I guess this is a follow-on from Shin's thread and some of the issues raised there, but about something entirely different.
I think that many/most people here are very skeptical of much spiritualist and paranormal (and in most cases also religious) belief and occurrences, favouring the hard facts of science by which to measure the experiences that we have.
Yet I think that many people will have had a moment that makes them wonder to themselves if perhaps there are other forces at work, yet we push them to the back of our mind because our logical brains tell us that there is almost certainly a perfectly reasonable explanation, planted in the real tangible world, that explains our experiences.
I was considering what Myoptika said about a spiritualist contacting his grandfather and why someone skeptical about most things spiritualist or paranormal might believe in this one occurrence. Of course, comfort of knowing that your bereaved one has reached an afterlife is almost certainly what draws most people to this example, but I have another experience that still bothers me and which I cannot explain.
When I was at Uni I was mooching around in a class, dressing as a unicorn or some such thing, when a guest theatre group of three people from Leicester were introduced into the room. As soon as they were, I knew that I knew one of them, very well. I mean, as in I saw him every day, but not in TV or in that he served in a nearby shop, but that he was either one of my best friends or family, or something. I know, it is totally illogical.
I felt the feeling that I knew this person so very strongly that I felt quite sick, almost panicky, so I left and had a coffee. I returned some twenty minutes later but was so distracted that dressing as a unicorn, or whatever I was doing, became a fretful and bizarre task, and I was glad for the time for lunch to arrive.
When we all poured to the bar to grab lunch I sat and chatted to a friend that was in the class and told her what I felt, she agreed it was odd, said she didn't recognise him and said maybe I had seen him on TV or something.
After lunch we went back to class and were discussing some staging ideas with the thetre group when suddenly, literally halfway through a sentence, the guy I recognised abandoned his words and said 'look, sorry, but it's driving me up the wall - I KNOW I know you very well and I am really really sorry but I can't get you out of my head and can't think how or why I know you and I just can't concentrate on anything!'.
Well, everyone's interest piqued we discussed where we had worked, etc, but he had never been to London - the only place I had been at this point, and I had never been to Leicester. Also, he had never done any TV work, which wouldn't have explained how he knew me, either - but as we discussed, we felt like we had known each other as best friends/lovers/family.
The two weeks we worked with them were almost painful for me, especially as they ended up staying with me in my house for just over a week, and I was almost thankful when their time to leave arrived, but I felt a terrible sinking feeling when they did, because I hadn't found out what the link was and knew I'd never feel settled about it, but jus staring at each other the whole time was becoming too much for me.
Anyway, it STILL bothers me. I think about it quite often and every time it pops into my head I get that strange sinking feeling in my tummy and my heart quickens a little, and no part of my logical brain can explain it away.
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