Dream Phenomenon

[clarsct]

I had an experience that has been bothering me. Last week, I had a strange dream. I was trying to play an audio tape, but no sound was coming out of the speakers. I took the tape out, and the actual tape was white, although I am aware that mose audio tapes are brown. For those of you born after 1982, audio tapes were those things we listened to before CDs. At any rate, I tried the tape again, but no sound. Then I was woken up by my alarm. I was laying on my bed, leaning up on my elbow, when I had a distinct thought come to me as a strange voice. "It's my favorite and I'll play it until you get it!"
I remember thinking 'Where'd that thought come from?'. Not being one to believe in ghosts and suchlike, I asked my fiancee if I had been having a nightmare or suchlike. She said I had been sleeping soundly, and asked why I had asked, so I told her of my dream. Amazingly, after I was done, she said 'Yeah, I've had one of those.' She said she had been having a true nightmare as a child and had woken up from it. She went to the bathroom and was walking down the hall when she heard 'If you go back to sleep I'll just put you back into the same dream again.' Apparently the dream was about her fears. She said she didn't sleep again that night because she was afraid, but the dream never came back. She was about 8 at that time. She also said her mother had reported something similar. Her dad put it down to just a dream, but her mom claims she was awake. In that case, the voice was telling her that she was a liar and in denial. Admittedly, I would entertain the idea that in my future mother-in-law's case that it was merely the long, long lost voice of reason. :D
But that's a different story....

Is there a dream phenomenon associated with this. I read quite a bit about sleep paralysis, but it doesn't seem to address this case. I could move and there wasn't an overwhelming fear about the dream. It was merely strange. I am certain I was awake, as I didn't 'wake' again, but lived my day through. The only thing I can think is that somehow my subconscious broke through and linked to my conscious thoughts, however briefly. However, I'm not sure that makes any sense whatsoever. I wasn't sure where to post this, and I would research it on my own, if I had any idea of what to search for. Any help would be appreciated.

[toddjh]

I don't have any information to give you, but I've experienced the same thing. I was probably 10 or 11, and I woke up in the middle of the night to find myself on the couch in the dark living room. I sat up, wondering how I got there (I probably wandered down there earlier while half-asleep; I've done stuff like that before).

Anyway, after a few seconds of trying to remember how I got there, I heard a deep voice very clearly whisper, "Pass the test." It felt exactly like someone was speaking right into my ear. Probably the creepiest experience of my life.

Naturally, I freaked out and ran back upstairs to bed. Like you, I felt completely awake when it happened -- not even groggy. On the way upstairs, I knocked one of the cushions off the couch, and it was still on the floor when I got up in the morning, so I'm relatively sure this actually happened, and wasn't just a dream.

Pretty weird. After a quick look at Google, it looks like a few people have had these experiences but interpreted them as spirit messages or communication with the dead. Unfortunately, I can't find anything showing legitimate study of the phenomenon.

Jeremy

[Kaylee]

This may be a possibility --

Per Wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hallucinations), hallucinations happen.

A hallucination is a false sensory perception in the absence of an external stimulus, as distinct from an illusion, which is a misperception of an external stimulus. Hallucinations may occur in any sensory modality - visual, auditory, olfactory, gustatory, tactile, or mixed.

…

studies have shown that hallucinatory experiences are common across the population as a whole. Previous studies, one as early as 18941, have reported that approximately 10% of the population experience hallucinations. A recent survey of over 13,000 people2 reported a much higher figure with almost 39% of people reported hallucinatory experiences, 27% of which reported daytime hallucinations, mostly outside the context of illness or drug use. From this survey, olfactory (smell) and gustatory (taste) hallucinations seem the most common in the general population.

Auditory hallucinations (particularly of one or more talking voices) ……............................................ .....................................
many people may have these or similar hallucinations without ever becoming impaired or distressed in any way.


FWIW, Some hard of hearing people sometimes happen to hear a variation of tinnitus (a symptom of some types of inner ear hearing loss) that sounds like human voices or a human voice. (I am hard of hearing and I have heard this from other hard of hearing folks.) The human body is very complicated. Things happen. As long as there's no difficulty in distinguishing between the phenomena (whatever it is) and what other people would think is going on if they were in the same room with you at the same time (aka reality), it's probably not a big deal. If it happens a lot, I suggest you talk with your doctor. {Shrug}.

[Nucular]

Yep, hallucinatory events similar to this are pretty common - there are two types of 'still dreaming'-type hallucinations around sleep, hypnogogic hallucinations (those which occur just prior to sleep) and hypnopompic hallucinations (those which occur just after waking). Google either and you'll find loads of stuff.

The experiences you describe resemble hypnopompic hallucinations. I've had loads of both - for me, hypnogogic hallucinations tend to be auditory (jangling, shouted words, distant singing), and hypnopompic hallucinations visual (people in my room, insects in my bed, etc.).

Can be very disturbing, and I've often thought how these experiences, if I didn't know what they were, could make me think my house was haunted, or I was going mad.

But in reality, unless they're associated with other phenomena like problem sleepwalking, or it begins to happen during the day, there's really not a lot to worry about. Good fun, actually, I always think :p

[athon]

I suffered greatly from nightmares and night terrors as a child. It continued into adult life, less severely, and still occurs in waves from time to time. So I've spent a lot of time reading up on it to try to deduce what dreams are and how they affect us.

That said, imagine dreams like this; at any moment, you have a sequence of mental thoughts inspired by stimuli from either the world around you or a previous mental stimulus. This way, your brain can make sense of the world through association with prior experiences, making patterns etc.

During sleep, the external stimuli are removed through a number of inhibitary neurological functions, relying only on the sequence of 'mental stimuli'. Just as you have limited choice on what thoughts enter your head when you are awake, you have limited control over your dreams; hence why they can be weird and yet have a sort of logic. Association between external stimuli and internal stimuli (i.e. thought sequences) are tenuous as well; you can still interpret an external alarm clock in your dreams, but the associations are with the thought sequence.

The reason for dreams is still unclear. Babies dream way more than adults, and it is proposed that due to so little waking time and the need for brain development, they store waking stimuli and use them in dreams to make patterns and solve problems they can't do in their limited wake time.

Anyway...

Hallucinations occur as a result of this functioning. The inhibitary functions which bias internal mental stimuli (I don't like calling it 'conscious and subconscious', but some do) during sleep can bleed across when you wake up. For me, it was an emotional thing; I would feel sad or angry in my sleep, wake up and still feel it for as long as an hour or two after. I've also heard voices, or inerpreted shapes in my room in association with my recent dream-images.

Think of it this way; we are always dreaming. You cannot stop dreaming. But during the day, you have additional tools and stimuli to shape and control those mental images and add meaning to them.

Athon

[rppa]

Originally posted by Nucular
Yep, hallucinatory events similar to this are pretty common - there are two types of 'still dreaming'-type hallucinations around sleep, hypnogogic hallucinations (those which occur just prior to sleep) and hypnopompic hallucinations (those which occur just after waking). Google either and you'll find loads of stuff.

Googling for sleep paralysis and "old hag" will also get you lots of stuff on hypnogogic hallucinations. But I'm not sure that completely covers what people in this thread were describing.

I was laying on my bed, leaning up on my elbow, when I had a distinct thought come to me as a strange voice. "It's my favorite and I'll play it until you get it!"

I have had the experience of strange thoughts appear in my brain that did not "feel" like my own, when completely awake, hours from bed (while driving for instance and thinking about some personal problem). It's happened more than once. I wouldn't go so far as to say it's the voice of God, but I suspect it's not a rare thing for our brains to do to us and may lie behind people *thinking* they've heard God.

On one occasion I did hear an actual voice, but this was during an incident when my sensory input was seriously distorted. I was in the midst of what could have been a serious fall, my time sense stretched waaay out and my visual input essentially shut off. During this very long-seeming interval (in retrospect it couldn't have been over 1/4 second) a voice calmly said to me "tuck your head" which I did. My next memory is coming to awareness impacting the ground in a sitting position while my glasses were in the process of flying off my face. To land in this position I would have had to do a forward somersault in the air, something I don't know how to do.

My thought after that was something like "wow, that was really interesting, and some people would probably have called that a religious experience and converted on the spot."

By the way, as far as sleep paralysis:
I could move and there wasn't an overwhelming fear about the dream. It was merely strange. I am certain I was awake,

I had a hypnogogic incident one morning which involved a very vivid tactile hallucination, but like you no paralysis or feelings of fear. Nevertheless, when I did my own reading on "sleep paralysis" I found that my experience was well within the bounds of what was described for this phenomenon. I was awake in the sense that when I turned my head to look at my wife, I saw her as she really was. Also, I got out of bed shortly after. But I was also still dreaming in the sense that some of the sensory input I was getting was coming from my brain, not the external world.

[Hydrogen Cyanide]

I can remember some vivid auditory and sensory hallucinations. Sometimes the most clear are in that period when I am about to wake up. I've heard someone call my name so loud that I will wake up quickly.

Plus there are the ones that are responding to internal stimuli (in my dream I am in search of a restroom... oh, yeah I need one in real life!). Then there are ones that are responses to external stimuli. When I was thirteen I used to have dreams that involved lots of airplane dogfights and crashes. It just so happens we were living not very far from the airport near Minneapolis (so close that a summer program bus driver drove around the hangers near the runways as a shortcut to one scheduled bus-stop, ah... lovely Bloomington, MN). This is why when we were first house-hunting I nixed anything near the four major airfields in this area.

I remember when I was 8 years old and just recovering from an influenza that knocked me flat on my back for 2 weeks (my brother tells me that our parents were very worried during that time). I was awakened by a feel of a hand on my face and a voice telling me to get up --- for years I thought that was literally the "Hand of God". That is until I learned about sensory hallucinations.

Then about 20 years later I scared my husband. I was in bed sleeping, and was seeing the the red thread from the "Dragonriders of Pern" coming through the ceiling. Sleep paralysis failed... my husband ran up from the basement with a baseball bat because I was screaming and flailing with the bedclothes. It took me a long time to get back to sleep.

[sophia8]

Originally posted by rppa
On one occasion I did hear an actual voice, but this was during an incident when my sensory input was seriously distorted. I was in the midst of what could have been a serious fall, my time sense stretched waaay out and my visual input essentially shut off. During this very long-seeming interval (in retrospect it couldn't have been over 1/4 second) a voice calmly said to me "tuck your head" which I did. My next memory is coming to awareness impacting the ground in a sitting position while my glasses were in the process of flying off my face.
I had something like that happen to me as a child. I was in the kitchen with my mother when the chip pan on the stove birst into flames. My mother starting to panic, carried the blazing pan to the sink and began lowering it in. At that point, I heard a male voice in my ear. It said, very calmly "Don't pour water on that - smother it with a damp cloth." I immediately repeated the words out loud. My mother stopped, said "Oh, you're right" in a surprised tone, put the pan on the draining board, took the tea towel I handed her, dampened it and safely smothered the flames with it.
For the rest of her life she would tell people that tale, of how my calmness and common sense had stopped her from setting the house on fire.

[athon]

Originally posted by Hydrogen Cyanide
Plus there are the ones that are responding to internal stimuli (in my dream I am in search of a restroom... oh, yeah I need one in real life!).

Oh I hate those dreams! And then you find a toilet, and you keep peeing...and peeing...on and on...your body saying 'Nope, still full'...and on you go...

Then you wake up and realise you really do need to go.

Athon

[Nucular]

Originally posted by athon
Then you wake up and realise you really do need to go. Better than waking up and realising you don't need to go... any more... :p

[Nucular]

Originally posted by rppa
I have had the experience of strange thoughts appear in my brain that did not "feel" like my own, when completely awake, hours from bed (while driving for instance and thinking about some personal problem). It's happened more than once. I wouldn't go so far as to say it's the voice of God, but I suspect it's not a rare thing for our brains to do to us and may lie behind people *thinking* they've heard God. Sounds rather like 'thought insertion', a fairly common symptom in psychosis where a thought appears in one's mind and really feels like it isn't yours. Hence delusions of CIA mind control, possession, whatever.

If you experience it a bit though, it doesn't mean you're psychotic: most symptoms of psychosis can be found to varying degrees as part of 'normal' function. I sometimes find when I'm writing long pieces of writing almost like it's being dictated to me - as a new agey teenager I actually thought maybe it was coming from someone else, but obviously it's just an odd illusion.

Time to don the tinfoil hats...

[clarsct]

THANKS!

I tend to be a reality-based guy and not having an explaination of some sort was killing me. I have little faith in the idea that 'god' or a 'spirit' was speaking to me. Your thoughts on the conscious and subconscious were extremely cogent, athon. Hypnopompic hallucination seems to cover what I experienced. Thanks, Nuclear and others for that. Somehow I figured this accounted for a lot of 'conversions' among people with a lack of critical thought, and thus, someone here would know of it. Thank you all, again.

[Kiless]

I sleepwalk. Occasionally there's a voice that chimes in (generally with oh-so-helpful ideas like 'the house is on fire - go to the bathtub, best place to weather this out'... and thus found in the bathtub, sleeping peacefully the next day) but since this only happens when I'm really stressed, it isn't too much of a bother. Insomnia, I feel, is worse.

[Gaga]

Hello
I have usually a hard time to fall asleep, I may need an hour or so.
During that time, while on the verge of falling asleep, it happens that I hear voices (sometimes of relatives or friends) calling my name, more rarely brief sentences. Anyway it happens rarely, more often when I'm under stress.
My senses fail me sometimes also if I've had too little sleep (i.e. like today, from 03.00 to 07.30 AM :( )
Insomnia is not nice, during the day sometimes you feel like a puppet being yanked around... on the bright side I've got a lot of time to read, too bad I don't have an internet connection at home so I'd read the forum there instead of Alt-Tabbing during office hours :D

[Beth]

Originally posted by rppa
I have had the experience of strange thoughts appear in my brain that did not "feel" like my own, when completely awake, hours from bed (while driving for instance and thinking about some personal problem). It's happened more than once. I wouldn't go so far as to say it's the voice of God, but I suspect it's not a rare thing for our brains to do to us and may lie behind people *thinking* they've heard God.


I'm interesting in this phenomena. I had a similar experience once and I'm still baffled by it. Any idea how common it is? Particularly when awake and not stressed, drugged, or otherwise prone to hallucinations? Highway driving, btw, can lead to a somewhat hypnotic state of mind.

Beth

[JAK]

The purpose of science is to bring logic and reason into the world while eliminating confusion, hysteria, and false ideas. This presents, not only the scientific method, but also the "scientific attitude." This attitude is just as biased as an evangelical zealot.

However, true reason coupled with "pure scientific method" cannot presume anything unless it is reproducible. In that vein, all knowledge, at least to some degree, is theory. (This is an outgrowth of the Coherence Theory of Truth and Negative Pragmatism.) As a result, it may be hasty to ascribe hallucination to all of these near sleep state experiences.

Though I have no story to tell, my father did. My family was very conservative. My father was an executive vice-president of a conglomerate. My mother was president of numerous organizations as well as leading the financial committee of the Methodist church our family attended. Her father was a distinguished professor at a big-ten university. Her mother was an accomplished musician who played the organ at church regularly. These were not people who jokingly spread strange stories nor endangered their position in society. These were people who never uttered a word about the occult or paranormal or metaphysical in my presence. Anything remotely related was scoffed at. Again, all four had an important reputation to maintain in society.

Many years ago (in the 1950s or earlier), my parents took a trip to "Lake of the Woods" in northern Minnesota. A terrible storm came upon them, and they decided to spend the night in Red Wing, a little southeast of Minneapolis/St. Paul (less than half way to their destination). It was late at night, and fearing that my mother's parents, who knew of the trip, might grow alarmed with the storms and having no word from them, my father gave them a call. The call awakened (?) my grandmother who answered the phone saying, "Yes, yes, Bill, I know you are spending the night at Red Wing." Click. My father slowly walked back to the car with eyes wide open. He had not said a word over the phone.

How did my grandmother know it was my father on the phone?

How did she know my folks were staying in Red Wing?

Of my parents, my grandparents, and of all the family stories they told, never has there been any other unusual tale of this nature. Neither have they discussed the rammifications of this story - spiritual, paranormal, or otherwise - and I only heard it told twice in my lifetime - exactly the same each time.

Was I a witness? No. Was the occurrence reproducible? No. Are there other explanations? Of course. I pride myself on finding multiple explanations for anything (www.creativitygame.com).

Hallucination? Maybe so.

On the other hand ... maybe not.

[epepke]

Originally posted by clarsct
Is there a dream phenomenon associated with this.

They're called "hypnopompic hallucinations." Quite common.

[rppa]

[QUOTE]Originally posted by JAK
Many years ago (in the 1950s or earlier), my parents took a trip to "Lake of the Woods" in northern Minnesota. A terrible storm came upon them, and they decided to spend the night in Red Wing, a little southeast of Minneapolis/St. Paul (less than half way to their destination). It was late at night, and fearing that my mother's parents, who knew of the trip, might grow alarmed with the storms and having no word from them, my father gave them a call. The call awakened (?) my grandmother who answered the phone saying, "Yes, yes, Bill, I know you are spending the night at Red Wing." Click. My father slowly walked back to the car with eyes wide open. He had not said a word over the phone.

How did my grandmother know it was my father on the phone?

How did she know my folks were staying in Red Wing?

I have highlighted the answer to the first question, and probably the second. This kind of thing happens routinely around our house. It's late, they were expected, a call would be expected, staying overnight somewhere would be expected in light of the storm. All of this adds up to a very high likelihood of who this late night call would be from, that it would be in regard to the lateness. Staying overnight somewhere would also be a likely guess, perhaps based on what they had done in the past in similar circumstances. As for Red Wing, that depends on past history too.

And finally, there is the phenomenon of remembering hits and forgetting misses. If your grandmother had guessed wrong, this wouldn't have been a family story. You don't know how many times she answered phones this way but guessed wrong.

[JAK]

Originally posted by rppa
...
I have highlighted the answer to the first question, and probably the second. This kind of thing happens routinely around our house. It's late, they were expected, a call would be expected, staying overnight somewhere would be expected in light of the storm. All of this adds up to a very high likelihood of who this late night call would be from, that it would be in regard to the lateness. Staying overnight somewhere would also be a likely guess, perhaps based on what they had done in the past in similar circumstances. As for Red Wing, that depends on past history too.

And finally, there is the phenomenon of remembering hits and forgetting misses. If your grandmother had guessed wrong, this wouldn't have been a family story. You don't know how many times she answered phones this way but guessed wrong.
Your house and my house, are not the same. And you obviously don't know my grandmother.

There are many conjectures. This whole thread (as are many others) is filled with conjectures.

But the reaction to conjecture is revealing about the underlying biases.

Are we truly interested in truth? Or do we merely seek support for our biases?

[Beth]

Originally posted by JAK
Your house and my house, are not the same. And you obviously don't know my grandmother.

There are many conjectures. This whole thread (as are many others) is filled with conjectures.

But the reaction to conjecture is revealing about the underlying biases.

Are we truly interested in truth? Or do we merely seek support for our biases?

A most interesting story JAK. Thanks for sharing. I quite agree, conjectures are revealing of the underlying biases. However I would disagree that people are seeking to support their own biases. I think, when presented with an inexplicable situation, people simply try to devise explanations - i.e. they make conjectures and those conjectures are based on their own individual biases.

So it does reveal biases, but it doesn't imply anything about whether someone is seeking the truth or trying to support their biases. How ferverently they will stick with their conjectures, even in the face of contrary evidence, that's where they show their true colors - are they interested in the truth or trying to maintain their beliefs?

Beth

[rppa]

Originally posted by JAK
Your house and my house, are not the same.

The point is that there are similar stories in every house with perfectly mundane explanations.

There are many conjectures. This whole thread (as are many others) is filled with conjectures.

But the reaction to conjecture is revealing about the underlying biases.

Are we truly interested in truth? Or do we merely seek support for our biases?

You have given us a story, from when you were small. We don't know how much of it is "truth" (memory is notoriously unreliable, and I'm afraid that is an undeniable and universal truth as well).

There are at least two possible hypotheses: The one I gave, which basically says it was a lucky guess based on a number of likely indicators, and your competing hypothesis, that your grandmother had a psychic experience.

Given that the only evidence is your story as you remember it from long ago, I hope you aren't going to characterize your competing hypothesis as "truth" are you? It is merely a competing hypothesis.

And the fact is that many apparently psychic experiences do have perfectly mundane explanations. So perhaps you have a true ESP experience which is indistinguishable in the available facts from other experiences which are not at all psychic. So what do you offer to distinguish it?

[Gaga]

hello!
Everybody has biases or at least a given approach to anything, that's why tests are usually designed to overcome this kind of issues.
This story is not testable, but we can try to look at both side of it.

Is there any record (or recollection) of other similar phenomenons from the same person?

It was late, so how many people could possibly call your granny during the night?

Were there any other place to sleep in that area? Did they spend the night there on other occasions?

I'm obviously biased, because I went through many of these things and they had pretty down to earth explanations. For example I 'almost' ;) always know when it's my mother on the phone before I pick it up...

[Beth]

Originally posted by rppa
The point is that there are similar stories in every house with perfectly mundane explanations.



You have given us a story, from when you were small. We don't know how much of it is "truth" (memory is notoriously unreliable, and I'm afraid that is an undeniable and universal truth as well).

There are at least two possible hypotheses: The one I gave, which basically says it was a lucky guess based on a number of likely indicators, and your competing hypothesis, that your grandmother had a psychic experience.

JAK has given no hypothesis for the experience. S/He has merely related a family story. You have provided both hypotheses and there is not adequate evidence for either to be judged as conclusively true.

Given that the only evidence is your story as you remember it from long ago, I hope you aren't going to characterize your competing hypothesis as "truth" are you? It is merely a competing hypothesis.

And the fact is that many apparently psychic experiences do have perfectly mundane explanations. So perhaps you have a true ESP experience which is indistinguishable in the available facts from other experiences which are not at all psychic. So what do you offer to distinguish it?

While many apparently psychic experiences do have mundane explanations, not all do or at least not all have mundane explanations that we can provide. Sometimes what happens is simply unexplainable.

Given the family background JAK provided, it seems reasonable to suppose that his family would have looked for and accepted any appropriate mundane explanation. Your conjectures, on the other hand, do not match well with the story as told. For example, you said "It's late, they were expected, a call would be expected" But they weren't expected. They were not headed to Grandma's house. Now, that doesn't eliminate the mundane explanation of mere coincidence, but it does make the coincidence less likely. How improbable does a coincidence have to be before you reject the mundane explanation and accept that you do not know how to explain the occurance?

Beth

[Lithrael]

How improbable does a coincidence have to be before you reject the mundane explanation and accept that you do not know how to explain the occurance?
That's a weird question. Ridiculously improbable things happen all the time, and we've already agreed that there's no way to say anything conclusive about a childhood anecdote anyway. You said yourself:

(...) there is not adequate evidence for either to be judged as conclusively true.
So all we're doing is saying we think it's more likely to be an unlikely coincidence (which we see all the time) than a psychic phenomenon (which we have never seen conclusive evidence for).

We're waiting to be convinced, but 'my gran knew X before we said' isn't going to do it.

[Beth]

Originally posted by Lithrael
That's a weird question. Ridiculously improbable things happen all the time, and we've already agreed that there's no way to say anything conclusive about a childhood anecdote anyway. You said yourself:

Er, no. Ridiculously improbably things do not happen all the time. If they did, they would not be ridiculously improbable. Now there are certain events that are extremely unlikely to occur to any particular individual (such as you or I winning the lottery) that are, at the same time, a near certainty to occur to someone - i.e. some lucky individual will win the lottery.

So all we're doing is saying we think it's more likely to be an unlikely coincidence (which we see all the time) than a psychic phenomenon (which we have never seen conclusive evidence for).

We're waiting to be convinced, but 'my gran knew X before we said' isn't going to do it.

Well, you'll have to wait a bit longer, because I'm not trying to convince you that ESP occurred. I'm pointing out (and presumably JAK is as well) that you are leaping to a conclusion regarding the cause of an unlikely occurance without justification. We have no knowledge of the probability of such an event occurring. As rppa pointed out "You don't know how many times she answered phones this way but guessed wrong." However, it is a very odd way to answer the phone, I doubt that a respectable conservative member of society would answer the phone in that manner very often at all. It seems reasonable to estimate the probability of such a coincidence occurring by chance alone as relatively low. How low does the probability of coincidence have to be before you reject the idea as being a reasonable supposition?

As near as I can tell, the conclusion that it is coincidence is based solely on the assumption that it CANNOT be anything else. I don't make that assumption, therefore, I don't find the explanation of coincidence particularly compelling, at least not without having more knowledge of what actually occurred.

Using the convenient hypothesis of "just a coincidence" is an easy way to brush such stories under the rug. Absolutely any unexplained experience can be dismissed in this manner. It is the same behavior that believers use when they justify the conclusion that ESP has occurred simply because they think the probability of coincidence is extremely low.

Why not simply admit that no explanations are terribly convincing rather than presuming it was coincidence or presuming it was ESP? It seems to me the reason that non-believers buy into the "coincidence" argument is simply to avoid having to deal with the possibility of any other explanation.

Beth

[JAK]

Let us return to the remarks of Lithrael, Gaga, and Rppa. As I even noted, coming up with many mundane explanations for the occurrence could easily be done. But the further we are from the participants, as Beth said, the less convincing is the explanation.

As for the call, being at night it may be a logical conclusion that it is family calling. With my parents on an out-of-town trip, it would most likely be them. If so, it was a 50-50 chance that it was "Bill" - perhaps greater since men typically bore responsibility for such things in the '40s and '50s.

But what about Red Wing - hundreds of miles from the destination and hundreds of miles from the start. How did she guess that?

I'll help you again. My father always made reservations months in advance of vacations. He had AAA maps marking the route. He created an itinerary complete with motels and phone numbers for the grandparents to have and use. Was one created for this trip? I don't know - but let's guess "yes" (probably a good guess).

Yet, even if an itinerary was created, according to the story, Red Wing was an unscheduled stop. Where my folks decided to spend the night was NOT on the itinerary, and this was the reason for the call - communicate something the grandfolks would not know.

Okay, let's say grandma looked at the itinerary, and it listed the trip at 750 miles from Chicago to Lake of the Woods. So, she determined the average miles per hour, calculated the time my folks had been gone, estimated they would be in Minneapolis at about the time the call came in, reduced this by about an hour due to bad weather, deduced that they must be around Red Wing (50 miles south of St. Paul), and did all of this within the short few moments between being awakened by the call and answering the phone.

Hmm, not very convincing ...

Okay, let's say she lied, played a joke, pulled a prank (even though she never joked or played pranks to my knowledge). She must have really been awake that night fretting and had not been asleep. So, she pulled out the itinerary while fretting, calculated the distances, and kept a watchful eye on the clock marking how far she thought my folks had traveled. So, when the phone rang, she had just been calculating the whereabouts of my folks, had Red Wing as the most likely spot, then she took a guess that the call was from family, took a 50-50 guess that it was Bill, decided to pull a prank, answered the phone, and pretended she had just awakened while disgorging her famous line, and then hung-up laughing uproariously - not knowing who was on the other end of the call (unless you wish to attribute ESP to her). (And if it was the Highway Patrol calling to let them know my parents had been in a wreck, grandma must not have cared to ask.)

Now we can all shake hands and congratulate ourselves because we have deduced exactly what happened.

Hmm ... As I recall, my grandmother didn't know how to drive, and I don't remember ever seeing her read a map or itinerary even when we traveled to Florida (4 days each way). ... But I was a child! I easily could have missed something.

Hmmm ... So, if she was up fretting, why play a joke? Well, it must have been a joke. It's the only thing that makes sense. Maybe she was up late playing cards with friends and joking. Yeah, that's it!

Or maybe the whole thing was a joke played on us by my father! Yeah, he told jokes! He played pranks as a kid! He's the culprit!

Or maybe I'm the one who's playing a joke and pulling your leg! “Aha! Gotcha!�

Or maybe my memory is bad. Yeah, that works, too!

Or maybe ...

I'm sure we can come up with many other variations.

...

But I'm being verbose and oblique. Beth was much more succinct and direct:
Originally posted by Beth
...
Why not simply admit that no explanations are terribly convincing rather than presuming it was coincidence or presuming it was ESP? It seems to me the reason that non-believers buy into the "coincidence" argument is simply to avoid having to deal with the possibility of any other explanation.


Bravo, Beth. And thank you for picking up the gauntlet and for wielding it so well.

[gnome]

I've had the experience you describe, just once though... sort of.

I was awakened from a dream by a voice saying my name quite clearly. I was aware enough even to determine that it seemed to come from under my loft bed.

At the time my sleepy-but-skeptical mind decided that someone had been leaving a message on my answering machine (placed on top of the desk under the loft bed), and went back to sleep. but in the morning there was no message.

For those of you born after 1982, an "answering machine" was a device you actually attached to your telephone that used one of those old-fashioned "audio tapes" to record voice mail. Usually you could listen to the message being left without answering the phone. :D

[rppa]

Originally posted by Beth
JAK has given no hypothesis for the experience.

Not in so many words.

S/He has merely related a family story.

Perhaps not. I thought s/he was bristling when I offered a mundane explanation.

You have provided both hypotheses and there is not adequate evidence for either to be judged as conclusively true.

Given that JAK objected to my explanation and accused me of not being interested in "the truth", I conjectured what might be meant by "the truth", i.e., an alternate explanation. While I did offer it, it is my best guess as to what JAK is suggesting as the preferable explanation. In the absence of information, that's the best I can do.

[rppa]

Originally posted by Beth
Your conjectures, on the other hand, do not match well with the story as told. For example, you said "It's late, they were expected, a call would be expected" But they weren't expected.

No? I'm having trouble reconciling that with the statement I highlighted in the original story, that JAK's father knew they would be worried and that a call would be expected.

They were not headed to Grandma's house.

I must have missed that part. What I took was the statement that a call was made when a call was expected.
That's not me, that's the original story.

[Beth]

Originally posted by rppa
No? I'm having trouble reconciling that with the statement I highlighted in the original story, that JAK's father knew they would be worried and that a call would be expected.



I must have missed that part. What I took was the statement that a call was made when a call was expected.
That's not me, that's the original story.

Yes, it's reasonable to assume a call was expected, so an accurate guess as to who it was is reasonable. However, the part about knowing where they were staying isn't. That's what is mystifying about it. Even given the additional information JAK posted, it still seems improbable.

[Beth]

Originally posted by JAK
Let us return to the remarks of Lithrael, Gaga, and Rppa. As I even noted, coming up with many mundane explanations for the occurrence could easily be done. But the further we are from the participants, as Beth said, the less convincing is the explanation.

I'm not quite sure I understand what you meant here. Are you saying that as the people making conjectures regarding how/why it occurred get farther from the participants, the explanations offered become less convincing to those participants? That is, people make mistaken assumptions and then base their conjectures on those incorrect assumptions?

At any rate, thanks for the additional information. I have another question, if you don't mind. Did you hear the story from your parents or your grandmother? Did your grandmother ever offer any explanation as to why she answered the phone in that manner?

Bravo, Beth. And thank you for picking up the gauntlet and for wielding it so well.

Thank you. That comment made my day. You are a gracious and gallant gentleman/woman.

[JAK]

Did I read "bristling" above? Quite the contrary. I am amused by any staunch and predictable advocacy drawn on "party lines" - scientific or "woo."

Originally posted by Beth
I'm not quite sure I understand what you meant here. Are you saying that as the people making conjectures regarding how/why it occurred get farther from the participants, the explanations offered become less convincing to those participants? That is, people make mistaken assumptions and then base their conjectures on those incorrect assumptions?

The less accessible the events and participants are, the fewer scientific tools can be applied, and the quality of information degrades. Further, by being an historical event, reproducibility is nil. How can you recreate the Battle of Hastings and subject it to scientific inquiry? How can you reproduce the thoughts of the combatants? How can you account for the Heisenberg Prinicple's effects or the effects of chaos theory and its "law of sensitivity to initial conditions"? Trying to use the scientific method (reproducible tests) with historical events is hopeless (unless we can devise time travel - and even then the issue is still undecided).

It is important to me that guesses - even educated guesses - are not construed as fact nor proof. And as long as fact or proof are missing, then conviction should be tempered. As I said in my opening to the story ...

Originally posted by JAK
... true reason coupled with "pure scientific method" cannot presume anything unless it is reproducible. In that vein, all knowledge, at least to some degree, is theory. (This is an outgrowth of the Coherence Theory of Truth and Negative Pragmatism.) As a result, it may be hasty to ascribe hallucination to all of these near sleep state experiences.
...


Originally posted by Beth
...
At any rate, thanks for the additional information. I have another question, if you don't mind. Did you hear the story from your parents or your grandmother? Did your grandmother ever offer any explanation as to why she answered the phone in that manner? ...

I was a child and youth when I heard it. My recollection is vague (more ammo for the opponents), but my recollection is that it was told by my father in the presence of my grandmother who made no comment. Given the reputation and conservative nature of my grandparents, I suspect that they preferred the story not be repeated. If it was an untruth, I would expect them to admonish my father for the telling. But if it was true, I would expect them to remain quiet. They would not deny, but they would not condone nor participate in the telling. As I recall, they were quiet, and the subject soon changed.
Originally posted by Beth
...
Thank you. That comment made my day. You are a gracious and gallant gentleman/woman. [/B]
Oh, I'm jus' an old grampa. But your welcome ;)

[Beth]

Originally posted by JAK
It is important to me that guesses - even educated guesses - are not construed as fact nor proof. And as long as fact or proof are missing, then conviction should be tempered.

I quite agree. Nice to chat with a kindred spirit in that regard.

I was a child and youth when I heard it. My recollection is vague (more ammo for the opponents), but my recollection is that it was told by my father in the presence of my grandmother who made no comment. Given the reputation and conservative nature of my grandparents, I suspect that they preferred the story not be repeated. If it was an untruth, I would expect them to admonish my father for the telling. But if it was true, I would expect them to remain quiet. They would not deny, but they would not condone nor participate in the telling. As I recall, they were quiet, and the subject soon changed.


Thanks for the further clarification.

Beth

[cesium]

I had a wierd dream experiance which seems to be oppositte of these dream-wake_up-hallucinate experiances. I was sleeping soundly, and dreaming of me in a truck with someone else driving. They asked me a question and I figured "oh, I better call my dad and ask" I whip out my phone and (still dreaming) dial his number. Immediatly after, I was awakened by my dad's cell phone ringing on the table nearby.

The ring is quite loud, so I doubt that I would habe been able to sleep through it, and someone definantly called (I checked on the phone).

It was quite wierd, maybe my dream of integrating my brain with the cellular network is coming true, I just need to get one of those ESN# trackers.

[Kaylee]

Originally posted by cesium
I had a wierd dream experiance which seems to be oppositte of these dream-wake_up-hallucinate experiances. I was sleeping soundly, and dreaming of me in a truck with someone else driving. They asked me a question and I figured "oh, I better call my dad and ask" I whip out my phone and (still dreaming) dial his number. Immediatly after, I was awakened by my dad's cell phone ringing on the table nearby.

The ring is quite loud, so I doubt that I would habe been able to sleep through it, and someone definantly called (I checked on the phone).

It was quite wierd, maybe my dream of integrating my brain with the cellular network is coming true, I just need to get one of those ESN# trackers.


Most likely you worked the cell phone ringing into your dream. A similar thing happened to one of my classmates (years ago), and one of our teachers overheard us talking abou it and gave us this explanation. Apparently it happens very often, usually right before the dreamer wakes up. Of course it doesn’t have to be a cell phone ringing, it can be a dog barking, alarm clock, horn, anything.

It would be convenient to have a built in cell phone though wouldn't it? As long as one could turn it off... ;)