I had a religious experience the other night

[vorlon13]

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.

I'm thinking that is a big improvement over my issue with being totally paralyzed and giant spiders are eating my face . . . .

[I_am_not_mafia]

I remember reading a comment on Facebook where some christians were talking about a baptism pool and one person was saying how she literally saw a demon flying out of a person's body as some form of black howling cloud.

When I was about 17 I was part of role playing group. The GM was a 28 year old christian called Steve who seemed OK at first but then started to proselytise to people more and more. I remember him asking me what I thought would happen if the car crashed on the way to Brighton and we all died. At the time I was inoculated with my own woo and told him that I would reincarnate, but he managed to convert all the other players in the end and so I dropped out the group.

But before it got to that stage, but after the other players converted, the rest of the group did start to slowly wonder whether Steve was in fact suffering from hallucinations as he had admitted to one or two of them that he often heard voices.

So I often wonder what religious people must think of those who really are schizophrenic, hearing voices and seeing things that aren't there. Do they just accept that their religion also attracts mad people but they don't say anything because it' at least means that they're christian? Or are they jealous and wish that they could also see and hear god in the same way?

[Cyberman]

Years ago, I was lying in bed and waiting for Sam who'd gone upstairs visiting Shell. I wasn't even feeling dozy, but I distinctly and clearly heard her voice outside the bedroom door weakly calling my name. I immediately shot out of bed and threw open the door, and there was nobody there. The room is right next to the front door, so I opened that and looked out onto the landing. Still nothing. I'd read about hypnopompia and hypnagogia, so I reasoned that's what it must have been.

Probably ten minutes later I heard Sam's footsteps trip-trapping down the stairs, followed by the lady herself coming in, happy as - well, happy as herself.

[I_am_not_mafia]

It occurred to me that in the same way that Carl Sagan came up with his Baloney Detection Kit, we could come up with list of questions that you should ask if you think that you have had a religious experience to determine whether it was just  a product of the mind.

• Did anyone else experience it?
  
• Was it indistinguishable from your own imagination?
  
• Did you see, hear or feel it tactilely?
  
• Did it occur when you were falling asleep, waking up or during your sleep or at a point of exhaustion?
  
• Were you intoxicated at the time?
  
• Were you taking drugs at that period of your life which alter your perception, whether recreational or medication, and which can stay in your system for a long time?
  
• Have you had similar experiences in the past which were not religiously or spiritually themed?
  
• Had you been thinking a lot at the time about religious or spiritual matters? e.g. considering converting? Watched a film etc
  
• Is there a history of relevant mental illness in your family?
  
• Would the experience have otherwise been a normal incident were it not for the fact that you challenged a deity to reveal itself?
  

Anything else to add?

[Edwardo Piet]

It's important to not misinterpret what we experience. What we actually experience and the meaning we attach to it is different. So, for instance, it's important to be careful not to attach a supernatural meaning to a natural experience. And once we acknowledge that all experience is natural, then we already know that when we experience something whatever it is it certainly isn't supernatural.

It is in principle impossible to rationally believe in anything supernatural until the concept of the supernatural is at least coherent.

And, hallucinations are less of a problem when we know they are hallucinations. And illusions are very different to delusions. Delusions are about misinterpreting something, whereas illusions are about seeing something that isn't there but it's perfectly possible to know that an illusion is an illusion, but if you are experiencing a delusion you are by definition deluded. Actually, more accurately, it's impossible to experience a delusion. Because a delusion is something we are in fact not experiencing but we incorrectly believe that we are experiencing.

So, regardless of what you experience the important thing is to not misinterpret what you are actually experiencing.

IOW even what we believe we seem to be experiencing, is not actually what we're necessarily even seeming to be experiencing. We can be mistaken about what we experience and we can even be mistaken about what we seem to be experiencing. The only thing that we cannot be mistaken about is that we seem to be experiencing something. That seeming/consciousness exists. Everything else is on the table.

[Wyrd of Gawd]

Mathilda,

Please don't start a new religion based upon your delusions. There's been too many already.

[Edwardo Piet]

Who are you talking to?

[ignoramus]

Mathilda,

Please don't start a new religion based upon your delusions.  There's been too many already.

She may offer better rewards?

Mathilda, the highest offer at the moment is 72 virgins.... Can you beat that?
If you can give me 73, just take my money now!


Also, I want to know how many spare lives I get? And is there a God mode?
Ta.

[I_am_not_mafia]

Sorry too late. I accidentally created a religion last year. It's got about 40 members but is an in-game religion. I didn't intend to, but people were amused by my insane rantings.

73 virgins is easy. I can add an extra digit to that number but you wouldn't be happy if body odour annoys you.

Or for that matter if you suffer from pet allergies.

[ignoramus]

I'll settle for 72 cats anytime ... kill me now!