What is the strangest thing you've ever experienced?

reply to post by Anonymous ATS


I always wonder why people post anonymously but none the less, thanks for your input. I like the Lake Placid story. as a hockey fan, I'm at least somewhat familiar with the history. But I really liked the ball lightning account. That's the closest I've ever heard someone getting to it. I've read accounts of people on an airplane who saw it appear by the cabin door and pass straight down the aisle to the back and disappear but this is pretty cool. Thanks for sharing.

I'd say the strangest thing(s) that have ever happened to me are:
1. Out of Body Experience
2. Seemingly being able to breathe without breathing
3. I've also had very strange dreams including some that predict the future

More than anything I would like to have a ghost experience.

reply to post by samureyed



Very interesting - and the part about the shoe, not a little hilarious.

The first account reminded me of an experience I had, although it's not really the same - just another case of what some people would call "meaningful coincidence" (or, in this case, a string of coincidences).

www.abovetopsecret.com...

It is by no means the most bizarre thing that has ever occurred to me - probably not even in the top ten - but some may find it interesting.

reply to post by Heike


This has got to be one of the most extraordinary "dimensional" displacement cases I've ever read.

And the core question, of course, is this:

Was my future predetermined? My course through life pre-set? If not, how could I have experienced an event years in the future, down to the tiniest detail including the name of the young man I was dating? I still don't understand it, but it's never happened again.

Indeed.



N.B. I started a thread on "fate" recently, but after a few days decided it would be best to wait until the "October 14" hoopla was over. (Very few worthy threads were even noticed because of the "noise" of those threads.)




[edit on 17-10-2008 by Vanitas]

reply to post by Vanitas


Thanks Vanitas.

It seems to me that a lot of worthy threads are ignored. Sometimes I go trying to dig for them, and sometimes I don't have time. A lot of very good posts (in my opinion) get no attention at all or very few replies, but the sensational garbage goes to 20 pages... :sigh: I guess it's just human nature, even on ATS.

As for my experience, I find that I tend to avoid thinking about it very much because I don't like the implications. If I can't really have free will, at least let me think I do!

reply to post by Heike


For anyone who may have missed it, the post by Heike we're refering to here, is on page 19. Heike, that really was an amazing account. I can't say I know how that would effect me, if it happened to me. I fear I might be in a psych ward or something. LOL. I'm glad to know you're not....You're not, are you? LOL.

I was 16 or 17. One evening I drove my schooter from home into the next small town on a main street. It was late autumn, beginning winter. As I drove along and I looked up in the dark evening sky, there it was. I can to this day not explain what I saw. It was huge. First I thought thats the moon. But how? it could not have been. It was about 10 times bigger. I stopped my scooter. I measured it with my arms. It would fit between my 2 hands parallel stretched out, even a bit more. It didn't have the surface of the moon. The streets where empty. A very eiry feeling. I watch it for about 5 minutes. I felt euphoric.

The next day I told others what I saw, which was a big mistake. But the next time at full moon I meassured it between my thumb and indexfinger with a stretched arm.

To this day I am amazed that I saw this huge planet like celestial body. Never was able to explain what it was.

My only explanation today is air pollution making me haluzinate. Or after seeing The Truman Show, somehow the sky is just a screen (far fetched).

Anyway, that's what I saw and never talked about again. I know what I saw. It wa real for me. Anybody has an explanation?

reply to post by Benarius


Well .. obviously my first inclination will be to suggest that you saw a UFO. Not that that's really much of an explanation since you already know you saw something you couldn't identify that was flying (as in up in the sky).

I wonder if sometimes the technology of both advanced human and/or any "others" tries to disguise itself as common objects and thus be missed by the casual/careless observer.

For example, I've read reports of people who saw "black helicopters" and then, as they got closer, realized there was no sound. Perhaps your whatever-it-was was trying to pretend to be the moon and just didn't do a good enough job to be missed by you.

(edit to correct spelling & grammar)

[edit on 17-10-2008 by Heike]

Originally posted by Heike
For example, I've read reports of people who saw "black helicopters" and then, as they got closer, realized there was no sound. Perhaps your whatever-it-was was trying to pretend to be the moon and just didn't do a good enough job to be missed by you.

This reminded me of one of my own experiences, one I least like to talk about. I had never thought about the fact that the proximity of "it" (what looked like a helicopter) should have created incredible wind and sound, but I don't remember either. And since it was witnessed by someone else as well, I have no idea at all what I saw. Or who perhaps.

Originally posted by Static Sky
reply to post by Heike

 

For anyone who may have missed it, the post by Heike we're refering to here, is on page 19.

And the link within my reply leads directly to the post itself.
(Not being a nitpicker here - I myself didn't notice for a long time that it worked like that. ;-)







[edit on 17-10-2008 by Vanitas]

As for my experience, I find that I tend to avoid thinking about it very much because I don't like the implications. If I can't really have free will, at least let me think I do!

I hear you...
I don't like to think about it either - I did, very much so, a long time ago, as an adolescent - but the reason why I don't is that I am not sure at all that our intellectual processing of such questions CAN access the reality (or the whole reality) of certain cognitive spheres.

In other words, no matter how intelligent one is, there is a very real possibility that by thinking about such cognitive experiences not only you might not get far - you might even get side-tracked. You know how the mind works: it computes on the basis of the parameters available to it - but is all too often simply unaware of the possible existence of other criteria, other parameters, pertaining to levels of "reality" that it knows nothing about.

Thank God our subtle heart (as the Sufis call it) has a mind of its own.








[edit on 17-10-2008 by Vanitas]

Originally posted by Vanitas

Originally posted by Static Sky
reply to post by Heike

 

For anyone who may have missed it, the post by Heike we're refering to here, is on page 19.

And the link within my reply leads directly to the post itself.

(Not being a nitpicker here - I myself didn't notice for a long time that it worked like that. ;-)







[edit on 17-10-2008 by Vanitas]

I feel a bit silly actually, but you JUST taught me that. I had no idea. Cheers, my friend.

reply to post by Static Sky


Please... DON'T.
Or you'll force me to display MY catalogue of silliness...
It would not be a pretty sight.







[edit on 17-10-2008 by Vanitas]

reply to post by TravelerintheDark



I certainly understand your reticence.
But if you ever do want to talk about it, I think many would be interested in when and where (at least approximately) it happened, and how "it" looked.

Originally posted by Vanitas
reply to post by TravelerintheDark

 

I certainly understand your reticence.
But if you ever do want to talk about it, I think many would be interested in when and where (at least approximately) it happened, and how "it" looked.

Absolutely! I'd love to hear an elaborated account. It's kind of what we're here for. LOL. TravelerintheDark, if you ever feel like sharing the details, please feel free. We're definately interested. Cheers.

I say it's my least favorite to speak of because this one genuinely frightened me. And it's possibly my strangest experience for that reason.

I mentioned it before in a post, but see no harm in repeating it. That post is rather long and convoluted, so I can shorten it by saying that I was around 20 at the time and it flew from beneath an overpass, above railroad tracks, to hover and follow our car for a few meters. It was no more than 50 yards away, but I believe closer to 30. It was black, nothing but black. I don't recall seeing a pilot or even noticing windows at all. I was a passenger in the car, so there was at least one other witness.

As I said in the previous post, I was reminded of it and realized that I have no recollection of sound or wind. Perhaps there was and shock altered my memory. All I can say is I found it odd and unnerving for a variety of reasons.

First things first: this is most definitely NOT the "strangest" thing I have experienced (for some reason, I don't even like the epithet "strange").
In fact, I don't even know WHAT it was that I saw.
But whatever it was (or not), it's a sweet non-event, so... bear with me.

I do a lot of historical research, both for private and professional reasons.
About a year ago, I spent a few hours in one of my favourite places in the virtual world: the New York Times archives, reading old articles about the aftermath of the Titanic disaster as well as related features. (I even read adverts of the time! )

While researching, I like to get as much as I can "into" the writer and the actual moment when s/he was writing - or the event, of course.
The result is a certain "buzz", a heightened, somehow electrified feeling of penetrating the semblance of Time. (I am not saying that actually happens, of course - I am saying that's how it feels.)

Already very much "in the buzz", I clicked on one of the pages of a certain NYT edition (I don't even remember which day it was), when I received a call from a friend on my cellular phone. I didn't continue reading, obviously, although I kept my eyes mostly on the screen.

During our conversation he was interrupted, so we stopped talking for a few moments. I distractedly scrolled down the page and then clicked on a link to a different page. The pages being graphically intensive (scanned images), the loading of the new page took a few seconds.
It was during those three or four seconds that I saw, as clearly as daylight, an image of a ship in a dock, with a caption that said (I am paraphrasing, but I am trying to write it down as accurately as I can remember it): "The RMS Titanic which arrived Wednesday and is stationed in dock (number of pier - I can't remember it) has attracted masses of curious visitors (etc.)" - and there was a mention of some "minor damage".

I think I actually blurted "what?!" aloud and quickly stopped the loading of the new page. It stopped but froze. I refreshed the page - and the article was nowhere to be seen.

Being quite familiar with the various practices of journalism, I suppose it would have been perfectly possible for a newspaper, even a reputable one like the NYT, to recklessly publish a feature written beforehand (although such practices are usually reserved for headline news, not minor "items" of general interest).

It still doesn't explain why I couldn't find it again.
But I am not going to interpret this. How could I?

And you're welcome to chuckle - or even LOL - at me.
No hard feelings.











[edit on 17-10-2008 by Vanitas]

The weirdest thing for me besides experiencing the Bufo Alvarius's magically humbling gifts, was actually the combination of two things, first, when I was in first or second grade, I was on the playground at school, and out of nowhere I got a strange notion accompanied by sensation that my brain, was actually controlled by something beyond this universe and that I was not really in this body, it was strange, it was like a realization as I did not question it, it made perfect sense for some reason. BTW my family is not religious and this happened around the time I was contemplating what others considered god.
Then when I was in 3rd grade, I had a very strange dream that seemed very very real, strange people, strange music and smells.... throughout the years I recalled the dream because it was very unique in its oddness, and then, nine years later, I had run away to colorado from arizona and upon entering a strangers apartment, I had the deepest de ja vu ever, and then, it turned into the exact situation from my dream, same faces, smells, music, etc. It was that experience in contrast to the former one that allowed me to look at reality in a whole new light, it was those experiences that inevitably lead me to the Bufo and meditation in the first place. About the strangeness of the Bufo, the only thing strange about it is, it will show you another reality that you are actually always in, that will explain more than you imagined possible, and it is validated by a sense of realness more real than you feel you perceived reality to be before Bufo brought you past the light...

reply to post by psychedeliack


The Bufo a. you're talking about is the so-called sapo of the Amazonian tribes, isn't it?

It seems interesting that the event you describe corresponds to some of the most notable purported characteristics of the "sapo" experience (remote seeing, merging with the surroundings etc.).

It may be a predisposition you have - it would seem you don't even need the Bufo.

Be it as it may, it's fascinating.





[edit on 17-10-2008 by Vanitas]

reply to post by Vanitas

I am not sure exactly what sapo is, I know of Yopo, and yes that is the same but still a bit different, only different in method of administration of the sacrament as well as duration, and an intricate allegory of things that go along with duration... For almost any of your questions on the subject, just check out www.erowid.org
edit to addk so I found sapo on erowid, it seems its an opiate and not a tryptamine. As far as I know, the sonoran desert is the only place that has these toads, and the B.Alvarius is the only toad to produce such a sacrament, otherwise its extracted from grass, vines, roots, and seeds.

Sorry op for the off topic post...carry on, I love reading these reports!



[edit on 10/17/2008 by psychedeliack]