Ship of Fools: An unusual experience, beyond understanding, or at least mine

Thread: An unusual experience, beyond understanding, or at least mine Board: Oblivion / Ship of Fools.

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Posted by no prophet's flag is set so... (# 15560) on :

I am highly skeptical by nature and more so after some life experience, particularly about anything mystical and miraculous.

Last week I had the idea that I should call my aunt, who is about 93 or 4. I last saw her more than a year ago at a funeral. I didn't call, it was a notion to do so, and I dismissed it. Not close to her, I like her. One of those passing things.

The kicker - I open up an email account I don't use much, and there's an email from my cousin which talks about her sibling who is in health trouble, and how she moved the sib from a temporary lodging with my aunt to her home. -- My notion to call my aunt coincides with the cousin's email to me about it all. My aunt is reported to have been greatly troubled at the time.

So please r̶i̶d̶d̶l̶e̶ answer me this: how did I come to have the notion to call my aunt during the time of her stress, which I now confirm coincides with my notion. Can you please tell me it's merely coincidence and means nothing, or do I hustle off to weekday mass at the cathedral (which I may do before I get responses to this ridiculous post, as I have to leave in 25 mins)

[ 21. September 2016, 17:35: Message edited by: no prophet's flag is set so... ]

Posted by Penny S (# 14768) on :

Don't know how it works. But this is in the range of things that I have known happen.

The most significant was the day I walked up the hill on my way back from school and saw an old man walking up the other side of the road, and thought he looked like Grandad. Now Grandad was at that time in hospital, but that isn't what I thought. What came into my mind was that it couldn't be him because he had died. I was absolutely convinced.

When I got in, I was puzzled that so one said anything, but decided that Mum and Dad were waiting for the right moment to give the news to my seven-year-old sister. I was fourteen. While we were eating, the phone went. That was when Mum heard that her father had died.

(It turned out that the hospital had been phoning the school, where Mum had gone to discuss my future plans, so that she could get back to be with him, but the school could not be bothered to pass on the message. They had a habit of doing that sort of thing. Pity Mum didn't get the message I did earlier.)

[ 21. September 2016, 18:28: Message edited by: Penny S ]

Posted by Ariel (# 58) on :

quote:
Originally posted by no prophet's flag is set so...:
...how did I come to have the notion to call my aunt during the time of her stress, which I now confirm coincides with my notion.

This sort of thing is more common than you think and it's certainly happened to me a few times.

Some things can't easily be explained. If it happens again, don't worry about the "how"; focus on the "why" and make that call.

Posted by Firenze (# 619) on :

I have mentioned before my observation (confirmed many times) that 'now' is not on an absolute dividing line between past and future - everything on one side known or knowable, absolutely nothing on the other. Rather it is the centre of a rather hazy circle of awareness which includes both.

Mostly we are insensible of this awareness - maybe a feeling of deja vu, or a 'I was sure that was going to happen!' after the event. It's rarely that the chain of cause and effect is clear enogh for us to spot that the sequence is not in the usual order. Example: I see an unusual item, I revisit in a dream childhood memories of this same item - perfectly ordinary occurence. Except I had the dream the night before seeing the object.

We arrange time in a linear way - that's not necessarily how time is. We think knowing is conscious recollection when it is wider than that.

Posted by no prophet's flag is set so... (# 15560) on :

I don't seem to be able to become content with just accepting. I want to know why and how this sort of things happen. I have had so few of these. I date a prior one to May 1976; I seem to have been waiting these 40 years to have a confirmed incident that might let me evaluate that prior incident as well.

And contrariwise - a big ticket item - why it doesn't happen other times. Because these are even more significant and by my judgement, should have been subject of something like this "notification". I realize I'm probably catching raindrops with fingers with some of this. I can grasp that it truly happened but not really very well the rest.

Posted by Hedgehog (# 14125) on :

"The universe is big. It's vast and complicated and... ridiculous and sometimes, very rarely, impossible things just happen and we call them miracles, and... that's a theory." --The Doctor, "The Pandorica Opens" (2010)

I've mentioned this before, but it still amazes me: In 2001, the US was the target of the 9/11 terrorist attack. This included planes striking the World Trade Center in New York and another plane crashing in Shanksville, PA. Osama bin Laden claimed to being the mastermind behind the attack. When, in May of 2011, the news broke that bin Laden had been killed, there was one (and only one) major league baseball game in progress. Baseball, sometimes called America's Pastime. That game was between the Mets and the Phillies--two teams from two states (NY and PA) that were involved in the attack. And when the news broke, the teams were in the 9th inning. And the score was tied, 1-1. Yes: 9. 1-1.

Posted by Graven Image (# 8755) on :

I think all of the universe is connected and whatever happens sends out a signal. I am guessing some signals are stronger and easier for us to pick up then others, or perhaps sometimes we pay attention and sometimes we do not. That said, I also think we need to be very careful what kind of energy we send forth in our life because yes it does matter.

Posted by Firenze (# 619) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Hedgehog:

I've mentioned this before, but it still amazes me: In 2001, the US was the target of the 9/11 terrorist attack. This included planes striking the World Trade Center in New York and another plane crashing in Shanksville, PA. Osama bin Laden claimed to being the mastermind behind the attack. When, in May of 2011, the news broke that bin Laden had been killed, there was one (and only one) major league baseball game in progress. Baseball, sometimes called America's Pastime. That game was between the Mets and the Phillies--two teams from two states (NY and PA) that were involved in the attack. And when the news broke, the teams were in the 9th inning. And the score was tied, 1-1. Yes: 9. 1-1.

Given the multiplicity of things happening in the world at any one time, it is not that extraordinary that two or more can be 'matched' in a way that seems to be significant. If you add myths and legends, even more so. I can remember, at the funeral of Princess Diana, coming up with impressive parallels to the death of King Arthur.

We are a pattern-making species, very much given to assuaging our fears or uncertainties by projecting a meaning onto the streaming flow of everyday, very much as you can see now a ship, now a dragon, now a face in the clouds that pass overhead.

I am very prone to this in times of anxiety. One the one hand, I know it is arbitrary; that I have chosen this interpretation over that, or cherry-picked one detail that resonated and ignored all that didn't. But then there is the long experience, alluded to above, of knowing outcomes before they happen. So perhaps, I tell myself, I am finding ways to access this consciously. Mebbe. Mebbe no.

Posted by Teekeey Misha (# 18604) on :

quote:
Originally posted by no prophet's flag is set so...:
I am highly skeptical by nature...

I can't decide if I'm sceptical or not. I tend to think of myself as very sceptical, but then I remember all the things about which I'm not at all sceptical and become sceptical of my scepticism!

Sceptical or trusting matters not. Either way, I tend to agree with Firenze; coincidences happen. Even outrageously improbable coincidences happen. They probably happen far more than we realize, because (mathematically) they're not really that outrageously improbable; we just happen to notice some and not others.

Posted by Penny S (# 14768) on :

Firenze's comments about "now"s fuzziness prompts me to post what I didn't post yesterday. J W Dunne's book 'An Experiment With Time' had a suggestion about what is going on. And once you allow time to be fuzzy, the rest of the paranormal ideas go out of the window. If you are going to know something in the future, then telepathy cannot be proved, nor can knowing about things at a distance. Not so sure about dowsing.

Nor am I sure about the time thing, either. But something is going on.

Posted by sabine (# 3861) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Graven Image:
I think all of the universe is connected and whatever happens sends out a signal. I am guessing some signals are stronger and easier for us to pick up then others, or perhaps sometimes we pay attention and sometimes we do not. That said, I also think we need to be very careful what kind of energy we send forth in our life because yes it does matter.

I believe this, too. Sometimes I just say
The Holy Spirit at work! but that kind of phrase shortchanges the nuances of situations like this and make the Holy Spirit look like a puppet master.

sabine

Posted by Nicolemr (# 28) on :

In September of 2001, I had a dream that anyone would think was a reaction to 9/11, a dream of a flying object smashing into a tall building and people running in panic. Obviously a reaction to 9/11, right? Except I had it two days before. Nothing that could have let me actually predict it, there were too many differences from reality, but, as though I was reacting in advance of the event.

Posted by no prophet's flag is set so... (# 15560) on :

I have great trouble with an intervening supernatural spirit, both in general and in this situation. Because it seems so capricious; I tried to be content with the Lewisism that "he's not a tame lion" (The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe), but I'm not.

Posted by TurquoiseTastic (# 8978) on :

But natural phenomena shouldn't be capricious either!

Posted by Firenze (# 619) on :

I don't know that they are. I think our awareness of them that fluctuates. How much of the minutiae of each day do we actually remember? Why should we have any more acute perception of the 'about to be' than the 'just been' since both are probably fairly undramatic? It takes something startling to break through into consciousness (though, if we were more mindful, we would probably see a lot more).

Posted by Lamb Chopped (# 5528) on :

quote:
Originally posted by no prophet's flag is set so...:
I don't seem to be able to become content with just accepting. I want to know why and how this sort of things happen. I have had so few of these. I date a prior one to May 1976; I seem to have been waiting these 40 years to have a confirmed incident that might let me evaluate that prior incident as well.

And contrariwise - a big ticket item - why it doesn't happen other times. Because these are even more significant and by my judgement, should have been subject of something like this "notification". I realize I'm probably catching raindrops with fingers with some of this. I can grasp that it truly happened but not really very well the rest.

I've wondered about this too. Of course, as I understand the world, the Holy Spirit can and does communicate when he chooses, and I can tell you quite a few stories like this. But in the case of the ones that seem confirmed to me to be of the Holy Spirit,* the unusual thing is that they are almost every single time given for the benefit of others rather than for the benefit of the person receiving the communication. I suspect this kind of thing happens more often to missionaries as a part of the way the Spirit supports the outreach of the church into new people groups.

* In my case these are things like "Go to this house right now" and you get there to find a mugging victim on the sidewalk needing transport and interpretation at the hospital; or "Go to the hospital to visit X (whom you think is not seriously ill), don't wait--and by the way, bring a Vietnamese hymnbook with you" (what? for a non-Christian family?). I find it's always best to just go as told, because inevitably it turns out to be for the best.

Then there are the ordinary spooky coincidences, which do not seem to have any particular redeeming social value, and which I take to be either pure coincidences or else little-known functions of the way space/time works. These are bizarre but they don't seem to have any particular meaning, so when they occur, I just say "Whoa, that was weird." I don't have those much.

Then there are the occasions where I feel I SHOULD have been notified but wasn't, as when my father died. But then, I couldn't have done anything, it wouldn't have helped anyone, and in any case, it would have been for me personally--which seems to be unusual in how the Holy Spirit works, in my experience. So it's probably for the best that I was curling my hair at the moment he died. And certainly it was better for those who would have had to deal with my rotten driving if I'd had any idea otherwise! But mostly I just figure that this wasn't a place where God felt a need to step in.

Posted by Lamb Chopped (# 5528) on :

quote:
Originally posted by no prophet's flag is set so...:
I have great trouble with an intervening supernatural spirit, both in general and in this situation. Because it seems so capricious; I tried to be content with the Lewisism that "he's not a tame lion" (The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe), but I'm not.

On the capriciousness--

Yeah, I get what you mean. On the other hand, it's worth noting that you yourself dismissed the impulse to call your aunt; presumably God couldn't do anything further in the matter (at least through you, it would be interesting to know whether your cousin experienced a similar prompting) without actively overriding your will, which seems to be a "won't go there" of his. It makes me wonder just how many other impulses/instructions of this sort get overridden by the people receiving them. And whether it is quite fair to blame God for those decisions.

Posted by Ariel (# 58) on :

Awareness fluctuates and is often overridden by the conscious mind which says "Don't be silly, this isn't rational, you're imagining things."

There's no harm in making a call to say "Are you all right", if the person isn't they'll be grateful for it, if they are all right, they'll probably be pleased to hear from you.

Posted by Hedgehog (# 14125) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Firenze:
We are a pattern-making species, very much given to assuaging our fears or uncertainties by projecting a meaning onto the streaming flow of everyday, very much as you can see now a ship, now a dragon, now a face in the clouds that pass overhead.

In fact, I almost ended my post with another Doctor Who quote, this one from Paul McGann's TV movie: "I love humans. Always seeing patterns in things..." We do. We also like to link things causally. I see this regularly in my job. Event A happens, then Event B, and somebody insists that, because of that placement on the time line, Event A "caused" Event B. But it is not that simple. Just because you hurt your shoulder on Day 1 and then your knee starts hurting on Day 5 does not mean the shoulder injury caused the knee to hurt. "But, but, but it never hurt before I hurt my shoulder!" True. But you need more to establish causation than that coincidence.

quote:
Originally posted by Teekeey Misha:
I can't decide if I'm sceptical or not. I tend to think of myself as very sceptical, but then I remember all the things about which I'm not at all sceptical and become sceptical of my scepticism!

Sceptical or trusting matters not. Either way, I tend to agree with Firenze; coincidences happen. Even outrageously improbable coincidences happen.

Agreed. The first time I posted about the baseball thing, I ended it with the sentence "The scary thing about coincidences is that they happen."

But there is also a problem with being too much in love with scepticism. For a time, I used to have a G.K. Chesterton quote in my sig line:

quote:
"They would just swallow the scepticism because it was scepticism. Modern intelligence won't accept anything on authority. But it will accept anything without authority."

(It was in a Father Brown story where the legend of a place was dismissed by a sceptic and given a "more rational" explanation--but it turns out that the legend was literally true. "Modern intelligences" dismissed the authority of the legend just because it was an old legend and preferred the "modern" sceptical view that had no factual or authoritative support behind it.)

It is not just the universe that is vast and complicated. Our lives are too. And we don't perceive everything. Lamb Chopped's story of the death of her father is a good example--what would have happened if a spiritual notification had come and she tried to go to him? We don't know. God does.

There is the old chestnut of the "butterfly effect": a flap of a butterfly's wings sets off a chain of events that eventually leads to a hurricane. The same is true with our lives and who knows what end result may come from following the impulse of the Spirit. Many, many years ago, I saw somebody being held up at gunpoint across the street. I don't want to go into details, but the event has had a profound impact on my life and made me (I believe) a more caring person. If I had not followed the impulse to wander down that street at that time, what sort of smug, self-satisfied jerk might I have become these decades later? A much different smug, self-satisfied jerk than I am now, I am quite sure! [Smile]

It was just a flap of a butterfly wing, but it changed me, and that change in me then has had an effect of the people I have interacted with since then. And presumably those people affected by me have gone on to influence others, etc. etc. But the causal chain is too obscure for any but God to see.

Posted by no prophet's flag is set so... (# 15560) on :

Firenze's comment quite helpful; something to consider as I observe my awareness of such things.

LC's comments lead me differently into the same direction. Evidently my aerial doesn't receive these signals as sensitively as your's or I don't know how to tune the station (do I want to? is another good question). I've had 2 identifiable incidents in 40 years, incidents I couldn't explain via coincidence.

Posted by Teekeey Misha (# 18604) on :

quote:
Originally posted by no prophet's flag is set so...:
I've had 2 identifiable incidents in 40 years, incidents I couldn't explain via coincidence.

"Couldn't" or "didn't want to"?

Perhaps it was the Holy Spirit or perhaps it was some "genetic ESP" thing or perhaps it was just coincidence. The reality would seem to be that you can't explain it at all, rather than that you can't explain it via coincidence. You have described one of the two incidents; from your description it seems that you could describe it as coincidence. I would be more tempted to ask why you don't want to do so.

Posted by no prophet's flag is set so... (# 15560) on :

You are right to ask this question.

There is no coincidence explanation for the recent one. I don't call this aunt. I knew her better in the early 1970s and late 1960s, but that's all for connection. As I say I was at a funeral and saw her about 14 months ago, previous to that in 1995 (or so) and in 1984. She phoned to leave condolences 6 years ago on the death of my mother (not related to my mother), left a message, didn't attend the funeral. Didn't talk to her. There is nothing else. I crispy and plainly thought of her and of calling. It pisses me off that this happened and I cannot discard it. I do want to explain via coincidence and haven't been able. That's the problem.

The prior one in 1976 is more personal to me and I'm not comfortable describing it in any detail in an open forum. It is of the same disconnected nature, out of nowhere.

[ 22. September 2016, 20:08: Message edited by: no prophet's flag is set so... ]

Posted by SusanDoris (# 12618) on :

No prophets flag

We do not remember all the times our brains have thought, whether briefly or for seconds at a time, about a person. The time when the thought coincides with a memorable event is seen as more than just the coincidence it actually is. There is no logical reason to think otherwise.

Posted by Firenze (# 619) on :

Up to a point. Like the often-raised hypothesis about whether animals can predict natural disasters. 'But Fluffles acted really strangely before the earthquake!' What about all the times Fluffles acted strangely and there was no earthquake?

However, it doesn't cover the instances where you are thinking a good deal about a topic and have a conviction as to the outcome which runs counter to the evidence. Some years there was a proposal that Mr Firenze travel to a particular part of the world, one that I was not happy about. It loomed in my thoughts for months. Eventually, the date was set, the tickets were bought - and yet I had strong feeling that I could stop worrying, that he wouldn't go. Sure enough, a day or so later, his boss cancelled the trip.

I have very many instances of this lifting of anxiety (I worry a lot) very often just a few minutes in advance of the reassuring phonecall. And naturally I actively look for this feeling at such times. But of course it's an unbidden and unbiddable thing - the more you pursue it, the more elusive it becomes.

Posted by DonLogan2 (# 15608) on :

My lovely wife is much more "receptive/sensitive" to these things. She is a twin and can sometimes tell if her sister is upset, she lives 500 miles away. There are other instances too, not related to her sister, that seem overly peculiar and more than just coincidence.

Posted by Ariel (# 58) on :

quote:
Originally posted by SusanDoris:
We do not remember all the times our brains have thought, whether briefly or for seconds at a time, about a person. The time when the thought coincides with a memorable event is seen as more than just the coincidence it actually is. There is no logical reason to think otherwise.

Some people are open to the possibility that things happen outside their own experience, some people aren't. If you've ever been focused on something, then suddenly interrupted by what feels like a quite unmistakable distress call from someone you know at a distance (and which is verified later by a phone call or email saying that the incident happened at that time), you would, I think, find it quite hard to explain that as a coincidence or your imagination.

Sometimes anomalous things can and do happen, in which case your personal logical framework needs adjusting accordingly, rather than trying to cram an awkwardly shaped anomaly into it and make it fit received wisdom on the grounds that all the truths about the world, people, etc etc are already known and there is nothing more.

Posted by Firenze (# 619) on :

And I would add that for anyone wishing practice in the art of open-minded curiosity, Fortean Times is a valuable resource.

[ 23. September 2016, 13:11: Message edited by: Firenze ]

Posted by Aravis (# 13824) on :

I can think of a few examples, mainly dreams foretelling things.

But I also remember one rather embarrassing evening, about 25 years ago, when a woman at church invited me round for a meal with a young man fairly new to the church. After we'd eaten, she announced that the Lord had told her to give us each a sum of money (I think it was about £30 each - not a fortune but of some significance to her as she lived quite simply). It was immediately obvious that neither of us had any specific reason why we should need this money but that she would be very upset and offended if we said so. I racked my brains to come up with something, said on the spur of the moment that my car insurance was coming up for renewal and this would enable me to buy comprehensive rather than third party, and the woman said she drove a moped and always had third party insurance. There was a bit of a pause. Then the man said he honestly couldn't think of a reason and did she want it back. The woman said no, it was all right, something might turn up. So we each thanked her and left. [Hot and Hormonal]

Posted by Ethne Alba (# 5804) on :

A friend of mine (who is currently not on speaking terms with The Almighty) describes those sort of moments as "Mad, crazy, weird, bizarre and might be God"

I don't know.
Just repeating that opinion.....

Posted by Lamb Chopped (# 5528) on :

Aravis, that's a great example of why I keep my head down about such moments until after events have confirmed them! Sheesh, the confidence of announcing that God has told you such and such when it's just an impression... I haven't got it, I'd die of embarrassment. [Hot and Hormonal]

Which is why my usual M.O. is to sneak around and do whatever I think I've been told to do without telling anybody why until later. Because I'm the kind of person who could confuse the voice of a pepperoni pizza for the voice of God. [Hot and Hormonal]

Posted by Brenda Clough (# 18061) on :

I have a profoundly Christian friend who had a similar dream. He woke up with the pressing notion that he had to give some money to a mutual friend of ours who has moved to NY state and lives in reduced circumstances. So he mailed her a thousand dollars. She was confused when it arrived (there was no covering letter) and contacted me. I told her about the dream, and she was bemused but obediently used it to buy four new snow tires for her car. Her wallet was lean but she probably could and would have done it herself, New York weather being what it is. We assumed that the new tires would keep her from having a nasty accident in the Adirondacks in January.

Posted by churchgeek (# 5557) on :

no prophet, your OP reminds me of this wonderful song by a local folk artist (well, sadly, she moved out of the Detroit area): "Spirit So Big" by Jan Krist

Posted by cattyish (# 7829) on :

I can douse for water, but for any other finding I get hit or miss results. Mr C has more success than me.

My dreams have never been accurate, even the vividly convincing one I had a year or so ago when I woke up sure that my father had died. He's still driving around the UK in his 4x4.

Cattyish, considering incorporating a debunked dream into my current NaNoWriMo novel.

Posted by Karl: Liberal Backslider (# 76) on :

Confirmation bias, pattern spotting. We forget the times the Aunt crossed our consciousness and then nothing happened to link to our thought.

Posted by Stercus Tauri (# 16668) on :

A few years ago I had a brief episode of hallucinations that was probably due to a drug interaction (in the hospital!) that persuaded me that memory is never lost - it's stuck in there somewhere, though often inaccessible. Some interesting stuff was released at the time, and it all made sense in retrospect - there was nothing synthesised about it.

Something that may have been related happened when I was working out the other day. Why did I suddenly remember that the log of pi is 0.4972? (It is - you can look it up). I don't think I've used that since slide rules took over from log tables when we did A-levels, fifty years ago. I like to do mental calculations while exercising, but I draw the line at memorising log tables. It was a little spooky, but interesting anyway. I wonder if being in shock after last week's political catastrophe has shaken us up, causing odd things to happen?

Posted by Edith (# 16978) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Ariel:

quote:
Originally posted by SusanDoris:
We do not remember all the times our brains have thought, whether briefly or for seconds at a time, about a person. The time when the thought coincides with a memorable event is seen as more than just the coincidence it actually is. There is no logical reason to think otherwise.
Some people are open to the possibility that things happen outside their own experience, some people aren't. If you've ever been focused on something, then suddenly interrupted by what feels like a quite unmistakable distress call from someone you know at a distance (and which is verified later by a phone call or email saying that the incident happened at that time), you would, I think, find it quite hard to explain that as a coincidence or your imagination.

Sometimes anomalous things can and do happen, in which case your personal logical framework needs adjusting accordingly, rather than trying to cram an awkwardly shaped anomaly into it and make it fit received wisdom on the grounds that all the truths about the world, people, etc etc are already known and there is nothing more.

I've never had an experience like this, but my uncle, Father Velden, who was a Dutch priest, was walking across Calais market place in 1943 when he 'knew' that something dreadful had happened to his family. The feeling was so strong that he went straightaway and said a Requiem Mass for them. It wasn't until after the war was over that he discovered they had been killed at that precise time.
He was a very learned man who had no truck with what he called superstitious nonsense and never before or since experienced anything similar.

Posted by betjemaniac (# 17618) on :

When my Grandad died completely out of the blue, back in 2000, I, my brother, mother, uncle, and 2 of the 3 cousins all woke up at 2.30am, which was the time of death.

He wasn't ill, and none of us were within 100 miles of him at the time.

I woke up, looked at my alarm clock and thought it was a silly time to be awake, then lay there trying to get back to sleep.

Posted by Boogie (# 13538) on :

Most likely to be coincidence, they happen a lot.

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