Why are Shadow People/Beings a universal thing?

[Brite]

Everyone, everywhere, lucid dreaming, obes, whether they have had had them or not, whether they've intentionally tried to have them or not have encountered these things. What's the reason? Is this universal experience something that can be scientifically explained? Or does it have something to do with another force entirely? From the perspective of Sleep Paralysis, it's just hypnagogia. You're mind messing with you. But this doesn't explain why everyone sees the same thing. Does it have to do with the way we humans have evolved? For example: When we see/feel another being, we are alerted, which makes us wake up.

[RelaxAndDream]

Hm i dont know if i can comprehend what you mean. do you only mean in dreams or in waking life too? and what exactly do you mean with shadow people? like you feel followed or observed? i never had the feeling in my dreams yet... i didnt notice to get followed or observed... i had some days ago one nld where i sat in a bus and talked to someone and had the feeling that someone is looking at me out of the corner of my eyes. after some time i looked there and it was a friend and we talked maybe it is character dependend? like the classic example: dark street a guy at a lantern. option a: i am a fearful person and i expect a rapist and it will be one who chases me down and nightmare or option b: i am a open and lightminded person and i expect there to be a friend and he is and we go get a drink^^

[Brite]

Hm i dont know if i can comprehend what you mean. do you only mean in dreams or in waking life too? and what exactly do you mean with shadow people? like you feel followed or observed? i never had the feeling in my dreams yet... i didnt notice to get followed or observed... i had some days ago one nld where i sat in a bus and talked to someone and had the feeling that someone is looking at me out of the corner of my eyes. after some time i looked there and it was a friend and we talked maybe it is character dependend? like the classic example: dark street a guy at a lantern. option a: i am a fearful person and i expect a rapist and it will be one who chases me down and nightmare or option b: i am a open and lightminded person and i expect there to be a friend and he is and we go get a drink^^ No, I wasn't talking about during dreaming. Google shadow people/beings. It's a phenomenon that's experienced during sleep paralysis and even during waking life too. They're not dream people, they're not friends. They're just there.

[RelaxAndDream]

Oh sorry that i didnt know what you are talking about. googled it and yea... never had something like that... is this so common? do you see it/them? what feeling do you have with it? on the first look it seems scary when you would see them all the time... sure one can obsess over it after some time i could imagine. even if you once saw a real one from there you might see them everywhere because you are frighted?! like you go in a dark alley and everything is good and then you turn on "creepymode" and suddenly you hear voices and see things... as a child i always runned fast thu our corridor because even if i know there is nothing it was a mindgame^^

[Brite]

Well some people have gotten used to it some people still struggle with the fear. Quite frankly what I find scary about them is NOT the fact that there is a foreign shadowy figure in your room, (ok yes maybe that too) but mainly that this is something that's being reported worldwide. I want, for the sake of my sanity, to know what is causing this.

[Dthoughts]

Maybe it's your own shadow .... .... Symbolically speaking. No, never had shadow people. Had various types of 'entities' woulden't always call them people, approaching me from various angles. But that's not during sleep paralysis. Actually during sleep paralysis there is always something very frightening coming from outside my room and trying to burst my door in. Always very agressive and very loud. Sometimes it starts in a dream and one time I woke up from this dream while something banged on my door and saw a transparant ghost i woke from that dream. Like a (wo)man in a dress float through my door as soon as I woke up. It's head was replaced by a round ball with a cross on it. Not a christian cross just a cross. One that I last saw in a stick figure violent flash-film. It signified Death to my symbollic mind. It floated straight through the door in a straight line all the way outside, I moved myself out of sleep paralysis and it disappeared. Consequently, I always experience sleep paralysis after waking up from lucid dreams or before them.

[Stormy Skies]

During SP, your brain can go into a panic mode, because it is conscience but unable to move. It then tries to figure out why, and the only explaination it has is that their must be a malicous figure somewhere in your room, preventing you from moving or breathing correctly. So it may hallucinate, and create this creature. Shadow figures seem like a pretty universely scary thing, so it / not surprising many people over many different cultures experience similar hallucinations. About being in your dream, again a shadowet figure is not that uncommon to be honest, and the description of such a creature could vary from person to person, and if that is so, then it is a manifistaion of their mind, not an actual malicous creaure in their dreams.

[Brite]

During SP, your brain can go into a panic mode, because it is conscience but unable to move. It then tries to figure out why, and the only explaination it has is that their must be a malicous figure somewhere in your room, preventing you from moving or breathing correctly. So it may hallucinate, and create this creature. Shadow figures seem like a pretty universely scary thing, so it / not surprising many people over many different cultures experience similar hallucinations. About being in your dream, again a shadowet figure is not that uncommon to be honest, and the description of such a creature could vary from person to person, and if that is so, then it is a manifistaion of their mind, not an actual malicous creaure in their dreams. Ok, this does seem to make sense.

[arson519]

During SP, your brain can go into a panic mode, because it is conscience but unable to move. It then tries to figure out why, and the only explaination it has is that their must be a malicous figure somewhere in your room, preventing you from moving or breathing correctly. So it may hallucinate, and create this creature. Shadow figures seem like a pretty universely scary thing, so it / not surprising many people over many different cultures experience similar hallucinations. About being in your dream, again a shadowet figure is not that uncommon to be honest, and the description of such a creature could vary from person to person, and if that is so, then it is a manifistaion of their mind, not an actual malicous creaure in their dreams. Ok my first time seeing a shadow person i actually thought it was my sister so i was not in no panic mode then i realized that it wasn't and that is when i freaked out. It does not make sense to me when we are in the sleep paralysis state for the mind to hallucinate a dark figure shadow to be the reason we cant move. How about if we do not believe in ghost or supernatural to have this manifest from our minds out of nowhere and to hallucinate so it can make sense of the situation.

[VinceField]

In my many encounters with "shadow beings" over the years, there has been no significant evidence that would indicate they are simply illusory manifestations of one's mind. Of course, it is a possibility, and some of my experiences seem to support this conclusion, but I've also had some experiences that would indicate that these beings may be more than just a hallucination. Keep in mind that there was no panic or fear present during many of these encounters. Best not to jump to conclusions, better to keep an open mind about things like this. Claiming they are all just a hallucination is simply a statement of belief.

[Hukif]

They are a universal thing? I only started to see them after reading about them on the internet and never before, although I did have a lot of random famous hollywood monsters show up in my dreams for a while before that.

[VinceField]

I wouldn't be so bold as to claim that shadow beings are a universal experience, as there are LDers and OBErs who have never witnessed one. Whether or not they exist as independent entities is a different story.

[Hukif]

Yep, I was just adressing the OP in which it is not universal. It is always fun to explore new ideas, after all.

[Brite]

They are a universal thing? I only started to see them after reading about them on the internet and never before, although I did have a lot of random famous hollywood monsters show up in my dreams for a while before that. I wouldn't be so bold as to claim that shadow beings are a universal experience, as there are LDers and OBErs who have never witnessed one. Whether or not they exist as independent entities is a different story. Let me clarify. By universal I simply meant that this is experienced all around the world, by Lucid Dreamers and non Lucid dreamers. By people with no knowledge of the topic (or anything related to it) and by people who are aware of it. I'm not saying that every single person on the planet or every single lucid dreamer has seen shadow beings, but that for some reason humans who have no connection to each other at the time, see these beings taking shapes as shadow people.

[Dthoughts]

They are a universal thing? I only started to see them after reading about them on the internet and never before, although I did have a lot of random famous hollywood monsters show up in my dreams for a while before that. I think it's quite interesting that you started seeing them after reading about it, perhaps this connected you to 'them' in a way. Does it have to do with the way we humans have evolved? For example: When we see/feel another being, we are alerted, which makes us wake up. It could be something like Archetypes imo. Shadows aren't unfamiliair to us back to when we where monkeys. It's not a long stretch that 'shadow people' mean something that our collective mind could understand as a dream symbol. This idea gives merit to what you said.

[kadie]

Maybe they are universal because neural pathways and interruptions in those pathways happen to people. Humans, regardless of their origin or religious beliefs experience those " so called shadow people" you should really just do a little more research on hypnogogia, hypnopompia and psychology.

[Psionik]

Something like this? Low immersion WILD - Dream Journals - Lucid Dreaming - Dream Views Serial Out of Body Experiences - Dream Journals - Lucid Dreaming - Dream Views I'm not sure what to think about those beings. They are present in darkness, only dark being I saw in light conditions(it was also higher level of astral) Was something looking like dark cloud. It seems that dark clouds are unstable in middle to higher levels of astral. Also I felt those beings- they are from neutral to malevolent. Experiments showed that they don't like my aura. I was also able to ward other beings from those dark one. Those dark clouds seem to be stabilized by energy transfer from unaware and unwilling host. Without that they don't last longer than about minute. It may be as Kadie said... Maybe it is programmed into our neural pathways... and we see them because of lack imagination. Dthoughts- I saw them before I tried to find something about them. Did someone else see dark clouds? I didn't found anything about them.

[powessy]

Hello Brite I have had hundreds upon hundreds of visits from what you call shadows. I am actually in search of them on a daily basis finding them in the minds of posters on many forums around the internet. The shadows are a program of sorts used to keep allowed souls moving through the reincarnation cycle without ever understanding themselves. The shadows come knocking when a person has problems in their lives when the higher mind enters into us and tries to help us out. The program is a series of souls all knotted together that they place within our higher mind that tells us how to become ourselves again in death. The reason everyone experiences the same thing is because it is the same program but is dependent on the individual mind. Think of it like a function in a program that takes in real memories and spits out answers or triggers so to speak, for each one experiencing it. One person may experience schizophrenia, and the next will find the mind of god, and the next nothing at all. This problem dates back to the beginning of man but most predominantly the last 500 years or so. This problem only encompasses allowed souls and this number is 500 million form my understanding of it. The only reason for the shadows is to keep us in the reincarnation cycle to tell you how to be reborn again but something has changed and many people are becoming more alerted to it over the last decade. Powessy

[snoop]

The idea that this phenomena is universal is flawed. In order for the statement to be true, every single person that has ever been, who is, and who will ever be has to experience encountering shadow beings. What's more, the concept of the "shadow person" is extremely vague. If it looks somewhat humanoid, and it's very dark in color/nature and it isn't easy to make out any kind of distinctive details that would distinguish that person/thing any further, it qualifies as a shadow person. To more actually answer your question OP (rather than go on about how the premise of the thread is flawed), it's the same reason we all see faces where there are none. It's the same reason we all experience our eyes playing tricks on us, and seeing things for a split second that are not actually there. It's nothing more than a fault of perception. When you think about how many times you misinterpret things everyday (what somebody says, the origin of a sound, eyes playing tricks, misreading text, etc.), it should be absolutely no surprise that something like this appears to be a universal or even natural phenomenon. There are so many people having so many faulty perceptions so many times a day in so many places at so many times, it's impossible for you not to find that it appears everybody experiences things like shadow people (assuming you have access to some mechanism of sharing information, like the internet, television, radio, etc.). The conclusion you come to for this is obviously very personal, but when you find yourself attributing it to something more than the nature of reality that is easily explainable, something more like a hidden force or that there is a shadow realm of sorts (for example), you are probably guilty of hindsight and confirmation bias. At the very least, you are pruning reasons for this occurrence that could be valid for one reason or another. Either way, it's going to lead to a false understanding of the subject matter.

[powessy]

The idea that this phenomena is universal is flawed. In order for the statement to be true, every single person that has ever been, who is, and who will ever be has to experience encountering shadow beings. What's more, the concept of the "shadow person" is extremely vague. If it looks somewhat humanoid, and it's very dark in color/nature and it isn't easy to make out any kind of distinctive details that would distinguish that person/thing any further, it qualifies as a shadow person. Hello snoop The first problem with what you are saying here is that everyone should be having these experiences, this is wrong. There is only around 10% of the population that will ever experience the shadows, the rest will never experience this. I have seen many shadow beings and their descriptions are less then vague, they are just not understood by the person experiencing them. The shadows carry thousands of souls within them that they drape over themselves giving them this appearance. Why do they do this because when they enter into a person it can cause them many problems. First you must understand the soul is in two parts the higher mind and the lower mind. The higher mind is not inside of us all the time and only enters into us during times we seek help to understand things, problems in our lives. Anything that is inside of you at the time the higher mind is inside of you will become nothing inside of itself basically the souls self defense mechanism, to keep us from being possessed. The buffer of souls the shadows uses allows them to enter into people and can remain inside of them for many months as long as it does not cause the higher mind trouble. The shadows seek time and can get by doing this, the problem is their minds and our minds tend to work differently causing many people problems. If I sat inside of you and had to hear your mind all day long it would be so hard for me not to comment or think about your thoughts. To more actually answer your question OP (rather than go on about how the premise of the thread is flawed), it's the same reason we all see faces where there are none. It's the same reason we all experience our eyes playing tricks on us, and seeing things for a split second that are not actually there. It's nothing more than a fault of perception. When you think about how many times you misinterpret things everyday (what somebody says, the origin of a sound, eyes playing tricks, misreading text, etc.), it should be absolutely no surprise that something like this appears to be a universal or even natural phenomenon. There are so many people having so many faulty perceptions so many times a day in so many places at so many times, it's impossible for you not to find that it appears everybody experiences things like shadow people (assuming you have access to some mechanism of sharing information, like the internet, television, radio, etc.). The conclusion you come to for this is obviously very personal, but when you find yourself attributing it to something more than the nature of reality that is easily explainable, something more like a hidden force or that there is a shadow realm of sorts (for example), you are probably guilty of hindsight and confirmation bias. At the very least, you are pruning reasons for this occurrence that could be valid for one reason or another. Either way, it's going to lead to a false understanding of the subject matter. There is no shadow realm but there is the veil and it is not something many understand. Do you have astral experiences or obes? This is interesting that many of us if not the largest part of those on this site have at one point or another experienced shadows. The shadows can be experienced three ways, the first during obes, the second if they are in you they can enter into your astral experiences, and the third is throuhg thought forms normally done form within your mind also. With so many accounts of shadows around the internet coming from all parts of the world it would be foolish to disregard something that only you do not experience or have not experienced. I would perhaps question your experiences. It is not my intention to discredit your experiences only to state that there are so many online today that have or are seeing these shadows such as I do on almost a daily basis. Powessy

[Dthoughts]

First you must understand the soul is in two parts the higher mind and the lower mind. The higher mind is not inside of us all the time and only enters into us during times we seek help to understand things, problems in our lives. Anything that is inside of you at the time the higher mind is inside of you will become nothing inside of itself basically the souls self defense mechanism, to keep us from being possessed. The buffer of souls the shadows uses allows them to enter into people and can remain inside of them for many months as long as it does not cause the higher mind trouble. The shadows seek time and can get by doing this, the problem is their minds and our minds tend to work differently causing many people problems. If I sat inside of you and had to hear your mind all day long it would be so hard for me not to comment or think about your thoughts. There is no shadow realm but there is the veil and it is not something many understand. Or did we go over this? In that case I should go back and read some records. Powessy Hey Pow Just to add my two stones on what you have said here. What you call Higher mind sounds like what I am taught is the 3rd attention. 2nd attention is the astral. first attention is our own thoughts and illusions. The third is a higher form. We are all of them we just function on first most. Only when we dream we go 2nd, this includes all astral lifeforms. But the 3rd attention/ higher mind is accesible at all times. They encompass all of the lower minds I think that makes them like superconsciousness lol. It's hard without help to contact it i've tried sober. Your description of shadow people sounds a lot like Carlos Castaneda (Or Don Juan)'s description of scouts. They are beings in their own kind of realm, the books where kind of vague about it. They share our mind and they seek our consciousness for some reason. However, they where described not only as shadow beings. They could be seen as any rarity inside of a dream that behaves on it's own accord that tries to steal ur attention. I suspect in my dream it had the form of a friend it seemed intelligent and lied to me. In CC's books he could follow them into their realm and that's a dangerous activity(he probably exeggerated). Inspired me to try, Guess it's worth a try. Theres not much that I can say from personal experience though. I've tried following one that seemed to plague my neighbours dreams and saw loads of colours in some kind of astral cave but that's all. I'd like to hear more about the veil as that sound as something i'm interested in but lack understanding, or did we go over this? In that case I should go back and read some records. Thanks ! Happy new year !

[powessy]

Hey Pow Just to add my two stones on what you have said here. What you call Higher mind sounds like what I am taught is the 3rd attention. 2nd attention is the astral. first attention is our own thoughts and illusions. The third is a higher form. We are all of them we just function on first most. Only when we dream we go 2nd, this includes all astral lifeforms. But the 3rd attention/ higher mind is accesible at all times. They encompass all of the lower minds I think that makes them like superconsciousness lol. It's hard without help to contact it i've tried sober. Your description of shadow people sounds a lot like Carlos Castaneda (Or Don Juan)'s description of scouts. They are beings in their own kind of realm, the books where kind of vague about it. They share our mind and they seek our consciousness for some reason. However, they where described not only as shadow beings. They could be seen as any rarity inside of a dream that behaves on it's own accord that tries to steal ur attention. I suspect in my dream it had the form of a friend it seemed intelligent and lied to me. In CC's books he could follow them into their realm and that's a dangerous activity(he probably exeggerated). Inspired me to try, Guess it's worth a try. Theres not much that I can say from personal experience though. I've tried following one that seemed to plague my neighbours dreams and saw loads of colours in some kind of astral cave but that's all. I'd like to hear more about the veil as that sound as something i'm interested in but lack understanding, or did we go over this? In that case I should go back and read some records. Thanks ! Happy new year ! Hello Dthoughts The veil, I know I run in to many problems discussing this. The veil is the after life the place we go in death. I am going to try to explain this from my point of view and in no way is it a universal fact it's only my experience and understanding throuhg the things I am being taught by shadows. If you were to die tomorrow, knock on wood, you will stand up and look down on your body from within the veil. The shadows are not from earth and can not be born to earth so they are trapped in our veil. The veil encompasses this world and is through out the rest of this universe. Now the veil is a buffer that is between each dimension, like the cartridge between bones, we are in the third. My terminology and understandings for dimensions are not the science theory on dimensions I would call these vibrational layers and not dimensions. dimensions for me are a lot like the Russian nesting dolls. The shadows were brought to earth to do a specific task to keep the allowed souls of earth from ever figuring themselves out. I know this was done to keep us from becoming ourselves until it was time. When we have hard ships in life our higher mind will descend into us to try to help us throuhg these times but if it did this then, it could figure things out so this is why when we have problems hard patches in life the shadows show up to stop our higher minds from helping us or becoming ourselves. You see if your higher mind was to become you then when you died you could become yourself and they could not push you through the reincarnation cycle again. If you became yourself then you could not be reborn this would keep them form telling you how to become something again and this process had to keep going. Basically the shadows are why you are still reincarnating. Why do the shadows look the way they do is because they have to enter into you to leave this soul group to tell you how to become yourself back inside of your higher mind. when they enter into you the higher mind is like acid to them if they enter into you without this protection they will basically wipe their minds. I would say that instead of dimensions you are entering it is one of the following, your own mind, Your own higher mind, the mind of the shadow, or the veil and this is the hardest place to get to see or become yourself in. Powessy

[Dthoughts]

So you say the shadow beings in ur lore have a purpose set (by whom, us?) to keep us from becoming what we are meant to be. hehe. That means that they are not 'evil' but they are bordering on being quite malicious. They tend to be quite helpful from what I read. So I don't believe they are bad. I think you might be on to something.. Thanks you a lot for sharing.

[powessy]

So you say the shadow beings in ur lore have a purpose set (by whom, us?) to keep us from becoming what we are meant to be. hehe. That means that they are not 'evil' but they are bordering on being quite malicious. They tend to be quite helpful from what I read. So I don't believe they are bad. I think you might be on to something.. Thanks you a lot for sharing. The shadows do have a reason for being here, one many would not like to necessarily want to understand. ?First lets understand angels. Angels are born to the veil. An angel is born to this world in the very first days when life is about to begin, when amino acids are being forced together to form the first living organism. The angels of this early time become these amino acids. the angels have a library of things they carry with them that tells them what they can become something in and only small variances of it. Life is guided to form worlds of living organisms from the list they hold. Now every time they become something in this list they will continue to allow things to keep these things in their list. Some things in their list will be allowed to become themselves many times and others will only be allowed once. Angels just keep becoming things over and over again not ever really understanding themselves until later on when consciousness starts to form. When they start to become human life forms they start to understand things better and who they are. The next step is to allow themselves in humans they no longer want to forget who they are so by allowing themselves this way they can become themselves only. So lets just look at this for a second the way I am being explained this. The soul is in two parts the higher mind and the lower mind. The higher mind is our true self, the lower mind is just for the purpose of this life time. Now think of the higher mind as being a piece of clay, that takes many life times to mold into what we will become for eternity. If you are not allowed you will never be born to this world again but you will become something else inside of Gaia. The angels can never enter into Gaia again once they are born to her. The angels create the allowed by placing a piece of themselves inside a fetus that is born to this side of things that will someday become them. Once the allowed soul is ready they will merge with with each other and will become one identity, a mind and a higher mind together but inside of them. Human higher minds are on the head and angel higher minds are within them. The thing is with angels they now have the allowed soul plus it's higher mind to use to figure itself out with in life and death. This world was to be inherited by another race of angels and nothing in this world should have been allowed to become themselves until they arrived. The son of god not the biblical god wanted to impress his father and came to earth to show him he could create a world by himself. The son in this dimension was over seen by those I call the twelve. During his time here the son throuhg communication with the twelve was told of other worlds that died or something bad happened to them. the son made a bad decision to allow these other worlders to become themselves here in the allowed souls the angels of earth made here. The son went out to other worlds and took only a few angels from 27 worlds to bring them back here. The son then placed a soul knot inside of their higher mind of the angels. Angels pick up or attract everything that can not become something again and this is everything from the smallest to the largest organism. The son then pulled all the angels of earth into him and laid down for a long nap so to speak, to await the time the allowed would become themselves. The only problem is the twelve came here and saw what the son did to make this happen. first off no allowed higher mind could ever become itself inside of itself(the human mind) to figure itself out. The second thing is the allowed would not understand themselves so they needed help to be reborn a set of instructions. The soul knot told the allowed how to be born again and insured that the higher mind remained a blank piece of clay. The other problem is in life if we run into problems the higher mind tries to enter into us to help us so the angels needed to prevent this but if they did they would become nothing inside of themselves so the shadows were born. The only way to talk to you or to tell you something from the after life is to enter into your higher mind, this is the problem if I do this I will wipe my mind and will stand there drooling on the ground trying to understand myself again. They solved this by draping many souls over themselves so when they enter into us they don't get effected by the higher mind of the person they entered into. This was all done to allow another group of people to be born here and this would effectively destroyed your soul for this to happen. Now since you would never figure yourself out this would of been of little consequence and no one would be the wiser. The son did this to help these other out but in the end he was betrayed by them as they trapped him inside of his mind and never would have awoken. Pretty cool so far right? The twelve tried to duplicate the shadows but brought another group here that was not good and from very primitive worlds caveman and such. There was some sort of upheaval and all the shadows scurried into the veil and out of the hands of their captors. The twelve went to work to make the perfect shadow using entire worlds to accomplish this. The twelve created the shadow 2000 or the sparteil as I was given this name to explain them. The sparteil is in the higher mind of every allowed person on this planet trying to become them now, this is the reason many are having more run ins with the shadows now then in previous times become of the method the sparteil uses to get into your higher mind. There are several different groups of shadows out there and many of them are just looking for answers they are running out of time and soon will die here if I can not find them in time. Powessy

[desertdog11]

Hey Powessy, here's one for you. Apologies if this breaks any rules, (lurk more) I had a night terror a few nights ago, it was my first one (not sure if it's a nightmare, as i had the most intense, primitive sense of fear i've ever felt, this made every nightmare i've ever had nothing). Anyway's i was brushing my teeth looking into the mirror, and in the the corner of the mirror i notice this child-like figure, i turn around, BANG. A crack/bang goes off in my head and i start getting hit by voices and screaming shouting cacophony of noises. After i recover from the disorientation, i get a good look of the figure, it was like a 3D silhouette/shadow of a boy, (jet black, no features or contours,)i'm instantly hit by sheer terror. He didn't say anything, except started slowly walking towards me, so naturally i'm trying the best to get away from it. I fell over, tried to scramble away, but no avail as i was paralyzed and started sliding backwards across the floor. I realised i was dreaming, and wanted out, fast. I started screaming, in hopes that someone awake might hear me in the house, that's when my father came to the rescue, except it was in the dream (you know, being in the dream state makes you slow...). He said "don't worry, he can't get you, he's in the dream, go back to bed,". So naturally i go get back into bed, then the cacophony starts immediately, and i knew-felt he was standing nearby, i buried my face into my bed, blocked my ears failing to stop the noise, i dared not look up or back. This went for some time before i woke up. Let's just say i didn't get out of bed for about half an hour after that one . Cheers,