A
Anna_Scott
Guest
Fascinating.
Hospitals are a place where many deaths take place. So, who knows. Strange things happen.
Anna
- Status
Hospitals are a place where many deaths take place. So, who knows. Strange things happen.
Anna
M
mgreen77
Guest
I can only say that it exists, although obviously some anonymous internet poster saying this means little. I’m not big on explanations though, as they tend to come and go. Lucid dreamers are familiar with it. It’s not terrifying for everyone, but can be rather annoying and frustrating. It’s a little like Luke Skywalker’s failure at that tree he went inside… you experience what you bring with you.
P
Publisher
Guest
A very biological explanation is that our bodies are “paralyzed” when we dream…other wise when we have nightmares we may dive thru windows or hurt our bed partner if we have one…my dad is terrified of spiders…a very real phobia…when he was a child his “paralysis” was overcome during sleep and he often dived thru windows or knocked the tents down as he was trying to get away from them.
We’ve all had the paralysis phenomena…where you’ve been sleeping…and “came awake” to only sense an intruder in your room…and you’re unable to speak above a whisper…or move to alert your mate…even sometimes not able to even move your hand and give them a nudge…“sleep paralysis” is a necessity…I’d hate to awaken after diving thru a window to find I’m 5 stories from hitting the ground from my 20 story hotel room.
M
mgreen77
Guest
Agreed, which is probably why lucid dreamers encounter it often when intentionally or suddenly waking up from a dream before the body wakes up, so to speak.
I
Inego_de_Loyola
Guest
The REM Atonia only affects skeletal muscles, your ability to breath and speak should be in no way impaired.
P
Publisher
Guest
As anyone who has carried on a conversation to a “sleep talker”…or has been in the room when someone is asleeps begins laughing can attest to…or in a room when a sleeper has a night terror and screams and cries out and cannot be awakened.
I had night terrors when I was a child…my parents use to put me in the bathtub and turn on the cold water to try to wake me up…they were afraid the neighbors would call the police on them as I was screaming in absollute terror…I always was exhausted the next day…my night terrors ended in my late teens when I got involved seriously in my faith community.
N
Nine_Two
Guest
It also doesn’t explain those who experience it after waking up.
P
Publisher
Guest
I have thought I was awake and still could not move so vivid was the dream I was having I could not tell the point of “sleep” and “wakefullness”…other than being able to move and sit up realizing I was now truly awake…perhaps that accounts for “after waking up” and still not being able to move.
I
Inego_de_Loyola
Guest
I had sat up and moved around, I am quite sure I was awake.
N
Nine_Two
Guest
As a comical sidenote, although I was not experiencing a lucid dream before my own sleep paralysis experience, I do have a vague recollection of my dream. I think I was trying to stab the Incredible Hulk for some reason. 
I
Inego_de_Loyola
Guest
That explains it all! Even in a dream the Hulk is tough enough to beat you into paralysis!As a comical sidenote, although I was not experiencing a lucid dream before my own sleep paralysis experience, I do have a vague recollection of my dream. I think I was trying to stab the Incredible Hulk for some reason.
W
wcknight
Guest
I think, spirits/ghosts, demons, near death experiences are just more evidence that there is a supernatural or spiritual realm. God lets some souls come back briefly to escort their loved ones into the next world.
Death has a lot of fear associated with it. No one wants to enter the unknown completely alone. What better way than to have someone you have known and loved, come back to escort you. I dearly want to see my parents and close friends again. When my time comes, I hope they come back to escort me home as well.
Death is a universal experience, and even though my grand parents and parents were not Christians, I believe that when they departed, someone they knew escorted them into the next life as well.
Death has a lot of fear associated with it. No one wants to enter the unknown completely alone. What better way than to have someone you have known and loved, come back to escort you. I dearly want to see my parents and close friends again. When my time comes, I hope they come back to escort me home as well.
Death is a universal experience, and even though my grand parents and parents were not Christians, I believe that when they departed, someone they knew escorted them into the next life as well.
L
Loboto-Me
Guest
If we just dismiss all night visions/dreams/mystical experience as natural phenomena that can easily explained away as some here would like to do, that just minimizes and makes many of the situations in holy scripture unimportant and non-consequential in the great scheme of history.
I simply can’t accept that Mary wasn’t visited by an angel, that Joseph wasn’t visited in his dream, that St Paul didn’t really have a dream about a man asking him to help him by coming out to Macedonia.
It seems to me Publisher, that you are tending to dismiss the whole of Scripture. Do you not believe in Jesus and His word? He himself spoke of Heaven, Hell, Angels, and much much more. It’s not all a nice fluffy feeling, unless Jesus lied to make us feel better about death. I’m positive, with every iota of my being that Jesus isn’t and wasn’t then a liar.
Yes, I had what people are saying was sleep paralysis once in my life… it was the engine that started me on the road back, and here I am today. There was absolutely no weight on my chest when it happened either.
I simply can’t accept that Mary wasn’t visited by an angel, that Joseph wasn’t visited in his dream, that St Paul didn’t really have a dream about a man asking him to help him by coming out to Macedonia.
It seems to me Publisher, that you are tending to dismiss the whole of Scripture. Do you not believe in Jesus and His word? He himself spoke of Heaven, Hell, Angels, and much much more. It’s not all a nice fluffy feeling, unless Jesus lied to make us feel better about death. I’m positive, with every iota of my being that Jesus isn’t and wasn’t then a liar.
Yes, I had what people are saying was sleep paralysis once in my life… it was the engine that started me on the road back, and here I am today. There was absolutely no weight on my chest when it happened either.
P
Publisher
Guest
If you have read any of my posts these last 5 years or so, you’d realize I do not “dismiss the whole of scripture”…I do not…or may not share your understanding…and what I do believe concerning scripture may not “speak to your condition” at all…but that your belief I may “dismiss” the scriptures simply is not true…I may “dismiss” your understanding…but I fully embrace the scriptures as a guide and "testimony’ of how others experienced God in a very different world and time…and may not have been able to express that experience in a 21st century “language” that perhaps explained to me…living in the 21t century…an understanding of the psycological…historical reality we find ourselves.
I’m sure many of the phenomena our befores experienced were relayed in the “faith language” of their day…that I cannot embrace that “faith language” as “factual” explanations of the inner workings of the human mind doesn’t mean I 'dismiss" those stories and experiences as having meaning for me…I may seek an explanation of them…I may indeed embrace that certain areas of the brain stimulated can cause auditory and physical sensations that have no “physical” manifestation.
When Gabriel appeared to Mary…if we’d have had a recording device at the annunciation…would it have recorded Gabriel or would Mary simply have been sitting…or standing with an enraptured expression on her face? Do the scriptures say Gabriel appeared to Mary witha physical body…or did he appear in vision…if anyone else would have been present with her…would they have seen the angel and heard the words he spoke…or would Mary have sponatneously broken out in the Magnificat?
When Jesus was “tempted of the devil”…was he truly transported to high mountains and the pinnacle of the Temple…or was it a vision? Paul “knew a man” who visited the “third heaven”…“whether in the body or not”…he didn’t know…if someone would have been present with “the man” who visited the “third heaven”…would his body have disappeared from view while he was gone?
If your faith requires you to accept these “visions”…“angels”…“voices” as happening physically or require that physical manifestations have to occured whent he angel appeared…I’m good…they don’t impact my understanding…nor does your claim of my “unbelief” indicate I have “unbelief”…other than my belief is not echoed nor understood in your words…and your “faith story”.
I do not believe God suspends the laws of nature and physics…but works within the confines of reality…a reality we do not fully understand…the mystery of the human mind is something that maybe one day be unravelled…but not today…and most likely not in our lifetime…there is Mystery…and I can speculate on what the mechanics that Mystery uses to manifest…but that doesn’t mean it removes the Mystery I experience…it simply makes it more understandable to me…“Lord I believe, help my unbelief”…good thing it was Jesus who heard his prayer…he may have been questioned concerning the small faith he had by a “beleiver”…even a small faith…size of a mustard seed God uses…much to the chagrin of some of His followers it seems to me.
L
Loboto-Me
Guest
Publisher, I was basing my statement on this paragraph which you wrote. I usually just shut up and move along when I see your posts even if they don’t agree with my understanding because, yes, I do acknowledge that you are a spiritual person, with much faith. This time I couldn’t shut my trap because the sentiment below was just too similar to the sentiment my young searching son has.
That God would allow or suspend the very laws He placed to govern our universe doesn’t make a lot of sense to me…angels and spirits decending and ascending back and forth between heaven and earth with no valid reason or effect on our world…makes no sense to me. I’m not even sure heaven exists…perhaps “heaven” is simply our explanation to console ourselves as we cannot fathom the cessation of “self”…our “spirits” simply return to the God that gave us life…we enter again and join with the Presence…Universal Mind…the Wholly Other…Light Beyond Limitless Light…or any other poetic phrase we wish to use to describe the “change” from the state we call “life” to the state we call “death”.
Especially the bolded part, which I found quite disturbing to me, since Jesus spoke about Heaven being a real place, likening it to a banquet… Heaven does exist, truly, and not just an explanation we give ourselves.
As for visions being outside ourselves, no… they aren’t necessarily outside ourselves, but in some instances, when there are more than a few people seeing a vision, well how can that just be explained away? Group hallucinations? Then again, calling them by the worldly name of hallucination just explains it away as just a trick of the mind and not real in any sense of the word.
I misworded myself when I said that it seemed you were dismissing the whole of Scripture. I will reword it as my opinion that it seems a dangerous idea to dismiss some of what our Lord God the Father, and our Christ said. Heaven is real, angels do minister to us … Psalms “He hath given his angels charge over thee; to keep thee in all thy ways.”… Christ… “See that you do not look down on one of these little ones. For I tell you that their angels in heaven always see the face of my Father in heaven.”
That God would allow or suspend the very laws He placed to govern our universe doesn’t make a lot of sense to me…angels and spirits decending and ascending back and forth between heaven and earth with no valid reason or effect on our world…makes no sense to me. I’m not even sure heaven exists…perhaps “heaven” is simply our explanation to console ourselves as we cannot fathom the cessation of “self”…our “spirits” simply return to the God that gave us life…we enter again and join with the Presence…Universal Mind…the Wholly Other…Light Beyond Limitless Light…or any other poetic phrase we wish to use to describe the “change” from the state we call “life” to the state we call “death”.
Especially the bolded part, which I found quite disturbing to me, since Jesus spoke about Heaven being a real place, likening it to a banquet… Heaven does exist, truly, and not just an explanation we give ourselves.
As for visions being outside ourselves, no… they aren’t necessarily outside ourselves, but in some instances, when there are more than a few people seeing a vision, well how can that just be explained away? Group hallucinations? Then again, calling them by the worldly name of hallucination just explains it away as just a trick of the mind and not real in any sense of the word.
I misworded myself when I said that it seemed you were dismissing the whole of Scripture. I will reword it as my opinion that it seems a dangerous idea to dismiss some of what our Lord God the Father, and our Christ said. Heaven is real, angels do minister to us … Psalms “He hath given his angels charge over thee; to keep thee in all thy ways.”… Christ… “See that you do not look down on one of these little ones. For I tell you that their angels in heaven always see the face of my Father in heaven.”
P
Publisher
Guest
Friend, I see better now where you are concerned. I do not believe that “heaven” and “hell” are as described in scripture…the best words and concepts those who wrote scripture sought to convey to us is the “other worldliness” of any “after life”…no one had been there and come back to confirm to us what actually is…except in metaphore, vision and simile…at least from my perspective. I do not “live to go to heaven”…heaven will take care of itself…the things written in the gospels attributed to Jesus aren’t necessarily absolute fact…to me they speak more to his humanity and that he was a product of his time and religion…that he used the religous language of his day to speak to others of his day that used similar language and concepts doesn’t mean every time he spoke of angels or demons or heaven he was speaking of things as they were/are…but using a very human language…since he was completely human…“though he existed in form of God…he emptied himself and became a servant”…“he grew in wisdom”…his knowledge in his incarnation, was not absolute…he had “emptied” himself and became “flesh and dwelled among us”…Jesus of Nazareth was magnificently human…and a remarkable product of his time.
Religious language is always failing IMO…religous language seeks to convey concepts and ideas we have no concept of…I don’t believe in “streets of gold”…“gates of pearl”…“cities of gems and precious stones”…we return to the “God who gave us life”…that is all I truly can affirm…and even that is a “faith statement”…we may cease to exist…and if we do…it won’t matter as we will cease to exist and not know we’ve ceased to even be conscious…such things matter little to me…my own faith tradition, while affirming that we return to the “God who gave us life”…we don’t dogmatically stipulate what we must believe of the afterlife…the afterlife isn’t much of a concern to me…this life is what I am concerned with…and how I impact the here and now…that I may not affirm “heaven” and “hell” with your religious language doesn’t mean I don’t have those concepts we share…where we differ…I’m not concerned with trying to define something I cannot possibly understand with any certainty.
I am very conscious of my neighbor…he I can see…she I am able to speak with and get a response…I know their needs and I know if I just turn a blind eye to their plight or a deaf ear when they ask me for help…I am aware of the pain and suffering this life can incur…I have no experience with the “after life”…it is a “faith story” to me…I don’t live for heaven…I live for the here and now…perhaps that is where we find our differences in communicating with one another.
That the “spiritual phenomena” and “language” the great mystics and religous leaders have sought to convey to us speak of a “Greater Reality” does not release me from this temporal reality I now exist within…I know my days ahead are significantly shorther than the days I have lived that are behind me…I am past the “middle” so to speak…and while I look to “that City who’s Builder and Maker is God”…it still is a far off dream…and of little concern when I live in a city that I can impact now…so NOW is where I chose to live…Then will take care of itself.
That may not make sense from your religious perspective…it doesn’t have to…but it makes sense to me…it gives meaning to THIS LIFE…this life is the one I have been given…and for all I know it may be the only life I have…I don’t know for a fact heaven exists…I do know the world I live in NOW does…I have a “hope”…but it is not a “fact”…so I try to live in the Holy Present and find meaning in the Now of my life…that “Unclouded Day” is beyond my experience.
I
Irish1971
Guest
I believe in paranormal experiences. I’ve had a few involving my brother who passed away 21years ago. I’ve also had the Virgin Mary appear to me as well as the Infant of Prague. Yes I believe these things happen
A
Anna_Scott
Guest
Irish,
Very interesting. I’m very curious about the Virgin Mary appearing to you. Would you be willing to tell me more. I realize you are not obligated to do so. I’m just wondering. . .
Peace,
Anna
Z
Zundrah
Guest
My depression died out when I first went to church! Then it came back again after being out for a year…
I
Inego_de_Loyola
Guest
Most of my Demonic problems went away when I really got involved in the faith, but the family member I mentioned needs prayers as he still practices magic.
- Status