Honesty, i don’t think it’s anything to worry about. The colors being staticky, i see that myself. Figured thats normal 'cause i’m 25, and haven’t had any problems with my vision yet, shot Expert Marksman in the infantry when i was in the army, and i’m an artist by profession. My eyes are good to go. I see the colored static more intensely when i’m relaxing. After meditation, i can see them as if they were a sheer blanket over everything. Sometimes i see floating black spots as well, larger, and zipping by in front of my eyes, i’ve seen a few doctors, and so far nothing. As for the chills and the hair raising, that sounds normal too. I can invoke the same at will, especially during meditation. You have my email, if you’d like to discuss anything in detail, let me know.
See a doctor to make sure, you can never be too sure.
But don’t worry Whatever it is, it’s you. The only time i learned to ever worry about something was this:
if you feel any sensation without touching it, see a doctor about it, especially if it’s uncomfortable. Trust your gut.
Brain seizures and pressure on the optic nerves can cause these symtoms. Just because you doctor can diagnosis it and prescribe you a drug for it dosen’t mean your psysic. Your brain seems to be wired a little different than most other peoples, but with 6 billion people on the planet there are probably many more like you. Don’t worry be happy.
On the subject of eye floaties…
I had a old carpenter working on my house the other day and he said that he one got a splinter INTO his eye. He’s been seeing it off and on for years. Just floatin’ around in there.
michael
Honesty…when I was a child I experienced terrible “color nightmares”, from about 5 until my teens. These scary dreams were usually nothing but frightening colors that left me shaking, and sweaty when awakened. They were much more likely during one of my many high fevers due to frequent toncillitis and ear infections. On and off all of my life, I have had “feelings” or “premonitions” that when ignored have often caused myself or others pain or suffering. I do have t agree with most of the other Dopers…I don’t like to think of these strange occurrences as anything more than perhaps an especially sensitive nature. I do believe that feelings of intuition are real but can be explained, as for many other supposed special gifts.
Needs
Excuse me? Being a “scientific rationalist” does not mean I scoff at anything that I can’t explain scientifically. What I scoff and scorn is people who claim to have a scientific explanation, but ignore or subvert the usual scientific method.
To an honest seeker of the truth, such as Honesty, I have nothing but respect. A psychic explanation of a phenomenon is a valid hypothesis (i.e. it’s falsifiable)and can be readily tested. If s/he is truly interested in testing the hypothesis, I’m sure the Teeming Millions can devise some experiments.
The reason that psychic phenomena meet with almost automatic disbelief among rationalists is not prejudice but experience. Time and again, purported “psychic phenomena” have been found to be indistinguishable from wishful thinking, hasty generalization or biased samples; frequently these phenomena have been found to be outright frauds.
Complicating the situation are people who believe in psychic phenomena on a religious basis. Rational inquiry is irrelevant to such a belief. People have a natural tendency to equate their religious belief with objective fact, and thus often view empirical contention as religious dispute.
A person who holds an emprical epistemology (theory of knowlege) does not believe or disbelieve based on their desire, they believe or disbelieve based on the weight of evidence. And the weight of evidence against psychic phenomena is pretty strong: Every carefully conducted experiment has failed to show any evidence for psychic phenomena. That doesn’t absolutely rule out psychic phenomena, but it does tend to raise the bar for subsequent claims: Extraordinary claims require extraordinary proof.
I’m a pussycat when it comes to people honestly searching for an answer. I would agree with the content and tone of most of the posters here: the phenomena that Honesty describes are most probably an indication of a neurological condition. Whether this condition is serious, diagnosable or curable is a question for a physician. Unusual sensory or neurological experiences are not themselves evidence for psychic phenomena; the only way to test for psychic phenomena is to perform specific experiments designed to rule out alternative explanations.
I myself am only a rottweiler when people piss on my epistemology: asserting a “scientific” explanation when they have not followed the scientific method.
I must be psychic. When I tell people I’m going to do something, turns out I do it. What are the odds of that?
that threads link describes my issue, i’m nearsighted.
thanx alpahgene!
Soulsling,
That’s EXACTLY what I am seeing. (Well with the exception of large black spots, the static I see are more less the same size unless I stare at them individually) I have had eye examinations, and I have stellar vision. That’s why I feel it isn’t some medical phenomena, what I feel doesn’t make me feel uncomfortable but simply the opposite.
Seizures seem completely off to me, I don’t go around and arbitrarily lapse into frightful spasms. When my skin stands on end, the goose bumps almost instantaneously fade away, and I am left with a soothing feeling.
I am very xenophobic, and I usually get these cold flashes when I feel threatened, nervous, angry, sad, in heavy social environments or anytime when my emotions are stirred. The feeling after my hair stands on end, is almost indescribable. The sensation is so warm, and soothing I am sure my body is releasing some chemical that makes feel this way.
Also, was there a time in your life where you experienced intense de ja vu? I know that psychic phenomena is a ‘no no’ on these boards, so I’ll just that you reply a simple ‘Yes’ or ‘no’
My email is Honesty@play.net if you wish to talk privately.
Regards,
B. Williams
Congratulations, you have just described exactly the “flight or fight” reaction, which is the (usually) stress-triggered activation of the entire sympathetic nervous system (which usually provides localized adjustments) and is characterized by “the release of large quantities of epinephrine from the adrenal gland, an increase in heart rate, an increase in cardiac output, skeletal muscle vasodilation, cutaneous and gastrointestinal vasoconstriction, pupillary dilation, bronchial dilation, and piloerection. The overall effect is to prepare the individual for imminent danger.” (Britannica)
Piloerection (goosebumps) is a completely normal phenomenon in just about all animals with hair, including humans. It is possible for all healthy individuals to activate their sympathetic nervous systems like that at will–in fact, I used to get kicks out of it doing it as a kid (it was a great high).
Cecil has addressed deja vu in this column:
http://www.straightdope.com/columns/961227.html
The visual anomalies some people on this board are reporting are not unheard of. What is unheard of (at least to me) is a message board dweller making bold statements about Honesty’s genotype and his mysterious energies at the same time! That’s funny.
Quite simply there is no evidence that backs the supernatural. We have any number of people who repeatedly attempt to convince us of the opposite by the use of bad science, anecdotal evidence, passion for the cause, belief, faith, hope, lies, confusion, obfuscation, etc.
But when you strip all that jazz away, there is no substance to any supernatural claim thus far examined. So my advice in this kind of situation is stop the flights of fancy and dwell on the problem. If you hope that this sort of normal optical effect or piloerectiob is an ability that makes you different from others (as that message board adviser suggested), you will never find out what it really is.
Play around with focusing your eyes until you can double images in your field of vision at will. Is that a mysterious energy? If you don’t already know how to, it is possible to learn how to see “auras”. It’s not a supernatural ability or a detection of hidden energies, it’s just an optical trick that can be learned in a matter of minutes. K-photography does not shed light on the matter either, since it has been discredited countless times and its only audience are now the ones that don’t know better, or those that desperately want to believe.
Kind of an ipso facto-type statement, isn’t it? (Two hundred years ago you might have joined Thomas Jefferson in scoffing at those who claimed to have seen “rocks falling from the sky”.) Once a phenomenon is demonstrated to be observable, reproducible, and quantifiable, it ceases to be regarded as “supernatural”, doesn’t it?
DHR
I can do this as well. I can do it voluntarily and it also happens sometimes subconsciously. It’s sort of cool and isn’t really a full seizure. It only lasts a second or two and I don’t pass out or lose basic muscular control or anything.
I think that a board discussion a few months ago about “pee shivers” came to the conclusion that the spasming was caused by a loss of body heat from urination. If you’re cold you’ll probably have goosebumps and that’d exlain the feeling that your hair is standing on end.
my statement was:
Doghouse Reilly replied:
I’m not sure exactly what an “ipso facto statement” is supposed to be. But anyway. The Golden Rule is that you shouldn’t assume what I was doing 200 years ago. Your glib reply doesn’t take into account that 200 years ago the state of the sciences was in utter confusion. They thought malaria was caused by bad airs, for crying out loud. Now, if you are one of those people who insist on generalizing human understanding throughout the ages, be my guest. Unfortunately I can’t join your school of thought, because I happen to believe in progress and the value of empirical evidence and the scientific method–all of which are items that work, whereas the supernatural doesn’t.
What we have are a number of wild claims with zero evidence to support them, although we have unlimited quantities of anecdotes, appeals to hope and gullibility, bad science, inappropriate allusions to the state of things 200 years ago, etc.
So far every phenomenon can be explained using the tools that it has taken us several thousand years to develop. Sometimes it will take us several years to understand and explain something, but we manage. Once our tools either explain away the claim as something mundane, or negate it completely, why persist? I will repeat that as of today we have absolutely zero evidence to back any supernatural claim, where a supernatural phenomenon is one operating outside the boundaries of science (ESP, reincarnation, clairvoyance, and all the rest of the goblins).
What does happen is that people are confused by certain phenomena. For example, this seems to be the case with Honesty, and perhaps with Lawmill. The latter wrote, in response to Honesty’s question:
There is nothing to explain here. The phenomenon being described here, as I explained in my previous message, is the “fight or flight” response, of which goosebumps are part. There is absolutely nothing unusual about goosebumps. The feeling you get when your hair is standing on end is caused by the fact that your hair IS standing on end–that is what piloerection does to the base of your hair, in the follicle. Since we are covered in hair from head to toe (whether it is visible or invisible) we all experience goosebumps.
It is simple to induce a fight or flight response in a situaton when you don’t require one. If you have difficulties, use a mirror to look into your eyes and start getting worked up in some imaginary scenario (beating up obnoxious people works for me).
Cecil covered the piss shiver in one of his columns (http://www.straightdope.com/classics/a4_225.html). Although he didn’t conclude much, it’s pretty unlikely that the shiver is caused from heat leaving the body.
If a phenomenon cannot be demonstrated by any measurable physical evidence, it might be considered ipso facto to be supernatural, i.e., “Of or relating to existence outside the natural world”. Maybe I should have just said, “no duh, dude”–would that have been clearer?
I guess this just flew straight over your head, but your “school of thought” very much appears to be that of the Enlightenment, of which movement Thomas Jefferson was one of the more prominent supporters. He was also very much a scientist. Nonetheless, he stated, “I would rather believe that two Yankee professors would lie than believe that stones fall from heaven.” As pointed out in this site, “[T]he story reflects the mindset of a scientific community struggling to reconcile observation with entrenched belief.” Sound familiar?
And as for pointing out that people believed that “malaria [was] caused by bad airs”, what’s your point? There were some faulty theories floating around back then, just as there are some faulty theories floating around today. Twenty years ago, it was common knowledge among doctors and medical researchers that ulcers were caused by a stress-induced excess of stomach acids; “no acid, no ulcer” was the accepted view for most of this century. Only in the past decade or so have researchers come to acknowledge that most ulcers are caused by a bacterium called Helicobacter Pylori. The discovery of this bacteria led directly to the realization that many types of cancer are caused by bacteria, viruses, or parasites–a view that might have been laughed to scorn two decades ago.
Such a touching statement of faith. Given time, everything that goes on in nature is observable and explainable? I wonder if Heisenberg would agree with you on that one.
Doghouse Reilly
Doghouse Reilly,
Of course it’s unscientific to say “I would rather believe that two Yankee professors would lie than believe that stones fall from heaven.” Refusal to look at evidence shows a closed mind.
But that isn’t the case here. Honesty reported WingdWolf2 as saying “It’s a type of energy which hasn’t yet been mechanically detected, but it is related to biomagnetism.”
I have several problems with this statement:
- what other forms of detection are there?
- if it’s a form of energy, why can’t we mechanically detect it?
- how do we know it’s biomagnetic?
Show me some evidence, and I’ll happily adjust my theories.
WingdWolf2 also apparently claimed “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.”
OK, there’s a lot of money, prestige and work awaiting a verified psi demonstration. With 10% of the population having the latent ability, you’d think we’d have seen one such manifestation by now.
But we haven’t. The scientific conclusion is clear.
You said “If a phenomenon cannot be demonstrated by any measurable physical evidence, it might be considered ipso facto to be supernatural, i.e., “Of or relating to existence outside the natural world”.”
My dictionary defines supernatural as ‘thought to reveal some force above the laws of nature’.
The key point here is reveal. Presumably you’re saying that something undetectable can prove the supernatural. I want to measure something that can’t be explained by current scientific knowledge.
If I tell you I can teleport to just behind your shoulder when you reply to this message, will you look round? Well, you won’t see me because I’m psychically invisible! But is that enough evidence to prove I have psi-powers? (If so, send me money and I’ll ‘teach’ you how to do it!).
You make my point Doghouse, you ARE one of those people who generalize human understanding. You are probably a troll too, judging by the fact that your arguments against me either dangle from a thin string or you have completely missed the point of the discussion.
Your example of stomach ulcer simply proves my point–that with time, observation, impartiality, and the adequate resources, anything can be explained–even if it was botched the first 450 times. Fortunately for us, we (at least, many of us) have learned that observation comes before belief, and that knowledge cannot be entrenched in belief–if the two combine, you have opinion, not pure knowledge. If you have observable proof of the supernatural in action, provide it for consideration.
Let us keep in mind that observation packs more epistemological clout than belief before providing any other irrelevant examples. The best feature of science is that it is self-correcting, and examples about the fallibility of traditional beliefs are certainly not going to pose a threat to the integrity of science.
Regarding the relevance of my point about malaria: think about the situation–scratch that, I’ll do it for you.
Event: people become feverish and die in areas where malarial mosquitoes start breeding.
Obtuse conclusion: invisible and undetectable noxious fumes (mal aria, or bad air) are emanating from the ground and poisoning the folk, who remain ill even after they are moved away
Sane conclusion: all these mosquitoes and stagnant water may have something to do with it, let’s study the situation and see if there is a connection. Yes, there is, by golly! It appears that mosquito bites are the cause of the fever, and not “mal aria”
Event: someone wonders what the set of sensations described above by Honesty could be
Obtuse conclusion: the sensations are the result of his genotype and rare psychic powers and energies
Sane conclusion: although we cannot examine Honesty, the description of the sensations he records matches exactly the description of the fight or flight response. It is safe to assume, unless examination is possible, that what we are dealing with here is the fight or flight response.
Seems pretty straightforward to me.
This sounds a lot like a panic attack or anxiety attack as mentioned earlier. These can be brought on by feeling agorophobia (frightened or anxious about being out in potentially uncontrollable aituations) or strong emotions. Experiencing a wash of cold and tingling over your body sounds typical, as does calming yourself using breathing techniques.
I did a lot of stupid things as a kid, but this incident takes the cake…
On a long car trip on a sunny day, I amused myself by staring at the sun, --something I had been told I should never do, so there was my motivation.
When blinking, I noticed a little grey spot where I had been staring at the sun. So I shifted my gaze a bit, stared at the sun more, and was rewarded with another grey spot. I kept this up till I had a crude ‘connect-the-dots’ drawing of a cat.
The image stuck till my mid-twenties, slowly fading over the years.
Abe, I thought that Doghouse’s comment made perfect sense. In Jefferson’s day, something like stones falling from the sky would be regarded as supernatural. Yes, there were folks saying it happened, but there’s folks saying that ESP happens now. Well, time marched on, and evidence was observed that stones do, in fact, fall from the sky. Sky stones became incorperated into the accepted scientific model, and so were no longer considered supernatural-- this happened exactly because of the evidence.
Now, if someone happened, say, to provide conclusive evidence for ESP, then it would become a documented phenomenon, and scientific models would be produced to describe this phenomenon. Because of this scientific acceptance, it would cease to be considered supernatural. In other words, anything observable is not supernatural. This does not mean that anything unobservable is supernatural.
*1. The flashing, colored, staticky lights can be explained physically – pressure on the optic nerve. Whether this is the case for the OP, only an eye test can tell for sure – a test that measures the pressure in the eyeball, not just a look-see exam.
-
Another explanation for the lights, which can also account for all the other symptoms is seizures. You don’t have to fall down in a fit to have a seizure. Some seizures can be extremely mild. Visual, auditory, and sensory illusions and feelings of anxiety or panic (mild to severe) can accompany seizures or be a chronic symptom of one who is prone to seizures. Get thee to a neurologist who specializes in seizures. It’s possible that a mild medication can alleviate some or all of these symptoms completely or in part.
-
Explanations of extra-sensory powers (‘seeing’ magnetic fields, or ‘psi,’ e.g.) are spurious. K-photography, aura seeing or sensing, and psychic healing have all been fully examined by scientific means. None stand up to rigorous examination.
Peace.
<<Congratulations, you have just described exactly the “flight or fight” reaction,
which is the (usually) stress-triggered activation of the entire sympathetic
nervous system (which usually provides localized adjustments) and is
characterized by “the release of large quantities of epinephrine from the
adrenal gland, an increase in heart rate, an increase in cardiac output,
skeletal muscle vasodilation, cutaneous and gastrointestinal vasoconstriction,
pupillary dilation, bronchial dilation, and piloerection. The overall effect is to
prepare the individual for imminent danger.” (Britannica)>>
Wow! Thank you, that sounds exactly what I am feeling. Though my heartbeat doesn’t pound, nor am I breathing any beter, but that does sound more sane.
<<Piloerection (goosebumps) is a completely normal phenomenon in just about
all animals with hair, including humans. It is possible for all healthy individuals
to activate their sympathetic nervous systems like that at will–in fact, I used
to get kicks out of it doing it as a kid (it was a great high).>>
Odd. Now can you do this at will right now? If this is true, why don’t people talk about it? It seems if everyone can do this, then why aren’t there books about this phenomena?
So far, you’ve convinced me that this may not be a psychic phenomena. However, I did email Wingdwolf and invited her to enter this discussion if she chooses. (She was batting away Scientist on the ACLU folder, so you all better watch out if she decides to come ;>)
What makes me believe that I experienced a ‘supernatural’ phenemona is three things
-
When I was around nine, I could stare at inanimate objects and see grey streams of light emanting from them if I stared at them. (I can’t do that now for the life of me)
-
(Note, I haven’t read the website you gave me about Cecil’s insight about De ja vu) There was one particular occourance where I dreamt of my second period class in HS. That very day, I went to school and those events transpired exactly how I saw them. The sensation was so surreal that I felt as if I was moving in slow motion the entire time.
Interestingly, I told my mother about my dream as she drove me the school. I told her that I had a dream that my teacher ran out of the room in a hurry to use the restroom, and when she returned there was a piece of toilet paper trailing from the back of her skirt. She and I laughed humorously at the thought of something like that happening. Low and Behold, that day those same events went past.
There were other (many actually) times where I had De ja vu and I ignored it. But when I experienced this, I realized that if I am seeing the future in glipses, then there has to be others (like psychics on television) who could hone this ability and manipulate it.
3) Two Words: Astral Projection. When I started to play an online game, I read a friend’s profile that she enjoyed doing AP. She gave the website, tried it, and I failed. Well a year ago, I tried it again and it worked!
The directions told me that before I go to bed, to concentrate and tell myself that I would wake up in my dream. I swear to you, I was conscious in my dream but aware of everything around my body. In my dream, I manipulated everything, I was soaring across the sky and it was truly a breathtaking experience.
There was also another technique that I actually did, but never completed. I followed the instructions, and was amazed to find that I could create the sensation of my bed spinning and felt the sensation of dizziness. The next step was actually projected ones self but I simply got too scared.
AP is probably not a psychic phenomena. Since Tibetan Monks practice the same thing as well. So I’ll leave my list to two.
Until I am giving a better reason, I will believe your theory since it is plausible. However, I do ask you do not close your eyes to the metaphysical, I truly believe that anything is possible.
Thank you again.
Regards,
B. Williams