It looks like you're using an Ad Blocker.
Please white-list or disable AboveTopSecret.com in your ad-blocking tool.
Thank you.
Some features of ATS will be disabled while you continue to use an ad-blocker.
UnmitigatedDisaster
Aelfrede
So how do you suggest eliminating those obvious possible reasons? Is just a one off medical and optician's check up enough (showing blood pressure and retinas ok) or do you feel blood pressure needs to be recorded frequently throughout day over a certain amount of time to prove that what is being seen is not related to blood pressure? Basically, I'm wondering how much the skeptics need before they will consider a possible paranormal cause?
In this case: yes. He should have a cursory medical check up done. Then, since he says this is something he's always been able to do, he should be able to take his blood pressure before and after. This wouldn't be hard, you can buy an electronic self tester at a bloody Walmart if you want. This would be 1) good for his health, 2) good for reducing the skepticism surrounding such abilities, and 3) helpful to those of us that -don't- see or experience things like you do, so we can possibly learn to.
I guess, for me, it depends on how much I actually want to understand. I've had several "paranormal" experiences in my life. I have always tried to work through it logically and eliminate any mundane possibilities. I don't see why people who experience these things are so offended by the process of elimination. Wouldn't you -want- to be sure what you experiences was special? Wouldn't you -want- to be sure that you aren't suffering something potentially health-hazardous?
It's like people who have these abilities refuse to try to quantify them, or test them in any meaningful way. When questioned, many seem to default their stance to "Well it's just the way I see it, you can't explain it, I'm just special."
It's possible, so why not help us be more enlightened? Instead of just saying it happened and it's mystical, help examine and advance that part of science, because it really -is- science, forward?
Science is not spiritualism's enemy. Trying to determine what causes your ability that you feel is helpful can only help others advance. People go on and on about how humanity has to evolve, but the ones with these special abilities seem to have no interest in helping humanity do that.
olaru12
spartacus699
reply to post by Thorneblood
Well I'm talking about a lot more than energy. I'm talking about spiritual entities.
Well since you brought it up....
What kind of entities? I too have encountered "the others" thru many different disciplines and methods we are censored from discussing here at ats.
Have you ever encountered Mescalito/the green man, or the little mechanical chirppy things, or the dark fog? There are others but I encounter those 3 most frequently.
defcon5
What a lot of people don't realize is that your body has a sympathetic and parasympathetic nervous system. This includes the Vegus nerve which controls your heart. That is why its not uncommon for people to have a heart attack when they strain while going to the bathroom. You can stimulate your parasympathetic system without even being consciously aware of it, and it in turn can effect your heart rate, which in turn effects your blood pressure, and again in turn can cause various hallucinations. There are quite a large number of posts on ATS claiming paranormal abilities or events, that can be attributed to a list of medically known hallucinations. As Morgenstern89 is stating, you have to eliminate what is obvious before you can claim something is extraordinary.
So life is stressful, so I tend to seem to charish the moments when I can get ____ and or drunk to just escape real life.
Like I said, my main point is: will that be enough? Will any such investigations ever be enough for the hard skeptics? And if the answer is no, we can justifiably wonder if the doubt is really coming from a healthy skeptical view point.
I see what you're getting at, but I think we all have problems in our lives, to varying degrees, and I don't think it's a very scientific approach to dismiss someone's experience just on the basis of that. I would imagine a good scientific approach tries to rule out as many assumptions as possible. I think many of us like the idea of escaping to a fantasy world in our minds at times, but that doesn't mean that we can't tell the difference between our physical surroundings and our fantasies.
I can understand how some here might feel frustrated that a more skeptical approach isn't adopted as often as they might like (e.g. looking into health issues like blood pressure etc.) but what's the point discussing it if no one, not even the skeptics, are interested when they do look into those things?
I admire your initiative in trying to get to the bottom of any potential health issues. It's good to get that factor out of the way. Ultimately it doesn't help us though. Checking their blood pressure only rules out a physical cause for their experience.
I'm very interested in the idea that people can sense, manipulate, and communicate via some kind of psychic energy. I've conducted my own experiments with this sort of thing in the past, with varying results.
You yourself claim to be able to sense energy, correct?
your blood pressure seems to be pretty good, with normal fluctuations.
I'm not sure where you stand on the subject, but I believe that it's all the same energy involved in all these different phenomena. So if you are sensitive to energy, the next step would then be to conduct other experiments which have external/visible results. For example, detecting objects under cups or in shadow boxes, guessing the color/suit of playing cards, moving suspended objects in a sealed jar, and so on and so forth.
OP could do this as well using objects he associates with having positive or negative connotations (crucifix and pentagram, for example). The only hurdle is finding a way to conduct the experiment on video, with enough attempts (hundreds) so that the person guessing and the person setting up the experiment couldn't memorize a sequence of outcomes, nor signal each other in any way to cheat. An easy one person test would be to open a new deck of Bicycle playing cards on camera, remove the jokers, shuffle thoroughly, and guess the color. Keep track of the results for each time, and then draw conclusions from there.