# 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:** 6
**Author:** ![Miller](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/miller/32/481_2.png) [@Miller](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Miller)\ **Post date:** [August 8, 2009, 5:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/religious-experiences-are-not-hallucinations/505389/101 "2009-08-08T05:18:56Z")
> [@lekatt](#): > > Meanwhile the research on near death experiences clearly shows a separation of brain and consciousness. Considering the poster, I, for one, find this claim entirely credible. ---
**Author:** ![I\_Love\_Me\_Vol.I](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/i_love_me_vol.i/32/521_2.png) [@I\_Love\_Me\_Vol.I](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/I_Love_Me_Vol.I)\ **Post date:** [August 8, 2009, 5:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/religious-experiences-are-not-hallucinations/505389/102 "2009-08-08T05:47:30Z")
> [@Bryan\_Ekers](#): > > Or, more simply, demonstrating that neuroscience is inexact. Ha HA! By contrast, PSEUDO-science and ANTI-science (theism) are _always_ X-Acto as an art-knife. WIN!! Science is a fraud! ---
**Author:** ![Half\_Man\_Half\_Wit](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/half_man_half_wit/32/21766_2.png) [@Half\_Man\_Half\_Wit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Half_Man_Half_Wit)\ **Post date:** [August 8, 2009, 8:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/religious-experiences-are-not-hallucinations/505389/103 "2009-08-08T08:13:04Z")
> [@lekatt](#): > > OK I do understand it better, but will reserve judgement until it gets better if ever. Meanwhile the research on near death experiences clearly shows a separation of brain and consciousness. Something I have experienced. Just out of curiosity, what do you make of the various mental impairments that go along with different types of brain damage? For instance, take [split-brain](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Split-brain) patients: they’ve had their corpus callosum, the ‘bridge’ that connects the two brain hemispheres, either totally or partially removed. Now, if you show them an object in the left half of their field of vision, they are typically unable to identify it by naming it; when shown the same object in their right view field, they have no problem articulating its name. However, they _are_ able to correctly pick out the object shown to them on their left side by grabbing it from a set of models with their left hand, so they do see normally on that side; the information about what has been seen just never reaches the speech centre in the brain, so they are unable to articulate it. This sort of ‘fractured’ experience is consistent with the idea that the different brain hemispheres have different functionality, but it is somewhat hard to mesh with the idea that there is some external, presumably still unified, consciousness. [Here](http://nobelprize.org/educational_games/medicine/split-brain/splitbrainexp.html) is a little game where you get to experiment on a split-brain patient that nicely illustrates what I’ve talked about. In some extreme cases, split-brain patients may even develop something called ‘[alien hand syndrome](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alien_hand_syndrome)’, in which a hand of the patient suddenly takes on a ‘mind of its own’, and acts distinct from the patient’s conscious experience, i.e. may do things they never consciously ‘willed’ it to do. Again, this is rather simple to explain if different regions of the brain controlling different aspects of bodily movement experience a disconnect, but it’s hard to see how it should be consistent with the idea that we are controlled by one external consciousness – because, where then does the wayward hand get its orders from? ---
**Author:** ![SentientMeat](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/43a26b/32.png) [@SentientMeat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SentientMeat)\ **Post date:** [August 8, 2009, 11:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/religious-experiences-are-not-hallucinations/505389/104 "2009-08-08T11:21:31Z")
**ITR** , sorry I’m late to such an interesting and provocative thread. Other posters have cleared up some of your OP’s distracting flotsam, and I’m glad you’re able to recognise it as such. (And since it’s clear that _anyone’s_ writings can be subjected to such withering pedantry no matter how careful the writer, perhaps you might in future grant atheist writers a little more grace? Dawkins’ brush strokes may be clumsy and sloppy occasionally, but that does not justify responding with a veritable Jackson Pollocks of a thesis.) In addition, I’d agree with you that many (if not _most_, if schizophrenics are discounted) religious experiences are not hallucinations under most reasonable definitions thereof. **But that is emphatically NOT to say that they therefore originate from an external source!** A more mutually agreeable term than “hallucination” might be useful here. So what this thread is really about is whether religious experiences are: a) All natural and neuropsychological in origin b) Sometimes a) and sometimes genuinely supernatural and ‘external’ in origin c) All supernatural I would hope that you would join me in explicitly rejecting c) as a serious option. Only **lekatt** here advocates anything like it, and you may well wish to avoid being perceived as **lekatt-lite** round these parts. If so, what should we call those instances of a) in which the subject _genuinely believed they were b)_, or vice versa? “Hallucination” is, as you rightly suggest, unhelpful. Similarly, ‘delusions’ or ‘psychoses’ are unnecessarily perjorative. So how about simple _misattributions_? Here on the SDMB, many regulars have had salient, even epiphanic experiences which they attributed to either natural or supernatural causes. On one hand we have **lekatt** , who had what can only be decsribed as a Normal Dream Experience: he dreamt he was in the presence of an angel, and then he woke up. I trust that we agree that positing supernatural causes here is unnecessary, since we _all_ dream. Last night I dreamt I had murdered Richard Briers, but I didn’t wake up and immediately present myself at the local constabulary. Far more convincingly, we have **Lib** , whose Damascene epiphany occurred out of the blue while, IIRC, translating a passsage of Greek. Ever since, he has eloquently and convincingly attributed theis experience to direct divine communication with God, a b) of the highest order. As an atheist, I can accept the logical validity of this view while not accepting its soundness, _ie._ I call it a misattribution. If I had to guess, I’d say **Lib** suffered a very minor stroke somewhere in his limbic system (but note that, even so, God could have simply _caused the stroke_!) On the other hand, there are those like me and **Diogenes** , who have had experiences which theists (like me, at the time) might attribute to the supernatural, but which we instead attribute to the natural and neurophysical (myself later, only gradually as I became an atheist.) If _I_ don’t believe these ‘religious experiences’ to be supernatural, are they automatically a)'s, or am I misattributing them as such - they were really ‘God knocking but not being let in’? The only way we can get a handle on judging these things correctly is by _evidence_ (and even then, as with **Lib** ’s possible stroke, a dead-to-rights physical correlation might still not be a sole _cause_). Strangely enough, this process actually constitutes _scientific tests of religion_, which you objected to even in principle in [this thread](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=461559). So what constitutes evidence of an external cause here? Well, not EEG readings, that’s for sure - they are an extremely crude means of assessing cognitive function, and your nun story’s conclusions were laughably unjustified. A full fMRI scan experiment might be useful, but I’m unaware of any such results just yet. Other evidence comes in the form of predicting events. However, note that you are edging a _long_ way along **lekatt** ’s outlying limb by presenting such. The best he has ever managed is some [hospital anecdotes](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=461559) from the Lancet, which could easily have come from auditory information from the operating theatre being incorporated in a dream. And foreseeing the breakup of Yugoslavia in the 80’s was not difficult - a bus tour guide in Porec told me much the same, but I didn’t hail him as the new Nostradamus. So what would consitute _strong, convincing_ evidence of supernaturality? I don’t think brain imaging ever will, frankly: One would always argue that these episodes sprang _solely_ from the brain activity. That leaves prognostication. Yes, if someone could predict specific events consistently enough (enough to say, make a quick fortune betting on politics or sport, as a true seer easily could), I’d accept that a new Nobel Prize might be in order. However, since the entire history of humanity has not yet seen such a financially lucrative ability exploited by anyone (indeed, Thales and his olive presses showed that _science_ is our way of reliably predicting the future, not pseudoscience), I won’t be holding my breath. We thus come to the key question: **ITR** , given the advances of both brain-imaging and recording people’s prediction (_ie._ the internet), do you believe that ever more convincing evidence of external, supernatural causes for religious experiences willaccumulate in your lifetime, or will such evidence continue to remain conspicuous by its absence? ---
**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 8, 2009, 11:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/religious-experiences-are-not-hallucinations/505389/105 "2009-08-08T11:37:42Z")
> [@Half\_Man\_Half\_Wit](#): > > Just out of curiosity, what do you make of the various mental impairments that go along with different types of brain damage? For instance, take [split-brain](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Split-brain) patients: they’ve had their corpus callosum, the ‘bridge’ that connects the two brain hemispheres, either totally or partially removed. Now, if you show them an object in the left half of their field of vision, they are typically unable to identify it by naming it; when shown the same object in their right view field, they have no problem articulating its name. However, they _are_ able to correctly pick out the object shown to them on their left side by grabbing it from a set of models with their left hand, so they do see normally on that side; the information about what has been seen just never reaches the speech centre in the brain, so they are unable to articulate it. This sort of ‘fractured’ experience is consistent with the idea that the different brain hemispheres have different functionality, but it is somewhat hard to mesh with the idea that there is some external, presumably still unified, consciousness. [Here](http://nobelprize.org/educational_games/medicine/split-brain/splitbrainexp.html) is a little game where you get to experiment on a split-brain patient that nicely illustrates what I’ve talked about. > > In some extreme cases, split-brain patients may even develop something called ‘[alien hand syndrome](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alien_hand_syndrome)’, in which a hand of the patient suddenly takes on a ‘mind of its own’, and acts distinct from the patient’s conscious experience, i.e. may do things they never consciously ‘willed’ it to do. Again, this is rather simple to explain if different regions of the brain controlling different aspects of bodily movement experience a disconnect, but it’s hard to see how it should be consistent with the idea that we are controlled by one external consciousness – because, where then does the wayward hand get its orders from? I can best explain what you ask with a link to a small article I wrote on the subject that has become popular on the net. > **[The Magic Brain - Lekatt Thoughtful Living](https://aleroy.com/blog/archives/298/the-magic-brain)** > > The brain has been studied by researchers for over 100 years looking for consciousness. I know I am conscious, aware of myself, and my surroundings. I believe my consciousness would need ---
**Author:** ![Czarcasm](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/czarcasm/32/4050_2.png) [@Czarcasm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Czarcasm)\ **Post date:** [August 8, 2009, 1:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/religious-experiences-are-not-hallucinations/505389/106 "2009-08-08T13:05:46Z")
> [@lekatt](#): > > I can best explain what you ask with a link to a small article I wrote on the subject that has become popular on the net. > > [The Magic Brain - Lekatt Thoughtful Living](http://www.aleroy.com/blog/?p=298) An opinion piece based on conjecture and wishes. Useless. ---
**Author:** ![Half\_Man\_Half\_Wit](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/half_man_half_wit/32/21766_2.png) [@Half\_Man\_Half\_Wit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Half_Man_Half_Wit)\ **Post date:** [August 8, 2009, 1:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/religious-experiences-are-not-hallucinations/505389/107 "2009-08-08T13:59:42Z")
> [@lekatt](#): > > I can best explain what you ask with a link to a small article I wrote on the subject that has become popular on the net. > > [The Magic Brain - Lekatt Thoughtful Living](http://www.aleroy.com/blog/?p=298) Unfortunately, nothing in this text appears to answer my questions; indeed, the postulate of a – as you call it – ‘director’ that is responsible for my conscious experience and controls my actions only serves to highlight the dilemma I was proposing. The director can’t both know and not know what the proband has seen; he can’t both control and not control the alien hand. Also, you seem to claim that there is an ever-present nugget of “I” or self, which isn’t affected by physical or mental damage; that people always know they _are_, that they always know that they are themselves, and that they are separate from each other. I don’t think that’s actually true – for instance, consider the case of Dr. Jill Bolte Taylor, who, after losing her ‘inner monologue’ due to a stroke, professed to experience “(1) an inability to identify her own physical boundaries, (2) a loss of sense of individuality, (3) difficulties with retrieval of autobiographical memories, and (4) a lack of self-conscious emotions”, and also claimed that she “had lost [her] left hemisphere consciousness containing [her] ego center and ability to see [her] self as a single and solid entity separate from you” (both quotes from [here](http://www2.mtroyal.ab.ca/~amorin/Stroke.pdf) – PDF). You also write that “brain research has revealed no […] physical memory, thoughts, beliefs, or emotions”. As for beliefs and emotions, I don’t really consider them separate from thoughts, and I think I have shown credible evidence for them occurring in the physical brain; and as for memories, I think the case is even more clear cut: using a very clever procedure that makes specific cells, and only them, susceptible to a toxin, scientists are able to erase specific memories by selectively [killing off neurons](http://scienceblogs.com/neurotopia/2009/03/erasing_memory_one_neuron_at_a.php). If that isn’t evidence for memory being stored in the physical substrate of the brain, I don’t know what is – it’s pretty much the same thing that happens when you erase data from a hard drive. ---
**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 8, 2009, 2:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/religious-experiences-are-not-hallucinations/505389/108 "2009-08-08T14:09:48Z")
> [@Half\_Man\_Half\_Wit](#): > > Unfortunately, nothing in this text appears to answer my questions; indeed, the postulate of a – as you call it – ‘director’ that is responsible for my conscious experience and controls my actions only serves to highlight the dilemma I was proposing. The director can’t both know and not know what the proband has seen; he can’t both control and not control the alien hand. > > Also, you seem to claim that there is an ever-present nugget of “I” or self, which isn’t affected by physical or mental damage; that people always know they _are_, that they always know that they are themselves, and that they are separate from each other. I don’t think that’s actually true – for instance, consider the case of Dr. Jill Bolte Taylor, who, after losing her ‘inner monologue’ due to a stroke, professed to experience “(1) an inability to identify her own physical boundaries, (2) a loss of sense of individuality, (3) difficulties with retrieval of autobiographical memories, and (4) a lack of self-conscious emotions”, and also claimed that she “had lost [her] left hemisphere consciousness containing [her] ego center and ability to see [her] self as a single and solid entity separate from you” (both quotes from [here](http://www2.mtroyal.ab.ca/~amorin/Stroke.pdf) – PDF). > > You also write that “brain research has revealed no […] physical memory, thoughts, beliefs, or emotions”. As for beliefs and emotions, I don’t really consider them separate from thoughts, and I think I have shown credible evidence for them occurring in the physical brain; and as for memories, I think the case is even more clear cut: using a very clever procedure that makes specific cells, and only them, susceptible to a toxin, scientists are able to erase specific memories by selectively [killing off neurons](http://scienceblogs.com/neurotopia/2009/03/erasing_memory_one_neuron_at_a.php). If that isn’t evidence for memory being stored in the physical substrate of the brain, I don’t know what is – it’s pretty much the same thing that happens when you erase data from a hard drive. Don’t know what you mean in the first paragraph. As for Jill I have watched her video many times and don’t remember any time she lost her sense of individuality. She always knew who she was but may have felt part of the whole which is common in near death experiences. The rest of what you say is just a damaged brain that can no longer pass the correct signals to or from the director. You see when one leaves the body at death as Pam Reynolds did the consciousness is whole and complete with all memory and knowledge of self. This has been illustrated by research on near death experiences for 30 years now. Scientists can look forever in the brain, but consciousness is not a part of it. ---
**Author:** ![Half\_Man\_Half\_Wit](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/half_man_half_wit/32/21766_2.png) [@Half\_Man\_Half\_Wit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Half_Man_Half_Wit)\ **Post date:** [August 8, 2009, 3:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/religious-experiences-are-not-hallucinations/505389/109 "2009-08-08T15:25:18Z")
> [@lekatt](#): > > Don’t know what you mean in the first paragraph. You should really try and have a go at the game I linked to, it explains things far more evocatively than I could here. But for another try, let’s pretend we can look at things from the subjective perspective of such a patient: “I am shown a picture of something in my right field of vision. I see it, and I recognize it as the picture of a cat. I know I have seen a cat, and I say: ‘it’s a cat!’” According to your ‘director’ picture, this essentially means that the data of what is seen is passed to the director, who then knows that a cat has been seen (which is tantamount to saying that _I_ know that I’ve seen a cat) and can direct the vocal apparatus to produce a speech act to that effect; no problem so far. “I am now shown a picture of something in my left field of vision; I only know that because the sound that indicates that a picture is shown to me is played. I am not aware, in fact, of anything being shown in my left field of vision.” This, too, is easy: the line to the director is scrambled; he doesn’t get informed of what the eye – which is functioning physically normal – sees. He doesn’t know that anything was shown to the proband, and thus, _I_ don’t know that I’ve seen anything. “I am asked to grab an object representing what I have just been shown. Then something strange happens, as I find my left hand suddenly filled with an object I don’t know that I have seen before; I also don’t know why I grabbed that object and not a different one. I am informed that it is in fact the object I have just been shown.” This is where it gets problematic: we have established that the director doesn’t know what the proband has seen; but then, how could he direct the hand to grab the correct object? A scrambled signal doesn’t account for that; the director must either know or not. Things get even harder for the director when thinking about the inner world of an alien hand syndrome patient (I’m relying on a case cited in the [wiki article](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alien_hand_syndrome) for this one): “I decide to smoke a cigarette, so I take one out of my pack and put it into my mouth.” Or the director does it – no conflicts here. “Now, I want to light the cigarette. This is my intention:” – and hence, the directors intention – “lift the right hand, flick the lighter, light the cigarette.” “Then, without a voluntary impulse on my part, my left hand comes up. I can’t control it, can’t stop it, what it does is entirely removed from my ability to consciously intervene. It takes the cigarette out of my mouth and throws it away.” Here, we run into problems with the director hypothesis: does he both want and not want for the patient to smoke? Often, alien hand patients are seen to ‘wrestle’ with their alienated limbs – so, if it is the director’s intention to stop the movement of the wayward part, and he as a single entity is in control of that part, why can’t he just stop moving it? Give it different orders? Again, this isn’t just a scrambled line, because the alien hand’s movements show clear signs of intentionality; surely, the best one could hope for when the signal doesn’t get through clear enough would be random movements. To think otherwise would be analogous to expecting the TV to show a wholly different show just because the reception is bad, instead of static. > [@](#): > > As for Jill I have watched her video many times and don’t remember any time she lost her sense of individuality. She always knew who she was but may have felt part of the whole which is common in near death experiences. And yet, what I cited above were her own words, as are these (from the same article, in turn quoted from her book _My Stroke of Insight_): [QUOTE=Dr. Jill Bolte Taylor] Without a language center telling me: ‘I am Dr. Jill Bolte Taylor. I am a neuroanatomist. I live at this address and can be reached at this phone number,’ I felt no obligation to being her anymore. It was truly a bizarre shift in perception, but without her emotional circuitry reminding me of her likes and dislikes, of her ego center reminding me about her patterns of critical judgment, I didn’t think like her anymore. From a practical perspective, considering the amount of biological damage, being her again wasn’t even an option! In my mind, in my new perspective, that Dr. Jill Bolte Taylor died that morning and no longer existed. […] One of the jobs of our left hemisphere language centers is to define our self by saying ‘‘I am.” Through the use of brain chatter, your brain repeats over and over again the details of your life so you can remember them. It is the home of your ego center, which provides you with an internal awareness of what your name is, what your credentials are, and where you live. Without these cells performing their job, you would forget who you are and lose track of your life and your identity. (p. 32) Through the use of brain chatter, it not only keeps me abreast of my life, but also manifests my identity. Via my left brain language center’s ability to say ‘‘I am,” I become an independent entity separate from the eternal flow. As such, I become a single, solid, separate from the whole. (p. 142, italics added). [/QUOTE] > [@lekatt](#): > > Scientists can look forever in the brain, but consciousness is not a part of it. Actually, at least some scientists believe that they’ve already [found it just there](http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn16775-consciousness-signature-discovered-spanning-the-brain.html). ---
**Author:** ![monavis](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/e0b2c6/32.png) [@monavis](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/monavis)\ **Post date:** [August 8, 2009, 5:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/religious-experiences-are-not-hallucinations/505389/110 "2009-08-08T17:14:09Z")
There is also the probability of Self Hypnosis. If one wants something “to be” bad enough, he or she can possibly be Self Hypontizing themselves without the realization of dong so. If one is seeing something all others cannot see it is in their own minds. There is also such a thing as mass hyponsis. ---
**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 8, 2009, 6:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/religious-experiences-are-not-hallucinations/505389/111 "2009-08-08T18:14:04Z")
> [@Half\_Man\_Half\_Wit](#): > > You should really try and have a go at the game I linked to, it explains things far more evocatively than I could here. But for another try, let’s pretend we can look at things from the subjective perspective of such a patient: > > “I am shown a picture of something in my right field of vision. I see it, and I recognize it as the picture of a cat. I know I have seen a cat, and I say: ‘it’s a cat!’” According to your ‘director’ picture, this essentially means that the data of what is seen is passed to the director, who then knows that a cat has been seen (which is tantamount to saying that _I_ know that I’ve seen a cat) and can direct the vocal apparatus to produce a speech act to that effect; no problem so far. > > “I am now shown a picture of something in my left field of vision; I only know that because the sound that indicates that a picture is shown to me is played. I am not aware, in fact, of anything being shown in my left field of vision.” This, too, is easy: the line to the director is scrambled; he doesn’t get informed of what the eye – which is functioning physically normal – sees. He doesn’t know that anything was shown to the proband, and thus, _I_ don’t know that I’ve seen anything. > > “I am asked to grab an object representing what I have just been shown. Then something strange happens, as I find my left hand suddenly filled with an object I don’t know that I have seen before; I also don’t know why I grabbed that object and not a different one. I am informed that it is in fact the object I have just been shown.” This is where it gets problematic: we have established that the director doesn’t know what the proband has seen; but then, how could he direct the hand to grab the correct object? A scrambled signal doesn’t account for that; the director must either know or not. > > Things get even harder for the director when thinking about the inner world of an alien hand syndrome patient (I’m relying on a case cited in the [wiki article](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alien_hand_syndrome) for this one): > > “I decide to smoke a cigarette, so I take one out of my pack and put it into my mouth.” Or the director does it – no conflicts here. > > “Now, I want to light the cigarette. This is my intention:” – and hence, the directors intention – “lift the right hand, flick the lighter, light the cigarette.” > > “Then, without a voluntary impulse on my part, my left hand comes up. I can’t control it, can’t stop it, what it does is entirely removed from my ability to consciously intervene. It takes the cigarette out of my mouth and throws it away.” Here, we run into problems with the director hypothesis: does he both want and not want for the patient to smoke? Often, alien hand patients are seen to ‘wrestle’ with their alienated limbs – so, if it is the director’s intention to stop the movement of the wayward part, and he as a single entity is in control of that part, why can’t he just stop moving it? Give it different orders? Again, this isn’t just a scrambled line, because the alien hand’s movements show clear signs of intentionality; surely, the best one could hope for when the signal doesn’t get through clear enough would be random movements. To think otherwise would be analogous to expecting the TV to show a wholly different show just because the reception is bad, instead of static. > > And yet, what I cited above were her own words, as are these (from the same article, in turn quoted from her book _My Stroke of Insight_): > > Actually, at least some scientists believe that they’ve already [found it just there](http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn16775-consciousness-signature-discovered-spanning-the-brain.html). I am not sure what you are doing at the first of the post or why you think think things might happen that way. if you are driving a car, the car takes no action without you initiating it, just as the body takes no action without an intention or thought being first. I don’t see how what you are taking about could possibly happen. Most people believe they are their bodies and the action of the director is the action of the body. You are the director having a physical life for the purpose of learning. Now Jill’s experience is a common one for near death experiencers. It is the knowledge of yourself and who you really are. True, I am not Lekatt, nor am I 72 years old, nor am I a body, etc. I am a spiritual being having a physical experience for the purpose of learning. I learned that in my experience when all the things I am not were stripped from my consciousness. It took me over three years to integrate myself back into the physical. You are not a body, name, job, etc either. How do you know what you are not? By changing someone about yourself and see if you are still you. You can change your name, occupation, hobbies, family, beliefs (very important), thoughts, emotions, habits, etc. and you would still be you and everyone would still recognize you are you. Now we are getting somewhere in understand who we really are. Questions? ---
**Author:** ![sqweels](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/f19dbf/32.png) [@sqweels](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/sqweels)\ **Post date:** [August 8, 2009, 6:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/religious-experiences-are-not-hallucinations/505389/112 "2009-08-08T18:16:32Z")
I, for one, took LSD entirely unsuspecting that it had anything to do with religion. After the standard-issue ending-of-_2001_ kaleidoscopics, I was assaulted by evil-looking dragons, snakes, and gargoyles. At first they were trying to scare me, but then it’s like they were trying to _tempt_ me, like to sell my soul or use the Force or something. Responding with aggression only makes them more aggressive, but something reminded me of Jesus, and suddenly I found myself kneeling before the crucifixion. I got the idea that in order to follow through, I needed to express a willingness to be crucified myself. Having passed that test, a bright Tunnel of Light appeared, like at the end of _Tron_, and I felt as if I had been “born again”. I still believe in evolution, but it’s hard to explain this scientifically. Maybe instinctive memories of dangerous reptiles got expressed in ancient culture and these cultural expressions became part of the psyche. But Whoever was putting me through this initiation sequence was a lot smarter than I am, because it was all I could do to keep up. ---
**Author:** ![fuzzypickles](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/9d8465/32.png) [@fuzzypickles](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/fuzzypickles)\ **Post date:** [August 8, 2009, 7:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/religious-experiences-are-not-hallucinations/505389/113 "2009-08-08T19:18:09Z")
> [@sqweels](#): > > I, for one, took LSD entirely unsuspecting that it had anything to do with religion. After the standard-issue ending-of-_2001_ kaleidoscopics, I was assaulted by evil-looking dragons, snakes, and gargoyles. At first they were trying to scare me, but then it’s like they were trying to _tempt_ me, like to sell my soul or use the Force or something. > > Responding with aggression only makes them more aggressive, but something reminded me of Jesus, and suddenly I found myself kneeling before the crucifixion. I got the idea that in order to follow through, I needed to express a willingness to be crucified myself. Having passed that test, a bright Tunnel of Light appeared, like at the end of _Tron_, and I felt as if I had been “born again”. It’s my understanding that LSD mimicks a schizophrenic episode. While it’s nice that you were able to sublimate your temporary delusion into something positive, you could have just as easily jumped off a building in an attempt to fly, or attacked the people around you (the ones who appeared as dragons and snakes to you, I presume) or, even worse, triggered an underlying condition which would have made you permanently schizophrenic. Brain chemistry is a perilous thing to mess around with, and should be reserved for licensed professionals, such as psychiatrists. That’s not to say I discount mystical experiences in general. But when you add illegal drugs to the mix, it becomes a perilous journey. ---
**Author:** ![SentientMeat](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/43a26b/32.png) [@SentientMeat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SentientMeat)\ **Post date:** [August 8, 2009, 7:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/religious-experiences-are-not-hallucinations/505389/114 "2009-08-08T19:42:26Z")
> [@sqweels](#): > > But Whoever was putting me through this initiation sequence was a lot smarter than I am, because it was all I could do to keep up. Maybe you just don’t know your own strength. I’ve laughed at a new, funny joke in a dream. How _weird_ is that? ---
**Author:** ![sqweels](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/f19dbf/32.png) [@sqweels](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/sqweels)\ **Post date:** [August 8, 2009, 9:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/religious-experiences-are-not-hallucinations/505389/115 "2009-08-08T21:58:01Z")
> [@fuzzypickles](#): > > It’s my understanding that LSD mimicks a schizophrenic episode. While it’s nice that you were able to sublimate your temporary delusion into something positive, you could have just as easily jumped off a building in an attempt to fly, or attacked the people around you (the ones who appeared as dragons and snakes to you, I presume) or, even worse, triggered an underlying condition which would have made you permanently schizophrenic. Brain chemistry is a perilous thing to mess around with, and should be reserved for licensed professionals, such as psychiatrists. > > That’s not to say I discount mystical experiences in general. But when you add illegal drugs to the mix, it becomes a perilous journey. Mind you this was back in the 80s. That stuff is virtually unobtainable these days. And I was never given to flights of irrational physical behavior (ludicrous psychobabble on the other hand…). And I remain a pretty sharp cookie if I must say. But I’m trying to avoid expressing firm religious conclusions. More firm I am in concluding that these sorts of experiences, whether drug-induced or not, are the foundation of most religions. Much of the imagery is reminiscent of various ancient or foreign cultures, but there is a moral dimension to it and a phased scenario. It’s not so much people or objects turning into dragons, it’s a vivid tableau of monstrous imagery, with resolution and detail rivaled only by modern video games, all of it lunging at you with gaping maws, or sometimes snickering at you. It’s way cool, but after a while it gets tiresome and you want to see some more of that beautiful stuff you saw earlier. But in order to make it do that you have to become a better person. You have to dredge something up out of, well… your soul and vow not to be so selfish and aggressive. You have to own up to the reptilian side of your nature because that’s what you’re looking at; that’s what you’re being confronted with. (It also seems apparent that _instincts_–like from back in evolution–are in play here.) But I’m tellin’ ya, thinking about Jesus works like a charm. So if nothing else, Jesus is a program that can re-orient your trip back to the Light Side. ---
**Author:** ![Half\_Man\_Half\_Wit](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/half_man_half_wit/32/21766_2.png) [@Half\_Man\_Half\_Wit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Half_Man_Half_Wit)\ **Post date:** [August 9, 2009, 1:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/religious-experiences-are-not-hallucinations/505389/116 "2009-08-09T13:18:28Z")
> [@lekatt](#): > > I am not sure what you are doing at the first of the post or why you think think things might happen that way. if you are driving a car, the car takes no action without you initiating it, just as the body takes no action without an intention or thought being first. I don’t see how what you are taking about could possibly happen. Yes, if there was a director, it couldn’t happen that way, that’s true. The problem now is that it _does_ happen just like I said: [here](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZMLzP1VCANo) is a video of a split-brain patient undergoing various vision experiments, where in particular he is shown to be able to draw what he doesn’t know that he saw, and [here](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p9Glq9SVSxQ) is one about alien hands, featuring a case where one patient nearly had an accident because their not-consciously-controlled hand tried to grab the steering wheel of her car. So, the phenomenological accounts that I gave above are, while hypothetical, well sourced, I believe. There is no director. As for the car driving analogy, I have illustrated the problem with that earlier – there does not seem to be a way in which the non-physical can influence the physical and retain being considered ‘non-physical’ in any meaningful way. A spiritual being could not turn the wheel, so to speak, for to do so, it would have to interact physically; and that is equivalent to saying that it _is_ physical. > [@](#): > > Now Jill’s experience is a common one for near death experiencers. Of which she isn’t one, however. > [@](#): > > It is the knowledge of yourself and who you really are. That knowledge – according to her own account – is exactly what she lost. She could not form the thought ‘I am Jill’, or even the thought ‘I am’ anymore. > [@](#): > > How do you know what you are not? By changing someone about yourself and see if you are still you. You can change your name, occupation, hobbies, family, beliefs (very important), thoughts, emotions, habits, etc. and you would still be you and everyone would still recognize you are you. Now we are getting somewhere in understand who we really are. You can’t change your brain, and if it is damaged, it is _you_ who is being damaged. You are your brain, then. > [@SentientMeat](#): > > I’ve laughed at a new, funny joke in a dream. How _weird_ is that? Do you remember the joke? ---
**Author:** ![PlainJain](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/5daacb/32.png) [@PlainJain](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/PlainJain)\ **Post date:** [August 9, 2009, 2:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/religious-experiences-are-not-hallucinations/505389/117 "2009-08-09T14:24:18Z")
> [@sqweels](#): > > I, for one, took LSD entirely unsuspecting that it had anything to do with religion. After the standard-issue ending-of-_2001_ kaleidoscopics, I was assaulted by evil-looking dragons, snakes, and gargoyles. At first they were trying to scare me, but then it’s like they were trying to _tempt_ me, like to sell my soul or use the Force or something. > > Responding with aggression only makes them more aggressive, but something reminded me of Jesus, and suddenly I found myself kneeling before the crucifixion. I got the idea that in order to follow through, I needed to express a willingness to be crucified myself. Having passed that test, a bright Tunnel of Light appeared, like at the end of _Tron_, and I felt as if I had been “born again”. You mind was twisting imagery you were already aware of. If LSD could bring up visions of jesus and crucifixions in someone not familiar with them, then you would have a better case. ---
**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 9, 2009, 3:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/religious-experiences-are-not-hallucinations/505389/118 "2009-08-09T15:15:34Z")
> [@Half\_Man\_Half\_Wit](#): > > Yes, if there was a director, it couldn’t happen that way, that’s true. The problem now is that it _does_ happen just like I said: [here](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZMLzP1VCANo) is a video of a split-brain patient undergoing various vision experiments, where in particular he is shown to be able to draw what he doesn’t know that he saw, and [here](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p9Glq9SVSxQ) is one about alien hands, featuring a case where one patient nearly had an accident because their not-consciously-controlled hand tried to grab the steering wheel of her car. So, the phenomenological accounts that I gave above are, while hypothetical, well sourced, I believe. There is no director. > > As for the car driving analogy, I have illustrated the problem with that earlier – there does not seem to be a way in which the non-physical can influence the physical and retain being considered ‘non-physical’ in any meaningful way. A spiritual being could not turn the wheel, so to speak, for to do so, it would have to interact physically; and that is equivalent to saying that it _is_ physical. > Of which she isn’t one, however. > That knowledge – according to her own account – is exactly what she lost. She could not form the thought ‘I am Jill’, or even the thought ‘I am’ anymore. > You can’t change your brain, and if it is damaged, it is _you_ who is being damaged. You are your brain, then. > Do you remember the joke? OK You didn’t understand what I was saying because you have not experienced the separation of spirit (director) and body as so many have. Perhaps sometime later. we still have the research of thirty universities showing there is separation. Guess it will take more time for people to understand they are not a brain. That the lesser doesn’t create the greater. That being spiritual is right in front of you at all times. ---
**Author:** ![Half\_Man\_Half\_Wit](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/half_man_half_wit/32/21766_2.png) [@Half\_Man\_Half\_Wit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Half_Man_Half_Wit)\ **Post date:** [August 10, 2009, 11:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/religious-experiences-are-not-hallucinations/505389/119 "2009-08-10T11:25:26Z")
> [@lekatt](#): > > OK You didn’t understand what I was saying because you have not experienced the separation of spirit (director) and body as so many have. Perhaps sometime later. we still have the research of thirty universities showing there is separation. Guess it will take more time for people to understand they are not a brain. That the lesser doesn’t create the greater. That being spiritual is right in front of you at all times. The good old Argument from Arrogance: “you just disagree with me because you don’t understand. I hold Special Knowledge concealed from you.” The problem with that is, if you wish to apply it to my views, you must equally apply it to yours: it might be the case that I possess some understanding that explains how _your_ special knowledge is faulty, and merely a distortion of the way things actually are. But of course, you may be right, and I might just not know what I’m talking about – it’s a possibility I make sure to often stop and reconsider; because whenever you’re proven wrong, you have gained more knowledge about the world. So, in acknowledging the possibility of being mistaken, I can only benefit myself and my understanding – and the same goes for you. Out of curiosity, do you ever stop and do that? Ask yourself, ‘what if I’m wrong?’ Think about the possibility that there may be more than one explanation for your experiences, and then humbly accept that yours may not be the right one? Because, from your lack of answers to most of the points I raised in this thread, it appears that you simply ignore that which does not fit your preconceptions. Perhaps, if I may be so bold, you should try to keep a more open mind. ---
**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 10, 2009, 11:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/religious-experiences-are-not-hallucinations/505389/120 "2009-08-10T11:52:28Z")
> [@Half\_Man\_Half\_Wit](#): > > The good old Argument from Arrogance: “you just disagree with me because you don’t understand. I hold Special Knowledge concealed from you.” The problem with that is, if you wish to apply it to my views, you must equally apply it to yours: it might be the case that I possess some understanding that explains how _your_ special knowledge is faulty, and merely a distortion of the way things actually are. > > But of course, you may be right, and I might just not know what I’m talking about – it’s a possibility I make sure to often stop and reconsider; because whenever you’re proven wrong, you have gained more knowledge about the world. So, in acknowledging the possibility of being mistaken, I can only benefit myself and my understanding – and the same goes for you. Out of curiosity, do you ever stop and do that? Ask yourself, ‘what if I’m wrong?’ Think about the possibility that there may be more than one explanation for your experiences, and then humbly accept that yours may not be the right one? Because, from your lack of answers to most of the points I raised in this thread, it appears that you simply ignore that which does not fit your preconceptions. Perhaps, if I may be so bold, you should try to keep a more open mind. Yes, I was only relating that I and millions of others have experienced being out of body, separated from our bodies and feeling fine. It is something you don’t forget or get wrong, any more than your other experiences. Awareness and comprehension is expanded, you see more and understand more. It is not something I asked for or planned for, it just happened as it happens to thousands of others every day. It’s really not something new. People have known about their spiritual natures for thousands of years and you can read about it all throughout history. I can’t call it something else because it isn’t something else. So if that makes me seem arrogant to you, I can’t help it. I know what I saw and felt and now we have good research to back it up. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/religious-experiences-are-not-hallucinations/505389.md?page=5) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/religious-experiences-are-not-hallucinations/505389.md?page=7)