# Religious Experiences are not Hallucinations **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [August 5, 2009, 4:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/religious-experiences-are-not-hallucinations/505389 "2009-08-05T04:19:22Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![lekatt](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lekatt/32/7269_2.png) [@lekatt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/lekatt)\ **Post date:** [August 5, 2009, 6:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/religious-experiences-are-not-hallucinations/505389/41 "2009-08-05T18:45:15Z")
> [@YogSosoth](#): > > If something’s not there and you see/hear/feel it, then there is something wrong with you I agree, however, in spiritual experiences something is there, or else you wouldn’t see and hear it. ---
**Author:** ![lekatt](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lekatt/32/7269_2.png) [@lekatt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/lekatt)\ **Post date:** [August 5, 2009, 6:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/religious-experiences-are-not-hallucinations/505389/42 "2009-08-05T18:47:52Z")
> [@kayaker](#): > > From:[MedicineNet.com](http://www.medterms.com/script/main/art.asp?articlekey=24171): > > I think that, _by definition_, religious experiences _are_ hallucinations. Not important what you think, or what I think. Spiritual experiences are there transferring useful information, and in the case of near death experiences, life changing information. [http://www.near-death.com/experiences/lsd04.html](http://www.near-death.com/experiences/lsd04.html) ---
**Author:** ![Voyager](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/voyager/32/133_2.png) [@Voyager](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Voyager)\ **Post date:** [August 5, 2009, 6:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/religious-experiences-are-not-hallucinations/505389/43 "2009-08-05T18:51:35Z")
I have all sorts of hallucinations sitting in a boring meeting after a big lunch. None religious, since I don’t swing that way. But let’s examine the hypothesis logically. First, let’s define a hallucination as something the person seeing it is convinced of at the moment. Daydreams don’t count. Second, let’s forget mental illness. Dawkins didn’t say everyone hallucinating is mentally ill, he did say those with issues have more hallucinations. Third, let’s define a hallucination being true as reflecting reality outside one’s brain. Someone reporting seeing something is not lying; they actually are seeing something internally. How can we tell if a hallucination is true? First, as Dio said, if other people see it and report something very similar independently. That doesn’t mean it is what they claim it is, since it can be an optical illusion, a magic trick, or swamp gas. But it is not a hallucination. What if the claim is that the spirit or whatever appears only to the viewer. Then that others don’t see it does not contradict the claims of the viewer. (Which reminds me: **Harvey** is being remade.) In this case, all the viewer has to do is to report something factual that he or she couldn’t have come up with themselves. It could be where something is hidden, or the solution to a mystery, or if P=NP. it can’t be “God loves you” or “be good” or “Eat at Joe’s.” If people having religious experiences can’t come up with something verifiable, there is no reason to think that they aren’t having a purely subjective hallucination - not that there is anything wrong with that. Proving that their brains are in some other state during the vision just means that they are accurately reporting a different brain state, which isn’t in question. It is a feeble deity who can’t pony up some info you don’t already know. ---
**Author:** ![Voyager](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/voyager/32/133_2.png) [@Voyager](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Voyager)\ **Post date:** [August 5, 2009, 6:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/religious-experiences-are-not-hallucinations/505389/44 "2009-08-05T18:52:37Z")
> [@lekatt](#): > > Not important what you think, or what I think. Spiritual experiences are there transferring useful information, and in the case of near death experiences, life changing information. > > [http://www.near-death.com/experiences/lsd04.html](http://www.near-death.com/experiences/lsd04.html) What information? Life changing experiences, certainly, but people in non-supernatural plane crashes have them also. ---
**Author:** ![lekatt](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lekatt/32/7269_2.png) [@lekatt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/lekatt)\ **Post date:** [August 5, 2009, 6:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/religious-experiences-are-not-hallucinations/505389/45 "2009-08-05T18:53:03Z")
> [@Lobohan](#): > > Sorry Chester, the burden of evidence is on the person suggesting the theory. Your theory is that god is talking to gullible people across the planet. Let’s see the evidence. Sorry Lobo, you didn’t provide any proof of your claims. ---
**Author:** ![Syntropy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/65b543/32.png) [@Syntropy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Syntropy)\ **Post date:** [August 5, 2009, 6:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/religious-experiences-are-not-hallucinations/505389/46 "2009-08-05T18:56:04Z")
> [@lekatt](#): > > Sorry Lobo, you didn’t provide any proof of your claims. That does not excuse you from the responsibility of providing proof for yours. ---
**Author:** ![Der\_Trihs](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/der_trihs/32/233_2.png) [@Der\_Trihs](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Der_Trihs)\ **Post date:** [August 5, 2009, 7:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/religious-experiences-are-not-hallucinations/505389/47 "2009-08-05T19:13:14Z")
> [@Lobohan](#): > > Seriously ITC, every couple weeks you post one of these threads with no evidence and get proven wrong every fucking time. C’mon, could you at least bring your A game? This IS his “A game”. His big problem is that he’s trying to defend a belief that’s simply wrong, and there’s only so much you can do with the raw material. > [@Voyager](#): > > First, let’s define a hallucination as something the person seeing it is convinced of at the moment. Actually that isn’t true; it’s not uncommon for people to have hallucinations that they know are just hallucinations. You don’t hear about it much because such people don’t usually talk about it much for fear of people thinking they are crazy, and because they don’t react much to them since they know they aren’t real. An example is “[Charles Bonnet Syndrome](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_Bonnet_syndrome)”, which occasionally happens to people with bad vision or blindness. It seems that there is some sort of “switch” in the brain that determines if a perception is perceived as real or not; apparently some but not all of the things that cause hallucinations also flip the “switch”, causing it to be taken seriously even if it isn’t very realistic. While if the “switch” isn’t flipped, the person can simply realize it’s not real and treat it as such ( I recall someone being quoted as considering his hallucinations as “free entertainment” ). ---
**Author:** ![Voyager](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/voyager/32/133_2.png) [@Voyager](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Voyager)\ **Post date:** [August 5, 2009, 7:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/religious-experiences-are-not-hallucinations/505389/48 "2009-08-05T19:25:08Z")
> [@Der\_Trihs](#): > > Actually that isn’t true; it’s not uncommon for people to have hallucinations that they know are just hallucinations. You don’t hear about it much because such people don’t usually talk about it much for fear of people thinking they are crazy, and because they don’t react much to them since they know they aren’t real. An example is “[Charles Bonnet Syndrome](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_Bonnet_syndrome)”, which occasionally happens to people with bad vision or blindness. > > It seems that there is some sort of “switch” in the brain that determines if a perception is perceived as real or not; apparently some but not all of the things that cause hallucinations also flip the “switch”, causing it to be taken seriously even if it isn’t very realistic. While if the “switch” isn’t flipped, the person can simply realize it’s not real and treat it as such ( I recall someone being quoted as considering his hallucinations as “free entertainment” ). Interesting. I’m defining at the moment very narrowly here, since the ones I mentioned I know aren’t real milliseconds after I have them. If people really know they aren’t real while having them, we can map hallucination to “real seeming hallucination” and be fine. Consider it done. ---
**Author:** ![Jenaroph](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/e8c25b/32.png) [@Jenaroph](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jenaroph)\ **Post date:** [August 5, 2009, 7:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/religious-experiences-are-not-hallucinations/505389/49 "2009-08-05T19:51:27Z")
> [@ITR\_champion](#): > > Perhaps most notable are the results from the electroencephalograph (EEG), which measure cycles of electric activity in the brain. A normal human brain has 10 alpha (receptive) cycles per 20 beta (reactive) cycles. During a daytime hallucination, alpha cycles would decrease and beta cycles would increase. For the Medjugorje visionaries, the opposite happens, proving that they are receiving visions from an outside source rather than from inside their own heads. This does not prove that the visions come from an outside source. All it indicates is that the brain processes them as if they come from an outside source, which is an entirely different matter. More to the point, what the heck is a “daytime hallucination”? There is no reference to differences between “daytime hallucinations” and the visions mentioned in your link. Where did you get the information about alpha and beta waves? It’s not there either. Also, you may have wanted to [read this](http://www.spectator.co.uk/the-magazine/features/2189236/sex-lies-and-apparitions.thtml) before using Medjugorje as an unassailable example of real religious visions. ---
**Author:** ![ITR\_champion](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/c67d28/32.png) [@ITR\_champion](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ITR_champion)\ **Post date:** [August 5, 2009, 8:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/religious-experiences-are-not-hallucinations/505389/50 "2009-08-05T20:01:23Z")
> [@Argent\_Towers](#): > > I think one of the best evidences of “religious experiences” and hallucinations being the same thing is how many religions use hallucinogenic drugs as part of their religious rituals! Think about all the religious groups that have shamans and holy men who use peyote and other plants to have religious experiences! As far as I know, religions fitting that description are a tiny percentage of the total. If that’s one of the best evidences that religious experiences are hallucinations, then apparently there aren’t any good evidences that religious experiences are hallucinations. ---
**Author:** ![ITR\_champion](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/c67d28/32.png) [@ITR\_champion](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ITR_champion)\ **Post date:** [August 5, 2009, 8:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/religious-experiences-are-not-hallucinations/505389/51 "2009-08-05T20:13:27Z")
> [@Half\_Man\_Half\_Wit](#): > > I’d also like to point to the research of Dr Michael Persinger, which has shown that religious experiences can be artificially induced by manipulating the temporal lobe with weak magnetic fields; here’s a [Wired article](http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/7.11/persinger.html) on the subject; there’s even a site offering a ‘God Helmet’ based on his research which I’m not sure I’m allowed to link here, but some googling ought to get you there just as well. Your own private portal to religious revelation for just $649.00 (plus shipping)! I’d like to point to the research of Dr. Jehr Granqvist, which has shown that the “God Helmet” is not actually able to induce religious experiences. [Here’s the article on the subject.](http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/15849873) To quote from the abstract. > [@](#): > > To replicate and extend previous findings, we performed a double-blind experiment (N=89), with a sham-field control group. Personality characteristics indicating suggestibility (absorption, signs of abnormal temporal lobe activity, and a “new age”-lifestyle orientation) were used as predictors. Sensed presence, mystical, and other somatosensory experiences previously reported from the magnetic field stimulation were outcome measures. We found no evidence for any effects of the magnetic fields, neither in the entire group, nor in individuals high in suggestibility. Dr. Persinger’s research was deeply flawed. His sample size was too small–only 16 individuals in each group. He did not do a double-blind experiment. His definition of religious experience was so vague that it could include almost anything. Worst of all, he used his own students as subjects and told them what results he wanted to get before the experiment–the ultimate no-no. Perhaps he should have published in the Journal of Irreproducable Results. ---
**Author:** ![jjimm](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/ba8739/32.png) [@jjimm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jjimm)\ **Post date:** [August 5, 2009, 8:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/religious-experiences-are-not-hallucinations/505389/52 "2009-08-05T20:16:15Z")
> [@yoyodyne](#): > > Once again, let’s turn to an expert, in this case Richard Dawkins, one of the most influential biologists of all times. In his book The God Delusion, Dawkins rejects the notion that religious experiences are a proof of god, instead describing them as “hallucinations”, and even states that those with “questionable mental health” are the most likely to have religious experiences. Hence the truth about this issue is the precise opposite of what Maslow want us to think that it is. This is one of the wittiest posts I’ve read for a long time. Bravo. ETA: “God helmet” - heh heh. But the double-blind experiment is very interesting - seems to say that religious experiences are in fact even more the result of suggestibility. ---
**Author:** ![ITR\_champion](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/c67d28/32.png) [@ITR\_champion](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ITR_champion)\ **Post date:** [August 5, 2009, 8:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/religious-experiences-are-not-hallucinations/505389/53 "2009-08-05T20:22:37Z")
> [@Lobohan](#): > > Seriously ITC, every couple weeks you post one of these threads with no evidence and get proven wrong every fucking time. First of all, all of my threads always have evidence. A good example is this thread, where I cite three books and two articles in my OP. This stands in sharp contrast to your posts, which actually do lack evidence. Second, all of my threads are proven right every time. I readily admit I have sometimes been wrong about details and particular pieces of evidence, but my main thesis has always been right, and my more intellectually honest opponents have admitted as much. > [@](#): > > There is no evidence that “religious experiences” are anything but wishful thinking or manifest self delusion. People really don’t want to end when they die or need to feel that they have an externally imposed purpose. And some people need that so much they pretend to have god visions. It’s pathetic, but it’s perfectly understandable. Just because you want something to be true does not increase the chances of it being true. One line ago, you were attacking me for including “no evidence”. Do you have any evidence to back up any of what you say? ---
**Author:** ![lekatt](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lekatt/32/7269_2.png) [@lekatt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/lekatt)\ **Post date:** [August 5, 2009, 8:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/religious-experiences-are-not-hallucinations/505389/54 "2009-08-05T20:22:54Z")
> [@Voyager](#): > > What information? Life changing experiences, certainly, but people in non-supernatural plane crashes have them also. An out of body experience can happen to anyone who truly believes they are going to die whether they are in any danger or not. Suggest you study the subject a bit. Can guarantee you that spiritual experiences are real and clear, but the posters on this board have their minds made up. It is better to discuss these things with those who want to discuss it. ---
**Author:** ![mswas](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/e99b99/32.png) [@mswas](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mswas)\ **Post date:** [August 5, 2009, 8:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/religious-experiences-are-not-hallucinations/505389/55 "2009-08-05T20:40:07Z")
> [@Half\_Man\_Half\_Wit](#): > > He doesn’t, to the best of my recall – he asks how they are possible, and then gives a theory sketch in the form of an analogy with a game where a set of yes/no questions are arbitrarily answered according to some rule: just the same way you can get a somewhat consistent story from these questions, without that story actually needing somebody to ‘tell’ or invent it, your brain can appear to register sensory input without there actually being something generating that input, by querying the stream of data supplied by your senses (perhaps according to certain preconceptions) and getting arbitrary answers. Put another way, perception appears to work at least to some degree through the testing of hypotheses made about the ‘outside world’, these hypotheses being either confirmed or disconfirmed by the data coming in; false positives may then appear in the form of seeing things that aren’t actually there, ranging from optical illusions to full-blown hallucinations or even dreams, depending on their severity. Some external influences may lower the confirmation threshold, which rather neatly explains how drugs, for instance, can ‘generate’ hallucinations. That’s not how I understood it when I read it. I understood it to say that the mind cannot simply project a false reality over the real reality. ---
**Author:** ![ITR\_champion](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/c67d28/32.png) [@ITR\_champion](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ITR_champion)\ **Post date:** [August 5, 2009, 8:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/religious-experiences-are-not-hallucinations/505389/56 "2009-08-05T20:47:42Z")
> [@hotflungwok](#): > > Mario Beauregard only co-authored the book with Denyse O’Leary, a journalist and producer of creationist pseudoscience. You’re only looking at one part of the book, the rest is filled with anti-materialist and creationist drivel. In this, you’re flat wrong. First of all, I have read the entire book. (You obviously haven’t.) Second, the book does not contain “creationist drivel”, as evidenced by the fact that you won’t be able to quote anything from the book to back up the claim. Third, there is no reason to question the book’s reliability. Beauregard co-authored it with a journalist, but so do many scholars. The important thing is that the book is filled with small numbers called end notes, which allow you to look up the original source of anything if you disagree with it. (Fans of Dawkins may note that _his_ book has many fewer of the same, despite being the same length.) > [@](#): > > Did you even bother reading the stuff on that site? Yes, and a great deal more besides. > [@](#): > > While presented as ‘science’, the actual scientific content is sketchy at best. The first study (1985) of these visionaries was published in the illustrious and world renown journal _The Catholic Transcript_. It doesn’t seem to appear anywhere but there. In fact, it was hard to find information about these studies outside of the Medjugorje page. This study appeared to be impressed by the fact that the visionaries all managed to stare at the same spot. Being a good little science fan, you’d surely agree that the validity of a scientific conclusion rests on its content rather than on the type of person who’s making it. Hence there’s no need to respond to your attack on the _people_ writing the article. As for the content itself, you don’t seem to have much to say. The researchers investigated many lines of evidence, of which the eyeball monitors that you mentioned are only one. The key fact about the eyeball monitors was that all six visionaries moved their eyes in unison as measured to the nearest fifth of a second. This cannot be explained by any conscious plot or unconscious imitation. The only explanation that accounts for the data is if they are actually following an image. That said, do you have any reason to question the credentials of the 30+ doctors and scientists who have conducted the research at Medjugorje, or to question any of their results? ---
**Author:** ![ITR\_champion](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/c67d28/32.png) [@ITR\_champion](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ITR_champion)\ **Post date:** [August 5, 2009, 8:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/religious-experiences-are-not-hallucinations/505389/57 "2009-08-05T20:59:49Z")
> [@Revenant\_Threshold](#): > > And this would be called an analogy. Seriously, ITR, this is not an impressive point to make for you. It just seems petty. I could say your post is wrong, because Dawkins is talking about religious experiences and your OP talks about “relgious” experiences, but that’s a stupid point and would make me look like i’m scraping around for any kind of accusation I can make. Problem here: the difference between “religious” and “relgious” is trivial, while the difference between a brain and a computer is not. No aspect of the human brain makes a decent analogy with software. There is simply not set of instructions in the brain, as far as we know, saying “step 1: put this data here, step 2: put that data there, etc…” What Dawkins asserts is probably exactly the sort of thing Jules and Jaak Panskepp were referring to when they [wrote](http://www.flyfishingdevon.co.uk/salmon/year3/psy364criticisms-evolutionary-psychology/panksepp_seven_sins.pdf) that psychologists should not “talk about the brain simply as a modular computation device.” Viewing the brain as a computer is sloppy thinking that leads to incorrect results. ---
**Author:** ![fuzzypickles](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/9d8465/32.png) [@fuzzypickles](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/fuzzypickles)\ **Post date:** [August 5, 2009, 9:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/religious-experiences-are-not-hallucinations/505389/58 "2009-08-05T21:30:23Z")
> [@lekatt](#): > > An out of body experience can happen to anyone who truly believes they are going to die whether they are in any danger or not. Suggest you study the subject a bit. I’ve had an out-of-body experience, but my life was not in danger. Some idiot soccer mom backed her minivan into my car, knocking off the side-view mirror. Couldn’t replace the mirror itself, since my car’s too old and the part’s no longer made, so I had to visit three shops before finding a mechanic who could jury-rig it back into place… …wait, that was an _auto body_ experience. Never mind. 😉 ---
**Author:** ![begbert2](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/begbert2/32/3357_2.png) [@begbert2](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/begbert2)\ **Post date:** [August 5, 2009, 9:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/religious-experiences-are-not-hallucinations/505389/59 "2009-08-05T21:37:11Z")
> [@ITR\_champion](#): > > Problem here: the difference between “religious” and “relgious” is trivial, while the difference between a brain and a computer is not. No aspect of the human brain makes a decent analogy with software. There is simply not set of instructions in the brain, as far as we know, saying “step 1: put this data here, step 2: put that data there, etc…” What Dawkins asserts is probably exactly the sort of thing Jules and Jaak Panskepp were referring to when they [wrote](http://www.flyfishingdevon.co.uk/salmon/year3/psy364criticisms-evolutionary-psychology/panksepp_seven_sins.pdf) that psychologists should not “talk about the brain simply as a modular computation device.” Viewing the brain as a computer is sloppy thinking that leads to incorrect results. I disagree. Getting _overly literal_ in your analogies between silocon+metal and squishy grey matter is likely to bite you in the butt, but calling the brain “hardware” and the mind “software” is well within the range of reasonalbe analogy. All analogies deal with things with nontrivial differences - otherwise they wouldn’t be an analogy. That fact is not enough to criticize them for. ---
**Author:** ![Voyager](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/voyager/32/133_2.png) [@Voyager](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Voyager)\ **Post date:** [August 5, 2009, 10:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/religious-experiences-are-not-hallucinations/505389/60 "2009-08-05T22:04:07Z")
> [@lekatt](#): > > An out of body experience can happen to anyone who truly believes they are going to die whether they are in any danger or not. Suggest you study the subject a bit. I’ve read plenty of your evidence, and I’ve read about them for years. Now, your first sentence is interesting, and certainly seems to imply that the experiences are brought on from purely internal causes. If there was a real connection between the experiences and potential death, these people wouldn’t have any. > [@](#): > > Can guarantee you that spiritual experiences are real and clear, but the posters on this board have their minds made up. It is better to discuss these things with those who want to discuss it. Real in the sense that the person reporting the experience actually undergoes the experience - no argument. I don’t think anyone is disputing that. Real in the sense that the soul is really leaving the body - not so much. Plus plenty of people have come close to death without reporting this experience. We’ve been through all this over and over again. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/religious-experiences-are-not-hallucinations/505389.md?page=2) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/religious-experiences-are-not-hallucinations/505389.md?page=4)