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newuser1492
Registered: 06/12/03
Posts: 3,104
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Consciousness
#4232867 - 05/29/05 09:23 AM (18 years, 9 months ago) |
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This is kind of hard to explain but why do I feel like I'm in my head? When I look around or when I close my eyes I feel like my consciousness is right behind my eyes or even in them. I don't feel like I'm in my heart or even in my brain. My consciousness is right in or behind my eyes. Do blind people feel the same way?
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MarkostheGnostic
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William James wrote that he felt he was 'centered' in the pit of his throat: Visshudha Chakra, Kabbalistic Da'ath, Planet Mercury, communication, word, will to meaning.
I assure you that while you are taking quite a scare, your consciousness my 'erupt' primarily at your Muladhara [anal] Chakra, and you may shit your pants. If a very sexy situation happens to find you, I am certain that your Svadisthana [genital] Chakra is going to be the primary motive-center during that event, likewise for the other Chakras. However, not only are the 5 senses represented by eyes, ears, nose, mouth and skin in one's head, so is 'manas' [mind] which includes reason, discrimination and decision-making; and 'ahamkara' - the 'I' sense, as in ego.
It seems that most people experience themselves somewhere in the head primarily, until one consciously begins to identify with one's Heart Center in meditation, or through a spontaneous mystical experience that is recognized in all major inner traditions. At that point, a major shift occurs (it is said) from being primarily identified with personal attributes of one's being to one's transpersonal Center. This Center is paradoxically (like Jung's definition of the Self as the Center of a sphere and the whole sphere, simultaneously) spoken of as the Heart Center and the Head Center. Different traditions handle this paradox differently, but Buddhist writer Paul Reps has said "Head and Heart are not apart."
I would surmise that blind people are predominated by hearing (which has its spiritual correlate) and deaf people by vision.
BTW, both Hindu and Buddhist Yoga say that the Heart Center is the 'locus' of mind, not the brain . That does not mean that the physical heart thinks or carries on subcortical processes. It is the 'subtle body' an energetic, life-force level that is being acknowledged. Reading any of the texts that describe the inner experiences of prana or winds and drops at the time of death describes the withdrawal of life-force from the Brain Center[s], back to the Heart Center, and then like a reflux condenser in organic chemistry lab, back up an inner channel from the Heart, through the Head and into Infinity (symbolically Unifying the two Centers). Of course, all this is mystical physiology belonging to ancient psychologies - pursue it or ignore as needed.
-------------------- γνῶθι σαὐτόν - Gnothi Seauton - Know Thyself
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Ravus
Not an EggshellWalker
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I know exactly what you mean. I constantly feel like I'm centered in my head, and the rest of my body is just communicating to the area around and behind my eyes.
Logically, this makes sense. The head contains all five senses- vision, hearing, touch, taste and smell- and the only sense that continues to the rest of the body is touch, making it feel like the head area is where our main fortress is located and the rest of the body is just sending touch signals to it.
And because the only connection we have with the external world is through our sensory perception, the strongest perception for humans will have the most centered feeling of consciousness.
I would wager that if somebody had all their senses except for their touch sense taken away while in the womb, and never experienced this mass centering of senses in the head, they wouldn't feel consciousness in the head like we do.
Of course they probably wouldn't be able to communicate this either.
-------------------- So long as you are praised think only that you are not yet on your own path but on that of another.
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Diploid
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This is kind of hard to explain but why do I feel like I'm in my head?
There is a structure in the brain that is attributed with this sensation. When surgeons temporarily seize this part of the brain with a small electrical current, it induces a full-blown out of body experience.
This area of the brain is credited with giving a person the sensation of existing inside their head and is one explanation for why people who recover from anoxia often report OOBs.
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Gomp
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Re: Consciousness [Re: Ravus]
#4233026 - 05/29/05 10:34 AM (18 years, 9 months ago) |
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point of focus.. your attention... is where you 'project' it.
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newuser1492
Registered: 06/12/03
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Re: Consciousness [Re: Diploid]
#4233048 - 05/29/05 10:44 AM (18 years, 9 months ago) |
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Quote:
Diploid said: This is kind of hard to explain but why do I feel like I'm in my head?
There is a structure in the brain that is attributed with this sensation. When surgeons temporarily seize this part of the brain with a small electrical current, it induces a full-blown out of body experience.
This area of the brain is credited with giving a person the sensation of existing inside their head and is one explanation for why people who recover from anoxia often report OOBs.
Can you find any more information on that?
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redgreenvines
irregular verb
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your hearing is right behind your eyes, and thoughts with words do activate hearing (voice memory/engrams).
in this way you have localized something that I would confirm,
but your consciousness is much more vast than word play, and all the localizations are mirage or constructs as we recreate reality from sensory fragments.
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BlueCoyote
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Hmmm would be interesting, if we had our eyes and ears at our feet
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LunarEclipse
Enlil's Official Story
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That would be quite a "feet"
Interesting in what way?
-------------------- Anxiety is what you make it.
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Diploid
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Can you find any more information on that?
Sure.
The area in question is called the Angular Gyrus. It's located in the parietal lobe (top-back) of the brain near where the sense of balance is processed. The AG is larger in hominids than in other primates. It's involved in language processing and particularly with the comprehension of metaphors. People with injury to the AG are unable to interpret metaphors and can only comprehend the literal meaning of the words while all other language skills remain unaffected.
The relationship to OOBs was first found while treating a woman for epilepsy. To localize the source of the patient's seizures, doctors at the University Hospitals of Geneva and Lausanne in Switzerland implanted electrodes in the patient's brain. With the patient awake, they probed her brain to map the pathology.
Stimulation of the AG caused various sensations including "sinking into the bed", "falling from a height", "seeing myself lying in bed from above", "floating", and all the other sensations people who claim OOBs report.
It's believed that electrical stimulation of the AG causes these sensations because it disrupts the ability of the brain to make sense of balance and the sense of touch.
This was reported in the journal Nature in 2002.
-------------------- Republican Values: 1) You can't get married to your spouse who is the same sex as you. 2) You can't have an abortion no matter how much you don't want a child. 3) You can't have a certain plant in your possession or you'll get locked up with a rapist and a murderer. 4) We need a smaller, less-intrusive government.
Edited by Diploid (05/29/05 02:52 PM)
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MarkostheGnostic
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Re: Consciousness [Re: Diploid]
#4233687 - 05/29/05 02:44 PM (18 years, 9 months ago) |
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Of course, if a genuine OOBE can be induced, then it can be tested for its 'objective' reality, rather than merely relegated to stimulus-induced hallucinations. Now that would broaden the existing store of knowledge on the nature of consciousness!
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Diploid
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How does one distinguish an electrode-induced OOB from a real one when both result in the same sensations?
-------------------- Republican Values: 1) You can't get married to your spouse who is the same sex as you. 2) You can't have an abortion no matter how much you don't want a child. 3) You can't have a certain plant in your possession or you'll get locked up with a rapist and a murderer. 4) We need a smaller, less-intrusive government.
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MarkostheGnostic
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Re: Consciousness [Re: Diploid]
#4233875 - 05/29/05 03:58 PM (18 years, 9 months ago) |
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I have had a classic Out-of-the-Body-Experience in which I was suspended 10 feet or so off the ground and about a dozen or so feet outside of my bedroom window. The landscape was there, but silvery-blue with edges shifting off-plane (a lot like the toilet rim when peeing on a high dose). I looked down and saw no body, was met with a jolt of mortal fear, followed by the sensation of being whisked backwards rapidly, and then jack-knifing up in my bed with a powerful jolt to the navel region. My best friend had a similar experience, only he never made it out of his parents' house, when he realized that he was in two places at the same time - bathroom (which motivated him to astrally project) and his bed. He too was whisked back and awakened with the feeling of having moved rapidly.
Now, whatever model one wishes to use: an astral sheath that can discorporate from the physical body, as in classic yoga or Western occultism; or a clairvoyance which might suggest that consciousness actually is unbounded, but still uni-directional while one is still a living human being, thus being aware of a specific locus in space-time - regardless. One, if it could be controlled, could travel to a controlled location where certain objects were secreted, or an open book displayed. The astral projector [if you will] could observe and then report his/her observations. I have read that the CIA was experimenting in exactly this way for espionage at one time. Why not? The Soviets too were supposedly experiment with 'Psi' phenomenon.
So, what I mean is, it is not about subjective accompanying sensations, but 'objective' data retrieved while in the OOBE. The control and hence reproduciblity would enable much greater opportunity to construct more comprehensive models about consciousness. Look, the atomic model was primitive by today's standard, yet it was sophisticated enough to build an atom bomb. Who knows what more sophisticated modes of consciousness might do to boost the global consciousness and expectations of humankind?
Edited by MarkostheGnostic (05/30/05 12:04 AM)
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Diploid
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Who knows what more sophisticated modes of consciousness might do to boost the global consciousness and expectations of humankind?
I'm all for this, but none of this has ever panned out under controlled conditions. Nobody who claims OOBs can tell the investigator what's in the next room; never even once has this happened.
If OOBs are ever objectively shown to be real rather than imagined, I'll be the first to jump for joy.
Until then, it's all talk, and I do not kid myself. What else can I tell ya.
-------------------- Republican Values: 1) You can't get married to your spouse who is the same sex as you. 2) You can't have an abortion no matter how much you don't want a child. 3) You can't have a certain plant in your possession or you'll get locked up with a rapist and a murderer. 4) We need a smaller, less-intrusive government.
Edited by Diploid (05/30/05 12:26 AM)
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newjon
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Re: Consciousness [Re: Diploid]
#4233975 - 05/29/05 04:48 PM (18 years, 9 months ago) |
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i thought that astral projection thing was regarded as fact? the CIA rana programme during the cold war for quite awhile. They took one guy initially, who claimed he could do it. They'd give him map co-ordinates, and he could visualise what was there. For example, a locked room. He could, whilst in this state, go and look around, go look at files in cabinets, etc. Then they discovered it was possible to train someone "ordinary" to do it. But after many years, they found that 1)it's not actually everyone that can be trained. I think they had a low success rate, something like 30% i seem to recall. 2)those that could do it, it wrecked their personal lives. They started finding it hard to relate to other people, etc. 3)by the time these problems were rearing their heads, the cold war was over (or nearly) and the programme was swallowing too much time and money.
I also seem to recall the remote viewers didn't have 100% success rate, but what they did have was over half and was waaaaay better than "pure chance"
The rest of the stuff in this thread so far, has really helped me make sense of a feeling i've had for a few months now.
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Gomp
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Re: Consciousness [Re: newjon]
#4234000 - 05/29/05 04:59 PM (18 years, 9 months ago) |
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it went underground.. :P
hehe
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Diploid
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Re: Consciousness [Re: newjon]
#4235087 - 05/29/05 11:52 PM (18 years, 9 months ago) |
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i thought that astral projection thing was regarded as fact?
It's regarded as fact by those who say they can do it. None of them has ever demonstrated it in controlled conditions, they only talk about it.
the CIA
The government wasting money is no vindication of mysticism.
If the CIA could do what you claim, they could find Osama Bin Laden too, they can't and they can't.
Anyone who can demonstrate this ability could also win the Randi Foundation's million dollar prize. The prize has been up for grabs for 40 years. Nobody has ever passed the preliminary test:
http://www.randi.org/research/index.html
I also seem to recall the remote viewers didn't have 100% success rate, but what they did have was over half and was waaaaay better than "pure chance"
Then it should be a simple matter to win the Randi challenge. Why doesn't anyone?
those that could do it, it wrecked their personal lives.
This is odd considering how many people there are with otherwise normal lives who claim to do it all the time (but somehow can never demonstrate it.)
by the time these problems were rearing their heads, the cold war was over (or nearly) and the programme was swallowing too much time and money.
Your statement doesn't make sense.
Do you not realize that if the military had the slightest inkling that these powers were for real, it would be the most heavily funded area of research since the Manhattan Project because these types of powers would instantly trump every other weapon humans have ever invented?
Imagine being able to look inside your enemy's most secret military facilities without them even knowing.
-------------------- Republican Values: 1) You can't get married to your spouse who is the same sex as you. 2) You can't have an abortion no matter how much you don't want a child. 3) You can't have a certain plant in your possession or you'll get locked up with a rapist and a murderer. 4) We need a smaller, less-intrusive government.
Edited by Diploid (05/30/05 03:20 AM)
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MarkostheGnostic
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Re: Consciousness [Re: Diploid]
#4235114 - 05/30/05 12:01 AM (18 years, 9 months ago) |
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Well, if an astral projection is isolated to an astral plane (assuming there are such experiential dimensions) and not a version of a lucid dream, then one would probably be restricted to astral world phenomenon. The oft-reported 'floating near the ceiling looking down on my body' experience has, according to some reports been able to observe hospital or nurse personnel doing things elsewhere, outside the range of vision and hearing, only to report it later. As to the truth of these reports...well, I wasn't the one reporting, and next to myself and perhaps my best friend from the age of 18 months, I don't know if I'd believe anyone.
In my own experience, short-lived as it was, there was a familiarity with houses, street and trees, despite the 'astral-silver' appearance. Physical matter my well have subtle infrastructures as Yoga claims, getting more mental, archetypal and finally formless as one moves to the Causal Plane where ideas manifest into subtle planes before they manifest materially. Kabbalistic thought says the same. What can I say? I Know what I Know, and then I'm willing to believe those who Know more than me.
-------------------- γνῶθι σαὐτόν - Gnothi Seauton - Know Thyself
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Diploid
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The oft-reported 'floating near the ceiling looking down on my body' experience has, according to some reports been able to observe hospital or nurse personnel doing things elsewhere, outside the range of vision and hearing
Of course. The person is in a hospital. When they imagine themselves floating around what else would fill their imagination with but hospital scenes.
Still, while OOBer reports 'nurses and doctors walking around' not one of them can tell me the page the book in the next room is open to.
THIS HAS NEVER ONCE HAPPENED.
When someone reports specifics rather than generalities in a controlled setting, I'll sit up and listen. Given the zillion people around the world who all claim to do this on a regular basis, you would think that ONE of them could actually demonstrate it in controlled conditions by now, eh?
Why is it that even though neurological science has pinpointed the location in the brain where the OOB illusion occurs and can even recreate the illusion for you at will, you still cling to the h-i-g-h-l-y unlikely mystical explanation? What more does medical science have to show you to convince you that OOBs are all in your head?
-------------------- Republican Values: 1) You can't get married to your spouse who is the same sex as you. 2) You can't have an abortion no matter how much you don't want a child. 3) You can't have a certain plant in your possession or you'll get locked up with a rapist and a murderer. 4) We need a smaller, less-intrusive government.
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Shroomism
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Re: Consciousness [Re: Diploid]
#4235366 - 05/30/05 01:27 AM (18 years, 9 months ago) |
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uh, no. When you astrally project your soul temporarily leaves your physical body , connected by a thin cord at the navel. The astral realm is not the physical realm, and it's not all in my head, it's in my entire being. I have only had a handful of OBEs that I can consciously recall, and most were spontaneous projections.. only one or two were consciously willed. The point is, you're not paying attention to minute details in the physical realm which is like a strange reflection in the astral. It's called Out of Body for a reason. I suppose if you could train your consciousness to such precision that you could accomplish something like that, then do it. But I can't, not yet anyway.
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