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susu
Trad climber
East Bay, CA
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Does that kind of explain your name MisterE? It amazes me when I have crazy dreams or nightmares. In some ways, I kind of like them even if shaken bc of the curiosity stirred from a disturbing experience maybe. I would have freaked out to experience what you did, esp. just days later from your dream! But I do hope you wouldn't feel somehow responsible! Who can help what's dreamed?
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Charlie D.
Trad climber
Western Slope, Tahoe Sierra
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Here’s a climbing related tale I’ve told around a campfire or two, one I think MisterE will appreciate.
Several winters ago I was on a road trip in British Columbia with my buddy from Seattle skiing obscure resorts and the backcountry. Nothing but great powder, enjoying each other’s company and the hospitality of the Canadians that would send us on into each evening throwing back beers, eating too much and crashing hard in cheap hotels.
After once such day I drifted into a deep sleep and experienced an intense dream. I was in the alpine of summer high on a ridge wedged into the top of a dihedral watching my friend climbing up solo on the smooth face of the open book toward me. He was moving very delicately on small holds, stopped looked up at me, straight into my eyes. Suddenly he pitched over backwards, I covered my eyes and startled awake before I heard the sound of his impact below. It was a very vivid dream and I laid there wide awake thinking what the hell was that all about?
The morning came and at breakfast I related the dream to my buddy (assured him it wasn’t he who fell) before we headed off into yet another epic day in BC. Didn’t think of it again until days end in a bar when I asked myself that same question, what the hell? Sobered up lying in bed later, reading and thinking about family back home it hit me like a brick, holy sh*t my oldest son is climbing in Patagonia! I immediately sprang up and called home to hear this, “there’s been an accident, Bobby is OK”.
Making a long story short he was climbing with two others, topped out along a ridge high in the alpine. Bobby went looking for a rap point and came back just in time to watch his buddies anchors fail as his friend rapped off the ridge. Luckily nothing more than a broken pelvis, ouch!
Pretty weird, I watched my friend fall off and so did my son, approximately at the same time. I’m very close to my two boys, I can’t help but think some invisible energy on some level made me aware of what was happening.
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Jan
Mountain climber
Okinawa, Japan
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Thanks for telling us your experience. I too have had such experiences on numerous occasions. Mine involve strangers rather than family. Sometimes they involve events that happen in the future just as I have forseen. Sometime I have known exactly what to do at the scene of a terrible accident because I had seen it all three years before. As Tony already mentioned, they are particularly common during war.
So far nobody knows by what mechanism they occur. Either it's so subtle that science hasn't discovered it yet or its by a means so beyond our current understanding, we will have to develop a whole new paradigm for it.
For sure, even one such experience, however unexplained, opens our minds to other possibilities and the wonder of how little is known yet about the human mind and brain.
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Jan
Mountain climber
Okinawa, Japan
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LEB-
The reason people keep referencing the God thread is because we discussed a lot more than God on it, including the paranormal (both as a secular phenomenon and a possible indication of a God).We especially spent a lot of time discussing the nature of our knowing anything (or lack thereof).
Fortunately for this thread, they're keeping busy over there right now with fundamentalists and rabid atheists going at it with the usual insults and Bible quotes so they haven't interfered much over here yet.
Meanwhile, I will note that it was a real revelation to me to read the article on mystical phenomena in the Catholic Encyclopedia as it mirrors so closely what the Tibetan Buddhists claim is experienced by some outstanding individuals. Although both occur in a religious context, the fact that similar unusual experiences exist in two such different cultures and religions, indicate that these mystical/psychic/paranormal experiences are a universal human potential.
The fact that myself and many others have experienced many such phenomena is also an indication that one doesn't have to be a saint to be connected to whatever it is.
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Tony Bird
climber
Northridge, CA
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i guess i might as well mention this one--happened twice a couple years ago.
pulling into my driveway, coming home from work. no one else is home, and there's suddenly a call on my cellphone, and it shows the call is coming from the home phone. i looked at that and went in the house and it stopped ringing.
this happened twice, exactly the same routine, a week or so apart. the first time it happened, the call to the cellphone got a time stamp for a date in december 2012. the second time, the time stamp was normal.
one thing about me, i don't go looking for this stuff, it doesn't particularly scare me (i know all about the mayan calendar business), and i'm always looking for rational explanations. some kinda glitch with the phone company? well, maybe, but how often does something like that happen, your home phone calling your cellphone on its own? and how does it give a future time stamp?
i showed the 2012 time stamp it to my wife, who is used to this kinda stuff in our life, and to several people at work, who all thought it was kinda creepy.
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Tony Bird
climber
Northridge, CA
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one of them bears my repeating from memory here, LEB, because i think it pertains quite specifically to the subject you've raised, and i would defy every skeptic here to explain it with "standard" science.
this fellow's sister had somehow fallen--not sure if she did it climbing or not--onto a sharp desert plant, maybe a spanish dagger, and severely lacerated her tongue. it was bleeding profusely and hanging in shreds. everyone brought her indoors and prayed, prayed real hard, before they wanted to take her to the hospital, and her tongue got miraculously back together. there was just some small evidence of a scar at the back of her throat, as i recall. a doctor later checked her over and acknowledged the small scar but couldn't explain the rest--her tongue looked normal.
what impressed me was how this fellow stood his ground to the predictable attacks here. does anyone else remember this, or who the fellow is? he wasn't lying, and for his money it proved his faith in god. my problem with that is that god's miracles get a bit selective and whimsical. it looks like god plays favorites, but no decent god would do that. what struck me about the incident was the group action, the outright terror, crisis, and willful accord in response to it. that indicates the parameters of the paranormal. was it god--or a human factor, beyond what we'd normally exercise?
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High Fructose Corn Spirit
Gym climber
Full Silos of Iowa
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Oh boy.
Now is it any wonder there was so much disagreement over on the God thread when so many of its posters- they know who they are- were so thoroughly steeped in woo-woo, superstition, paranormalist or supernaturalist beliefs and desires? OMG!
Where is the effort to deal with nature as is? to derive meaning and purpose from nature as is, to derive coping skills and life strategies for dealing with nature as is, straight-up, without relying on "immeasurable" qualities to provide comfort or meaning or purpose. For these personalities, it doesn't seem to exist. -Which speaks volumes.
Ghandi: Be the change you seek in the world.
Kittesy: Spend your limited time, energy and resources learning those cause n effect rules of the Cosmos that ARE measurable, that point the way to life strategies for better living. -Plenty of those to keep anyone busy for several lifetimes.
HFCS: Do NOT confuse the supranormal (real-world, rare, royal flush-like phenomena or weird bizarre phenomena, e.g., or the brain's perceptual tricks, illusions, etc.) and the paranormal (paranormalist fantasies or paranormalist delusions) - like all the pinhead fools of the species do.
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Tony Bird
climber
Northridge, CA
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just dealing with nature as-is here, fruc. i did get these strange phone calls, and i'll bet if you took the time to investigate the case of the lacerated tongue, you'd find plenty of witnesses to a genuine miracle. just a hunch of course, i could be wrong about that one, but you're not really a curious guy. you're lazy like most of skeptical layabouts.
supranormal and paranormal are your distinctions. you like to make up your own language. problem is, you haven't been able to fool anyone with it.
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TripL7
Trad climber
san diego
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T-Bird, that was the madbolter1(I am pretty sure)who told that story about his young sister etc.
Edit: madbolter1...on the evening of June 3/June 4 conversation on the "Why do so many people believe in God..." I agree, this was a bonafide miracle/good story!
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Tony Bird
climber
Northridge, CA
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unfortunately, LEB, the concept of god will always be tangled up with the paranormal. if you're shy of controversy, it's the wrong field to be messing with.
if you have religious sensibilities, that's your prerogative--pursue what you're comfortable with, but you won't be getting a unified picture, you'll have the natural over here, the paranormal over there, the supernatural in yet another place.
i see both the claimed miracle and the ghost cat as fair game. i operate on the premise that truth is approachable and will have a universal integrity.
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Wayno
Big Wall climber
Seattle, WA
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Tony, what if what seemed like a miracle was in fact an innate ability that some humans can access with will or under duress? What if that ability was somehow 'forgotten about' or you were always led to believe that people don't normally do that? Would that take it out of God's hand or would it put it there solidly?
Lois , how can you separate "the Paranormal" from miracles and other supposed divine intervention experiences? They all fall into what we experience as real or not, but it is only the individuals ability to discern that limits any interpretation.
In my world, it's all normal. Fear and ignorance are the only limiting factors. Culture is a filter that we view the universe through.
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Mimi
climber
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'Culture is a filter that we view the universe through.'
Very good evening to you, Wayne. Interesting concept. Or at least our tiny existence here at the moment.
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GBrown
Trad climber
Los Angeles, California
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Early '70s, Boston, dream.
It's a moonlit night on a big ledge way up a cliff. I'm standing behind my grandfather; we're looking out at the valley below. I feel such immense love for my grandfather that I cannot communicate in words. I lean forward and kiss him on the back of his neck and flow all the love I feel through that communication. He turns around and looks me in the eye and flows this direct and incredible love back to me through my eyes. It is as if I have been bombarded with his love and suddenly the landscape is clear and sharp in the night; it feels as if the earth is breathing deeply; the stars suddenly flash brightly and my feeling is that of ecstacy.
Instant scene change: I am holding my granfather's hand as he seeks a foothold below in the dark as we start to descend the cliff from the ledge. His full weight is on my grip and his hand is slipping slowly through it. I feel great fear that he will fall and die and there is nothing I can do about it, but suddenly the weight is off my hand - he has found a foothold, he is safe and not about to fall and die.
Instant scene change: I am walking beside my grandmother down the slope below the cliff down into the valley. I suddenly realize that my grandfather is not with us and is still back up on the cliff. I stop and turn to go back and get him but my grandmother says that he's alright. I realize that everything is fine and continue down into the valley with her.
I wake up, remembering the dream in all its vivid detail.
In the morning I get a call from my mother informing me that my grandfather died in his sleep that night, lying beside my grandmother as he had for 55+ years. I loved him dearly and never shed a tear other than those relating to happiness.
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Wayno
Big Wall climber
Seattle, WA
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Hi Mimi, a pleasant evening to you also.
I think what I was trying to say was that what is now paranormal may sooner or later become a reality. Even in one generation.
edit- wow, G.Brown that is a powerful dream. Maybe we need a powerful dream thread.
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skywalker
climber
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Gee... I always avoid these topics...I am actually of the belief that when you die its like before you were born...but may I share...when I was ~8ish I went to the kitchen one morning and a stream of water (pee sized for a lack of better dimensions) was shooting out of the floor to the ceiling and dripping down the cabinets. I woke up my Dad who also witnessed the phenomena and we tried to find the source. We found the source and drilled a hole through the floor and confirmed said source. Problem was there wasn't a pipe anywhere near, and my Dad is a handyman. Sometime later in the same kitchen my brother and I just ate a snack and there was a glass of water on the table and it just suddenly shattered. I still have no explanation for either of these two experiences but I will never forget them!
S....
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Tony Bird
climber
Northridge, CA
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must have been a wonderful grandfather, gbrown.
in rare instances, one of the best things in life can be death itself.
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Tony Bird
climber
Northridge, CA
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thanks for the reference, tripl7. it's worth reading over--madbolter1, june 3-4 on the belief-in-god thread, a very impressive anecdote and some stout sparring with rrradam's hipshot abuse.
where is that rrradam these days?
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GBrown
Trad climber
Los Angeles, California
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LEB - This was a cool topic to originate.
I agree with Wayno and Tony that we don't have to worry about the inclusion of experiences which are interpreted as religious. The "para-" in Paranormal comes from the Greek meaning "beside, near or from", i.e., it is separate from "normal". The word "paranormal" is so loaded with inferences and TV associations, etc., that the terms "extra-normal" or "extra-ordinary" ("extra-" coming from Latin for "outside of") may create less of a reaction.
You have asked for personal accounts of experiences; you haven't asked for dissertations, opinions, arguments, theories, references, things which other people have said happened to them, etc.
SO LET'S LOOSEN UP. DON'T BE SHY. IF YOU'VE HAD SUCH AN EXPERIENCE, SHARE IT. Simple. :)
I'll give you another one. (Like many "extra-normal" or "extra-ordinary" experiences, it is so intimately connected with the normal that it is very much a personal experience and not something perceivable to an outside observer.)
In 1967, Rich Goldstone and Jim McCarthy had just taken the aid out of Coexistence at the Gunks - a step up in Gunks-5.10 at the time. The following weekend, Stannard enlisted me for a second ascent (or was it the 3rd John?). I always loved seconding John because if he didn't make it on the first try, I wouldn't have to burn out putting in the pro to the crux. My upper body strength was always sub-par to the "big guys" - couldn't do a muscle-over on a bar or very many pull ups. Reach, balance and on-the-edge cool were my forte.
With RRs spreadeagled on barely existant footholds, and the face bulging above the horizontal handhold, I had just enough strength to hold on with my left hand while slowly caressing the bulge with an extended right arm. At full extension, I got the hold.
The next thing I knew, I was standing where my right hand had been and blowing like a hard-ridden horse. I had no immediate recollection of what I had done and was slightly startled but needed to put my attention on the immediate needs of the climb and getting another pin in in short order.
I later pieced together a dim recollection of doing a mantle on that hold so I could reach the next one and that the whole short sequence was a series of musclular exertions that I was not connected to in my "normal" manner. I never could find the usual perceptual images (visual, sound, feel of the rock, muscle and joint activity, etc.) from the approximately 5 seconds of my existence except from an extra-normal viewpoint that was sort of outside the body while pervading the body with a focused intention that it succeed in doing those moves.
Knowing my body strengths at the time and the dynamics of the required moves, it was, one way or another, an "extra-ordinary" feat for me.
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Leggs
Sport climber
California originally, Old Pueblo presently..
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drljefe here,
I see dead people.
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