Hell, or rather my brief experience of it.

[Norfolk And Chance]

i posted this on another website and came across it looking for something else. Thought I would share....

And you come to that conclusion based on a dream?

Cool story bro.

---

Out side of that i do not know why.

---

I am not disputeing the fact that it was a dream. What I am going to add is this dream was no different than any other truly experienced memory. Other than the fact that at the end of this squence of events I arose from my bed. These events played out like every other experienced memory i have ever had.

Again no dispute that it was a dream, as I woke from my bed. But, at the same time I have NEVER had a dream like this before or since.

Oh alright, it must be real then.

Quick everybody, let's get to the nearest church.

[LastPoet]

I kinda like nightmares, they are like first person horror movies. Too bad I usually pop up awake when I detect an inconsistency.

[Borunel]

I too have disturbing nightmares - often I get them when I'm really stressed or ill. I've dreamed some fairly weird things over time and have even kept a dream diary and my conclusion after studying it is that nothing -but nothing- that happens in my dreams is new information. Everything I dream can be described as a recursion of events, experiences and thoughts that I have had (usually) recently.

I suspect that unresolved psychological issues may underlie. Was the message that you feel you experienced in your nightmare unexpected? Perhaps you felt on some level as a Christian that you did deserve to go to hell thereby explaining the dream - who knows? maybe not even yourself.

My main concern with the OPs line of reasoning in justifying the dream is this:

This was the result of me Ask, Seeking, and Kicking down the door (over and over and over again) with an arrogant challenge that God show Himself to me. I was very angery for a very long time.

I speculate based on this that you stressed yourself out to such an extent over such a long period of time that you triggered your nightmare yourself - your subconscious gave you exactly what you were expecting.

The two questions that need to be asked are then these:

1) Why is it that you think God has shown himself to you when if you think about it he has shown you nothing tangible at all - why not show you a real life burning bush for instance or burn his name in the bonnet of your car with lightning? Basically something that can't be mistaken for, or explained as something else?
2) If you at some point accept this may have just been a dream why is it that some part of you believes that you deserve to burn in Hell? Do you think that is a healthy way to feel?

[Cyberman]

This might prove interesting, as well as bloody creepy:

That is not really a great "documentary" and mostly focuses on the paranormal aspects through history. Though at least they didn't go into the alien subculture that uses this to claim visitation of aliens. It also doesn't include any recent scientific advances in neoroscience related to Sleep Paralysis (like the God helmet being able to create the "entity" feeling in waking people.

I never promised "great", only "interesting" with a side order of "creepy". I merely threw it in for conversation purposes. I might add that the historical paranormal aspects are precisely within the remit of what our fundy friend is claiming.

[Aroura]

That is not really a great "documentary" and mostly focuses on the paranormal aspects through history. Though at least they didn't go into the alien subculture that uses this to claim visitation of aliens. It also doesn't include any recent scientific advances in neoroscience related to Sleep Paralysis (like the God helmet being able to create the "entity" feeling in waking people.

I never promised "great", only "interesting" with a side order of "creepy". I merely threw it in for conversation purposes. I might add that the historical paranormal aspects are precisely within the remit of what our fundy friend is claiming.

Good point. And I did still find it interesting. And it IS creepy. Sleep Paralysis can be a terrifying experience, even when you know it's not a real entity! I feel terrible for those who still think they are being visited by some monster or demon. :/

[Edwardo Piet]

Nightmares never scare me. Or does that mean that I don't have nightmares, I merely have imaginatively enjoyable dreams that most people would perceive as nightmares?

My dreams are at least often lucid anyway.

[Angrboda]

@Borunel:

One needs to differentiate between the different types of dreaming, and what appears to be occurring in each type with reference to human studies and studies based on animal models. In general, there tend to be two types of dream. I hope you'll forgive my laziness, but I'm just going to dump my notes from a science documentary describing and documenting the two types:

---

REM SLEEP:
[ETA: Fanciful, surreal dreams]
Motor centers de-activated.
Highlevel of neural activity.
Can boost creativity (from REM sleep alone, or dreams within REM sleep?).
Negative self-concept, self-regard words; Possible amygdaloid involvement.
Activation-synthesis hypothesis, stem activation stimulating cortical activity (Hobson & McCarley). Projection into future?

NON-REM SLEEP:
[ETA: Compressed, skill rehearsal dreams]
Compressed content.
Positive self-concept, self-regard words.
Skill rehearsal; replay of recent memory activity (e.g. skiing simulator).
In rats, fragmented time-compressed memories (Matthew Wilson, MIT).

notes based on my viewing of:

---

So depending on which specific type of dream you were referring to, your comments may be accurate. However, as an overall description of dreaming, it suffers from over-generality and imprecision.

[LastPoet]

Nightmares never scare me. Or does that mean that I don't have nightmares, I merely have imaginatively enjoyable dreams that most people would perceive as nightmares?

My dreams are at least often lucid anyway.

Mine too, but there are glitches from time to time, that's usually when I pop awake. EG: if I'm running from a monster, I jump over a cliff in a way phisically impossible... wha? wtf? *pops awake*

@Apo: dreams are cool, its like having a built in console in your brain. Sad I am they aren't very frequent anymore.

[Cyberman]

Anyone ever have a dream crash, followed by the Blue Screen Of Death? Just me, then.

[Edwardo Piet]

I once dreamed of an appatosaurus in a poppy field.