Thread: Your driving force

I only believe in that which is proven. I see no reason for life, beyond which life gives itself. My disbelief in deities started when I begun questioning the reliability of the bible as a historical account, combined with uncertainty over which religion is correct. I do, however, like to keep an open mind and if God makes his presence obvious, I will be the first to admit I was wrong. I believe in ghosts, to an extant, simply because something such as consciousness is far too complex to completely disappear upon death, especially in a universe where (if I'm understanding physics correctly) information cannot be destroyed. In general, the only thing I utterly believe in is science.

The only reply so far, and one of the most honest.
Thank you.

I have put this question forward many times on different forums.
I occasionaly get someone who has been abducted by other worldly beings, but nothing eye opening, or new.

Maybe we are too entrenched in our superstitious beliefs to face reality.
Seems like we need something to believe in, even if it is fictional.

You would think that the human mind had evolved to a point where we were progressing beyond fictional beliefs.

All the religions/belief systems can not be right.

Oh well, I will rephrase the question, and put it up on another forum I have just joined. ( Medicenal mushroom growing )

Hi Tiredphil, I've had two personal experiences that constantly remind that there is more to life than just the physical world we see with our eyes.

When I was about 17 I saw a full body apparition. I woke up in the middle of the night and saw a girl around my age. I realize that in itself isn't all that amazing. It's everything else happening around me that made it so significant.

The apparition was simply standing in the center of my room looking out towards the window. I remember her fair features, her short straight brown hair, her casual clothing. She looked as though moonlight was glowing on her.

I didn't think anything of her. I just looked at her mindlessly as though she was just some dream-after-image. But then she changed her gaze to me. She had the biggest smile on her face and she walked up to my bed, knealed down - at that point I freaked out!! My mind was screaming 'shes real, shes real!' When her face was inches from mine I instantly turned away and hid under my sheets.

I didn't tell my family about my experience.

About three days later I heard dad complaining that he couldn't sleep. He told me a couple of days ago he saw a face floating above his. He described the face, the fair features, the short haircut, the same thing I saw. But her bright laughter scared him! At that point sis admitted that she heard and saw the same thing too, also a couple of days ago. She also saw the same face floating above hers, also with a big beaming smile and bright laughter. She was terrified.

I was the only one that saw a full body apparition. Mom didn't see anything. But she kept waking up hearing a girl playing down stairs when there was no one down there.

Everyone had their experience independently of each other and without any prior knowledge of the experience. So I was really grateful that I saw her.

After that, the experiences of the girl ended.

But months later the neighbors were moving out. Mom and dad asked them why they were leaving, incase it had something to do with rent increase. The wife admits its because her husband can't sleep. He kept waking up at night seeing a girls a face-with fair features and a short brown haircut. But her bright laughter terrified him! Their kids also admitted they kept seeing and hearing her. And with that, the neighbors packed their car and left, lol.

We had never spoken to our neighbors prior or ever mentioned any ghost girl. Their experience was also independent of ours.

When my sister found out what happened to our neighbors she felt guilty. She admitted she was so scared of this ghost-girl, that she performed a christian banishment ritual in the name of Christ. It was around that time that our experiences ended and the neighbors began.

Anyways, the experience is a whole lot stranger than that!!! Seriously a lot stranger!! But I've posted this at least three times before on the forum so I'll try not to bore other members. Short story is, I don't believe in ghosts anymore than I believe in the sun. I don't 'believe' in the sun, I 'know' its real. I know I can't convince anyone else. But I also know no one can ever convince me otherwise. I can't except this experience as a hallucination, it involved too many people. For me, she was real, she was human and in spirit.



Experience two is an experience I posted about a couple of years ago here on this board. I had a stomach ulcer that was burning me up for months. Two doctor visits and a special diet weren't doing much. I knew I was really stressed out and that this had to be the root of the stomach ulcer. So the first time I sat down and meditated. It was a visual meditation and also a self-hypnosis - which means that while under hypnosis I had completely let go of doubt and believed in what I was experiencing. What I was experiencing in the visual meditation was a powerful spirit healing me. The experience was physical, a complete mind-body experience that hypnosis is known for.

I felt a bubbling sizzling sensation, as if the ulcer was being boiled away as some impurity. Kinda odd that the ulcers burning was 'bad' but this burning up felt 'good'. When I woke up I was all better. Its one of those things that defy my sense of reality so much most of time I forget this experience ever happened.



There definitely is a difference between believing something and experiencing first hand for yourself. Dump all those beliefs if you have to. But remain open minded that you can experience something that defies your sense of reality.

My one personal experience of the divine was a presence I felt with me when I was convinced I was going to die. I was somewhere between 10 and 13 years old. I was in a situation that was life threatening, and someone who saw me through binoculars also believed I would surely die and there was nothing he could do about it. I came out of this experience physically with just a few scratches and spiritually convinced that I had felt God's presence with me. However, I cannot prove this to anyone other than myself of course.

Perhaps, I have asked the question in the correct forum this time, as these answers are amongst some of the best I have received so far.
I have a gift for knowing fictional stories from fact. It works most of the time.

There does seem to be something unexplained out there.
I would however need hundreds of replies from dozens of people to put together any sort of study/conclusion.
This is where the problems start, with the crazies stepping in, and making up false stories.
Even sensible people would add a false story, just to get themselves mentioned.
Some books on these subjects also add fictional stories to sell copies, which is a pity.
Exaggeration adds another problem to making a serious study of the subject.

I would look to a 'spooky forum' for answers, but these places seem to attract the loonies. ( Might be a good place for me )

Any stories we tell you, even though they're personal experiences for us, even if they sound impressive or believable, for you those stories are still just something you were 'taught/told by others.' How would this help you?

The experiences of the divine I've had came from meditation. It's evidence enough for me that there's more to life than the physical, but it's not something I'd consider convincing evidence coming from anybody else.

If every story came from people eating mushrooms, I would have a method to experiment with.
If every story came from bouts of illness, again I would have somewhere to start.
Never before have I had access to the entire population of the planet. Even if it is on a dream forum.
So your answers are all valued, and anything you think could be a problem, can be dealt with.
Constructive criticism can be a powerful tool in any subject or study.

So your asking what my driving force is? I'll try to answer i guess.

When it comes to beliefs, there was a period of about two years that i thought the belief in a god was stupid. Logically speaking, a god could or could not exist. I was basically agnostic. My driving force then was physical goals such as getting good at that, doing this, accomplishing this goal, and the like.

However, I'm always learning new things and reading various books, so as a result, my beliefs are constantly changing/evolving. Recently, various factors have sort of pointed me to the idea of a god. As a result, i realized that a god in it's own way sort of makes sense. However, as my beliefs are right now, i think there is a god that keeps the balance of everything, you could call it a universal force. I don't exactly worship anything, i simply acknowledge that a universal force exists. If you look at it logically, it makes no sense, but its belief we are talking about and you can't really use logic to explain belief in the first place.

I've recently started to believe in various supernatural entities as well. Why? Well, it's actually pretty fun really It's stupid and makes no sense to believe in things like demi-gods, vampires , or reptilians but it makes life all the more interesting. But then again, i'm still sort of experimenting, who knows, maybe in a month of two i might look back and think i was an idiot for believing in all that.

If you want a more solid reason, here's what i think. We as humans can only perceive so much. In fact, what we see could be only a mere fraction of what's actually in front of us.

Originally Posted by Original Poster

But reality is also very different from what we perceive it to be. It's so different from what we perceive it to be right now that there isn't any point in arguing about how it works. It's like trying to describe the milky way to a geocentric audience.

When i think about a driving force though, it's still more goal oriented. My eccentric beliefs hardly drive me, they just let me have some fun and make things interesting.

I believe in truth and science. Science has given us many things and made our life better in countless ways. The internet is due to our knowledge in science, so are computers, and modern medicine and most the food we eat are all thanks to science.

Science gives actual accurate answers for the questions we have. We can test and verify anything science tells us. If ghost were real then we should be able to find them, but there is pretty much no evidence for them at all. There is just some people who claim to see them but no one has ever found a way to see a ghost. There are not even any real hypothesis on ghosts, just jumbled stories and most of those don't make logical sense.

If you fear death and wish for immortality you shouldn't put your faith in false gods that will never do anything for you. You should put your faith in science. There are methods science can provide to help you live forever, like cryonics. It isn't guaranteed and people who promote cryonics will be the first to tell you that it is entirely experimental and no one knows if it will work. What do you want though the truth, or what makes you comfortable? I would take a truth every time, and an experimental procedure scientifically done will always have a better real chance of working than some thing someone just totally made up.

Here is what I believe.

I believe most ghosts that are seen are caused by poor human vision, especially night vision. It is extremely easy to see a shadow and mistake objects for something they are not. Especially in cities where light might be reflecting off objects from strange angles. I have seen objects and thought they were something else before, I think everyone has. Even children in their own room, where they have a strong knowledge of everything in the room, still fail to recognize objects they own while it is dark. Often those children think the shadows are monsters and stuff, when it happens do adult we think of ghosts.

I think the sense of dread people get, the feeling of being watched and stuff, is a left over reaction from when humans lived dangerous lives long ago, where things like lions tried to eat us. I think this sense of dread is often attribute to the type of feelings people say they have when they are in a haunted area, and those feelings color their experiences and give them a biased opinion on what really happened.

I think those static recordings people have of ghosts is just humans natural ability to pick patterns out of randomness. There is a word for this, Apophenia. Seeing what you believe are meaningful patterns in randomness. It is part of what leads to seeing false objects at night, it lets you hear voices when there are none in a static recording, and it lets you see holy images of god in piece of toast.

I believe most people who are abducted by aliens or demons, and people visited at home by angels are experiencing sleep paralysis. A well known and studied phenomenon. People are still dreaming while awake and most people's abduction are text book examples of classic sleep paralysis. They are frozen in place, they experience fear or dread, and some creature is trying to do something to do them. If you experience this and you are not aware of what it is, then it is understandable that you could mistake it for being real. After all you are awake when you saw it. I think many other dream related things are also mistaken for supernatural issues.

Another common one is people who claim remote viewing, or astral projection is separate from lucid dreaming. I think remote viewing and astral projections are just normal lucid dreams, and the only difference is people mistake them as being special. Studies done on this show that remote viewing and stuff doesn't work, so there is no reason to believe they are different, even if you get luck once in a while in saying you saw place you hadn't been.

Which goes to the next thing. I think people give to much credit to things that are random coincidence. Statistically, pretty anything that can happen, does happen as a coincidence now and then. You could pray for money and you turn around and find money on the ground. It is extremely unlikely, but it is bound to happen to a few people. That one person will suddenly believe that praying does in fact work, since they saw it for them self, but what about all the other prayers that didn't work? One thing happening one time is pretty much meaningless. If you want something to be believable, it has to be repeatable.

I think the people who believe they have a greater understanding of the world because they do drugs, are just high. They think they have a greater understanding of the world but if you talk to them, they don't. It is just drugs influencing you. Some specifically cause you to become detached emotionally from your surrounding and thus cause a sense of being a part of the 'world' and not your own body. That is just a delusion brought on by the drug, you are not really connecting with the consciousness of the universe.

I have personally seen a ghost myself, when I was much younger. As I recall it, it looked totally like a human and took the form of like a green mist. There is nothing I can think of that would explain how it looked. As I look back I am pretty sure I was awake when I saw it, though it was at night. I wish I had the understand of things back then like I do now, because then I could explain what I saw. Like I said, I don't believe in ghosts so that leaves me with two main idea on what it is. I think the most likely was that I was in fact dreaming but I was not aware that I was, and I am misremembering a dream as real life as it took place in my bed and was like a false awakening. Or possibly a car drove by and it caused some strange reflection off an object in the room that looked ghost like. I actually saw it a few times, always in the same location, so that is possible. I think both are far more likely that it actually being a ghost. Though I understand why someone would think it was if they were in my position. To this day it seemed real, but I know how wrong human perceptions can be.

Alric - I agree with you almost 100%
As a seeker of the truth, I must remain neutral when a new phenomenon shows its self.
I have gone through, and seen through / debunked nearly all so called "Supernatural" events shown on TV
There are however a few events in my adult life that still have me puzzled.
I am working on these at the moment, but proving, or disproving them is quite difficult.
The fun is in the exploration, and occasionaly in the results.

by trying not to fade away and die i am pushed forward- as a rule. i believe in nothing, and embrace the outcome.

For me, having a Christian upbringing before destroying it completely, I was always the child that would speculate way too much to the point where I engaged in comparative analysis from other religions and belief systems and how people cop-out with the "find truth in all of them" to avoid being hurt or having insecurities swelling up. Especially when people use argumentum ad populum and think that many people believing a particular faith and gaining truisms from experiential truths from others makes that objective truth. But even when they're going through this, someone else just pitches in and goes in for damage control because people will think it's relentless bickering.

It's easy to spot these people, and it's easy to produce their breaking points (they turn it around, then question the person's tonality, way of words, etc. without trying to get their underlying message). And even in a Dreaming Forum like this, there's so many ways people self-stultify themselves, especially when there's people who make too many big leaps of faith before understanding the wonders of the unconscious mind and what it can produce in dreaming in general.

Of course, when I state unconscious mind, I just mean it as a concept, not direct dualism between conscious and unconscious. Anyway, seeing people on this forum and other dreaming and spiritual forums, how these people develop predispositions like:

• Those who believe everyone has a dream guide/spirit guide/astral guide/etc., as if it was a monolithic entity that's been there since they were born when it's mostly just people underestimating how the unconscious mind works to fit the expectations based on the person's experiential totality, belief systems, emotions, etc.
  
  
  
• People who tend to encroach Pantheism, Utilitarianism, Deontology, and other ethical belief systems into their religion to try make their beliefs more "true" or trying to gain truism. Then the fact that they also have to cherry-pick phrases, statements, anecdotes and focus mostly on those rather than seeing the many contradictions behind them.
  
  
  
• People who want to activate their third eye, 7 chakras, Using crystals to make certain frequencies, etc.
  
  
  
• People who claim to acknowledge their religions fault's and are open minded to other probabilities and possibilities with finding truth in other religions, but they're just denying themselves of shifting towards Agnosticism, Atheism, or other belief systems that questions other religions because they still have 2% of their religion ingrained into them.
  
  
  
• People who see these life-threatening moments and being saved by some entity and end up making experiential truth and think that clever wording, emotionally-packed language patterns, and such makes it objective truth for everyone in general.
  

The list can go on, but for the sake of staying on topic, my driving force, it's pretty hard to really condense how I would conceptualize it. But for me, with all of the possibilities and things a person can learn, I'd prefer not to lend any invested faith towards something unless I see a process that consistently produces that (i.e. Lucid Dreaming). And even with that, I still want to question the process and dig a bit deeper, because when people state it's the work of a higher entity before for once analyzing what Lucid Dreaming in general portrays with the creative potential of the human brain, it gets tiresome seeing the irony behind these people's logic.

The thing that sparks me the most is the workings of the human mind, and how Science continues seeing the concepts behind the Unconscious seemingly in more control because of the person's conscious intentions, desires, and totality of all sorts of things is stored within. And when I see all of these people go about in their lucid dreaming endeavors trying to gain some self-actualization or reaching closure with these dream beings/entities, I would presume that anyone, whether you have a religion or not, would question how the Human brain can create all of these thought-forms in your natural sleep.

That they would question how they can create a dream at will (or it occurs in non-lucids) with practice to emulate those same feelings of closure, solace, having sense of value and other emotional and psychological predispositions with believing in a religion. Personally, those same feelings of hope when I used to follow the Christian upbringing can be easily emulated in different ways in dreaming and waking life. And because of this, this is what makes me more adventurous with things metaphysical, spiritual, and such, because seeing how the unconscious mind is able to connect the dots (with implicit knowledge, etc.) to make a convincing phenomenon for the conscious mind.

But of course, I will admit that shifting through Agnosticism and Atheism can create existential issues, questions, and concerns personally. Which is why I feel that people who believe in a particular faith and religion have it easy with avoiding that. Of course, I know there's religions that makes one question their reality (i.e. Tibetan Buddhist and how they create thought-forms to give them a basis to question their reality and such), but even with that, I would personally want to dive deeper into the processes of the Human Brain.

And it's doubly ironic going on this forum and seeing people interact with countless of thought-forms in their natural sleep and never really taking the chance to wonder what actually keeps their self-identity reigned in after what would be deemed as Schizophrenic by an uneducated individual. And yet they somehow manage to capitalize on people who would create thought-forms that's still within their perception of reality, and the irony is augmented exponentially when it's people of religious faith that believe in deity/deities that think other people doing this are insane or have to go through a completely reformatting of their biological makeup.

But the moment someone questions their faith in something invisible (that doesn't seem to be simulated through hallucinations or other hallucinatory effects that still makes a person have a tangible grip of reality) and has yet to be proven scientifically, they backpedal before they realize they're just being hypocrites. Especially when I realized a lot of people are either too indolent, incompetent, fearful, or other factors towards diving into things that creates existential questions. I marvel more on how with practice, one can be better with psychosomatic self-control and see how they can collaborate with their unconscious mind (in a subjective way of course) to emulate sensations that creates the strong urge everyone will have when it comes to self-actualization, enlightenment, and such.

So to me, my driving force is that I acknowledge the wonders of how the human mind works, mostly the concepts behind the unconscious mind does things that would make one presume it's out of unconditional love, that a person would lend faith towards themselves and how the mind can cope with things in life rather than lending absolute faith to some invisible deity/deities or supernatural entities. To be resourceful with what the mind can do to survive in general, and having that assurance towards sense of self and consciousness on other levels would be a practical safety net in morals, ethics, and just experiential totality in general.

It shifts me into having those small moments of wishing there could be a way to extend one's life in some way to accumulate their experiential totality even more, but for now, I'm doing just fine with states of consciousness that comes with meditation, dreaming, etc. and seeing them as conduits towards knowing more about myself than I thought I knew. I don't need a deity/deities, a bag of magical seeds, or a trick up my sleeve, just simple rationalization, implicit knowledge, resourcefulness with experiential totality and expanding from that, along with other things like Science that has a more practical approach than Religion in interrogating the Universe.

Cliff notes/TL;DR (for those who are indolent on Extended Discussion):

Instead of making huge leaps of faith, I rather not underestimate the human brain (mostly the works of the unconscious mind and its potential in creativity and such) and how it can make neurological connections and actually be resourceful. Because of that, it just becomes an endeavor of seeking as much knowledge, insight, and perspectives as possible, and being able to go back and forth, adding on to personal experiential totality and learning and actually being able to use it when I need it.

Out of curiosity what things are still puzzling you? Best way to solve these sort of things is to ask others. Human knowledge is now expanding so rapidly that no one, no matter how intelligent they are, can ever learn and know about everything. So in the end you need to work with others to pool our human experiences to help explain things.

You are right about things being hard to prove though. Usually with these sort of things there is a lot of possible reasons for what people see but it is extremely hard to pinpoint the exact cause because you usually can't replicate the conditions.

Originally Posted by Alric

Out of curiosity what things are still puzzling you? Best way to solve these sort of things is to ask others. Human knowledge is now expanding so rapidly that no one, no matter how intelligent they are, can ever learn and know about everything. So in the end you need to work with others to pool our human experiences to help explain things.

You are right about things being hard to prove though. Usually with these sort of things there is a lot of possible reasons for what people see but it is extremely hard to pinpoint the exact cause because you usually can't replicate the conditions.

[The Higher Level of Rapport with Thought-forms both in and out of dreaming and waking life]

Spoiler for ..:

Usually the major existential issue for me is just dreaming itself and thought-forms I interact both inside and out. With how that despite of there not really being a dualism or dichotomy between the unconscious and conscious mind, that there can be a sense of rapport with thought-forms in dreams that makes one question into thinking how much it's easy to revel and be lost within their own mind.
Just like any dreamer that encounters sentient and sapient dream characters beyond their imagination, and how people may pour out all their desires into these dream characters (and then label them as dream guides, astral guides, spirit guides, and what have you), that there seems to be some kind of contradicting logic on how people label others as more crazy than the other. Although this is now shifted into a social matter, it makes me wonder if these people's linear ways of thinking makes any sense (when they disregard some application or labeling with certain thought-forms, even when their beliefs in a supernatural entity beyond the confines of their mind is even more concerning).

Mostly with how if one were to lend faith into themselves, as in the type of faith of accepting the resourcefulness and implicit knowledge with the unconscious mind, that in order for them to conceptualize it, an entity that would be seen as a "higher aspect of self" is created. Whether it's an unconscious protocol as them being a conduit in sublimating unconscious thoughts and giving insight to the dreamer or something beyond my own level of thinking never ceases to amaze me.

Especially when the model Four Stages of Competence and other measurements of human capability becomes a laughing stock to me when engaging in personal endeavors of human exploration with dreaming and such. Of course, despite of this being a major existential concern, it's really more of an inspiration to just explore it knowing there's more than I think I can find.
Considering how we can still sustain a sense of self-identity after encountering with so many figments of our imagination in our natural sleep.

[The issue with Accumulated Experiential Learning and Totality and Its Presumed Merit in Authority Status]

Spoiler for ..:

With experiential learning that has more of an authority to people initially if the person has lived long enough, even these older people's lives are questionable and just confusing when they exhibit the same insecurities and existential question a mere "kid" like me, despite nearing into 20 years of age. And this isn't about talking basic concepts we learn as we go on in life like driving a car or just raising children and building a more realistic empathy of knowing what it's like to care for own children, just deeper philosophical concepts with people's urge for self-actualization after the gregarious nature with biological instincts and such have been distilled or the lower needs have been satisfied.

To put it in simple terms, if there's older people that should have some decent level with dealing with existential issues and making coping mechanisms for it end up being as confused as I am, it irks me slightly.

[How Coincidences Come to Be & Shifts One Into Gravitating Between Internal and External Locus of Control]

Spoiler for ..:

This is related to a user in this thread that explained that they went through what seemed like a life-threatening moment, where one might feel that things are going in their favor because of some causality with some broader external force. These feelings one would get to feel go into wishful thinking that "things happen for a reason" and all sorts of skewed deterministic beliefs. For this one, I had several life-threatening moments, and when I was a child with those occurrences, I would believe it was the work of the Christian God back then.
But for one to contemplate that the world can work for everyone's sake just seems to be unrealistic.

[Social Memory Complexes & How People Conceptualize Past Lives, Present Lives, Future Lives]

Spoiler for ..:

Most of my concern with this is how people believe they went through a past life when the mind itself tends to show moments as if they're movies, or long, dragged out clips that don't feel consistent unless the person trains themselves to be more aware of the content. Especially with Christianity and Judaism beliefs with things like the Book of Life, and Sanskrit ideologies with Akashic Records, and other forms of beliefs where there's some social totality being stored in some metaphysical way through books, scrolls, and even filming as a means of symbolism.
This interests me the most probably due to how I could see it as the confines of the human mind creating a library or database (to associate with experiential totality) that would be deemed as some level of organization with using implicit knowledge to make higher level deductions of what may come to be based on current behaviors, beliefs, experiential learning, etc. But even with this, I tend to approach it with extreme caution, and usually find that temporarily shifting roles (as in expressing the mannerisms to follow the logic behind these social memory complexes) is needed to go back and forth with having a consistent world view and scavenging for new perspectives on things.

[Underlying Reasons for Others Contemplating on Ego death or Egocide]

Spoiler for ..:

This actually isn't a personal one for me, but with how I've seen people who I thought were good and sensible individuals tend to build predispositions of contemplating things like this when they've reached a breaking point in their lives (not the mental episode I see too many people have with suicide). It made me curious on how people explain them experiencing the presumed phenomenon of Ego death of Egocide, but it usually just makes me think it's just them yearning for some type of collective solace with the universe or something.
I almost felt on why people contemplate so much on suicide and get passionate enough to think about ego death and such when I can just shift back to being normal even in dire situations. Maybe I just have a stronger will to keep living, or it's something else entirely.

Most of these aren't really a "existential crisis" to me as they were a few years ago, and it's more of me actually being interested in creating a schemata/schema of things to justify these urges me and other people typically have.

I think the reason the human mind is a bit odd at times is due to how we evolved. Since evolution is basically the development of random traits, which if beneficial get passed on to future generations, we are basically a hodgepodge of beneficial aspects that lead to increase survival. A side effect of that, is some times we might not seem like a single entity. We have involuntary reactions, subconscious desires and habits, and strange dreams. It also leads to mental issues, and nearly everyone has some kind of mild dysfunction in the brain, which if it doesn't cause trouble in day to day living we just accept as normal.

As for older people having more experience, that isn't really true. Everyone moves at their own pace and some are slower than others. Also just because someone is older, doesn't mean they have thought the same questions as you, or thought of them from the same perspective as you. People often specialize in certain type of activities as well and if you were to compare yourself in their specialized area they would probably have a lot more answers than you but in other areas, they might not have a clue. Everyone is just different and I doubt you will ever find one person who knows the answers to everything, no matter how old they are.

I think everyone has feels of thinking things are outside their control at times and other times they feel like they are in control. Each person has their limits and if you overwhelm a person it is easy to see why they might feel they are losing control of things. I think people put this view onto a higher power because it gives them some measure of comfort. If you lose all sense of control, that can be a scary place to be. So it is understandable they would grasp onto any comfort they could. Really it is a measure of desperation.

I think people who believe they had past lives and can remember them, just had dreams or day dreams, and deluded them self into believing they were real. There could be several reasons to believe such a thing, maybe it fits their religion, or the idea of being someone else comforts them in some way, or it makes them feel more important. Also people want to be in reincarnation for the same reason they want to believe in an afterlife. Ceasing to exist is an extremely scary though and people want to believe some part of them will keep going on even after they die. It is a very understandable feeling and I think everyone can relate to it.

I don't like calling myself a nihilist, since I think all life has value and our purpose is whatever we decide it to be. However, nihilism is correct that in the large scale nothing really has a purpose. It is probably true that humans life has no value and we have no purpose and honestly it doesn't matter if you live or die. If you are in a positive frame of mind, then you say "Well there is no purpose so I shall make my own!" And you can find great purpose in life and be happy. However if you dwell on nihilism while you are depressed it is easy to see why someone might feel there is no point in anything and consider suicide and the such. I don't think it is really about willpower but attitude. If bad things happen it is easy to lose sight of the good things in life and you can become depressed.

Originally Posted by Alric

I believe most ghosts that are seen are caused by poor human vision, especially night vision. It is extremely easy to see a shadow and mistake objects for something they are not. Especially in cities where light might be reflecting off objects from strange angles. I have seen objects and thought they were something else before, I think everyone has. Even children in their own room, where they have a strong knowledge of everything in the room, still fail to recognize objects they own while it is dark. Often those children think the shadows are monsters and stuff, when it happens do adult we think of ghosts.

When I was a child I'd wake up from a dream and I'd hallucinate that those objects were alive. A chair with a jacket became a person and so on. Like you said, it happens to everyone. You know what else happens to everyone? Even as a CHILD, within moments I'd realize I was just hallucinating and that monster over there is just some object my sleepy eyes were adjusting to.

But you seem to think that adults lack this capacity?

Its one thing to say that the human being randomly hallucinates *that's a belief, i don't believe in random*. Its another to say that everyone who sees a ghost is simply mistaking actual objects and light phenomenon in the room - in other words deluded.

You should have more respect for the human being. I realize how easy it is to just say the human perception is sometimes false. Its not false, its just always subjective. But if you just pretend that all unexplainable phenomenon is just bad perception then you aren't paying attention at all to what people are actually experiencing. And then you wouldn't pay attention to the important details of why its unexplainable.

Currently, your perception of the ghost phenomenon doesn't even account for one of the most commonly experienced ghost phenomenons. Many if not thousands of people have experienced being contacted by a deceased loved one - PRIOR to receiving the news of their death. As they communicate with the 'ghost', the entire time they assume they are talking to and interacting with a living breathing person. Its only after the experience are they find out the conversation couldn't have been possible because such a person was already deceased at the time.

Researches have found that this experience is so common that they believe a very large number of people will experience this in their life time, and they have also found out your chances of experiencing this is higher the older you get (the more loved ones die) and the closer you are to your own death. If you understand the experience then you'd understand that random hallucination doesn't explain it. As there is nothing random about the experience at all. The sooner society realizes that the sooner we can research seriously and the sooner we can accept these experiences as legitimate human experiences and not some meaningless random visual delusion.

Yeah, even with my own beliefs with things like this, juroara is right that these unexplained processes and phenomenon shouldn't always be labeled as mental dissonance or horrible perception. Especially when we see the Lucid Dreaming in general shows the dreamer can have clear harmony with these thought-forms/dream characters/dream beings/dream environment/etc., and how because of the mind's own wonders in establishing that harmony, it becomes an overstatement to presume it's a dissonance all the time.

Some of the things I've been doing to improve visual thinking (image streaming and derived methods from it), I marvel on how things are connecting together to give some kind of meaning, and whether or not that meaning is apophenia or something useful, it's still something that shouldn't be shut down or regarded as bad perception. And the tendency for people to believe that it may be just bad perception is due to how society has its own myriad of views with being whole in one identity for consciousness and such.

Maybe there's some connection or higher feelings of transcendental thoughts as the person progresses, as a means of solace or coping mechanism for how the world isn't built for everyone's sake for too long( because of the inevitable death with loved ones and the person reaching close to their nadir as well), and for things like that, I tend to be a lot more open-minded, not that I'm presuming Alric is trying to purposefully restrict that window of opportunity.

The whole idea behind connectedness and a person presuming there can be a universal rapport with every living entity in the Universe may be due to how the unconscious mind in general connects dots for meaning, or just something a bit more than that. Especially when Science explores the unconscious mind and sees how phenomenon and the processes we go through caters more to the organization of things the unconscious mind can sustain while the conscious mind is just seeing the workings based on their desires, experiential totality, and such. It might lead to contemplation of slight determinism on a micro-scale (i.e. those threads with free-will queries and such), but it's probably just basic protocol or processing when it comes people's urges to achieve driving force/goals/desires/dreams/etc, or just something beyond our understanding.

You can't realize something is not what you thought you saw, if it isn't there any more. For example a car drives by late at night and light reflects off something and you see it out of the corner of your eye. You think it is a person. You turn to look and the light is gone. You saw a person and you now they are gone. You think it is a ghost. Unless another car drives by while you are looking that way, you how would you ever explain it? If you see something strange, if you are able to repeat it then you can figure out what it is, however if you can't repeat it then you can never be sure what it is. Also if you are actually hallucinate because you had just woken up or are really tired, then it is even harder to determine what you saw, since it was in your head and there is no way to disprove it.

Also human eye sight is notoriously bad and the human brain will misread signals from the eye all the time. Think of optical illusions and how easy it is to fool someone. Here is an example of one, even though you know the A squares and B square are the same color and shade your brain always misreads the actual color of the object.

File:Grey square optical illusion.PNG - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

File:Optical illusion greysquares.gif - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

A human eyewitness in poor lighting conditions is just not reliable. It has nothing to do with not having faith in my fellow humans. I wouldn't even trust myself in such situation.

As for having a full conversation with someone's ghost, how does a person not realize a person they are talking to is a ghost? Talking to a person who isn't in the room with you is a full on delusional state. If a ghost could take on a fully human appearance and talk to a person, then how come no one ever does it with others around? A person could die then walk into a room full of scientist and they could take pictures and film it and the debate would be over. However that doesn't happen, it has never happened.

The fact that you say that it happens more often the closer you are to dying, actually supports the idea that it is a delusion. It is well known that people who are dying hallucinate and experience delusions and things of that nature. The fact that healthy individuals never experience it, seem to suggest that they are indeed hallucinations brought on by damage to the brain. If they are actual ghosts, then why wouldn't they contact health people? What is your hypothesis on why ghosts only speak with people that are close to dying?

Personally I see no reason for any beliefs - a belief is simply accepting something without any evidence.

I also see no reason to believe that the only things that exist are things science has studied. Obviously science keeps pushing farther and discovering more, it's an ongoing process. Plus it's likely there are some things immune to scientific investigation. I don't mean the superstitious things like ghosts or gods, at least in the stereotypical ways people usually mean those things. It's clear to see how primitive superstitious people dreamed those things up.

As for the actual question of the OP - my driving force is art.

It gives me a focus and a constant goal to work toward, which will always be there. No matter how good you get you can always improve. Many people, once they're out of school and have a steady job, just give up and accept that as their life, which leaves them feeling empty and like life lacks a meaning or a purpose. During those times when I'm not pursuing art (which are all too frequent) I know that feeling myself. But the drive to always push myself coupled with the immense feelings of accomplishment and triumph when I actually do create something worthwhile or reach a new level of ability give me a succession of peaks of positive emotion and positive reinforcement that I think many people lack after childhood.

I don't see how something can be 'immune' to scientific study. That is like saying it is immune to logical thought. Something can be really weird but that doesn't mean you can't study it. In fact some of the cutting edge scientific theories like string theory and stuff can be pretty weird at times.

People have studied supernatural things though. It isn't like science ignored the idea of ghosts, people looked into it and found that there is no evidence at all for such things.

Well yeah, like string theory - how on earth could you ever study that? The theory is all just mathematical conjecture, and a theory is measured not by any adherence to reality but on how elegant it is mathematically. I don't see any way scientists can actually study it, at least currently. Maybe one day, who knows?

But anyway, that wasn't at all the main point of my comment.

Originally Posted by Alric

As for having a full conversation with someone's ghost, how does a person not realize a person they are talking to is a ghost? Talking to a person who isn't in the room with you is a full on delusional state. If a ghost could take on a fully human appearance and talk to a person, then how come no one ever does it with others around? A person could die then walk into a room full of scientist and they could take pictures and film it and the debate would be over. However that doesn't happen, it has never happened.

Please try harder to imagine what this experience would be like if it happened to you. I think that would answer your questions. Imagine someone you loved dearly has just died, but you don't know it yet. Suddenly you see this person out of the blue, maybe even some place you know they shouldn't be, like your kitchen. But before you can even question the logic of the situation you and the person you love spark a conversation. Maybe they're confessing something they've been hiding, thanking you, or being all nostalgic. After the pleasant conversation they say goodbye and you go about your business like its any other goodbye. Until you receive the news that the person you experienced talking to was already dead (or at the very least dying).

I'm sorry but, I don't care what your model of reality is - feeling like its a meaningless delusion is going to be the last thing on your mind. Thats not how human psychology works. Even if your logical side can't believe your own eyes and doubts the entire experience - your emotional doesn't care about your logic and would consider the experience true. And I think that most people, if they were able to experience this, would feel gratitude and release, rather than regret that they never got to say 'goodbye'.

Unfortunately, I didn't say anything about the 'ghost' manifesting in a way that can be scientifically photographed and studied.

If anything, if you hold the experience to be true, then we are dealing with a psychic phenomenon. Now I'm gonna get all matrix on you.

We know that dreams are excellent example of how ideas in our head are experienced as a literal 3 dimensional reality. In short, the brain can't tell the difference between input coming from within or without- both are reality as far as the brain knows. The psychic phenomenon proposes that minds can connect, share ideas and thoughts.

Inception - is it possible for someone to place a thought in your mind thats so well formed, your brain considers it reality? Scientists already believe its possible because its literally how the brain functions. Actually I think they've already implanted false memories in mice. We can go further down the rabbit hole if you'd like.

Speaking of information - what about light? Scientists have already proven that light can carry and transmit information. Quantum computers and all that.

If the psychic phenomenon is true, then we are dealing with something that works like quantum computer. The information from the 'sender' is instantaneously received by the 'receivers' mind, via energy light whatever, even if they are separated by thousands of miles. Thanks to the brain, the information is perceived as a physical reality. Now the receiver can 'experience' the sender in the room with them, even though they are physically apart.

Even if you don't believe this pyschic-ghost phenomenon, the situation is absolutely scientifically possible. Get ready for a quantum future of digital reality.

The fact that you say that it happens more often the closer you are to dying, actually supports the idea that it is a delusion. It is well known that people who are dying hallucinate and experience delusions and things of that nature. The fact that healthy individuals never experience it, seem to suggest that they are indeed hallucinations brought on by damage to the brain. If they are actual ghosts, then why wouldn't they contact health people? What is your hypothesis on why ghosts only speak with people that are close to dying?

It IS well known that people who are near death see and experience all sorts of things that healthy people don't. It would be however really bad science to say that its because of a damaged or decaying brain. That's just not consistent with the actual medical science.

Sure, there are people who are dying and there is something physically wrong with their brain. But clearly there are many people who are dying with perfectly healthy functioning brains. Its their other organs they have problems with.

Its because there is nothing wrong their brain that many scientists did not come to the conclusion that the dying just randomly hallucinate. Especially when these hallucinations all deal with one thing - the after life - and are never random. So some scientists instead have concluded that this experience of the after life when you are dying is a BIOLOGICAL function of a HEALTHY brain. So much, that they expect every functioning brain near death to experience it.

Now that is seriously weird! But it is a serious consideration of many scientists - that we are programmed to dream of an after life near death. The begging question is - why?

What you are describing is clearly a delusion. If you saw a love one in your home, when they didn't live with you or anything, you would not have a normal conversation with them. There is simply no way. If I get up in the morning and go into the kitchen to have breakfast and my mother is sitting there and I just start chatting with her, then there is something seriously wrong with my thinking. The fact that you accept that they are there with you so willingly is in it self a delusion. If you were in a normal state of mind you would clearly ask them what are they doing there, how did they get there, when did they arrive.

If you are suffering from these types of delusions, there is no way you would even realize it. The person who saw there recently dead relative could have seen other people as well and wouldn't have given it a second thought. They could of seen Obama in their living room and had a friendly chat with him and would of accepted it as real and no one would ever know. They wouldn't think it is odd at all. Then after Obama left their relative arrived and they spoke with them too.

A person suffering from a delusional state is clearly a bad witness for anything. If you are incapable of telling reality from something entirely in your head, how can you give an accurate account of what happened?

You're way over analyzing an imaginary scenario that I gave you. The 'ghost' doesn't have to be experienced in any odd situation. So I'm sorry I said that I was trying to make a different point. When it happened in my family it was at a party, a large hispanic party with relatives of all ages and the door wide open. It would have been rude to question 'well why the hell are you here?'

There is no other experience leading to the conclusion that they are schizo. You're simply making that assumption to fit it within your model of reality. If they were schizo and having conversations with people who aren't there all the damn time someone would have noticed by now. Thats simply not the case within these examples.

You're simply doing what all skeptics do, warp the experience so that it makes sense to you and ignore the important details that defy that. I have nothing left to say on this matter.