A curious near death experience.

[TechMage]

I have a very good friend who got in a horrible fight with his pregnant girlfriend a few days ago and while himself and I were up til the early hours of the morning talking about life, he told me something very interesting.

He said that back in 2001 he was with a girl and things went very well between the two of them, but as things got better it made hi start to think about the problems in his own life, instead of worring about just surviving or how to help other's lives. He said that he was very depressed for months and repetedly asked God to take his life, because he was sick of existing in the world. One night he fell asleep and had a very clear dream or vision that he said was clear as real life. In his vision/dream he was aware that he was sleeping in his body. He looked up and saw two men. One to his left and one to his right. He said that angelic type beings were lifting them up higher and higher and that also the two men were on fire, but showed no signs of pain or fear. He then saw a female angel come down to him and lift out her hand to take his. He said that she was the most beautiful thing he had ever saw. He lifted out his hand to her's and he felt a great calming and peaceful sensation over his whole body. He said that the angelic creature was lifting him up higher and higher when he heard his girlfriend at the time saw "Watch out! She is crying!" He then looked at the angel's face and after seeing that she was indeed crying he let go. He said that when he awoke the next day, his legs ached like he had fell a good 12 feet. The really strange thing was that he read the obituaries the next day and two men that had died that night, were the exact two men in his vison/dream that were on fire and being lifted up by angels. He said that one of the men had died just a few blocks away in his sleep and the other had died about 20 miles away in a town not far from where he lived. He said it freaked him out big time and he went to taljk to his pastor. He brought the newspaper obituaries with him to show to his pastor as well.


So what do you think of this story? A pretty strange near death experience if you ask me. Also, I highly doubt he made it up as I have known this guy for a long time and when he told me the story he was super down and depressed and possibly suicidal.

I am going to try to talk to him again and see if he still has the newspaper. It won't prove anything, but will maybe verify his story a bit more, especially if he hung on to the paper.

[Stimpson J. Cat]

TechMage,


So what do you think of this story? A pretty strange near death experience if you ask me. Also, I highly doubt he made it up as I have known this guy for a long time and when he told me the story he was super down and depressed and possibly suicidal.

Actually, I would say it is pretty typical. I have many friends who have had similar sorts of experiences (dreams which are then in some way confirmed). I have even had a few myself.

Unfortunately, there is most likely nothing even remotely paranormal about it. The dream you describe is not at all surprising, given the emotional state that you described.

I do not doubt that your friend had the dream he described. Nor do I doubt that he truly remembers seeing the faces from the obituaries in his dream. But there is a perfectly natural explanation for this. It is a well known fact that people can, and often do, subconsciously edit their own memories, based on subjective expectations, and new information. In cases where the memories are vague and incomplete to begin with (like dreams), this is especially common.

The most likely explanation is that the faces in his dream were not specific. Prior to seeing the obituary, he probably did not have any clear idea of what the two men looked like, because his mind had never bothered to fill in that information. When he saw the obituaries, his brain filled in the gap.

Like I said, I have had experiences like this myself. Contrary to what many people think, skeptics are typically not skeptics because they have never had the kinds of experiences that believers in the paranormal have. They just do not have such an unrealistically high confidence in the reliability of things like memory, perception, intuition, and subjective interpretation.


Dr. Stupid

[Interesting Ian]

Originally posted by Stimpson J. Cat


Like I said, I have had experiences like this myself. Contrary to what many people think, skeptics are typically not skeptics because they have never had the kinds of experiences that believers in the paranormal have.



If this were so it wouldn't say much for their rationality. Not believing in certain paranormal phenomena despite direct personal experience! How stupid can you get?

[Garrette]

Interesting Ian:

How stupid can you get?

Apparently very.

Stimpson J Cat did not say the skeptics did not believe despite personally experiencing a phenomenon that is irrefutably paranormal.

What he said was (paraphrased) skeptics do not believe despite personally experiencing a phenomenon that while it may appear to be paranormal in fact is non-paranormally explainable.

There is a difference. I find it hard to believe you do not realize that.

[Interesting Ian]

Originally posted by Garrette


Apparently very.

Stimpson J Cat did not say the skeptics did not believe despite personally experiencing a phenomenon that is irrefutably paranormal.

What he said was (paraphrased) skeptics do not believe despite personally experiencing a phenomenon that while it may appear to be paranormal in fact is non-paranormally explainable.

There is a difference. I find it hard to believe you do not realize that.

One can always rationalize away experiences eg maybe my memory has been embellished or even wholly fabricated so that the events which I remember didn't really happen precisely that way. This is always an option. It does not address the question of why we shouldn't just accept these experiences at face value. This rationalizing away gambit is just the only thing that skeptics can do in face of all the evidence.

[ceptimus]

Originally posted by Interesting Ian


One can always rationalize away experiences eg maybe my memory has been embellished or even wholly fabricated so that the events which I remember didn't really happen precisely that way. This is always an option. It does not address the question of why we shouldn't just accept these experiences at face value. This rationalizing away gambit is just the only thing that skeptics can do in face of all the evidence. No Ian. It's what the skeptics do because of the evidence.

We would all like to think we have perfect recall. Scientific tests show that, regretably, we do not.

[Garrette]

I agree with Ceptimus, as I agreed with Stimpson.

[Pyrrho]

Originally posted by Interesting Ian
How stupid can you get?
I keep thinking there's a limit, but you keep lowering the bar.

[Pyrrho]

Originally posted by Interesting Ian
One can always rationalize away experiences eg maybe my memory has been embellished or even wholly fabricated so that the events which I remember didn't really happen precisely that way. This is always an option. It does not address the question of why we shouldn't just accept these experiences at face value. This rationalizing away gambit is just the only thing that skeptics can do in face of all the evidence.
We don't accept these anecdotal stories of "experiences" at face value precisely because they are stories. In this case, it isn't even a first-hand story -- it's a "friend of mine" story, which the present teller may not be repeating with all original detail. Even if it was a first-hand story, why should we accept it at face value? We weren't there; it is one person's experience that proves nothing, except to that person. They can believe whatever they like about their experience. The rest of us are under no obligation to believe one way or the other about it.

[Interesting Ian]

Originally posted by ceptimus
No Ian. It's what the skeptics do [b]because of the evidence.



So tell me what evidence there is that such experiences either did not occur and that in fact it is a false memory, or that ones memory has been significantly embellished?



We would all like to think we have perfect recall. Scientific tests show that, regretably, we do not.

Well fine, does that mean that everything we ever remember did not actually take place? Or that everything we remember is hugely distorted, even our memories of a few hours ago?

[Interesting Ian]

Originally posted by Pyrrho

We don't accept these anecdotal stories of "experiences" at face value precisely because they are stories. In this case, it isn't even a first-hand story -- it's a "friend of mine" story, which the present teller may not be repeating with all original detail. Even if it was a first-hand story, why should we accept it at face value? We weren't there; it is one person's experience that proves nothing, except to that person. They can believe whatever they like about their experience. The rest of us are under no obligation to believe one way or the other about it.

Wholly irrelevant. I'm talking about if you are the one who actually had the experience.

[Pyrrho]

Originally posted by Interesting Ian
Wholly irrelevant. I'm talking about if you are the one who actually had the experience.
Oh. If you're the one who actually had the experience, it's your privilege to believe anything you want to believe.

[thaiboxerken]

Originally posted by Interesting Ian


If this were so it wouldn't say much for their rationality. Not believing in certain paranormal phenomena despite direct personal experience! How stupid can you get?

Strange.. I saw David Copperfield walk throught the Great Wall of China. He must have superpowers. All those that say it is just a magic trick, even though they saw him walk through, must be irrational, right?

[thaiboxerken]

So tell me what evidence there is that such experiences either did not occur and that in fact it is a false memory, or that ones memory has been significantly embellished?

The fact that there is no scientific evidence of afterlife or souls is evidence.


Well fine, does that mean that everything we ever remember did not actually take place? Or that everything we remember is hugely distorted, even our memories of a few hours ago?

Yes, memories are always in question.
This is why eye-witness testimonies are not reliable.

[Interesting Ian]

Originally posted by thaiboxerken


Strange.. I saw David Copperfield walk throught the Great Wall of China. He must have superpowers. All those that say it is just a magic trick, even though they saw him walk through, must be irrational, right?

No-one is denying an experience might not be what it seems. It is a huge step to acknowledging this possibility to then saying it must necessarily be other than what it seems.

How should we decide? Well there is a thing called our background knowledge about the world, or our background metaphysical suppositions. By saying the experience is an hallucination, or didn't really occur, without any evidence that this is so, you are begging the question by presupposing naturalism.

[Cinorjer]

One can always rationalize away experiences eg maybe my memory has been embellished or even wholly fabricated so that the events which I remember didn't really happen precisely that way. This is always an option. It does not address the question of why we shouldn't just accept these experiences at face value. This rationalizing away gambit is just the only thing that skeptics can do in face of all the evidence.

Because it's a proven FACT that our perceptions and memories can be fooled. We KNOW enough about how the brain operates to place personal anecdotes at the low end of the totem pole when it comes to "proof" of anything.

I have had my share of strange events in my life. Upon further examination, every one of them has turned out to have a reasonable, rational explaination without resorting to supernatural hoodoo. Ghosts turned out to be reflections, real people, natural noises, and (in one case) foxfire in a dark woods. I once woke in the middle of the night with a feeling of terror and knew that there was someone in the room staring at me - a perfect description of sleep paralysis, not aliens trying to abduct me.

People can be dead certain about what they remember, and dead wrong. Random coincidences DO happen, and it has no meaning, in spite of how much it seems a miracle has happened. Take a few courses in cognitive psychology and learn something real about this strange thing we call a mind.

[Interesting Ian]

Originally posted by Cinorjer
One can always rationalize away experiences eg maybe my memory has been embellished or even wholly fabricated so that the events which I remember didn't really happen precisely that way. This is always an option. It does not address the question of why we shouldn't just accept these experiences at face value. This rationalizing away gambit is just the only thing that skeptics can do in face of all the evidence.

Because it's a proven FACT that our perceptions and memories can be fooled. We KNOW enough about how the brain operates to place personal anecdotes at the low end of the totem pole when it comes to "proof" of anything.

I have had my share of strange events in my life. Upon further examination, every one of them has turned out to have a reasonable, rational explaination without resorting to supernatural hoodoo. Ghosts turned out to be reflections, real people, natural noises, and (in one case) foxfire in a dark woods. I once woke in the middle of the night with a feeling of terror and knew that there was someone in the room staring at me - a perfect description of sleep paralysis, not aliens trying to abduct me.

People can be dead certain about what they remember, and dead wrong. Random coincidences DO happen, and it has no meaning, in spite of how much it seems a miracle has happened. Take a few courses in cognitive psychology and learn something real about this strange thing we call a mind.

Your attitude is absurd, because you're saying that if you experience something which is inconsistent with your metaphysical presuppositions about the nature of reality, then you are experiencing a delusion.

Notwithstanding how easily the mind can be fooled, if a certain characteristic phenomenon is experienced throughout history, and across all cultures, and is a relatively common experience, then we should suppose the experience is more or less what it seems to be, unless we have compelling reasons to suppose otherwise. I submit that no such compelling reasons exist.

Of course if you're talking about a one off experience . .that no-one appears to have experienced before, then your conclusion that it's the mind playing tricks might well be the more reasonable one (depending on the characteristics of the experience).

[Cinorjer]

Your attitude is absurd, because you're saying that if you experience something which is inconsistent with your metaphysical presuppositions about the nature of reality, then you are experiencing a delusion.

No, I'm not saying that. I'm saying that we're capable of fooling ourselves, so it's best not to assign too much significance to an occasional unexplained strange event in our lives. The delusion is in the interpretation, not the perception. For instance, I saw a strange glow in a dark woods that was locally rumored to be haunted, and it seemed to dance around as I walked toward it. That was not delusion. It turned out to be a rotting stump exibiting the characteristics of foxfire. If I had ran screaming from the woods and added my tale of a ghost in the night that followed me, then that would have been delusion.

[Clancie]

Interesting vision or dream or even perhaps an out of body experience, TechMage, but its not in any way a near death experience, since physically your friend was fine.

People who believe in the existence of spirits often believe that we each have spirit guides who help us. In terms of non-scientific explanations (for example, a drug reaction), this would be a more likely direction to go than calling it an NDE....that a spirit guide (angel...whatever...) helped him to experience an OBE or dream accompanied by a powerful vision (including seeing two men who actually were dying/had died ) in order to help him value his life more at a time when he was so depressed.

Definitely an unusual dream (in the books about spirit communication through dreams, one of the features of it is that it is extremely vivid, very realistic while it is happening, and--unlike most of our dreams--you don't forget the details of it with the passage of time).

This isn't an area I'm prepared to argue the pros and cons of; I'm just passing this along. He definitely had a most unusual experience

[thaiboxerken]

No-one is denying an experience might not be what it seems. It is a huge step to acknowledging this possibility to then saying it must necessarily be other than what it seems.

Not when there is no evidence other than anecdotes to support the experience.


How should we decide? Well there is a thing called our background knowledge about the world, or our background metaphysical suppositions.

There is something called science in the real world that we use to decide things like this. It's the only reliable method.

By saying the experience is an hallucination, or didn't really occur, without any evidence that this is so, you are begging the question by presupposing naturalism.

Naturalism is the only evident philosophy. Your solipsist philosophy is rather insane. In reality, one must realize that such things are delusions and hallucination until proven otherwise. People have weird dreams all of the time, to actually believe they are anything other than dreams is retarded.

[Interesting Ian]

Originally posted by Cinorjer
Your attitude is absurd, because you're saying that if you experience something which is inconsistent with your metaphysical presuppositions about the nature of reality, then you are experiencing a delusion.

No, I'm not saying that. I'm saying that we're capable of fooling ourselves, so it's best not to assign too much significance to an occasional unexplained strange event in our lives. The delusion is in the interpretation, not the perception. For instance, I saw a strange glow in a dark woods that was locally rumored to be haunted, and it seemed to dance around as I walked toward it. That was not delusion. It turned out to be a rotting stump exibiting the characteristics of foxfire. If I had ran screaming from the woods and added my tale of a ghost in the night that followed me, then that would have been delusion.

Cinorjer,

We're talking about unusual experiences such as outlined at the beginning of this thread. Not strange glows :rolleyes:

Clancie,

You're right Clancie, it is not of course a near death experience. Even deathbed apparitions/visions aren't classified as NDE's.

BTW Clancie, do you find NDE's deathbed apparitions, crisis apparitions etc as being suggestive of an afterlife? Personally I find such experiences more persuasive than mediums :)

[Clancie]

Posted by Interesting Ian

BTW Clancie, do you find NDE's, deathbed apparitions, crisis apparitions etc as being suggestive of an afterlife? Personally I find such experiences more persuasive than mediums
That's an interesting question, Ian. I'm just starting to get more interested in NDE research, and so far, I agree with you. The idea of consciousness being separate from the physical body seems to get its best support from the research into NDE--particularly due to the circumstances frequently surrounding documenting them (often a hospital setting, with many credible witnesses, not just the participant).

For people who don't discard each and every non-laboratory experience as "anecdotal and therefore worthless", I think NDE research should at least be very thought provoking......

[Cinorjer]

We're talking about unusual experiences such as outlined at the beginning of this thread. Not strange glows

But it illustrates that there's a difference between what we experience, and the interpretation or meaning we place on it. Dreams and visions from the Gods or Spirits have been around as long as we've had the imagination to wonder what that strange inner reality we call dreaming is all about. Dreams are a hard phenonema for science to study, because we can't yet get into a person's mind and "see" what the person is experiencing. We can only study brainwaves and sleep patterns. But we do know that a lot of what even psychology has postulated in the past, like Jungian dream imagery, is mostly bull.

A vivid dream can have meaning for us, but no one has ever shown to have a precognition beyond the laws of coincidence and chance. So what does your friend's dream mean, to a skeptic? It means your friend had an interesting dream. We know that when it comes to memory, recognition of faces in particular is subject to false implantation. That is proven in scientific, controlled studies. So your friend is telling the truth, as he knows it. And he's probably still wrong.

[thaiboxerken]

It's rather a huge jump to believe that your friend actually did have dreams of those 2 individuals.

Did he mention the 2 individuals by name before he read the obituary? I doubt he did. He probably saw the names in the paper and said "yea, that's the 2 I dreamt about". Who the 2 individuals were was probably fuzzy to him until he saw the names in the paper, suggesting that he is retroactively placing the 2 individuals in the dream to support his belief and have it make sense to himself.

[MoeFaux]

Your friend was under stress at that time. This was reflected in his dream, it's nothing more than that.

Also, I doubt his story. He just happened to read the obituaries the next morning? He, given the information that he has a pregnant girlfriend, is a fairly young person (under 50), and it's usually people in their 50's plus that begin to take interest in the obituary page. Did your freind read the obituaries daily? Or did he just *happen* to glance at them that day? I really doubt that.

Even if he did, he just placed the faces of someone in the obits to the people in his dream. That's all it is. But I doubt his initial story.
You said your friend is under stress and suicidal right now, he may just be reaching out or trying to get attention with a false story. He needs help, and seeing that he's your friend, it would be good of you to see that he gets it.

[Yahweh]

Originally posted by Interesting Ian
If this were so it wouldn't say much for their rationality. Not believing in certain paranormal phenomena despite direct personal experience! How stupid can you get?

If I take a test, and before I get my results I say outloud "I know I've aced this, there isnt a doubt in my mind that I've aced this". I get my results, I've answered every question correctly. Paranormal experience (ESP perhaps)? No.

Anecdotal Evidence

Anecdotal evidence

One of the simplest fallacies is to rely on anecdotal evidence. For example:

<blockquote>"There's abundant proof that God exists and is still performing miracles today. Just last week I read about a girl who was dying of cancer. Her whole family went to church and prayed for her, and she was cured."</blockquote>

It's quite valid to use personal experience to illustrate a point; but such anecdotes don't actually prove anything to anyone. Your friend may say he met Elvis in the supermarket, but those who haven't had the same experience will require more than your friend's anecdotal evidence to convince them.

Anecdotal evidence can seem very compelling, especially if the audience wants to believe it. This is part of the explanation for urban legends; stories which are verifiably false have been known to circulate as anecdotes for years.

When dealing with anecdotes of paranormal persuasion, it is more favorable to assume "natural explanation" before "supernatural explanation", its called applying Occams razor.

[Paul C. Anagnostopoulos]

I came in late, but just to review:

Stimpy said:Like I said, I have had experiences like this myself. Contrary to what many people think, skeptics are typically not skeptics because they have never had the kinds of experiences that believers in the paranormal have. They just do not have such an unrealistically high confidence in the reliability of things like memory, perception, intuition, and subjective interpretation.

Then Ian said:One can always rationalize away experiences eg maybe my memory has been embellished or even wholly fabricated so that the events which I remember didn't really happen precisely that way. This is always an option. It does not address the question of why we shouldn't just accept these experiences at face value. This rationalizing away gambit is just the only thing that skeptics can do in face of all the evidence.
This is precious!

~~ Paul

[DanishDynamite]

Apropos weird "prophetic" dreams, Ive had one as well. I was 7 at the time and my dream was about this girl in my class I had a crush on. Yes, I was an early "bloomer". :) (It should also be mentioned that the feelings were reciprocated as she was the very first girl I kissed, or rather, she kissed me after dragging me into a closet at a birthday party). Anyway...

My dream was about a party or gathering of some sort where all my schoolmates were attending. At some point we were dancing around in circle holding hands (guess whose hand I was holding :)) and suddenly everyone started singing "Goodbye, Suzette, goodbye!". Suzette was the name of my crush. Suzette then told me that she was going away. I actually woke up crying.

Now, here is the prophetic part. A couple of days later it was announced in class that Suzette would be leaving school as her parents were moving to another city!

Well!? Is it any wonder that I am a Believer? :D

[TechMage]

It's rather a huge jump to believe that your friend actually did have dreams of those 2 individuals.

Did he mention the 2 individuals by name before he read the obituary? I doubt he did. He probably saw the names in the paper and said "yea, that's the 2 I dreamt about". Who the 2 individuals were was probably fuzzy to him until he saw the names in the paper, suggesting that he is retroactively placing the 2 individuals in the dream to support his belief and have it make sense to himself.


Very good points. I wondered the same myself. As I said this happened back in 2001 and I was not hanging around him at the time, so your guess is as good as mine until I can further question him on his experience.

Your friend was under stress at that time. This was reflected in his dream, it's nothing more than that.

Also, I doubt his story. He just happened to read the obituaries the next morning? He, given the information that he has a pregnant girlfriend, is a fairly young person (under 50), and it's usually people in their 50's plus that begin to take interest in the obituary page. Did your freind read the obituaries daily? Or did he just *happen* to glance at them that day? I really doubt that.

Even if he did, he just placed the faces of someone in the obits to the people in his dream. That's all it is. But I doubt his initial story.
You said your friend is under stress and suicidal right now, he may just be reaching out or trying to get attention with a false story. He needs help, and seeing that he's your friend, it would be good of you to see that he gets it.

A very good point indeed. He is 31 and I have never saw him read a newspaper. I am 21 and I think I have only just glanced at the obituaries a few times in my entire life. Infact the only people I know who regularly read them are my grandparents who are in their 60s. In my own personal experience, most people under 50 or so do not read them because they find that it depresses them and makes them think about death. So I do find it very odd that he would just read the obituaries, unless he was curious about if the people in his very realistic life like dream, were actually people or just figments of his imagination. And even if that is true he could have did the self fullfilled prophecy thing, where he matched two men in the obituaries with the two men in his dream, either subconciously or conciously. But then again maybe he was indeed on the virge of death and some spiritual being was really going to take his conciousness to some other existance thus leaving his body dead. Who knows. I appreciate all of the ideas on this matter from all of you though. :)


It seems that even if indeed after we die our conciousnes lives on, there is no way to ever fully prove or disprove such a notion, because there is no evidence to test. Because lack of evidence doesn't equal evidence against or for something.

I guess this one will go into the X-Files with all the others. lol :)


One thing I have not see anyone even comment on, was his aching legs the next day. He took it to further support his vison/dream in that he left his body and floated up for a while before he let go of the angel's hand.

Also one thing I forgot to mention was that, I asked him after he told me about his legs aching, "why did your leg's ache?" He told me it was because your spirit and body are connected so his body felt pain when it thought it had fell because his mind/spirit had fell. Sounds like a notion similar to stigmata, but maybe has a very natural explaination like when people are on LSD or some other hallucination inducing drug, and they think they die, they usually do or go into a coma?

[!Xx+-Rational-+xX!]

Originally posted by Stimpson J. Cat
Like I said, I have had experiences like this myself. Contrary to what many people think, skeptics are typically not skeptics because they have never had the kinds of experiences that believers in the paranormal have. They just do not have such an unrealistically high confidence in the reliability of things like memory, perception, intuition, and subjective interpretation.[/B]

This is anecdotal!

[Aussie Thinker]

Tech,

I would think the state of the guys mind induced the dream (he mentioned depression etc.) I am betting he was on anti-depressants.. guaranteed to induce weird dreams !

His obit thing is either BS or projecting of the people into his dream.

Ian,

I wonder if we can ever get it into your thick skull ?

There has never been ANY evidence of the paranormal happening.. default situation HAS to be a natural explanation.

What sort of weird way is your brain wired to accept the unnatural explanation ahead of the natural ?

[Interesting Ian]

Originally posted by Aussie Thinker

Ian,

I wonder if we can ever get it into your thick skull ?

There has never been ANY evidence of the paranormal happening.. default situation HAS to be a natural explanation.



You are very very wrong. What about TechMage's anecdote for a kick off? :rolleyes:



What sort of weird way is your brain wired to accept the unnatural explanation ahead of the natural ? [/B]

Well I certainly haven't said I accepted the "unnatural" explanation over the natural one in TechMage's anecdote. I accept the "unnatural" explanation when the natural explanation becomes a bit strained, and ad hoc, and therefore implausible. But it's not any single incident I would think "Aha, this is a paranormal occurrence". Its the accumulated anecdotes which exhibit similar patterns, it is personal experience, it is the scientific evidence.

[CFLarsen]

Originally posted by Interesting Ian
You are very very wrong. What about TechMage's anecdote for a kick off? :rolleyes:

You are not calling an unverified anecdote "evidence", are you?

Originally posted by Interesting Ian
Well I certainly haven't said I accepted the "unnatural" explanation over the natural one in TechMage's anecdote. I accept the "unnatural" explanation when the natural explanation becomes a bit strained, and ad hoc, and therefore implausible.

Argument from ignorance. Just because you don't have all the facts yet does not mean that it is supernatural.

By your logic, electricity should have been ruled supernatural 300 years ago.

Originally posted by Interesting Ian
But it's not any single incident I would think "Aha, this is a paranormal occurrence". Its the accumulated anecdotes which exhibit similar patterns, it is personal experience, it is the scientific evidence.

What "scientific evidence"??

That you have a multitude of anecdotes that Santa exists does not mean he does.

[MoeFaux]

On the leg aches:
He was under stress so that stress was putting his body under tension. His dream was emotionally "heavy" so he may have been tensing up his muscles during it, causing them to be sore the next day.
Also, he could have done something that put strain on his muscles that day, such as heavy lifing or running that caused his legs to ache later.
Or, he could just be lying about the whole thing.
There is absolutely nothing paranormal about this. It's just the human brain under tension - either way, if he is telling the truth or if he's lying. He needs help.

[Interesting Ian]

Originally posted by MoeFaux

There is absolutely nothing paranormal about this. [/B]

What gives you this knowledge? How could you possibly know this?

[sackett]

A while back, a man who lives down the street from me was telling my neighbor about how one time at a party he heard this woman describing how her cousin's old grade school friend read in a book or newspaper or something about a fellow in Austria or Australia, anyway one of those countries with an A, who dreamed this REALLY WIERD dream about something, and when he woke up it was true. I guess it was really strange.

Okay, Mr. Skeptic, let's hear you debunk -that- one!

[CFLarsen]

Originally posted by sackett
A while back, a man who lives down the street from me was telling my neighbor about how one time at a party he heard this woman describing how her cousin's old grade school friend read in a book or newspaper or something about a fellow in Austria or Australia, anyway one of those countries with an A, who dreamed this REALLY WIERD dream about something, and when he woke up it was true. I guess it was really strange.

Okay, Mr. Skeptic, let's hear you debunk -that- one!

What's to debunk? :)