Near death experience of Howard Storm

[Excited Penguin]

Someone else made that argument earlier as well, but I'm not sure I know what you mean by that. Let me say this, to have lucid dreams you have to actually train to distinguish reality from dreams, because it's so hard to do that while you're dreaming that we rarely ever actually realise we dream while we dream(without training for it). There's a variety of things that become possible within a dream(anything you can imagine, really) but the same doesn't hold true for reality. So you can easily check, for example, if you can fly while awake, and if you can't, you're probably awake. Or you can keep track of what you're doing and notice your surroundings to check whether something is strange or not. And a lot of other stuff.

I'm talking about having trouble telling the difference when you wake up.

As an aside, when I'm dreaming and become aware of the possibility that I'm dreaming, I jump up to make sure, trying to increase my 'hang time'. If I stay in the air longer than I should, I know I'm dreaming.

As another aside, I often have dreams where I demonstrate paranormal abilities and think something like, 'huh, I guess I was wrong about there being no such thing as psychokinesis'.

Ok, but there's such a thing as a false awakening. You wake up, everything seems normal, you start thinking about your dream or do other stuff only to realise at one point that you're still dreaming, or to actually wake up from that.

So you're familiar with lucid dreaming? You can apply certain techniques to both prolong these dreams, have better recall of them, more awareness while you're dreaming, and so on, you know?

[robvalue]

Whateverist: You bet, I'm not looking for my life to be transformed anyway. If I could wake up and actually find out all the suffering in the world never happened and instead I'm in a much better place, that would be great. But otherwise, I'm content that I am doing my best. If I find out there's some spotty architect behind all this, it makes no odds. It would be rather a disappointment, if anything.

[Mister Agenda]

LOL! It could happen, but we would lose one of the most reasonable theists we have, and I would miss that.

Yes, but just think of the possibilities. We could have her write a book about how she found reason, and how the universe doesn't care about her at all, and that she's all she's got in this world, and life doesn't have any meaning, and so on. It would be glorious!!!

Yeah...but that's a typical atheist deconversion story. She'd have to be a good enough writer for it to sell that she could have written a book about anything and done well. I'd promise to buy the book though, if she did.

[TheRealJoeFish]

I'm talking about having trouble telling the difference when you wake up.

As an aside, when I'm dreaming and become aware of the possibility that I'm dreaming, I jump up to make sure, trying to increase my 'hang time'. If I stay in the air longer than I should, I know I'm dreaming.

As another aside, I often have dreams where I demonstrate paranormal abilities and think something like, 'huh, I guess I was wrong about there being no such thing as psychokinesis'.

Ok, but there's such a thing as a false awakening. You wake up, everything seems normal, you start thinking about your dream or do other stuff only to realise at one point that you're still dreaming, or to actually wake up from that.

So you're familiar with lucid dreaming? You can apply certain techniques to both prolong these dreams, have better recall of them, more awareness while you're dreaming, and so on, you know?

One of the scariest things that happens to me on occasion is telescoping false awakenings.  As in, false waking upwards of 10 or 20 times in a single dream.  A lot of times, when I'm asleep but have to pee, I'll dream about waking up and peeing, and then I'll realize I still have to pee, and then I'll wake up and pee... but then realize I still have to pee, and then I'll wake up... and do that a bunch of times.

[Mister Agenda]

I'm talking about having trouble telling the difference when you wake up.

As an aside, when I'm dreaming and become aware of the possibility that I'm dreaming, I jump up to make sure, trying to increase my 'hang time'. If I stay in the air longer than I should, I know I'm dreaming.

As another aside, I often have dreams where I demonstrate paranormal abilities and think something like, 'huh, I guess I was wrong about there being no such thing as psychokinesis'.

Ok, but there's such a thing as a false awakening. You wake up, everything seems normal, you start thinking about your dream or do other stuff only to realise at one point that you're still dreaming, or to actually wake up from that.

So you're familiar with lucid dreaming? You can apply certain techniques to both prolong these dreams, have better recall of them, more awareness while you're dreaming, and so on, you know?

Yeah, I've had false awakenings, too.

My unintentional lucid dreaming seems to have diminished considerably now that I'm off the Clonadine; though I've always tended to have vivid dreams that I can remember when I wake up.

[Excited Penguin]

Ok, but there's such a thing as a false awakening. You wake up, everything seems normal, you start thinking about your dream or do other stuff only to realise at one point that you're still dreaming, or to actually wake up from that.

So you're familiar with lucid dreaming? You can apply certain techniques to both prolong these dreams, have better recall of them, more awareness while you're dreaming, and so on, you know?

One of the scariest things that happens to me on occasion is telescoping false awakenings.  As in, false waking upwards of 10 or 20 times in a single dream.  A lot of times, when I'm asleep but have to pee, I'll dream about waking up and peeing, and then I'll realize I still have to pee, and then I'll wake up and pee... but then realize I still have to pee, and then I'll wake up... and do that a bunch of times.

Sounds like a nightmare to me. You might want to look into performing reality checks a few times a day, so that the practice carries into your subconscious and subsequently into your dreams and so that you can stop this from happening by realising it's only a dream whenever it takes place. A reality check is basically something to make you realise you're actually awake(or not, as the case might be). Like trying to look at your reflection in the mirror, or counting your fingers, or looking at the same piece of writing twice and checking whether anything changed about it - it's different for everyone, and as I understood it, some parts of the brain that are generally inhibited during dreams might sometimes act up(or in some people) - like the ability to better comprehend writing and such. But basically, yeah, that's all there is to it, at a very basic level, and people do learn to do it in order to overcome nighmarish dreams. I don't do it for that reason but I know others do.

[Excited Penguin]

Ok, but there's such a thing as a false awakening. You wake up, everything seems normal, you start thinking about your dream or do other stuff only to realise at one point that you're still dreaming, or to actually wake up from that.

So you're familiar with lucid dreaming? You can apply certain techniques to both prolong these dreams, have better recall of them, more awareness while you're dreaming, and so on, you know?

Yeah, I've had false awakenings, too.

My unintentional lucid dreaming seems to have diminished considerably now that I'm off the Clonadine; though I've always tended to have vivid dreams that I can remember when I wake up.

As vivid as reality?

[Excited Penguin]

Yes, but just think of the possibilities. We could have her write a book about how she found reason, and how the universe doesn't care about her at all, and that she's all she's got in this world, and life doesn't have any meaning, and so on. It would be glorious!!!

Yeah...but that's a typical atheist deconversion story. She'd have to be a good enough writer for it to sell that she could have written a book about anything and done well. I'd promise to buy the book though, if she did.

Hmm, not really. She just has to be charming. Was the Twilight series good literature? Was 50 shades of gray? All she'll have to do is be herself and she'll be richer than Rowling in no time.

[Whateverist]

I do have a serious question for all of you.

Would you WANT this story to be real?

Would it make you happy if it were? Or would you still hate the idea of God and afterlife even after reading this story which paints God and the afterlife in such a positive light?

Would you rather it all be a farce, and that we all just die when we die and there is no loving God?

Good question but I don't think we attribute the same significance to what it would mean for the story to be real.

If I had the same experience I would think "cool, so this is the kind of experience which gives rise to religions".  It wouldn't change in the slightest my understanding of cosmology or the cycle of life.  But I could gather meaning from such an experience as I have in other settings.  I think this guy makes the mistake of shoe horning an experience into an off the rack belief system, rather than grokking it directly on its own terms.  He is also guilty of going literal when the unconscious mind is never that.  You can't ride dragons if you try to cram them into little boxes.  His experience was distorted and wasted. 

I'm quite sure he really had an experience, so it was real as such.  But the move to apply it directly and literally to the real world is always a mistake.  These things have an as-if quality.

[Whateverist]

A lot of times, when I'm asleep but have to pee, I'll dream about waking up and peeing, and then I'll realize I still have to pee, and then I'll wake up and pee... but then realize I still have to pee, and then I'll wake up... and do that a bunch of times.

Wait a minute, how old are you again? Welcome to my world.