I had a religious experience the other night

[I_am_not_mafia]

I'm being completely honest, not mocking or anything. It happened Thursday night either as i was falling asleep or when I had just dozed off.

I am a very light sleeper because any noise can wake me up. I woke up suddenly because there was a demonic voice babbling two feet behind my head where the wall was. It disappeared the moment i properly woke up and concentrated on it.

I wasn't scared, just confused. My initial thought was that i was developing schizophrenia because I have recently started vaping cannabis for my MS and I know that cannabis has been linked to exacerbating initial psychiatric disorders in the past. But I have never before actually heard anything that wasn't there. I have a really good recall of sound and if I have been listening to classical music all day for example then when I go to bed my brain is still playing back parts of concertos or whatever in almost perfect recall. But that still feels like a memory. This was like actually hearing a voice.

I then wondered if it was the neighbour's TV in the next room beyond making a noise and my brain had interpreted that. But they had obviously gone to bed as everything was silent.

I asked my husband next to me if he heard it as well but he was still asleep.

I think what happened is that as you fall asleep different parts of your brain start to quieten down at different rates. This throws off the balance where one part inhibiting signals from another may allow noise to get through when it shouldn't. Because neurons are constantly firing, albeit at a slower pace, even when there is no input to them. Normally they need to meet a threshold though to have an effect over all the other active parts of the brain signalling to the same place. I think this is why you get night starts for example where as you fall asleep a shudder goes through your spine. It's like a small seizure. Brains are very dynamic systems, and like any complex system healthier when it can react faster by changing suddenly.

So I think background neuronal noise suddenly had an effect when it would normally have been inhibited, possibly because cannabis increases the gain of your sensory signals, which is why food tastes stronger and music has more clarity when you're vaping. The part of my brain which receives those signals then started pattern matching to try to make sense of it. I had just come back from a session of Dungeons & Dragons so memories of that were still fresh in my mind. Our DM does try to imitate different monstrous voices for example. And when I woke up and started listening intently, the balance of activation was once more reinstated and the voice disappeared.

If I had this happen to me 30 years ago it would have freaked me out and I am wondering how many religious experiences are basically the same phenomenon. Do most religious experiences happen around the time that people are sleeping?

At no point did I actually consider that it was a demon though. I find it really interesting having experienced it though.

[brewer]

Isn't hypnopompia fun!

http://neurocritic.blogspot.com/2013/12/...tmare.html

[downbeatplumb]

I'm being completely honest, not mocking or anything. It happened Thursday night either as i was falling asleep or when I had just dozed off.

I am a very light sleeper because any noise can wake me up. I woke up suddenly because there was a demonic voice babbling two feet behind my head where the wall was. It disappeared the moment i properly woke up and concentrated on it.

I wasn't scared, just confused. My initial thought was that i was developing schizophrenia because I have recently started vaping cannabis for my MS and I know that cannabis has been linked to exacerbating initial psychiatric disorders in the past. But I have never before actually heard anything that wasn't there. I have a really good recall of sound and if I have been listening to classical music all day for example then when I go to bed my brain is still playing back parts of concertos or whatever in almost perfect recall. But that still feels like a memory. This was like actually hearing a voice.

I then wondered if it was the neighbour's TV in the next room beyond making a noise and my brain had interpreted that. But they had obviously gone to bed as everything was silent.

I asked my husband next to me if he heard it as well but he was still asleep.

I think what happened is that as you fall asleep different parts of your brain start to quieten down at different rates. This throws off the balance where one part inhibiting signals from another may allow noise to get through when it shouldn't. Because neurons are constantly firing, albeit at a slower pace, even when there is no input to them. Normally they need to meet a threshold though to have an effect over all the other active parts of the brain signalling to the same place. I think this is why you get night starts for example where as you fall asleep a shudder goes through your spine. It's like a small seizure. Brains are very dynamic systems, and like any complex system healthier when it can react faster by changing suddenly.

So I think background neuronal noise suddenly had an effect when it would normally have been inhibited, possibly because cannabis increases the gain of your sensory signals, which is why food tastes stronger and music has more clarity when you're vaping. The part of my brain which receives those signals then started pattern matching to try to make sense of it. I had just come back from a session of Dungeons & Dragons so memories of that were still fresh in my mind. Our DM does try to imitate different monstrous voices for example. And when I woke up and started listening intently, the balance of activation was once more reinstated and the voice disappeared.

If I had this happen to me 30 years ago it would have freaked me out and I am wondering how many religious experiences are basically the same phenomenon. Do most religious experiences happen around the time that people are sleeping?

At no point did I actually consider that it was a demon though. I find it really interesting having experienced it though.

The mind can present very realistic halucinations both aural and visual.

Years ago I was in bed with my now wife and I heard a very clear exhalation of breathe very near my head on the side my girlie wasn't.

She believes in "spirit" so conjured up a story about past occupants of the house.

I thought it was probably because I was drifting off and my mind was playing tricks with me.

[Little lunch]

I hear loud noises just before I go to sleep.
Sometimes it's like thunder or a rifle going off.
Sometimes it's the middle of a conversation that abruptly stops.
I've been hearing it since I was a kid so it doesn't phase me anymore.
Apparently it's quite common.

[Whateverist]

When I was an adult just under 30, I woke up once seeing the face of a witch looking down at me. I woke up pretty quickly and saw the face was right about where the curtains hung down above the bed. But at first the face persisted even after I was awake. But it didn't last long and once it was gone I couldn't bring it back. I tried laying in the same position with my eyes partially closed and making my mind go blank, but no go. I'm sure it was a remnant of a dream which played at the periphery of my consciousness for a wee bit before dissolving, but I can see where if I was looking for a sign from God I could have made more of it.

In fact, once before I started school (during my religious phase) I was laying on my back looking up at the shape of clouds when I saw a figure like a devil jump over the side of a cloud and then an angry Jesus figured appeared on the same cloud shaking its fist at the devil. Too long ago to remember if I'd napped first or what. Had to be younger than 5 though.

Whoa, then there was the time also pre-school when I woke up and saw a snake in the air above the foot of my bed. That sucker followed me to my parents room but at least stayed in the hall where I could still see it from their bed. I'm filing it under weird shit kids make up?

[Brian37]

Trust us, you DID NOT, have a religious experience, you even admitted you were "confused".

Your brain and senses can take in things, but that does not mean you understand what you perceived.

It just means something happened that you didn't understand. It does not make demons or gods real. What happened is really no different than thinking a glass door is open because it was cleaned really well only to walk right into it.

When I was a kid I had very frightening dreams, and at the time they felt real. I once saw my dead grandmother standing at the foot of my bed. Another time I saw my dead father at the foot of my bed. Another time I saw my LIVING MOTHER standing at the foot of my bed. I also had a "floating" dream where I felt like I was floating over the parking lot outside of my house. TRUST ME, none of that shit was real.

Point being, our brains can fool us. Tell a kid at at a Halloween party in a dark kitchen that the covered bowl of olives are eyeballs, if you really want to believe it bad enough you will.

You had an experience sure, but it was not magic, it was your own brain and a misunderstanding of a very natural event.

[I_am_not_mafia]

i can imagine if it was a child living in a religious household with parents teaching them about the devil, or someone finding out about different religions because they considering joining, then this would have been the kind of experience that could make someone convert. Instead of D&D influencing the nature of the hallucination it would have been religious imagery. Which makes me wonder, if I had been watching Donald Duck cartoons all day would I then have heard a weird duck voice?

I remember when I was a teenager and I woke up one morning paralysed with the sensation of a void of blackness behind me, between me and the wall. I managed to summon up the courage to get out of bed, switch the light on, turn around and look at it when I woke up properly and realised that it was all a dream. But it did unsettle me at the time because i had never heard of sleep paralysis before. I remember telling my mum and her replying that if there was anything spooky then the dog would be barking. As she was saying that the dog was barking downstairs but she couldn't hear. Then the dog came rushing upstairs and slept on the landing for the first time ever, probably because she could sense that I was unsettled. Dogs are so cool.

I'm going to have to pay attention now to see if anyone claims to have had an experience when wide-awake during the day and not when dozing off to sleep or waking up.

Definitely interesting seeing how my brain compares to everyone else's though.

Edit: Don't worry Brian, I know that it was a hallucination. I never for one moment thought that it was anything else. But I didn't put religious experience in quote marks or anything because I think that all religious experiences are products of the brain as well. The only difference with this is that I realised what was going on.

[Brian37]

i can imagine if it was a child living in a religious household with parents teaching them about the devil, or someone finding out about different religions because they considering joining, then this would have been the kind of experience that could make someone convert. Instead of D&D influencing the nature of the hallucination it would have been religious imagery. Which makes me wonder, if I had been watching Donald Duck cartoons all day would I then have heard a weird duck voice?

I remember when I was a teenager and I woke up one morning paralysed with the sensation of a void of blackness behind me, between me and the wall. I managed to summon up the courage to get out of bed, switch the light on, turn around and look at it when I woke up properly and realised that it was all a dream. But it did unsettle me at the time because i had never heard of sleep paralysis before. I remember telling my mum and her replying that if there was anything spooky then the dog would be barking. As she was saying that the dog was barking downstairs but she couldn't hear. Then the dog came rushing upstairs and slept on the landing for the first time ever, probably because she could sense that I was unsettled. Dogs are so cool.

I'm going to have to pay attention now to see if anyone claims to have had an experience when wide-awake during the day and not when dozing off to sleep or waking up.

Definitely interesting seeing how my brain compares to everyone else's though.

Edit: Don't worry Brian, I know that it was a hallucination. I never for one moment thought that it was anything else. But I didn't put religious experience in quote marks or anything because I think that all religious experiences are products of the brain as well. The only difference with this is that I realised what was going on.

Bottom line, natural things explain why humans have false perceptions. Misunderstanding is all it takes. It can go further to stress, depression to mental defect and mental illness. 

WHAT IS NOT happening in any case is the supernatural. It just means you had a jolting event.

Most humans don't understand that if they are sold superstition long enough, that can bleed into becoming a gap answer because they gap fill, but it is still NOT  real event. A real misunderstanding yes, but not a real event.

[Edwardo Piet]

I've had plenty of non-religious experiences like this one

I think it's on account of me being nuts

[Brian37]

I've had plenty of non-religious experiences like this one

I think it's on account of me being nuts

No, "Nuts" is after 26 years of Danny owning the Redskins and expecting them to not suck that is NUTS........ No, I cannot explain why I am still a Redskins fan. 

Shoving rusty nails into my eyes would be less painful.