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Dave W.
Info Junkie

USA
26020 Posts

Posted - 12/28/2003 :  09:01:22  Show Profile  Visit Dave W.'s Homepage Send Dave W. a Private Message
Over in this thread, Renae laments:
quote:
But tragically, I'm literally the only person I know that doesn't have a woo-woo story. I've never seen a UFO, never predicted the future, never been touched by Jesus, etc.
I share that "problem." I do, however, have one or two almost woo-woo stories, where things started out very strange indeed (without the help of intoxicants), but turned out to have a completely prosaic explanation. In this thread, I invite people to share their own pseudo-paranormal anecdotes.

Such as this one:

Way back in elementary school, the "Superior Learners" program I was in would take the kids to camp Highroad for a weekend each year, to learn about nature and do teamwork exercises and the like. We slept in these old wooden cabins, which still required the use of sleeping bags, since they weren't insulated or anything. They were fairly nice, though, in that they had electricity, and these big roofed porches off the front door.

One night, during my 5th-grade trip to the camp (I was 11 years old), I and a few of my cabin-mates were hanging around on the porch, enjoying the night for a few minutes before we needed to go to sleep. I don't remember who saw it first, but soon we were all looking at a glowing plant about ten feet from one corner of the cabin, twenty feet from the porch. Out there in the darkness, there were two bright-green leaves, nearly round and the size of quarters, shining strangely.

Flashlights (of which we had plenty) showed that those two leaves appeared to be part of some sort of climbing vine growing up a tree. In the light, they looked no different from all the other leaves on the vine. Turn off the flashlights, however, and the two leaves just sat there and glowed at us, about four feet off the ground.

I had just recently been to San Fransisco's Exploratorium, and had seen some plants which responded to touch by folding up their leaves. A glowing plant wouldn't have freaked me out. But someone started talking about plants which glow as "bait" to nocturnal insects, trapping them somehow (these details are fuzzy from years). After a while, we'd worked ourselves up into a near fever-pitch of the strangeness of it all, and it was clear that some brave soul, ready to risk life and limb, would have to go out and "sample" this glowing plant for science (we were supposedly the smart kids, after all).

Somehow, I got elected.

So, I put my shoes back on, and start slowly down the steps off the porch. It had rained earlier in the day, and I went slowly not only because my heart was pounding in my chest, but because the path between the porch and the plant was a little muddy. I took my eyes off the glowing leaves only long enough to check my footing with each step. I got closer, and closer, and closer. I was about three feet away when the leaves went out!

One of my cabin-mates on the porch screamed. I nearly pooped my pants.

I started to turn to run, slipped in mud, caught myself on my hands, and started working up speed back to the porch. One of the other guys shouted, "hey, they're back!" which made me stop. I turned around, slowly, and sure enough, there were the two glowing leaves again. So, I started after them again. And again, they "turned off" as I got to a certain point. I took a step back, and the leaves turned back on. A step forward, and back off. At this point, I turned around to say something to the guys on the porch, and something else caught my eye.

I turned towards the cabin, and got the answer: a dime-sized hole in the wall, through which I could see one of the bare bulbs which were lighting the interior. Waving my hand in front of it produced a nice strobe effect on the leaves.

We had a nice laugh about it afterwards, and the kid who screamed got pounded a little more than normal.

- Dave W. (Private Msg, EMail)
Evidently, I rock!
Why not question something for a change?
Visit Dave's Psoriasis Info, too.

Renae
SFN Regular

543 Posts

Posted - 12/28/2003 :  10:23:07   [Permalink]  Show Profile Send Renae a Private Message
The closest I've had, which aren't even Almost Woo-Woo Stories but are what I call Things I Don't Fully Understand:

1. Weird Vibes in a Bad Place

I stopped to use the restroom at a fast food place in an, uh, interesting part of Seattle. I became so freaked--claustrophobic, heart beating fast, waves of nausea and just a general BAD BAD feeling--that I bolted out of the restroom. Years later, I read that restroom was supposedly used as a heroin shooting gallery for local addicts (supposedly including the late Kurt Cobain of Nirvana.) Bad things apparently happened in that restroom.

You could argue that my senses processed things that registered only subconsciously, like blood on the ceiling, general uncleanliness, or weird smells. I have no recollection of any sensory memory, though--just of a really awful, indescribable feeling.

2. Unexplained connections with loved ones and pets.

To describe these here would come across online, most likely, as mawkish or drippy. But those of you who love deeply know what I mean.

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Stargirl
Skeptic Friend

USA
94 Posts

Posted - 12/28/2003 :  15:49:03   [Permalink]  Show Profile Send Stargirl a Private Message
The only woo-woo story I have occurred when I was in seventh grade. I had a dream about a kid in my class where a forearm and hand reach out from the mist holding a knife and stab him repeatedly in the back as he lay sleeping. The dream ends with the kid rising up on one elbow and turns to look at me. Naturally the kids in class, including the boy in my dream all had a good laugh when I told them about the dream.

You should know that David; the boy in my dream was neither a friend nor an enemy for that matter. I had no interaction with him outside the classroom.

The next morning I had the same dream and at school we all laughed about it again except David wasn't in class that day. Of course you know what is coming, about eleven o'clock the principal came to our classroom and told us that his mother had stabbed David to death while he was sleeping. The mother also stabbed her daughter though luckily she survived. Everybody in class turned to look at me and there was an audible ooh.

Do I believe that I had a precognitive dream? Only in that one dream out of the thousands I've had came true. Not a very good record on which to start a carrier as a fortuneteller though it's probably better than most psychics. What I do think might have happened is that David told his mother about my dream. So rather than my dream predicting the murder it may instead have put the idea into his mothers head. The mother told the police that her children were better off dead than living with her. The thought that I may had given his mother the idea of killing her children raised whole set of psychological concerns for me that I had to deal with. But I later learned that David's mother was psychotic, (don't know her clinical diagnosis,) and had been institutionalized several times for trying to commit suicide.

On second thought I guess this is more a tragic story than a woo-woo story.

Edited for spelling, sticky "a".

If God did not exist, it would be necessary to invent him - Voltaire
Edited by - Stargirl on 12/28/2003 15:52:13
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tw101356
Skeptic Friend

USA
333 Posts

Posted - 12/29/2003 :  08:37:07   [Permalink]  Show Profile Send tw101356 a Private Message
The Haunted Room


When I first moved into the Boston area I rented a room from my friend's mom. The two of them joked about the room being haunted. The previous tenant had moved out without giving notice, forfeiting part of a month's rent, because he kept hearing low moaning sounds at night. He was superstitious and claimed it was a ghost. Both my friend and his mom thought he was hearing 'voices' or having some other personal problem.

A few weeks later, late one night, I started hearing the low moaning sound. I woke up my friend and had him come upstairs and he heard it too. We searched for the source but found nothing and eventually the sound disappeared. I heard the sound several more times over the next few months and it was really annoying at times. There was no apparent pattern to it.

One night there was a thunderstorm and a bolt of lightning struck a pine in the backyard. We went outside with flashlights to survey the damage and accidentally discovered the source of the moaning. A branch from a maple tree was being pushed by the wind and was rubbing against the phone wire, which was attached to the house in the center of the almost windowless north wall. As the wind gusted it would saw the branch against the wire like a giant violin bow and the house formed the sounding board. Apparently it required a north to northeast wind over 20 mph to push the branch into the wire, so there was no apparent correlation with windy days.

The phone company was called in to perform the exorcism with a chainsaw the next day.

TW

(edited to correct typo.)

- TW
Edited by - tw101356 on 12/29/2003 09:02:49
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PruplePanther
Skeptic Friend

USA
79 Posts

Posted - 01/07/2004 :  10:33:28   [Permalink]  Show Profile Send PruplePanther a Private Message
quote:
Originally posted by Renae

The closest I've had, which aren't even Almost Woo-Woo Stories but are what I call Things I Don't Fully Understand:

1. Weird Vibes in a Bad Place

I stopped to use the restroom at a fast food place in an, uh, interesting part of Seattle. I became so freaked--claustrophobic, heart beating fast, waves of nausea and just a general BAD BAD feeling--that I bolted out of the restroom. Years later, I read that restroom was supposedly used as a heroin shooting gallery for local addicts (supposedly including the late Kurt Cobain of Nirvana.) Bad things apparently happened in that restroom.

You could argue that my senses processed things that registered only subconsciously, like blood on the ceiling, general uncleanliness, or weird smells. I have no recollection of any sensory memory, though--just of a really awful, indescribable feeling.

2. Unexplained connections with loved ones and pets.

To describe these here would come across online, most likely, as mawkish or drippy. But those of you who love deeply know what I mean.



Here's one that touches on both of your stories Renae.

Read a few years ago that cyotee's never went near a spot where a cyotee had been killed. No mystic tales here. Hard nosed, cold blooded killers of close relatives to our doggy friends. Read where science researchers even scraped off top few inches of dirt where cyotee had been poisoned...no blood smell. Still didn't work. Cyotees would bypass the spot by hundred or more yards. Strange evidence of something.

edited to add

I know that cyotees are not nice people. Cyotees would kill and eat me if they could. Was only saying that cyotee-hunters are NOT woo-woo kind of people who see mystic stuff at drop of a hat. If cyotee hunter has family dog, it must be very hard to kill cyotee since cyotees look lots like a family dog. Cyotee hunters colleted the evidence and agriculture scientists checked out stories. Way way back nice dogs joined with humans and made beautiful partnership. The not so nice dogs were chased away from humans.

"If I don't know where we are, I can't plot a course home." Major Carter, SG-1
Edited by - PruplePanther on 01/07/2004 11:06:03
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Tim
SFN Regular

USA
775 Posts

Posted - 01/10/2004 :  04:49:52   [Permalink]  Show Profile Send Tim a Private Message
Man, I've tried. Ever since i could remember I've been trying to find the true path. The only path I found was the one littered with copious amounts of bullshit.

when I was little I asked the priest too many bad questions. I asked how a person could survive in the gut of a whale. I asked why Jesus was upset that he was going to be crucified when he had eternity to find a way to stop those bad people. I asked why God didn't know that Cane had killed Able. I asked why I couldn't look at the pictures in Playboy, but I could read about the real thing The Song of Solomon, and that got me a good whippin' after that priest told my father!

Anyhow, I don't think I ever really experienced being lifted up by Jesus, no matter how hard I tried.

Later on, I tried to find inspiration in Krishna, and then in L. Ron Hubbard. They both let me down.

But, then, one day, out of the haze of searching for that elusive mystical force, I found it in the pages Tom Wolf's Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test . We'd swallow a little sunshine, sing the praises of Billy Hitchcock, Owlsley and Timothy Leary and then be off to a midnight showing of the Rocky Horror Picture Show, A Clockwork Orange' or even Dr. Strangelove.

Then, a true god at last emerged--Don Juan! I even started wearing a backpack everywhere I went because Don Juan said it was not good for men to walk with things in their hands. Casteneda opened my eyes to a new world of cheap hallucinogens, but I never had the nerve to actually do it on my own with the exceptions of a few magic mushrooms.

But, then, my chemical occult came crashing down to earth. I ran out of tuition money, and had to go work in the oilfields.

Since then, I searched the Louisiana haze for UFOs and saw only a few stray meteorites.

I've offered my services as a ghost buster when people told me about hauntings only to find out that there was no way their "old ladies" would allow some "hard leg" to spend a week or two in their home...ghost or no ghost!

My wife and I even tried tantric sex at a swinger's party, but we couldn't stop laughing long enough to meditate properly, or whatever we were supposed to do to make an orgasm last for hours!

Next, I tried to find some bigfoot tracks, but they don't last long in a swamp. So, I moved on to finding a crop circle in Cajun Country, but either the aliens don't do circles in cane and rice fields, or the locals caught the little buggers and had a bucherie!

I bought gris gris bags and mojo hands in the Quarter and up in Memphis, and still got the Blues!

I even watched the pet psychic once. I was drunk and thought it was CNN with Paula Zahn!

Do ya think I tried too hard?


"We got an issue in America. Too many good docs are gettin' out of business. Too many OB/GYNs aren't able to practice their -- their love with women all across this country." Dubya in Poplar Bluff, Missouri, 9/6/2004
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Badman
New Member

United Kingdom
20 Posts

Posted - 02/29/2004 :  08:06:39   [Permalink]  Show Profile Send Badman a Private Message
I've seen a snooker programme on TV where something weird happened. It occurred around about November 1997 and was on BBC 1 or 2. It goes like this. Someone took a shot and the trajectory of the white ball was altered as it came near to slowing and stopping. They checked the table to see if it was level and it was. The ball was travelling in a more or less straight line and then it abruptly changed direction! Afterwards the commentator explained what happened and kinda winked into the camera...
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Dave W.
Info Junkie

USA
26020 Posts

Posted - 02/29/2004 :  08:43:36   [Permalink]  Show Profile  Visit Dave W.'s Homepage Send Dave W. a Private Message
Badman, do you remember what the explanation was?

- Dave W. (Private Msg, EMail)
Evidently, I rock!
Why not question something for a change?
Visit Dave's Psoriasis Info, too.
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Badman
New Member

United Kingdom
20 Posts

Posted - 03/01/2004 :  04:01:58   [Permalink]  Show Profile Send Badman a Private Message
Dave W,

I should have used the word "described" instead of "explained". The presenter of the show did not explain what happened at all. He just kind of looked into the camera with a dumbfounded look on his face.

-B
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Plyss
Skeptic Friend

Netherlands
231 Posts

Posted - 11/10/2004 :  15:15:34   [Permalink]  Show Profile Send Plyss a Private Message
quote:
Originally posted by Dave W.

Over in this thread, Renae laments:
quote:
But tragically, I'm literally the only person I know that doesn't have a woo-woo story. I've never seen a UFO, never predicted the future, never been touched by Jesus, etc.
I share that "problem." I do, however, have one or two almost woo-woo stories, where things started out very strange indeed (without the help of intoxicants), but turned out to have a completely prosaic explanation. In this thread, I invite people to share their own pseudo-paranormal anecdotes.



Ah, what joy it is to have a slow day at work.
Finally some time to read through some of the older threads, and this is one of my favourites so far.

Anyway, here is a personal near-woowoo story as experienced by myself.

About ten years ago, when i was a mere fifteen years old i found myself in the unenviable position of teenagers worldwide: Old enough to go out in the evening, but to young to get a well-paying job.
In order to finance my new-found freedom i decided to take drastic measures: I would get a paperround. This was, of course, easier said then done. The long nights on the town left me with precious little sleep and my paperround had to be finished each day before seven-oh-dark in the morning, but even at that tender age i realised some sacrifices would have to be made for the greater good.

The neighbourhood i was assigned to happened to be the exact same one i lived in, which suited me fine because i knew it like the back of my hand. Picking up the papers was somewhat tedious as it involved a two-mile bikeride back and forth to the drop-off point for the papers, but i came to regard it as good exercise. One of the less fortunate aspects though was the general safety in this specific suburb. It harboured less savoury elements at times, and youngsters delivering newspapers were considered easy prey. Nevertheless after the first time i had to part with my hard-earned money at knife-point i had learned my lesson , and on subsequent robberies i only had a single guilder on me, which i always took along for the coffee-machine at a gas-station along the way. Having done the round for a few weeks, i developed a certain mind-set which is probably common to people doing mind-numbing work everywhere. It's not completely awake, but certainly not sleeping. A kind-of awareness without any clear cognition going on but cautious none the less, in case of sudden trouble.

It was in this state that i encountered the thing that, if it weren't for a timely spark of reason, would have haunted my in my nightmares for years to come. It was a fairly dark morning somewhere at the end of the year, november probably, and for some reason my nerves were somewhat more tense then usual. It was at this time that i had developed in interest in the works of H.P.Lovecraft and to those with a rich imagination his stories can have a profound effect. Anyway, i mindlessly worked my way through my paperround as usual and my nerves relaxed somewhat as i left behind the bad part of the neighbourhood for the relative safety of the last three streets. Now one of the houses i delivered the paper at had a large fence with a number of trees in front of it. It was just as i passed this fence on my way to this specific house's letterbox that it happened.

Without warning the fence on my right-hand side lit up with an eery orange light, and from the corner of my right eye i noticed movement in it's center. I immediately turned my head towards it and there it was: A roughly man-shaped sillhouet of infinite blackness right in the middle of this sudden explosion of light. And it was moving. As i turned my head towards him, so did he turn his towards me. A sudden howling gust of wind came up, and at that exact moment it stretched out one clawed tentacle to grab me and drag me to whatever dark abyss it came from!
I shrieked, dropped the newspapers i was carrying, and started to run for it, away from this demon-from-hell.

It wasn't until i had made a full ten passes before rationality overtook me and i realised that i heard no sounds of pursuit. It was at this same point i noticed the large new lightsource i was running towards.

Lightsource.
New.
Straight ahead.

It was then that i realised the figure i had seen was nothing but my own shadow, cast on an unfamiliar surface. The reason it had turned towards me, just as i turned towards it was of course because it mirrored my every movement. That still left unexplained to me though why it had tried to grab me. A short investigation revealed that, when standing at that exact point i had been standing, my shadow coincided with a side-branch of one of the trees in front of the fence, which moved somewhat back and forth in the wind. After realising this, it became difficult to see anything but a branch there where i previously had imagined a tentacle.

After my heart-beat had subsided somewhat i managed to see the humour in the whole situation. Nevertheless, i shudder to think what kind of effect this experience would have had on the way i perceive the world if i hadn't turned around after that first run for safety but instead had run on, convinced of the existence of demons and ghouls and things that go bumb in the night.

Miss Tick sniffed. 'You could say this piece of advice is pricesless', she said. 'Are you listening?'
'Yes' said Tiffany.
'Good now...If you trust in yourself.."
'Yes..?'
'..and believe in your dreams...'
'yes?'
'...and follow your star..' Miss Tick went on.
'Yes?'
'You'll still get beaten by people who spent their time working hard and learning things and weren't so lazy. Goodbye.'
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satans_mom
Skeptic Friend

USA
148 Posts

Posted - 11/11/2004 :  00:15:27   [Permalink]  Show Profile  Send satans_mom an AOL message  Send satans_mom a Yahoo! Message Send satans_mom a Private Message
I seem to have thousands of woo-woo stories, but that's because when I was a wee child my mother convinced me I was possessed by demons and believed that I had supernatural powers. I always saw demons everywhere because my mom told me that I should see them. But I'll tell you the real good ones...

I was around 14 or 15 and one morning on a weekend, I woke up with the chills in my bedroom. I was hidden safely under the covers when I turned around and THERE WAS A MAN STANDING AT THE EDGE OF MY BED. He had a reddish brown beard and a very low-cut hairdo and was dressed in plain black clothing. I didn't scream but became paralyzed with shock and fear. My eyes closed and opened rather slowly and when I did open them again, he was gone. I then began to shake, completely confused. I knew I was dreaming when I woke up, and I must have still had the brain waves one has when dreaming (don't remember what they're CALLED, it's been so long since psychology class in high school) so I've determined that I was still somewhat dreaming at the time of my awakening. Whether or not this is possible, I'm not sure, but I haven't seeked any other explanation.

I also see people out of the corner of my eye all the time. I understand this is a sign of schizophrenia. Hmm...

I have precognitive dreams all the time. I remember once I dreamt my father was wearing shorts and cooking macaroni and cheese and reached into the refrigerator for Velveeta. Sure enough, it happened shortly thereafter. Dreams such as this did occur often. However, I might have had a dream similar, and believed my dreams to be precise with actual events. I do not take these dreams seriously and I haven't had them in some time, at least this past year or so that I have done much more critical thinking.

I believe for the most part I may have a mild form of schizophrenia, however I also believe that if many people were throughly mentally evaluated we would all have some mental affliction or another. I think that stems from the idea that I believe many people are driving themselves insane due to our completely unnatural environments.

Yo mama's so fat, she's on both sides of the family.

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H. Humbert
SFN Die Hard

USA
4574 Posts

Posted - 11/11/2004 :  00:58:01   [Permalink]  Show Profile Send H. Humbert a Private Message
quote:
Originally posted by satans_mom
I was around 14 or 15 and one morning on a weekend, I woke up with the chills in my bedroom. I was hidden safely under the covers when I turned around and THERE WAS A MAN STANDING AT THE EDGE OF MY BED. He had a reddish brown beard and a very low-cut hairdo and was dressed in plain black clothing. I didn't scream but became paralyzed with shock and fear. My eyes closed and opened rather slowly and when I did open them again, he was gone. I then began to shake, completely confused. I knew I was dreaming when I woke up, and I must have still had the brain waves one has when dreaming (don't remember what they're CALLED, it's been so long since psychology class in high school) so I've determined that I was still somewhat dreaming at the time of my awakening. Whether or not this is possible, I'm not sure, but I haven't seeked any other explanation.

I've had this, or something similar. Usually it's awakening to a totally horrifying feeling which is accompanied by paralysis. Of course, like you, I eventually realized that I wasn't awaking and was actually just coming out of sleep--but it's a strange feeling the first time it happens to you. I remember one time in college when I fell asleep on the floor. A woman's voice was calling very sweetly, almost sing-song, into my ear "wake up..." while gently shaking my shoulder. I wasn't sure who it could be. In my foggy state I thought it was my friend's girlfriend or someone I knew. She insistently kept rocking me and calling. I opened my eyes and rolled over to find the room empty.

That was one of the better ones. I continued to have night terrors, as I believe their called, through Freshman year in college. Supposedly humans tend to have more nightmares whenever sleeping in an unfamiliar place. Eventually they passed and I rarely have them now. When they do, I at least can usually recognize them for what they are. The trick is to wake yourself up completely, really get up and shake yourself before letting yourself fall back asleep again, otherwise you can drift in and out of the nightmare over and over. Of course, I've often thought I was wide awake, struggling so violently against my bodily paralysis that I fell onto the floor and banging my head, only to calmly open my eyes still in bed while my heart was racing.

It is weird, but explainable. I know for a fact that if I was at all impressionable and uninformed, a hypnotist could have told me I was being abducted by aliens in my sleep and it would of make sense. I actually toyed with the idea that I had evil spirits inside me. In private school, my religion teacher told us that all people have a "life force" around them protecting them from evil spirits (this was in Catholic High School), and that using drugs or abusing alcohol lowers your "spirit force field." Apparently this was deduced from the testimony of a near death experiencer, a woman who had been clinically declared dead and then revived, who walked the earth with Jesus. During their tour, the woman could see the energy around all the living people, which she, being dead, now lacked. It was like they movie Ghost, where the ghosts pleaded with the living for attention but the living were oblivious to the dead. Anyway, as they entered a bar during her tour, she notice a drunk who had a particularly faint aura. Then the drunk passed out and fell off his bar stool. Immediately, she said, several spirits jumped into the man's body. Jesus warned her the man would never know he had become the host of these spirits, but that these demons would haunt him the rest of his natural born life. Jesus then told the woman she wasn't ready to die and blah blah blah sent her back and the woman lived "to tell the tale."

Anyway, that story always freaked me out and in college I was passing out quite often....so at the time, it didn't seem unreasonable that a few had slipped into me. I'm happy to say that I no longer believe such things are possible. I have a tin foil hat which repels bad spirits.

As far a schizophrenia is concerned, I think the biggest symptom is seeing connections where none exist. You see personal messages written in the clouds or think the people on the radio are really talking about YOU and everyone else knows it. Basically, dehabilitating paranoia and delusions. I'm not sure what a "mild" case would be like, but the disease does start gradually. If you seriously think you may be affected and weren't just dropping the term loosely, I'd talk to someone about it. Like anything, it's always best managed the earlier it's caught and treated. It also tends to runs in families and manifest itself in early adulthood.


"A man is his own easiest dupe, for what he wishes to be true he generally believes to be true." --Demosthenes

"The first principle is that you must not fool yourself - and you are the easiest person to fool." --Richard P. Feynman

"Face facts with dignity." --found inside a fortune cookie
Edited by - H. Humbert on 11/11/2004 01:02:48
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filthy
SFN Die Hard

USA
14408 Posts

Posted - 11/11/2004 :  04:05:48   [Permalink]  Show Profile Send filthy a Private Message
My almost woo woo story is a very simple and, I think, a very common one: At one time, I thought I was a dowser.

I was living in VT at the time and a good friend, a dairy farmer, used to dowse for water for anyone who'd ask him, if he had time. He didn't charge anything for it. Gordon's success rate was very high.

One spring, when I was helping him spread manure, the topic came up. He claimed that anyone could do it and offered to show me how. He said that the simplest method was a couple of brazing rods bent in such a way as to have handles on them. Thus, we made a pair and went out to 'dowse' the water line from his well to the house.

Guess what? I found it right away, as the rods crossed over it. I also found it with a forked stick, but failed with a pendulum. Gordon told me that would take a bit more practice.

I played with it for some months, accurately locating the water lines to my own house, the cistern in the cellar, and so forth. Then I read an article about the great aquifer under New England, and it got me thinking: Gordon's success rate just might be because he simply couldn't miss. Thinking further, I realized that all of the water I'd 'found', I'd already known or easily deduced (well is there, house is over there, pipe's gotta be here) it's location beforehand.

I experimented further and each time the rods crossed was exactly at the point I'd wanted them to cross. Thus, I reasoned, Gordon wasn't finding water, which was everywhere, rather he was finding the most convient place to dig for it. I never fully detected the tiny hand movements that directed the rods -- they are very subtle.

To this day, I don't know whether to be sad that I am not a dowser, or happy to have solved the mystery.


"What luck for rulers that men do not think." -- Adolf Hitler (1889 - 1945)

"If only we could impeach on the basis of criminal stupidity, 90% of the Rethuglicans and half of the Democrats would be thrown out of office." ~~ P.Z. Myres


"The default position of human nature is to punch the other guy in the face and take his stuff." ~~ Dude

Brother Boot Knife of Warm Humanitarianism,

and Crypto-Communist!

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beskeptigal
SFN Die Hard

USA
3834 Posts

Posted - 11/13/2004 :  02:48:32   [Permalink]  Show Profile Send beskeptigal a Private Message
I have a story, but it is very sad. My boyfriend in high school went to visit his aunt back east. She was a bit into the psychic stuff. It was the 60s after all and this was cool at the time, especially for a 17 year old. My boyfriend's aunt told him he was born 9 months after a cousin was killed in Korea. She also said my boyfriend was living the second half of the cousin's life and my boyfriend would die young and violently. When he was 18, he was killed in a car accident.

I know such a death is all too common and coincidence is too likely to think the aunt's story actually meant anything. But I do remember the story and it seems haunting.


That stabbing story is very eerie. It is one of those that is much harder to write off as coincidence. I know it still could and in fact most likely is just coincidental, but it is unique and that makes it very interesting. How many of us recall any dreams of someone being stabbed? I realize 'recall' is key here, but still, I've never had such a dream. Stargirl, I wonder, have you ever had any dreams that were remotely similar and not followed by a death or what ever?
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Stargirl
Skeptic Friend

USA
94 Posts

Posted - 11/22/2004 :  19:00:33   [Permalink]  Show Profile Send Stargirl a Private Message
beskeptigal

Sorry it took so long to get back to you but I was in training classes for some new software last week.

I don't know if I would consider the stabbing coincidental. As I said in my original post I think it is more likely that my dream may have caused the event to occur rather than it being a premonition. The mother was psychologically unstable; she had been institutionalized a few times and IIRC had attempted suicide once or twice. So in my opinion it is more likely that the son told his mother of my dream and she acted out that scenario.

At that age I was already on my way to critical thinking and didn't believe in premonitions. What was much scarier and troubling to me was the thought that I was somehow responsible for someone else's death, even if it was only by telling them about a dream. Thinking about it I'm sure it affects me to this day because I still have a tendency to hold my tongue until I get very, very comfortable with the people I'm with. Evidenced by the fact that I've been perusing this board for a couple years and only have 50 posts.

I have indeed dreamt of other people's death including my own though none of them came true. Related to that I've know people who have died or been killed and had no dream about the event. Like most people I've had feelings of daja-vu though these could be explained later, sometimes years later with evidence that I'd been there or seen photographs of the place when I was a child.

To end on an up-note and something that is a little weird is that I frequently use real life actors and actresses in my dreams. Now these actors do not play themselves but rather portray characters in my dream. It's also not unusual for me to replace an actor playing a particular character in my dreams. For example the other night I had a dream where Sly Stallone, (someone I can't stand) started out playing a character and I just simply had to stop the dream and replace him with Steve McQueen. Yeah I know he's dead but it's only a dream. Of course this may go back to my days in Hollywood when I had aspirations of becoming a writer and director, ah well.


Edited to change less than 50 posts to 50 posts because i just noticed this is my 50th post.


If God did not exist, it would be necessary to invent him - Voltaire
Edited by - Stargirl on 11/22/2004 19:03:26
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Siberia
SFN Addict

Brazil
2322 Posts

Posted - 11/23/2004 :  06:58:48   [Permalink]  Show Profile  Visit Siberia's Homepage  Send Siberia an AOL message  Send Siberia a Yahoo! Message Send Siberia a Private Message
Haha, I also dream with actors and actresses sometimes?
I've had strange dreams myself. One time, after an overdose of sci-fi I fell asleep during/after reading a book called Rama, that's about first contact and whatnot. So, I was reading a part when nuclear missiles were sent from Earth, towards the spaceship called Rama... in my dream, I was inside the starship and, much like the book's characters, hoping it'd escape. Well, it happens there was a HUGE thunderstorm out there... and then there's a thunder, really, really loud. No wonder I woke up screaming. My sister, poor thing, was scared to death.

"Why are you afraid of something you're not even sure exists?"
- The Kovenant, Via Negativa

"People who don't like their beliefs being laughed at shouldn't have such funny beliefs."
-- unknown
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