What could this be?

Factual Questions
1

All through my life, I’ve had a few things that has always struck me as weird. A few years ago, I posted what I was feeling in the psychic folder and they told me I possessed psychic ability. I have told my experiences (to a much lesser extent) to my friends on the internet, they tell me that I am either lying or dillusional.

After reading Cecil’s postings on various issues and looking at the sheer enormity of the people who post here. I am hoping that someone can shed light on what I am experiencing…

I suppose this all started when I was around four years old. I remember having a series of redundant dreams, they consisted of differing brilliant colors, cept they weren’t so brilliant. They were dull, yet brilliant, it’s hard to explain. The best I can try to explain it was the colors used in the 70’s.

The colors were tiny pulsating balls, they look exactly like the static on a television set. They would swirl, coalesce, expand, explode in the dreams I had. As a child, I hated these dreams because they were boring and they seemed to last forever. Eventually, these dreams ended and I soon I took note of something different about the world about me.

I found myself looking at this ‘static’ around me. I saw it everywhere, when I close my eyes, when I opened them, even in pitch darkness. When I stare at them, their light gets intense and I end up seeing ‘sunspots’ after turning my head. I would ask my mother and my family did they see these things, I would spend hours trying to tell my Aunt (She was the only one who took me seriously at that age) what I was seeing but she was just as fustrated as I was since she simply couldn’t comprehend what I was seeing. After awhile, I figured that I was the only one who can see this ‘static’.

As I said, they look pretty much like the static on a television set except with varying coloring tint. When I look around, I see them everywhere, on the keyboard, the monitor, it is everywhere around me. When I was a around 10 or so, I used to think I was a super hero, because I could hold on a finger and see the static emanate from it. Oddly enough, it doesn’t hinder my vision nor does it enhance it. I can see them, but their transparent so to speak – again it’s hard for me to explain some of this.

The second part of this started when I was a teenager. When I would experience great emotion (Anger, being afraid, etc etc) I would get the sensation of my hair standing on end. A slight tingle would be at the back of my neck, then race across my upper torso and arms, leaving my hair standing on end, finally being punctuated by a violent shudder. The shuddering go so bad, that I would actually jerk my arms back. I would always say to myself, that it was like being hugged by a ghost.

As time progressed, I learned that closing my eyes and breathing deeply when I felt the first tingle would greatly minimize the shuddering. Still, the sensation of my hair standing on end along with the feeling of coldness still is there.

A few years ago, I found that I could this initiate the ‘tingle’ myself. By closing my eyes, inhaling, holding my breath for a moment, then exhaling very slowly. When I so, I don’t shudder, and I quite literally feel as if I am cleansing myself.

I hope that describes it. Below is a reply from a person that tried to help me and give me some information. She seemed very nice, I am just hoping someone could give me some clue to what I am experiencing. Personally, I am inclined to believe her, but I am looking for a second opinion.

Thanks!

Brian

Subject: Re: Can anyone explain?
Date: Wed, 11 August 1999 03:00 PM EDT
From: WingdWolf2
Message-id: <19990811150002.02927.00000069@ngol03.aol.com>

In article <19990811100412.21256.00000304@ng-ce1.aol.com>, dhidow@aol.com (Dhidow) writes:

>Sort of like I was a super hero zapping things with my super powers. Till
>this very day, its [The static light I described] is everywhere. I see it at
>night, I see it in the day time, oddly enough it doesn’t hinder my vision but
>rather translucent. It doesn’t bother me, but I would like to know what it
>is. Does anyone know? <looks hopeful>

It’s a type of energy which hasn’t yet been mechanically detected, but it is related to biomagnetism. The age you began seeing this is pretty typical, and the capability is most likely genetic. The portion of your brain that allows this may be related to the electric sensing of sharks and the magnetic sensing of birds and sea turtles. You aren’t really seeing these things with your eyes–your mind is simply interpreting them as visual images.

> Lastly, I guess I have another problem. When I figured out that I was gay,
>I remember having a disturbing sensation. My whole upper body would feel
>tingly, hairs standing on end, just as a surge of energy would rush from the
>middle of my back to the nap of my neck. This would almost all of the time,
>make my whole body jerk and shudder momentarily. At that time, I would often
>describe it to myself as a ghostly being giving me a hug. As the years
>progressed, the shuddering became less severe but I noticed when I would feel
>this sensation:

An energy surge–this could be related to your body’s ability to produce the energy described above in greater quantities than most people do. The nerve spasm–which caused your body to jerk–was caused by the stimulation to those nerves causing them to fire all at once, and triggering your muscles to contract. It’s a very common side-effect/symptom. It may also be in reaction to an increase in energy around you, that your nerves respond to. (A
spirit entity can cause this as well).

>1) When watching a suspense/drama movie. I specifically remember getting
>this sensation during ‘Ghost’ and ‘Deep Impact’
>2) When my emotions change drastically.
>3) Thinking of a disturbing/happy moment from my past
>4) When hearing about a person getting hurt/killed injustly

Whenever your nervous system activity increased markedly, in other words. :wink:

> Those are all that come to mind right now, but it seems so much more. I can
>also attempt to do it myself by closing my eyes, clearing my mind, and
>breathing deeply – Although I’m not always successful. Is this normal? I
>try explaining to friends and they look at me as if I were completely out of
>my mind.
>
>~ Brian

It is normal for your genotype, if not common. It does mean that you psychic, but that should not conjure up images of old ladies in turbans hovering over crystal balls, or sparkly-eyed crystal-wearing newagers with long painted nails who talk about love and light all the time. <g>

Somewhere around 10% of the population is born-psi, and about 10% of those are “born-on”, having instinctive use of psi-abilities as well as having them innate. I would guess you are in the latter catagory, basedo on the age your abilities awakened, and that energy-manipulation and perception is your primary aspect. In other words, you perceive auras, and you can also manipulate them. There is a great deal more you can do, if you care to learn. I
recommend you at least learn some self-defense, for you may be vulnerable to some things others wouldn’t be vulnerable to, simply because of your sensitivity to them.

So the real answer to your question is, yes–you are weird. But, you are not alone. :wink: Also, if you do ever have children (hey, the parental instinct might kick in sometime), they are likely to inherit these traits.
–Winged Wolf the were/psion

2

Honesty:

Be careful, you’re going to get ripped to shreds by the scientific rationalists on this board, by whom any belief in anything they can’t explain scientifically is scoffed at and scorned. It’s the price we pay for having a diversity of opinions, I suppose.

Me? I’m a pagan, so it ill behooves me to scoff at this sort of phenomenon, but I’m afraid I don’t have enough experience with either unusual sensory phenomena or with human physiology to be able to tell you what you are experiencing.

At any rate, I can help you by telling you the words for what you are seeing. A sensation of light which is not caused by actual light is called a phosphene; the someone-walked-over-my-grave feeling is called a frisson.

Most people can see phosphenes at will (by pressing on their eyeballs) and feel frissons occasionally; I admit it’s certainly unusual for it to be the other way around.

If it bothers you and you want a physiological explanation that you can use on your doubting relatives, see your doctor.

3

Personally I think there is a more rational explanantion than psionic abilities but like Matt_mcl I’m somewhat of a pagan as well and won’t rip you apart on this. Part of me hopes it’s true.

As an aside what you described reminded me of Kirlian Photography. See if this sounds right–

Do a search on Kirlian Photography and you’ll get a bunch of hits. The quote above came from http://www.synergy-co.com/kirlian.html

4

Well, the results of a lot of scientific investigations suggest that it is extremely unlikely that the phenomena you are experiencing are due to psychic powers or “a type of energy which hasn’t yet been mechanically detected”.

There is also good reason to believe that “Somewhere around 10% of the population is born-psi, and about 10% of those are “born-on”, having instinctive use of psi-abilities as well as having them innate” is false.

I believe that you have experienced the phenomena you describe, but we are complex beings and I can think of many plausible (and more scientifically established) explanations for your experiences.

Diagnosis of your experiences through a medium like this message board is difficult to impossible, and may be dangerous. Your “sensation of my hair standing on end. A slight tingle would be at the back of my neck, then race across my upper torso and arms, leaving my hair standing on end, finally being punctuated by a violent shudder. The shuddering go so bad, that I would actually jerk my arms back.” sounds to me very much like a mild seizure (I am not a doctor, nor do I play one on TV, but my son has a severe seizure disorder and I’m fairly familiar with such disorders and the medical literature on them). If you have not already done so, I recommend that you consult a neurologist. People have died from side effects of seizures (e.g. losing control of your car at 70 mph).

5

If you’re going to get into Kirlian photography, take a look at the skeptic side too:

from Kirlian “photography”:

“Allegedly, this special method of “photographing” objects is a gateway to the paranormal world of auras. Actually, what is recorded is due to quite natural phenomena such as pressure, electrical grounding, humidity and temperature. Changes in moisture (which may reflect changes in emotions), barometric pressure, and voltage, among other things, will produce different ‘auras’.”

6

…get thine ass to a doctor. I’m no medical expert, but God forbid that a seemingly benign neurological disorder would cause some serious problems later in life. Better safe than sorry.

7

Ok, I can’t really say anything about the “static balls”, I imagine that they’re kind of hard to describe in print, but as to the second phenomenon, you say that when you experience strong emotion such as fear, your hair stands on end and you shiver a bit, is that right? So far as I know, that happens to everyone, not even just humans. Ever see a frightened cat? Hair all on end. I wouldn’t worry about it.

8

Another comment:

Anybody who tells you they know what is causing these phenomena, based on correspondence over the Internet, is wrong. They don’t know. They may have a theory, be it scientific or psuedo-scientific or whatever, but the don’t know.

And I would be very leery of anyone who claims that something is “normal for your genotype” based on correspondence over the Internet. What does this person know about your genetic makeup?

9

I don’t see anything super natural or paranormal about what you describe.

I too can see a sort of static, not too dissimilar to what you describe, though I would describe mine as more of a blotchiness, almost as if there were hundreds of irregularly shaped flashes of light every second and are nearly too fast to be perceived at all (more like the persistence phenomenon of a flash, without the flash). If I’m not concentrating on it, I don’t notice it. It never interferes with my vision. I suspect that it’s just some sort of signal noise on my optic nerve, rather than an actual visual phenomenon. I think all people experience some level of visal distortion however most don’t notice because their brain effectively filters it out. Perhaps your filters are less effective or you’ve inadvertantly trained your brain not to filter the noise. I’ve heard other people describe similar ‘visual’ phenomena… I wouldn’t sweat it unless it’s really distracting.

Do you ever notice those little embossed, wormy looking things floating across your field of vision? If you try to focus on them they disappear. What the heck are those?

The second thing sounds a little like the onset of a very mild anxiety attack that you’re managing to control with a basic relaxation technique.

10

If I recall correctly, those little wormy things are the remains of the blood vessels that fed various parts of the developing eye before you were born. I don’t have a cite; none of my books are with me. It may have been in a Straight Dope column, but it didn’t come up on the search.

11

Can you start fires just by thinking about it or use telepathy? Just joking, but if you can, we need to talk about employment :). Sounds like you can see auras, as previously stated. You might want to get a CAT scan or at least get your eyes checked. Seriously. Try to see if you can predict things in the near future. Here is a test. Find a deck of cards and pull out the aces in every suit. Set these down face up and shuffle quite a few times. Hold the deck face-down and put the cards face-down on the ace you think the suit is. when you are done, look at the ones you correctly matched. 5 is normal. If you consistently get more than average, you might have clarasentinence. Try to focus on things that will happen. And don’t discount deja vu. I have found that it does work on me to a limited extent. Good luck! Now what card am I holding?

12

When I read that report, especially the part of the healing. It got me grinning.

On the AOL boards, another woman (AOL closed the ACLU forum so I am afraid I can’t repost her reply) said that she saw what I see cept with different coloring. She said she would channel these energies toward someone to heal them. The only difference is the color of static I see, and the static she sees.

Another similarity about the
pictures is that it does indeed look like its emanating from from my hand when I hold up a finger. When I open my hand, it looks as if its literally pouring from it. As a child, I would pretend to be a super hero by making it come out of my hands. It’s very hard to make the distinction, it could be an illusion, since I see it everywhere.

I don’t think I could be a healer, maybe I should channel these energies at someone who is sick.
As for these being seizures, I doubt it, I can actually initiate this sensation at will. The shuddering only happens if it’s involuntarily or if I am emotionally riled up. It’s not a burden as you may think, my only problem with the (now rare) shuddering is the cosmetic effect. It makes me feel at ease, as if I am cleansing myself, somehow comforted.

Yes I have been to an eye doctor, they saw nothing wrong with my vision – infact I have superb eyesight. To put it crudely, I’ve never actually seen pitch darkness except when looking at movies on TV. I don’t have to concentrate to see this light, I see it everywhere, when I do concentrate on it the light some of it coalesces and pulsates with an intense light. When I look away, I see sunspots as if I were just staring at a light bulb or the sun.

Finally, the light I see doesn’t bother me which I know sounds weird. It doesn’t hinder my vision nor pose an obstacle.

Thank you all that replied, thank you for not laughing or telling me that I’m delusional. It really means alot to me.

Brian

13

[I hope I can be forgiven for a slight hijack here.]

red_dragon60: Do you have any ideograms of your name? I am collecting different versions of ‘red dragon’

[End of hijack]

14

[hijack]

radar, sorry but I don’t understand what you mean, and because you did not include an email in your profile, we couldn’t discuss this privately. I even looked it up in webster’s!! Clue me in and I’ll be happy to assist you.

[/hijack]

Honesty, what you have is a gift no doubt. Next time you or a friend gets wounded (hopefully not for a long time!) try to heal them. I did not understand if you saw the auras in the dark. If you want another test, get a friend to stand in a pitch-black room and see if you can see an aura around them or any other objects. If you can, you might have better proof of seeing auras. You could also use it as selective night vision. BWA HA HA!

15

red_dragon60: Sorry, I thought you would understand. By ideogram I mean a character written in Chinese, Japanese, Vietnamese, Korean, etc., that represents a thought. Right now my local server is down or I would show you some of the Chinese symbols I have collected (and used as tattoo art) in the last couple of years.

Honesty: Sorry about this hijack. I will stop so the thread can continue on the original thought.

16

Hi, Honesty! Welcome to the Straight Dope Message Board. I have to say that that’s one of the most non-boring debuts I personally have ever witnessed.

We don’t make fun of people if it sounds like they’re sincere, and not just trolling or jerking our chain.

You say you had a eye doctor check you out–I think you should also be examined by a neurologist, just to make sure there’s nothin’ funny wrong with your brain. Certain types of brain tumors (now, don’t get shook!) can cause the visual symptoms you are experiencing.

For the record, Cecil Adams and the SDMB officially deny the existence of paranormal phenomena such as channeling, psychics (whether in person or on the Internet), telepathy, ESP, healing, astrology, Tarot cards, crystals, etc. etc. You have been treated with kindness so far, but if you bring this topic up again, please don’t be terribly upset if the people who do decide to respond to your post basically bite your head off (especially if you post it in Great Debates, where DavidB the resident Rottweiler doth prowl about, seeking whom he may devour). It’s kind of what we do, okay?

17

re: floaters (I’m quoting from my HMO handbook)

“Floaters are spots, specks, and lines that ‘float’ across your field of vision. They are caused by stray cells or strands of tissue that float in the vitreous humor, the gel-like substance that fills the eyeball. Floaters can be annoying, but are not usually serious.”

18
      • Been there, done that. I have pretty much the same uh, ablilty? and I don’t know what it is, but I do know that it hasn’t helped me pick ponies or lottery numbers. Mine started when I was 8 or 9, so nyea nyea nyea! As of a few years ago I had my head checked: my vision started to change for the worse quite rapidly and I needed glasses for the first time, and I had a couple instances where I completely forgot how to do something very familiar. I went to the doctor and told him about it. He said it didn’t sound like symptoms of anyting he’d ever heard of, but on my insistence he sent me for MRI & CAT (I think? there were a couple) scans.
        -Yes, they checked my head and they didn’t find anything.-
        I was between health insurance at the time and it cost me about $2000, but made me feel a hell of a lot better. I’d much rather forget stuff just because I’m an idiot.
  • I had to look at this for a couple seconds to get it, , duh…
19

Honesty, I don’t think the ‘hair standing on end/shudder’ (frisson) thing is unusual at all - I do that myself. It’s certainly an eerie feeling, but seems to be a normal response to intense emotions. I can do it consciously with a little concentration.

The vision thing is something else - I would get myself to a doctor for a complete checkup and maybe referral to a neurologist. I’m not a medical professional at all, but I can think of several health problems right off hand that could cause visual problems - low blood pressure (I have some unusual visual symptoms from this), migraine headaches (or a condition similar to what causes migraines that could be affecting you), or something pressing on your optic nerve. There is also the possibility that you have some sort of mild epilepsy or other condition.

I guess I’d rather believe I had a psychic ability than a brain tumor, but reality doesn’t leave us with a choice :(. Please get examined thoroughly by a doctor!

20

Honesty,
I know what you mean by feeling ‘weird’. When I was a child I could amuse myself for a long time by closing my eyes and lightly pressing my fingers on my eyelids. This would cause me to see ‘colors’, which sound a lot like what you described in the OP. After some time, I could see the colors just by closing my eyes, no fingers needed. I can not do this without concentrating on it though, nor can I do it while my eyes are open.
Rose