given about 10 years ago when a friend told her shrink about me. Her shrink said can you get your friend to see a colleague of mine.

I went with her and asked her to come into the appointment with me for support. On the 3rd appiontment I was put on the pension because I needed to learn to keep my stress levels low and learn what triggers my disociation "triggers".

That doctor said that my ability to "sleep" when things go "wonky", (my word for disociation) has probably kept me out of hospital.

After diognosis I felt dissappointed because maybe ALL my "deep spiritual experiences" were due to "Imaginative Reconstruction".

80% of multypersonality people get "missing time" the other 20% don't get missing time.

Instead of missing time, their brain fills-in what would have been missing time, with a guess, at what might have happened during the missing time. The guess is always a bit wrong and is called "Imaginative Reconstruction".

But

Due to this mess I am perhaps more interested than others, in wanting to sort out synchronisities and shared dreaming.

Wonky brains may acidently trip-over what takes balanced brains decades of training to experience and controll, (In My Opinion)

I am sure this link won't work but here goes:

YouTube - Australia's Got Talent 2012 - Darren Jones

We talked about mental illnes above, and then about 5 hours ago this this fat, frumpy, fabulous, 50 year old came on Australia's Got Tallent.

He is an Adeladian Mental Health Nurse. The judges asked him if he was any good and he said that "my patients with paranoid scizophrenia don't pull-punches and they like my singing".

He sang:

Smile though your heart is breaking.
Smile even though it's aching.
When there are clouds in the sky
You'll get by.

That's the time you must keep on trying.
Smile what's the use of crying.
You'll find that life is still worth while if you just smile.

I am so proud of this Adelaide mental health worker. I hope some one puts-up his whole segment. This is just the song. The before and after chat with the judges was really good too.

When someone puts up everything I will transcribe it for you.

Put:

Australia's got tallent 2012 - Darren Jones

Into the Youtube search bar to have a look at this guy. He passed his audition.

Regarding original OP statement:
Well this is always going to be difficult. I mean where do you draw the line when deciding to give advice/who can give advice? Qualifications perhaps?

Does a website utilising/publishing the content add a big disclaimer?

Do we all trust the doctors? The mental health practitioners? The people that make the medicines and drugs which have numerous side-effects. They are human just like us - They are definitely not always right.

The trouble with disclosure is that 'Big Brother' records it on a giant database, so when you want health insurance, etc. then you are not covered for mental health issues. It can even affect your job prospects as a future employer wants this disclosure also.

Eg: If you go to the Doctor's for a simple prescription for Anti-depressants, etc. It all gets recorded, even if you are on them for a short period.

That is why I would be uncomfortable with a disclosure like that advocated on a public forum, due to the reasons above, as I think society in general still attaches a stigma to mental issues IMO.

Rob Star:

If Rob Star is your real name, then I agree that you would want to be careful about what you post. If you use a pretentious pseudonym like me, then that protects against things like employers and insurance companies. Yahoo and google can still determine who I am by cross-referencing with results they data-mine from my e-mail accounts with them, and a sufficiently determined person could figure it out also. But as has always been the case, 'Big Brother' is fragmented between many different interests that don't share information. The way the internet has developed, with the way that information is collected, pisses me off, and I would like to see it the target of a lot more civil liberties laws and lawsuits. But it looks to me like mostly a separate issue - if you want to discuss something that's closely related to mental health, you can always create another account with a different name. Nobody who matters is going to track your IP address.

I'm not suggesting that everyone who posts here should share such information. I'm suggesting that people who advocate for specific practices, and who claim results from those practices, have a responsibility to give a balanced view of their experience. That only applies to a minority of people who post here. To use myself as an example, I've claimed that introspection akin to jnana yoga has improved my life. That being the case, I need to be honest about all aspects of the possible effects it has had on my mental development, because the effects can not be completely undone.

Originally Posted by MikalMan

I don't see what mental illness has to do with dreaming, except maybe when it comes to telling dream from reality. What are you insinuating?

My sarcasm meter doesn't work very well. I'm guessing that you're joking, but I'll assume you're not and respond at face value, for the sake of clarifying what I meant.

Mental illness is relevant to dreaming in much the same way that respiratory illness is relevant to breathing. And "telling dream from reality" is a little bit important don't you think?

Dreaming is a big part of what you do with your mind when you're asleep, which is ~1/3 of your life. And where there is mental or emotional pressure or conflict that can not be fully expressed while awake, that almost always comes out in dreams. Almost any kind of mental illness will have an impact on dream life, and almost any kind of mental practice that has a significant impact on the mind will have an impact on mental health.

This is the 'beyond dreaming' forum, which is for topics like astral projection where distinguishing between dream and reality is already problematic. If cultivating these experiences has effects which spill over into other areas of life, which they do, that can be a very big problem depending on what those effects are.

As far as what I'm insinuating....Sometimes I feel as if we have a lot of sock puppet discussions on the forum, that people aren't being straight about where they're really coming from, and that we're not talking about the real issues that are inspiring our discussions. I'm empathic enough to know this, but not so much that I never get confused about it. My point was to try to prod the hidden motivators and confounders more out into the open, or at least to express my feelings about the issue. If the shoe doesn't fit you, then don't worry about it. I'm not trying to harass people who have had emotional or mental health treatment. All people have emotional or mental issues of one degree or another, whether its clinically recognized or not - people are complicated.

Part of where I'm coming from, is earlier in my life psychically developed people with mental health issues had a fairly strong impact on my spiritual development. They hid everything that they felt might put their agendas in a bad light, and I would have made some different choices had I known the fuller picture. Another way to say this is that once you open a chakra, you generally can not close it again. When you extend your identity in some direction, or become more aware of psychological and spiritual realities, it is like giving birth to a child inside of yourself. You can't just change your mind later and take a different path from where you were. And I can see and feel that the astral/physical dissociation that comes with astral projection isn't easy to reverse either, though I did not do much to cultivate that tendency.

The changes I have gone through have been positive in some regards, but it would have been nice to have made my choices based on a more honest set of information. None of this is the fault of anyone who posts here, but I'm still sensitive to the issue because I don't want to see other people have to repeat that same kind of experience.

Well the first part of the title I use is my first name IRL.

I suppose I could have gone the whole hog and use 'symbol'. (That cross between masculine/femimine icon name that 'The Artist formally known as Prince' uses!)

I know what you mean about Governments. Here in the UK, our coalition Government are trying to drum up some tinpot way of monitoring it's citizens internet/email activities. Not 100pc sure how it would be done?

Welcome to the 'free' world!

I hope, Shadowofwind that you didn't think my response was over critical. I was merely stating people might need to be wary due to privacy reasons. (As stated in my previous post.)

However, like you say, if you think a technique may carry associated risk, then the pro's and con's (inc. the person giving it) should be considered by all.

Regards.

RobStar,

Yeah, I agree that UK government surveillance is out of control, such as with all the video cameras. But here in the US we're racing to catch up.

No I didn't find your comments critical, and I thought you made a good point.

DebraJane,

Thanks for the thoughts. The lyrics to that song remind me somewhat of "The Show Must Go On" by Queen.

Years ago in the US there used to be a comedy called "Herman's head" about a guy's internal thought process, which was sort of by committee. I think that all people's personalities are fragmented a little bit like that. Sometimes what gets labeled an illness or a syndrome makes sense, and sometimes its more a matter of convention and expectations. I think its crazy that most of us spend 8 or 10 hours a day trapped in little fabric boxes starting at computer screens, and yet if anybody gets unhappy about this its regarded as a chemical imbalance. Similarly, people treat each other terribly, and whenever anyone cracks from the strain or neglect, its treated as if its their own private shortcoming. Life is hard for everyone, and the people that its hardest for are not the worst or the weakest.

Correlation doesn't mean causation. I don't think that lucid dreaming causes mental illness. I was dealing with psychological problems already when I first got into lucid dreaming. I was so depressed that I was starting to have mild hallucinations. But did my mental issues lead me to an interest in these things? Not directly. But I think that when your brain is not normative, when your perceptions are noticeably different than the accepted perceptions of your culture, you are going to start questioning the nature of reality itself. It was more when I came out of my depression that I realized how distorted my perceptions had been, and began to wonder if everyone's reality was slightly different.

Despite the fact that thinking can be distorted by mental illness, I don't think that the experiences of the mentally ill are not valid, as you said. We see insanity as a break from reality, but what if instead we thought of it as the acceptance of a different reality? In many cultures, people are marked for shamanism by a period of mental or physical illness. Siberian shamans in particular are "attacked by demons" until they choose to devote themselves to a spiritual path. In our culture, we would see that as schizophrenia. So it makes a lot of sense to me that people in the Beyond Dreaming forums had dealt with mental illness. Mental illness expands your range of perception drastically, and many ways of coping with it-- meditation for example-- are often a part of a spiritual path.

That said, I sort of agree with you. Many of the activities discussed on these forums could be potentially damaging. I don't know about astral projection. But I've heard of many people becoming physically and mentally ill upon embarking on kundalini awakening. The path of the shaman is a dangerous one. In Siberia, passing into the spirit world can kill a person if they're not prepared, if they don't have helper spirits to protect them. When people from the West adopt bits and pieces of Eastern religions and philosophies without having a sense of gravity for the situation or a real understanding of what they're getting into, they can potentially put themselves in harm's way.

Point of possible clarification: I did not say that the experiences of the mentally ill are invalid. They're as valid as anything else. And they're inescapably a part of life for some people, for both better and for worse.

Yes ebullere

Ten-or-so years before my diognosis I went to a GP and said that "my dreams are comming true again Doctor. Usually I go find an Indian Guru when this happens but I am 30 now and I am wondering if this keeps happening because I am crazy, or something. I trust you can you find me a phychiatrist to talk to". And he did.

This recommended shrink did me a heap of good. He said normal activities - normal mind. He was a family therapist. He encouraged me to have a social life. I joined, as a volunteer, Riding for the Disable. I had 4 wonderful horses to feed and release into the paddock every morning before work. And one horse to bring uo from the paddock to the stable, to groom and feed in the every evening.

Anyway

On the 3rd appointment I got brave. I stood up and blurted-out, "I've got an innerworld and my dreams come true".

He looked me in the eye and said, "And I am not interested".

And that was that.

After seeing him for about six months I told him that I wanted to meditate and he said, "for some that would be ok but not for you Debbie. I'd rather you not focus inside like that. I'd rather you be with real people".

In 18 months he helped me turn things around 180 degrees. I did night classes after work, lived with a family instead of living alone and like I said I worked with "Riding for the Disabled.

When our time was up I thanked him that he never pushed drugs on me. He said, " I remember what you said at our first appointment, Debbie. You said you didn't want to be put on any medication".

He also did not give me a lable.

He said that he felt he could not be any further use to me and asked me to pick one of three colleagues and if I don't like the one I pick, to come back and he will help me find another one.

But

I didn't want a full-on 3 year, twice a week thingy. Too expensive, even though DREAMS would be a main feature of that psycoanalysis.

Just want to say, ebullrre, that I agree with some of what you say in your post below. I am all for that kind of ethical psychiatric treatment. It did me a heap of good back when I was 27, I am 53 now.

Originally Posted by ebullere

Correlation doesn't mean causation. I don't think that lucid dreaming causes mental illness.

I was dealing with psychological problems already when I first got into lucid dreaming. I was so depressed that I was starting to have mild hallucinations. But did my mental issues lead me to an interest in these things? Not directly.

But I think that when your brain is not normative, when your perceptions are noticeably different than the accepted perceptions of your culture, you are going to start questioning the nature of reality itself.

It was more when I came out of my depression that I realized how distorted my perceptions had been, and began to wonder if everyone's reality was slightly different.

Despite the fact that thinking can be distorted by mental illness, I don't think that the experiences of the mentally ill are not valid, as you said. We see insanity as a break from reality, but what if instead we thought of it as the acceptance of a different reality?

In many cultures, people are marked for shamanism by a period of mental or physical illness. Siberian shamans in particular are "attacked by demons" until they choose to devote themselves to a spiritual path. In our culture, we would see that as schizophrenia. So it makes a lot of sense to me that people in the Beyond Dreaming forums had dealt with mental illness.

Mental illness expands your range of perception drastically, and many ways of coping with it-- meditation for example-- are often a part of a spiritual path.

That said, I sort of agree with you. Many of the activities discussed on these forums could be potentially damaging.

I don't know about astral projection. But I've heard of many people becoming physically and mentally ill upon embarking on kundalini awakening.

The path of the shaman is a dangerous one. In Siberia, passing into the spirit world can kill a person if they're not prepared, if they don't have helper spirits to protect them.

When people from the West adopt bits and pieces of Eastern religions and philosophies without having a sense of gravity for the situation or a real understanding of what they're getting into, they can potentially put themselves in harm's way.

It was the ANZAC national holiday today so I didn't get to Netzone Internet Cafe to transcribe the full audition of Mental Health Nurse, Darren Jones.

I found a guest of the boarding house, (where I live) sitting outside. I haven't seen him for weeks but there he was. If anyone, here, would know Darren it would be him. I took out my phone and showed him the Youtube and as soon as he saw Darren he said, "He, told me something once that helped me".

He only met this nurse once and he happened to tell him how he stops thinking for hours. This worried him because he read and heared people refering to dumb people as "air-heads". He felt like they were talking about people, like him, who stop stop thinking for hours.

Darren said, "It is very refreshing, isn't it?".

This changed everything for our guest. Now he can controll the times he stops thinking, and can re-start thinking, at will. Thanks to loseng his fear of it after Darren saying that "to stop thinkng is refreshing, isn't it".

At one point in our chat the guest casually said that it's known that Darren has an IQ of 150.

Wow

Maybe the weak voiced, weak looking singer has a chance of winning Australia's Got Talent, (if he really does have an IQ of 150).

Tomorrow I'll transcribe the full audition for you's.

Originally Posted by debrajane

I am sure this link won't work but here goes:

YouTube - Australia's Got Talent 2012 - Darren Jones

We talked about mental illnes above, and then about 5 hours ago this this fat, frumpy, fabulous, 50 year old came on Australia's Got Tallent.

He is an Adeladian Mental Health Nurse. The judges asked him if he was any good and he said that "my patients with paranoid scizophrenia don't pull-punches and they like my singing".

He sang:

Smile though your heart is breaking.
Smile even though it's aching.
When there are clouds in the sky
You'll get by.

That's the time you must keep on trying.
Smile what's the use of crying.
You'll find that life is still worth while if you just smile.

I am so proud of this Adelaide mental health worker. I hope some one puts-up his whole segment. This is just the song. The before and after chat with the judges was really good too.

When someone puts up everything I will transcribe it for you.

Put:

Australia's got tallent 2012 - Darren Jones

Into the Youtube search bar to have a look at this guy. He passed his audition.

Transcript:



Darren Jones - Australia's Got Talent 2012 audition 5 [FULL] - YouTube

*Up now our next act. At the age when others are winding-down 50 year old Adelaide local Darren Jones has just taken up singing.

DJ: I absolutely love singing. Like I’ve really, I’ve discovered that I just love singing.

*Now he wants to leave a 30 year Nursing Career for his new found passion.

DJ:I love my job as a Mental Health Nurse but I do feel at this time in my life that I should be on this pathway rather on the pathway of Nursing.

*Darren is proof that you’re never too old to have big dreams. But he’s still keeping his feet firmly on the ground.

DJ I don’t think I ever will be a typical Pop-Star. I don’t have the clean-cut, chiselled face and, you know, Buffed Abs of Steel to actually by one.

(0:48)
Everyone will laugh at me because I’ve always got food in my mouth.

DJ:For me I think my edge is that I’ve got a very unique voice in a big truck driver body (haha)

(…) sorry computer playing up so I will just transcribe the funny bits.



Bugger, I can’t get it to work so I will just post this as is. Enjoy.

Nat King Cole - Smile - YouTube


Nat King Cole - Smile Words Here

Smile though your heart is aching
Smile even though its breaking
When there are clouds in the sky, youll get by
If you smile through your fear and sorrow
Smile and maybe tomorrow
Youll see the sun come shining through for you

Light up your face with gladness
Hide every trace of sadness
Although a tear may be ever so near
Thats the time you must keep on trying
Smile, whats the use of crying?
Youll find that life is still worthwhile
If you just smile.
Thats the time you must keep on trying
Smile, whats the use of crying?
Youll find that life is still worthwhile
If you just smile

The only connection I've ever made between mental health and dreaming... Is that I believe that in cases of premonitions (aka "I dreamt that X happened, and it did!"). I believe these to be either a case of pure coincidence, or the person making the claim is delusional. But I'm a skeptic. I don't believe in supernatural abilities, visions, etcetera. A lot of folks on this site are more spiritual than I am, though, so they would be open to these theories.

I think that people who are experiencing premonitions should talk to a shrink - because I believe that the mind formulates the memory of a dream forewarning them, or exaggerates a memory of a real dream to make it that way. I think it's a way for the mind to cope with a traumatic event. If you notice that most premonitions are of horrible events, and you rarely see someone say "I had a dream that my neighbor bought a brand new car, and he did!"... It's always more like "I've dreamt that there was a horrible plane wreck, and there was!".

I digress...

I cannot agree that people should fully disclose their health history, unless I saw a concrete example of how it could be dangerous to the reader. I just can't think of anything myself.

Guidance Through Synchronicities and Intuition
April 19, 2012
Radio Program called: The Partnership of Intuition and Dreams
Hosted by Dr Marcia Emery, Ph.D
The Partnership of Intuition and Dreams | VoiceAmerica

(3:44)
Dr. Larry Burk:
I was pretty much aware of concept of intuition and I think I had synchronicity guiding me along the way but I didn’t know know what a synchronicity was so I was just going with the flow. (…)

(4:17)
The following year my dad got cancer. (…)

(4:30)
One of the first things I remember happening was my dad came to visit for Thanksgiving in 1987. I hadn’t seen him in six months and I was keeping a Dream Diary. And that night I had a dream about having a tumour in the left side of my brain and everyone was shocked when they saw the CT scans because I was so healthy and they couldn’t believe I had a big tumour.

Now two weeks later I got a phone call that my dad had just been diagnosed with a large kidney tumour on the left side of his abdomun.

I didn’t discover this till several weeks later when I was looking back through my diary and realised I had a dream about a tumour. The only dream I had about a tumour I had in my whole life was on the one day when I saw my dad, (in that whole year period) and two weeks later he was diagnosed with a cancer on the left side of his body in an organ that could be similar to a brain in that its anatomic description discripton it has a cortex and a mudala. And he has the same name as I do. I’m a junior so it’s David Laurance Burk senior and junior. And he also looked totally healthy even though he had a big tumour.

So I realised that I had intuited his cancer without having any signs at all that he was sick.

(5:55)

Dr. Marcia Emery:

And all of this was being shown to you in a Dream. And you probably didn’t know the word “precognitive” dream then did you?

(6:00)

Hi Dreamview friends

I got a message from another site that the Legendary 84 year old Bob Van De Castle and his partner Bobbie Ann Pimm will be interviewed today 26 of April by Dr Marcia Emery. So I went to have a look but it is not up yet. So I checked out the latest one and it was this one on my favourite subject “synchronicity” HA!

It is 8pm Thursday, April 26, 2012 here in Adelaide now.

Bye for now
Love DebraJane

Originally Posted by DreiHundert

The only connection I've ever made between mental health and dreaming... Is that I believe that in cases of premonitions (aka "I dreamt that X happened, and it did!"). I believe these to be either a case of pure coincidence, or the person making the claim is delusional. But I'm a skeptic. I don't believe in supernatural abilities, visions, etcetera. A lot of folks on this site are more spiritual than I am, though, so they would be open to these theories.

I think that people who are experiencing premonitions should talk to a shrink - because I believe that the mind formulates the memory of a dream forewarning them, or exaggerates a memory of a real dream to make it that way. I think it's a way for the mind to cope with a traumatic event. If you notice that most premonitions are of horrible events, and you rarely see someone say "I had a dream that my neighbor bought a brand new car, and he did!"... It's always more like "I've dreamt that there was a horrible plane wreck, and there was!".

I digress...

I cannot agree that people should fully disclose their health history, unless I saw a concrete example of how it could be dangerous to the reader. I just can't think of anything myself.

DebraJane, even with peoples testimonies, I must come to question if the person is being dishonest for their own gain, or if they are delusional.

I believe that dreams are entirely internal, and that no external forces can come in to play...

Originally Posted by DreiHundert

DebraJane, even with peoples testimonies, I must come to question if the person is being dishonest for their own gain, or if they are delusional.

I believe that dreams are entirely internal, and that no external forces can come in to play...

There is third option here, besides the gullibility of believing what other people say is true, or the bare ignorance of proclaiming that everyone who's experience is different from your own must be lying or delusional. Don't make hard judgments where you lack information, just leave it open. For you, a good working hypothesis is that all people who believe such things are wrong, but keep in mind that its just a hypothesis.

Of course you can do whatever you want. Not much point in my wasting time talking to someone who has already decided I'm a liar or insane before they even know me though.

Dreamview friends

When I couldn't get here during the server switch I spent lots of time on chat. Some guy gave a link to a beatifull grean Moon. That moon caused a shared dream. I sent the dream to R from IASD:

Dear R

Wow, something wonderfull just happened. I've been incubating lots, for a precog and/or shared dream forever. Last night there was a king size bed with two single mattress on it but apart. I get into one and fall asleep.

A guy gets into the other and that wakes me. He say's,

"Oh, sorry I woke you, I sleep here."

I recognized him. He is same sex attracted so he wont get randy and disturb me so I go back to sleep. End of dream.

I had just finnished typing

"Dear R"

And I heard "tap-tap" on my door. It was a guest named T. He is same sex attracted and is moving out into a flat today.

He handed me a piece of paper saying, "here is my email address so we can stay in contact."

It actually reads

"Hi Debra

Since I am moving out I thought I'd give you my email since it was fun chatting with you"

Dear Dreamview friends

Above in post number 16 I record the chat I had with T.

This is the rest of my email to the site admin of the place that I was banned from one year and five months ago:

Wow!

Oh, Please get me unbanned.

I has served my time.

If I am unbanned I will pay the $100 or so to get membership and magazines. I am all set to start a local dream group here in Adelaide, Australia but I have my own adgenda which is very simple.

But I need IASD Discusion Boards so when they ask questions that I can't or don't want to answer I can steer them to the IASD Discusion Boads or if they don't know how, I can ask their question for them

I wont start till I am unbanned.

I have Bobbie Ann Pimms first Youtube on *how to remember your dreams* and her second Youtube on *Deam Interpretation* typed out. I had 250 envelopes printed with my address on. And put the two lesson sheets in. I will talk to folk at local libraries and community centers and give them my stuffed envelope.

If they are interested and ask questions I want to have them ask their question on the IASD Discusion Board so that Bobbie and other members can answer. And later, members of my group can go to the pdc.

Hope you get back to me soon.

Oh I bookmarked timeisnotliea's (Sean Lee's) blog in hops of asking him personly to unban me but the program said this, (hahaha

timeisnotlinear.com

I hope the above link works

Bye For Now

Debra Jane Dixon, (ultravioletfrog)
12:52 AM Sunday 22-April-2012)

Ps I was banned on 11-11-2010.

hello.
I just wanted to write a couple of things, some thoughts on this idea of dsclosure. i was a little disturbed by your post so i wanted to give some thoughts on the matter.

there is this great book in my housemates room, it talks about redefining or smashing the boxes put around those with mental illness. If you want disclosure from those people with mental ilnesses or history there of before they make a post...... then I think you could almost be asking for that from everyone on the site. Although most of us dont acknowledge it, and most of us keep a good balance, i think you would be hard pressed to find somebody who has not been effected by mild depression, anxiety, panic, stress, hallucinations, irrational jealousy, manicness and hundreds of other different swings and turns in the pysche. I say you would be hard pressed, because i beleive these are all naturally accuring phenomenem that we all go through at various points.

Granted some people go through these things to more extreme levels, some people suffer greatly....some people have a lot of recourses and are manage luckily to never be overwhelmed or hurt by these things..... however even if that is true........There are other "mental ilnesses" that the whole of humanity suffers from. I beleive all these things should therefore also be "disclosed" greed, bigotry, jealousy, envy, sexual intent, hierachal gain, patriachal gain....to name a few. People may also make life changing decisions based on information given by people suffereing from these "disorders"

I understand your concern here for others.........and i have it too. But i think singling out like this is absurd. Everybody is creating their own reality, you only need one disclaimer and this is it. "every post you read and every comment is the opinion and the reality of the poster. Be open, and be sceptical, follow your own truth create your own reality"

sam
p.s - both meat eaters and vegans suffer from nutritional health problems, as do vegetarians, raw foodists and every other dietary group ..... if they dont look out for themselves. I think once again, its a fair concern, but its a little bit of an unfairly selected target you have picked on.

Originally Posted by shadowofwind

There is third option here, besides the gullibility of believing what other people say is true, or the bare ignorance of proclaiming that everyone who's experience is different from your own must be lying or delusional. Don't make hard judgments where you lack information, just leave it open. For you, a good working hypothesis is that all people who believe such things are wrong, but keep in mind that its just a hypothesis.

The difference here is only in the connotation of the word I used. Your third option of concluding that they are "Wrong", is synonymous with concluding that they are "Delusional".

Originally Posted by definitions

Delusion-
n. An idiosyncratic belief or impression that is firmly maintained despite being contradicted by what is generally accepted as reality

Wrong
adj. Incorrect or not true

Because precognitive dreams are considered impossible by a vast majority of the population, believing that a dream has predicted the future can be classified as a delusion. It is also possible to say that a person's conclusion that a coincidential dream is a precognitive dream was simply incorrect.

I'm not attempting to justify the use of the word, but to explain that I had good intentions. "Delusional" was not the best term to have used in the interest of diplomacy, but it was the word that I chose to explain my point because mental disorders are part of the discussion, and I hadn't considered using "Wrong". It was a mistake, and I apologize for using it.

Of course you can do whatever you want. Not much point in my wasting time talking to someone who has already decided I'm a liar or insane before they even know me though.

You seem to have made a hard judgement where you lacked information. If you believed it was a waste of time talking to me, you would not have posted. On the contrary, I'm very open to discussion and I'm here to gather new information wherever possible. To me, the point of debating ideas is to further the collective understanding of the concept.

Where believers in precognitive dreams wish to further their understanding of how precognitive dreams work, more skeptical people like myself might wish to further their understanding of what causes them and what they really ARE.

When we sleep at night, we have several dreams. We sleep many nights and have many dreams... And when we awaken, there are many, many events that happen in real life. The odds of making a connection between something that happened in real life and something that happened in a dream are actually quite high. I believe that the best explanation is that these kinds of dreams are merely coincidences. Coming from someone that believes that the entire universe is what it is today due to a series of coincidences, this isn't so far-fetched

My conclusion comes from logically interpreting the facts that I have at hand... Coincidence is the most logical conclusion that I can think of. This doesn't mean that I firmly DENY the possibility. There are many possibilities that cannot be proven logically, that may be proven in the future. The universe is expansive and has many qualities, and we don't come close to explaining it all. For all I know, new technology may allow us to discover a new energy that allows for future events to be communicated to us by way of dreams. We may even find that a futuristic race has applied this technology and is using it to send messages back in time. But right now, with my current understanding of the universe, and with deductive reasoning, I must conclude that this is not possible.

A friend of mine believes that all of consciousness comes from a single energy that he calls "Source". It flows through the universe and is a collective consciousness. Through the evolutionary process, brains have come about. A brain can tap into Source, and depending on its size and complexity, it can apply more or less of Source's power. If such a force existed, there could be... glitches... in the system, that allow for things like shared dreaming and precognitive dreams.

Also, our current understanding of time is very minimal - it could be that time is all just a projection of the collective consciousness of the universe that is actually timeless, and this is how visions of the future and past work.

You may be thinking "But Drei, doesn't this theory sound like Xaqaria's theory that you refuted in Logical Proof for God?"
It does - so allow me to explain before I get labelled as a hypocrite. The reason I refuted the claim was because it was presented as proof. Because of that I used deductive reasoning to see how it panned out as proof for the existance of God. It did not - I was refuting the fundamental elements of the theory. If he had presented it as a theory of the universe, than I would likely have theorized with him and cited my friend's belief in "Source". The discussion would have taken a more constructive path, delving into what kinds of things could be possible given that different hypothetical factors did exist.

This is similar to my usage of "Delusional" instead of "Wrong". Had I said "Wrong", you would not have refuted my claims in the same matter. This goes to show JUST how important words are in effective communication of ideas.

Though I derive my conclusions of what is REAL with deductive reasoning, much like a Vulcan does... I think there's no harm in imagining and hypothesizing on what else may be possible. I just cannot come to believe it unless I have concrete evidence to support a logical belief that it is REALLY possible.