Thread: What does spirituality provide that science doesn't?

I have felt that once before. I could literally not stop smiling, my face was stuck in a smiling position and i felt like something i have never felt before, i felt in glee. Eevryone was smiling back at me aswell, this was downtown outside infront of tons of people at a mall i used to work at cleaning the outside. Weird how the brain chemistry fucks things up like that. I've never felt conneted to the universe, though. I've felt that everything is connected as i was drifting off to sleep, but i never felt connected and 1 with the universe. Would be nice if you could feel this way and you are always the best at everything you do.

Originally Posted by Xaqaria

When I began contemplating the spirit, I first turned my attention to the places that the word had worked its way into our (western) culture. What does one mean when they talk of "raising ones spirit(s)", "the spirit of '76", "team spirit", etc.?

All of these things suggest a relationship to embodiment and well being. The spirit then that these are referring to is an essence. To have team spirit is to posses the essence of your team, to act as a part of that team, to act for the team as a team. Spirituality then would be the development of one's connection to that essence of their self and to the essence of those things with which they share fellowship.

Very good, connecting to that essence of self. A lot of people would think that that sounds like a vague concept. But for the spiritual seeker the essence of self is anything but a vague concept but more like a brilliant scintillating shining diamond in the heart but beyond location. You know what I mean? A very tangible thing.

And I would like to ad that what is the motivation for connecting with the essence of self? And once you do, what do you do with it? I think it starts out with the fear of death and being confused about the usual 'what am I? why? etc'. Seeking answers and looking to belong in this universe. But then I think it develops into something like "everybody is searching for happiness the only way they know how" and happiness is knowing the essense of the self. Realizing that everybody suffers then one is motivated to find the truth in order to help everyone. Realizing that egoic consciousness just hurts. So somehow sharing what you find is what you do with it. Because you realize that we are all in the same boat with the same feelings and fears and we are all one.

Here is a quote by Albert Einstein:

"A human being is a part of the whole, called by us “Universe,” a part limited in time and space. He experiences his self, his thoughts, and feelings, as something separate from the rest-- a kind of optical delusion of his consciousness. This delusion is a kind of prison for us, restricting us to our personal desires and to affection for a few persons nearest to us. Our task must be to free ourselves from this prison by widening our circle of compassion, to embrace all living creatures and the whole of nature in it’s beauty. Nobody is able to achieve this completely, but the striving for such achievement is in itself part of the liberation and foundation for inner security."

--Albert Einstein

[QUOTE=Dannon Oneironaut;1329663]

"A human being is a part of the whole, called by us “Universe,” a part limited in time and space. He experiences his self, his thoughts, and feelings, as something separate from the rest-- a kind of optical delusion of his consciousness. This delusion is a kind of prison for us, restricting us to our personal desires and to affection for a few persons nearest to us. Our task must be to free ourselves from this prison by widening our circle of compassion, to embrace all living creatures and the whole of nature in it’s beauty. Nobody is able to achieve this completely, but the striving for such achievement is in itself part of the liberation and foundation for inner security."

--Albert Einstein

And that is the truth...but it can only be experienced. You have to take the initiative. No one can prove this to you. But it is definitely liberating. To the OP, spirituality provides you a way out of that prison.

Related quote:

"We are a way the Cosmos can know itself" ~ Carl Sagan from Cosmos

These ideas tie in with the Brahman concept posted earlier (I've lost track if it was on this thread or the other one). Individual facets of a larger whole. I dont really think of the larger whole as conscious (but who knows?)... I think of it as the fount of all creation... the almighty UNIVERSE itself, from which we were created, of its own matter and energy, through a lengthy and complex process that began with galaxies coalescing and continued through evolution. If the earth is thought of as an organism (metaphor) then humans could be the neurons... the intelligent bits where conscious thought happens. It took the cosmos many millions of centuries to evolve those neurons, but it did, and it fired them up, and was at last able to contemplate its existence. Animals may have consciousness, but when they look at the stars they don't understand what they are.

Originally Posted by Xaqaria

When I began contemplating the spirit, I first turned my attention to the places that the word had worked its way into our (western) culture. What does one mean when they talk of "raising ones spirit(s)", "the spirit of '76", "team spirit", etc.?

All of these things suggest a relationship to embodiment and well being. The spirit then that these are referring to is an essence. To have team spirit is to posses the essence of your team, to act as a part of that team, to act for the team as a team. Spirituality then would be the development of one's connection to that essence of their self and to the essence of those things with which they share fellowship.

Absolutely greed Xaq!! Now THIS spirit I know is real. You've perfectly put into words what I was trying so badly to explain as a natural spirit (opposed to supernatural).

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And Juroara, thanks for the band camp story! (Sorry!)

I have experienced this feeling, but not while performing, more commonly when having a blast with some friends and all being totally in sync. By any chance was this experience what made you start to think about spirit, or were you already on that road?

Originally Posted by Darkmatters

Absolutely greed Xaq!! Now THIS spirit I know is real. You've perfectly put into words what I was trying so badly to explain as a natural spirit (opposed to supernatural).

I honestly believe that it is the same spirit that christians and everyone else speak of (although you could say that it is just one facet of what spirit is). One of the biggest obstacles in the world is trying to understand what someone else really feels/thinks as opposed to just what their particular language/culture/perspective can convey.

Originally Posted by Darkmatters

By any chance was this experience what made you start to think about spirit, or were you already on that road?

Nah, all sorts of weird things were happening to me since I was little. I lived in a 'haunted' apartment complex, my neighbors were so freaked they moved out because of it . But back then I had the belief of the supernatural - this spiritual world that science can never dream of touching.

That's all changed. The "supernatural" became a part of reality, it became natural, and something having to do with consciousness.

Originally Posted by juroara

Nah, all sorts of weird things were happening to me since I was little. I lived in a 'haunted' apartment complex, my neighbors were so freaked they moved out because of it . But back then I had the belief of the supernatural - this spiritual world that science can never dream of touching.

That's all changed. The "supernatural" became a part of reality, it became natural, and something having to do with consciousness.

Are you/they sure it was real? i mean, i have had some WEIRD expieriences in my life, but i guess i can find something it could be rather then something i don't know what it is but placing it on something so simple it wont even leave you to have any other questions. I like questions myself, because the unknown is just that, unknown. It can be anything, even something as easy as something falling to the ground.

Originally Posted by LucidFlanders

Are you/they sure it was real? i mean, i have had some WEIRD expieriences in my life, but i guess i can find something it could be rather then something i don't know what it is but placing it on something so simple it wont even leave you to have any other questions. I like questions myself, because the unknown is just that, unknown. It can be anything, even something as easy as something falling to the ground.

The 'haunted' apartment was shared with five individuals of different families. The experiences happened at different times. No one spoke to each other until after the events took place. There was nothing simple about it.

The 'ghost' that five individuals saw at different times were described to be a young girl. We all described her having the same features. I was the only one however who saw her head to toe. My sister was really freaked out, and she hated the 'ghosts' laughter. It was a very loud buoyant laughter. My sister, who was terrified, did a ritual in the name of Jesus Christ to banish the spirit from our apartment, using the bible, the rosary and everything. The interesting thing about the ritual is it banishes any UNWANTED spirit. It doesn't require the spirit to be evil......And the ritual even explains, all it does is MOVE the spirit.

After my sister blessed our apartment herself - the truth is we never heard the girl again. But, soon after our neighbors moved out. We never spoke to our neighbors, call it neighbor phobia . But mom and dad wanted to know why they were suddenly moving out, was it the leak problem again? Was it the giant roaches? Here is a total stranger we've never spoken to, they could lie to us to make things easier, but instead they told us the strangest thing. The wife said her husband hasn't slept for days. A strange girl keeps waking him up. He keeps seeing her face hovering over him. HE'S TERRIFIED!! And their children keep hearing her laughter!!....My sister really did MOVE her.

The story doesn't end there. While my family stopped hearing the girl, it didn't make our stay in the apartment any easier. I kept having terrible nightmares. They were all the same. There was a male demon in my bedroom. He's a young boy actually, couldn't be older than eight. But he was angry as hell. The first time I had this nightmare, I tried to console the boy. But his hatred was too much for me to handle. Instead I end up running out the room because his hatred would grow into absolute darkness. Or in some dreams he would literally try to murder me in the bedroom. I run down the stairs in the nightmare. Once I'm down the stairs, I'm fine. Though in most of these nightmares, I just kept running and running until I was out the front door!! In the nightmares, the boy couldn't cross the stairway. He was always confined to the top of the staircase.

Being a lucid practioner at the time, I thought the boy demon represented an aspect of my consciousness. So I never actually.......believed.....that it was a demon. And instead, I used the constant nightmares as a dream sign and became lucid after running down the stairs. I didn't take the nightmare...seriously.

That was until my cat started acting strange. We would keep the lights off upstairs if no one was up there to conserve energy. If I left my cat sleeping alone in my bedroom she would run down the stairs - sometimes whining - as if something was chasing her. She had smacked into the front door several times because she ran so fast!! (poor thing) And after she fled down the stairs, she would often quickly turn around and look up at the staircase. As she looked at the top of the staircase her pupils would dilate, her fur would stand on end, and still scared she would retreat to the kitchen - the furthest place from the staircase. Me and my sister observed this behavior for months!!!

At first I didn't connect this to my nightmares. At first we thought that sadly, our cat was afraid of the dark ... What kind of cat is scared of the dark?

Kitty's neurotic behavior intensified. As if to conquer her fear of the staircase, sometimes she would run up the staircase as if chasing something. But she would never make it to the top. Instead shed freak out, and turn back around. Me and my sister were really concerned for our cat. Was she just going insane? We did a small experiment. We would take Kitty, and bring her to the top of the staircase. And she would run down. It didn't matter where on the staircase we brought Kitty - she would instinctively run down. Then we went further. We put her in the bathroom upstairs. Same thing. She turned around, ran downstairs. We tried treats, or having her chase a toy upstairs. Didn't matter. All the same. Run back down. Truthfully, if all the lights were on upstairs, Kitty was less afraid and could stay in my bedroom longer. We started to keep the lights on.

Honestly, I was growing afraid to be alone in my bedroom. I mostly wrote it off as childish fear. I shared a bunk with my sis, so creaking was normal. When my sis was spending the night at a friends, I would hear someone up there moving. I wrote it off as my old wooden bed creaking because it was night. But then I also felt pressure points on my bed. Sometimes when I looked the pressure was Kitty! Other times, Kitty was no where to be seen, and that was just freaky. I don't have to be sleeping either for the pressure points to happen - sometimes I'm just reading a book!! I never let the pressure points get to me. I just ignored them completely and continued what ever I was doing.

There was another time, while me and my sister were minding our own business, we hear a terrible sound upstairs. It sounded like our drawer was thrown over, smashing precious articles. The sound was just too big for it to have been something accidentally fallen over. Me and my sister assumed the worst! Someone has broken in! When in a few moments no one came downstairs to rape or murder us, we did the next best thing. We called mom.

The parents came home and we investigated upstairs together - something did fall over in a closet upstairs. But it was small. Everyone laughs, and goes back to doing their own things. I'm thinking, has everyone gone insane? It's not even logical how this tiny small thing could make a noise that would make me and sister, downstairs watching TV, imagine the worse! I can't be the neighbors....We don't have any!

We were moving out, no, not because the apartment was 'haunted', but because poopoo water keeps leaking outside the apartment and it was pretty damn gross! Dad was alone in the apartment for three days cleaning up after our mess. He said the first night he TRIED to sleep upstairs. But he became overwhelming paranoid with the sensation of being watched, so he slept downstairs instead. I never told dad my nightmares. I never told him that upstairs was scarier or that past the staircase it was 'safe'. He came to believe this all on his own.

In the new apartment, I never, not once, had the nightmare again! And it was because the nightmares never came back, that I realized that these nightmares were attached to that apartment, and were not about my subconscious . And my cat, who I previously thought was some how afraid of the dark, was acting like a normal cat! Both me and my sister noted her neurotic behavior ended. And she was perfectly happy sleeping in total darkness anywhere in the new apartment.

I'm not telling you this story to make you convinced that people have souls. Or that these entities were the 'dead'. But I am sharing this experience because it happened. These experiences are simply written away as meaningless events or some sort of group hallucination. A group hallucination would be a very strange explanation indeed when no one told us anything prior to believe that we should see a girl.

And if it is a group hallucination.....where do group hallucinations begin? And where do they end? Did I group hallucinate I work with others in a building? Or were we actually naked on the street? Group hallucination is a tricky explanation that actually challenges reality itself.

In my opinion, we should OPENLY talk about these strange experiences. Because, if we just leave it up to the media to make horrifying ghost movies, then people become TERRIFIED to experience the unknown. Everyone was so scared of the girl. But there was nothing scary about her. It was only scary because, we were experiencing something we didn't believe was 'natural'. But what if it is natural? What if we weren't afraid?

When I saw her, I had just awoke from a dream. Now, I've seen dream images continue on after I wake up. I understand that kind of hallucination. So I just stared at her and thought, what a vivid waking hallucination. I got a good look at her. Observed everything about her with a very passive attention...............still believing this was a dream impression onto the waking.................. She was staring at the moon when she realized I was staring at her! She smiles the sweetest smile I've ever seen and starts to walk towards me. I've never had a dream impression move towards me before!

She kept walking towards me, and a little voice in my head is screaming, why isn't the dream impression disappearing yet, why is she so lucid! She bends over to get to my level. I can see a conscious flicker in her eyes, and I'm almost face to face with her, she's still coming closer!!!! She became real to me in that moment! In that moment, when I no longer considered it a just a dream impression, I turned away from her and stared at the wall!! I half expected her to crawl on my bed and grab my attention......But she was gone after I turned away from her

I knew that no one would take me seriously for seeing something after waking up. I KNOW what fishy territory that is. However I also KNEW this wasn't a dream image after waking. There was consciousness in those eyes of hers. And my description matched the neighbors, of who, I had never spoken to prior.

What if someone told me years ago that this experience was real, and nothing to be afraid of? What if instead of turning over, I spoke to the girl? She seemed to want to speak to me at least!!! I just wasn't ready for this kind of experience. Reality is very strange. And we need to realize how strange it is so we can BE READY to experience just how strange reality is.

What good does it to ridicule people for experiencing something that you haven't? We should realize that all experiences are....reality. And then we should ask, well what does this experience say about reality? PS. I believe she was protecting me. My nightmares came AFTER my sister banished her.

I can't really say anything because i'm not a neurological person but intresting story. Mine are nothing like yours, i have never had a "haunting" or anything. I once saw a white figure of a man come down the stairs in the darkness turn to me, smile, and walk into the darkness and dissapear, but i was a kid looking into the dark, we see what we wanna see in the dark. The more i rationalize my stories, the more i see they are just that, stories. Just because i can't explain something, does not mean it's the supernatural. The mind is a powerfull tool and it can literally ruin your life with paranoia and stuff.

I always hear people use the group hallucination as an explanation for unexplainable events. As if that explains anything! How does a group hallucination work? How does it start? Has anyone actually been a part of a group hallucination? I doubt that there is really such a thing. People need an explanation for things they don't understand or that don't fit into their conceptions of what the world should be like. It reminds me of the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy when the Earth is blown up and everyone on the Earth dies. But then a few books later it turns out that it was a mass hallucination involving everyone on the Earth!
Great story Juroara. I can imagine it how you tell it.

We divide things into natural and supernatural and then we either believe or disblieve in the supernatural. But this division is a man-made concept.

I saw a Faery! I was camping with three friends. We were tow couples. It is the full moon at night and we see a glowing white thing float out of the sky and land on the ground. All four of us go up and look at it and it is a woman with butterfly wings about 3 or 4 inches tall. Her body is hollow and the surface is made of woven gossamer threads of pulsating moonlight. We are all staring at her in awe. She apparently either didn't notice us or just wasn't acknowledging us. She was leaning her cheek against her hands and looking down to the side as if lost in thought but more just embodying magical beauty unselfconsciously.
After a while I started thinking "Well, is she going to do something? How long are we going to stare at her?" I blew on her gently to try to get her attention but she disintegrated into many pieces and disappeared. Then I felt bad. Maybe that was a group hallucination?

Originally Posted by LucidFlanders

I can't really say anything because i'm not a neurological person but intresting story. Mine are nothing like yours, i have never had a "haunting" or anything. I once saw a white figure of a man come down the stairs in the darkness turn to me, smile, and walk into the darkness and dissapear, but i was a kid looking into the dark, we see what we wanna see in the dark. The more i rationalize my stories, the more i see they are just that, stories. Just because i can't explain something, does not mean it's the supernatural. The mind is a powerfull tool and it can literally ruin your life with paranoia and stuff.

Oh I can understand completely. Once you say something is the supernatural, you're basically saying science can't touch it and its purely up to religion to describe or explain the events. This of course would leave anyone who believes in the scientific method - really frustrated!

I really wish it wasn't this way. Rather than trying to find evidence that ghosts are real - we need to investigate consciousness and the perception of reality. We need a healthy understanding of the real limitations of our perception of reality, rather than naively assuming we are perceiving the whole objective truth - which even according to science, no were not. Understanding that the human consciousness has different levels of awareness, is it possible for a higher level of human awareness to perceive more of reality as gurus suggests?

Next, we need to take a more honest look at hallucinating, once and for all. Not just for people with so called supernatural experiences, but for plant users as well. The term hallucination is a conversation stopper, and makes people, including scientists feel, there is nothing worth to investigate. I say, go down the rabbit hole!

Why not? What are we afraid of?

I always hear people use the group hallucination as an explanation for unexplainable events. As if that explains anything! How does a group hallucination work? How does it start? Has anyone actually been a part of a group hallucination? I doubt that there is really such a thing. People need an explanation for things they don't understand or that don't fit into their conceptions of what the world should be like

I'm still open minded enough to say it COULD be a group hallucination, though I doubt it . But, if someone does argue its a group hallucination, they can't be afraid to own up to this statement. If my story is a group hallucination for example - well no one told the neighbors to hallucinate - we would have had to effect their conscious experience on a subconscious level!! Is it possible...Maybe, I don't know.

I saw a Faery!

Better becareful! Apparently there is a relationship between modern day UFO abductee experiences, and old world experiences of being abducted by faeries!

Excellent post once again Juroara.
Rick Strassman and serveral other scientists are investogating the Depths of the Rabbit hole as we speak. Bless them for they will break through the surface of a really huge mistery; The deeper, largely unknown layers of our own human consciousness. I myself have had quite a bunch of experiences that do not fit into mainstream scientific beliefs, with and without plants since my early youth. Especially in my early youth.

To simplify things:
Spirituality is really another word for being or trying to be well connected to one's Intuition.

In many scientific movements all signs of Intuition are missing. Leading to rigid, ignorant belief systems much alike those doctrined by many religious movements.

On the other foot, many of said ignorant religious movements don't include any Intuition either as they only seek to manipulate and mentally enslave masses of people.

Then off course there are many religious movements that practice their beliefs from good intent, except that they've lost all sense of scepticism and rationality; Making it's followers wellwilling, but ignorant religious people. Allthough they honostly mean to do good, they've lost rationality and fixed their beliefs to be rigid, undiscussable, irrational and emotionally tender. Ignoble would be a good word to describe them.

Off course there are also Religious movements that DO have pure intentions and are very well connected to human Intuition aswell as being practices by rational thinking, soberminded people. I have witnessed the Santo Daime church to be such a religious movement.

Also we can conclude that some scientific movements really are in touch with their intuition. Rick Strassman is such an example. Jaques Fresco is such an example too.

So in my view the divine, often missing in many scientific movements, is Intuition.
While on the other hand the practical, often missing in many religious movements is Rationaliy.

I don't see mankind live in any kind of civilisation or integrety untill a proper balance is found between Intuition and Rationality.
And it is this balance between Intuition and Rationality that we need to explore the deeper layers of our consciousness and the related "supernatural" experiences/perceptions.

Originally Posted by juroara

Better becareful! Apparently there is a relationship between modern day UFO abductee experiences, and old world experiences of being abducted by faeries!

They call it DMT. Most likely to be responsible for Alien abductions, Elf/Feary abductions and Near Death Experiences.
These experiences all include a rapid propulsion through a tunnellike system into a space filled with light and strange humanoid beings that interract with you. Some speak of angels and the light of heaven, others speak of aliens and an illuminated spaceship, some speak of elfs/fearies and their immaterial world of light and energy..... One and the same.

I myself have experienced serveral deep hypnagogic stages, while attempting WILD and I saw a bright white light which sucked me in and made me feel like I'd been sucked into the eye of a tornado. Pretty similair once again.

DMT seems unmistakably related to these experiences as smoking pure DMT will produce EXACT the same experience; Rapid travel, tunnels, interior filled with light and strange humanoid beings and all.
Off course this raises the question as to the fucntion of DMT being produced endogenously by the human brain(and that of many mamals)

This strange Neurotransmitter molecule by the name Of DMT seems to bridge the gap between the physical and the "spiritual"/immaterial realms of our existance.

This is exactly what Rick Strassman is exploring and investigating now.
Talk about balancing Intuition and Rationality; Strassman leads the way.

Originally Posted by SKA

Also we can conclude that some scientific movements really are in touch with their intuition. Rick Strassman is such an example. Jaques Fresco is such an example too.

I like to read about my scientists that aren't afraid of the rabbit hole I'll look them up, thank you

This thread keeps getting better!!! Ska, everything you just said in both of your posts above... BINGO!!! As for angel/ demon/ sightings and alien abduction experiences, Sagan explored the possibility they might be SP. Lots of similarities. I think I need to read some of this Strassman dude's work.

Juroara, you never cease to amaze me!

A thought I had today -- this idea of a mega-consciousness that each of us is a facet of... it could be the subconscious we're experiencing as a vast over-consciousness. I think of the conscious mind as a sort of interface allowing inner consciousness to interact with the physical world. As an interface, it's obviously smaller than the entire mind (the rest of it consisting of the subconscious and the unconscious). The subC has a lot more info at its disposal, and unless we're dreaming our connection to it is very tenuous and vague.

Actually i think a lot of paranormal experiences can be explained by this. The subC apparently remembers everything (?) whereas the conscious mind with its much more limited capacity is much more selective with what it stores... so suddenly getting a flash of intuition could be simply a newsflash from the subC. Telepathy, predicting the future, synchronicity (in some cases)... could all be merely info from the subC filtering into conscious awareness.

Originally Posted by Darkmatters

The subC apparently remembers everything (?) whereas the conscious mind with its much more limited capacity is much more selective with what it stores... so suddenly getting a flash of intuition could be simply a newsflash from the subC. Telepathy, predicting the future, synchronicity (in some cases)... could all be merely info from the subC filtering into conscious awareness.

Old news, we already know the subcon knows everything we do even if we dont consciously remmember it, or see it (well a glimps, you have to see it even if it was a glimps around the room, you cant know shit is there if you dont look in the room). I can look at a room full of stuff, and say there is a pink elephant toy for a baby, consciously i would not of known it was there, because there is too much to consciously remember, and that is where your subconscious comes in. It knows every EXACT detail of that room you were in, it even spotted the moldy cheese laying on the counter at the other end of the room.

Originally Posted by LucidFlanders

Old news, we already know the subcon knows everything we do even if we dont consciously remmember it, or see it (well a glimps, you have to see it even if it was a glimps around the room, you cant know shit is there if you dont look in the room). I can look at a room full of stuff, and say there is a pink elephant toy for a baby, consciously i would not of known it was there, because there is too much to consciously remember, and that is where your subconscious comes in. It knows every EXACT detail of that room you were in, it even spotted the moldy cheese laying on the counter at the other end of the room.

Well he didn't present it as "news". He's just pointing a known fact out to support this certain view of the subconscious we are trying to map out together here.

I also see the subconscious as a large storage for all of life's experiences and perceptions. Assuming that spiritual intuitive experiences enable us to access this "archive" this would very much explain why "spiritual" experiences so often include Remembering things we thought we had forgotten completely.

But as I see it, the subconscious is infinitely more than just an Archive for our Experiences and Perceptions. It also appears to be the "location" of our Moral Consciousnous and Creativity. And god knows what else. Let's explore.
In short I see the subconscious to be the underestimated TRUE intelligence of mankind. Too bad it is rather seen and labelled as the "Lowest, most primitive" and emotionally troubled and insane part of the Human Psyche by mainstream Science.


Can you imagine the progress and new possibilities to be made available if Mankind collectively gets back in touch with it's intuition?
This is the development I desire to see in this world. Desperately.

Well he didn't present it as "news".

Exactly. It was more meant to explain my own belief on the issue of a mega-consciousness and a few related things.

But as I see it, the subconscious is infinitely more than just an Archive for our Experiences and Perceptions. It also appears to be the "location" of our Moral Consciousnous and Creativity. And god knows what else. Let's explore.
In short I see the subconscious to be the underestimated TRUE intelligence of mankind. Too bad it is rather seen and labelled as the "Lowest, most primitive" and emotionally troubled and insane part of the Human Psyche by mainstream Science.

I've actually been thinking about exactly this today (the part I bolded in the quote). I was wondering... IS the subconscious itself actually primitive, highly emotional, and devoid of all logic? Or could it be our EXPERIENCE of it because in dreaming the logic center of the brain is shut down (or squelched down pretty far, if not all the way). Is it just our only means of EXPERIENCING the subconscious that's emotional and illogical and primitive? Maybe lucidity can help us to get a better relationship with it. At least that's my hope.

Maybe some of you with a good deal of experience in lucid dreaming have some insight into this?

To the OP:

Science can measure that you are depressed by looking at the brain. Science can explain "how" you react when you eat your favorite foods, by looking at the brain ( increased seratonin or something )

Spirituality provides answers of WHY your are depressed, or WHY you feel a certain way about certain things and people.

Science can't tell you how to feel about something. Science can't tell you WHY you feel a certain way when you see a beautiful women walk by you.

Science - objective, focused on small details, then works its way up to the big ( holistic ) picture.

Spirituality - subjective, starts off with big ( holistic ) picture and then works it's way to the small details.

Both are complete opposites, and both need to work together.

IS the subconscious itself actually primitive, highly emotional, and devoid of all logic?

yea. The subconscious is in a state of pure awareness, and is only emotional, BUT at the same time it's focused on the big picture, so it knows the answer to everything. It doesn't need the logic. In our case, we need the subconscious because we have the logic but we don't have the complete picture. The subconscious provides the missing piece of the puzzle.


Conscious mind deals with logical/critical thought. If you were to only use your conscious mind and no subconscious, well, you'd just be a machine, processing things, with no way to feel. Or no memories or anything.

That's why it's best to have both conscious and subconscious mind fully developed and working together.

Can you imagine that if you were a music composer and instead of working from the small parts up to the entire composition, that you actually FELT and heard in your mind, the entire composition first, and broke it down with your conscious mind.

Or if you are a scientist, and instead of working from the small details and getting stuck somewhere, you knew the answer to what you were experimenting with completely, and just had to break it into parts.

Can you imagine if you walked up to a woman and instead of "contemplating" ( thinking of what to say, or how to say it, using only logical mind ) that you just say what you really feel and be yourself ( the same person in your non-lucid dreams ).

Spirituality and Science need to work together. Imagine what could be created, what we can accomplish, and live in peace at the same time. But as long as people fear the unknown, this will never happen.

Originally Posted by HaRd_WiReD

To the OP:

Science can measure that you are depressed by looking at the brain. Science can explain "how" you react when you eat your favorite foods, by looking at the brain ( increased seratonin or something )

Spirituality provides answers of WHY your are depressed, or WHY you feel a certain way about certain things and people.

Science can't tell you how to feel about something. Science can't tell you WHY you feel a certain way when you see a beautiful women walk by you.

Science - objective, focused on small details, then works its way up to the big ( holistic ) picture.

Spirituality - subjective, starts off with big ( holistic ) picture and then works it's way to the small details.

Science can tell you why you are depressed, and it can tell you why you feel this way about a woman walking by.

Originally Posted by LucidFlanders

Science can tell you why you are depressed, and it can tell you why you feel this way about a woman walking by.

Got any proof to back that up? You could be talking about the chemical changes that are apparent in a person's brain when they experience certain emotions. If this is the case, the question I would ask is, would you be able to tell the difference between the chemical changes causing the emotion as opposed to the emotion causing the chemical changes?

Originally Posted by Xaqaria

Got any proof to back that up? You could be talking about the chemical changes that are apparent in a person's brain when they experience certain emotions. If this is the case, the question I would ask is, would you be able to tell the difference between the chemical changes causing the emotion as opposed to the emotion causing the chemical changes?

That is what i am talking about. As for the rest, isnt it all just brain chemicals? that is what i have learned in my time here at BD. Same thing with depression. While the emotion may be by a physical thing, it is all brain chemicals running wild. So yeah, science can tell you why you feel this way. It will even tell her why you love her perfume she wears, and how to stop being depressed, then again it is different for everyone.

For your other part, nope but there is more evidence to tell you it is brain chemicals only just because these are what happens when you are in love or whatever.

What do you mean science can explain why you are depressed. No it can't. It only sees brain activity.

If you are depressed because of some childhood incidence, that's not science. Science CAN'T tell you what to say to a woman you want to meet.

Your just making stuff up now to keep the argument going and to defend your point.

Xaqaria you are right, it's the emotions that cause the brain chemical change. You don't need science to tell you this. You can consciously change your brain chemistry. Anything thing you say or do that makes you happy or whatever is causing a change in brain chemistry. If one person teases and taunts another person that hurts him, well that's changing his brain chemistry if he was happy at first.