Я не специалист в этом. Но при медитации никаких видений не видят.And? So what?
Perhaps you need to review your Dostoevsky--particularly his more autobiographical writings and especially the words of Prince Myshkin in The Idiot:
Though I'd recommend Myshkin's descriptions in his own words, I just didn't feel like looking them up at the moment.
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C'mon Olga! Myshkin didn't have "visions", and neither did Dostoevsky--you really need to look up their descriptions of the moment prior to a seizure in their own words, or I'm going to have to retract my claim that you are quite fluent and conversant in Russian literature, etc. (Just kidding--I won't retract that claim. But, seriously, review your Dostoevsky.)
Here's one example (there's plenty more, but I don't wanna look them up):
"He was thinking, incidentally, that there was a moment or two in his epileptic condition almost before the fit itself (if it occurred in waking hours) when suddenly amid the sadness, spiritual darkness and depression, his brain seemed to catch fire at brief moments....His sensation of being alive and his awareness increased tenfold at those moments which flashed by like lightning. His mind and heart were flooded by a dazzling light. All his agitation, doubts and worries, seemed composed in a twinkling, culminating in a great calm, full of understanding...but these moments, these glimmerings were still but a premonition of that final second (never more than a second) with which the seizure itself began. That second was, of course, unbearable.”
(I didn't do the bold and big font, I just don't feel like removing it. So I'm not "yelling".)
Incidentally, and irrespective of precisely nothing, my excessive over-use of certain sorts of adverbs is considered, by some, to be a sort of side-effect a lifetime of frequent seizing.
DaveC426913
Valued Senior Member
As an off-topic aside, I have managed to achieve a presumably paradoxical state upon falling asleep:
A state where I can tell my mind is shutting down - my consciousness is slipping away as my unconscious takes over - while still being aware that it is happening.
Normally, any such realization would immediately kick me out of the pre-sleep state into full conscious mode (as if I'd heard a car alarm or suddenly realize I have to get up early in the morning) but this does not happen.
While slipping into unconsciousness, I am able to recognize that I am unable to hold onto a thought - including the thought that I am in this state, and that I can't concentrate on it for more than two seconds before forgetting it. It is a paradoxical feeling. And, frankly, I'm not sure why I can remember it now, while awake.
Indeed. My wife is one of those who says she never dreams. I've finally convinced her to say instead that she simply never remembers dreaming upon waking.
DaveC426913
Valued Senior Member
Sorry what are you telling us? That the (not-yelling) account of the seizure in post 43 is describing you, told in third person?
No. Sorry, I should have clarified that post--that's a passage about Prince Myshkin from The Idiot.
That said, it's entirely familiar to me. And, funnily, I got into both Russian literature, particularly Dostoevsky, and Buddhism and such around the same time, roughly at the age of 15 iirc. The introduction to Zen Training (oddly not credited--it's not Sekida, the author of the text) discusses Dostoevsky at length, likening the experiences described in both his fiction and his autobiographical work as wholly not unlike the experience of satori. For years, both Dostoevsky and the passages in that intro really resonated with me, but I couldn't really work out why. Then, like nearly a decade later, when a doctor told me that I'd been having seizures and had been misdiagnosed for nearly the entire decade prior, I suddenly realized why that stuff resonated with me. I honestly don't think I would ever have put two and two together and worked it out on my own, without a medical professional having made the connection for me.
TheVat
Valued Senior Member
Prince Myshkin. It was a quote from The Idiot. (redundant x-post, can be deleted)
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TheVat
Valued Senior Member
That's a common symptom of brain tumor. JK.
I've had in recent years a strange no-thought thing at the other end i.e. awakening from a nap or sleep. I open my eyes and am quite aware, but don't structure what I'm seeing or have any thoughts - it's a sort of amnesia and not always pleasant (I'm getting used to it lately, though and can sometimes enjoy "the ride") and I truly have no concept of who I am or where my surroundings are. Then after a few seconds, something kicks back into gear and I start to realize all the who/what/where/when stuff. And colors look normal again (when I'm in that state, color vision will often be different, go figure). I sort of want to parlay this odd state into a kind of meditation but it may not work - the same way you can't usually turn a fart into a concerto. (there was that guy in Paris, I guess)
Slowly counting from one to ten, over and over again, in tandem with breathing, say--as one does in the early stages of various forms of meditation--can prove surprisingly difficult. Just try doing it for ten minutes. Distracting thoughts inevitably intrude and disrupt the "process".
And there is always Christopher Bollas' concept of the unthought known to consider, or not:
"Unthought known is a phrase coined by Christopher Bollas in the 1980s to represent those experiences in some way known to the individual, but about which the individual is unable to think.
At its most compelling, the unthought known stands for those early schemata for interpreting the object world that preconsciously determine our subsequent life expectations.[1] In this sense, the unthought known refers to preverbal, unschematised early experience/trauma that may determine one's behaviour unconsciously, barred to conscious thought.[2]"
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And where would we be without Husserl and Heidegger?
Here's an entire album inspired by the unthought known:
DaveC426913
Valued Senior Member
This happens when I come out of a very deep sleep, or when I've had an "epic" dream (a dream that spans days/weeks and is very vivid, fraught with intrigue and emotion). I have to re-remember my reality, and it takes time.
"Oh. Right. My name is ... uh ... Dave. This is Earth. The year is 2025. I'm in my bed. Got it."
The penultimate scene in 'Inception', as the mark climbs out of the rabbit hole, has much this feeling.
У меня был случай, после которого я задумалась о природе времени. Человек рядом со мной начал засыпать, знаете, бывают такие пограничные состояния между сном и бодрствованием. Я спросила его: "ты спишь"? И он в полусне мне отвечает: "автобус мужика сбил, люди собрались". Ну я подумала, что ему это снится. На следующий день я еду в соседний город, и вижу стоящий автобус, человек лежит перед ним, люди собрались. Вот что это было? Он в этом состоянии увидел мой завтрашний день. Как это объяснить, не привлекая эзотерику?
RainbowSingularity
Valued Senior Member
had people gathered ?
if he has a recurring nightmare then its only a matter of time before the coincidence occurs.
i have seen things. strange things, premonitions and projections of people. in a fog gray colouring in my mind.
1 example i was standing in a night club and closed my eyes and saw an image of a witch like women walking past me hurrying and angry.
i opened my eyes and a women looking like her hurried past angry in exactly the same position as i saw it in my mind about 5 seconds before it happened.
i have had other experiences like that.
i am on medication that suppresses that now but i occasionally still get visions of people in my mind sometimes like im sitting down and people are moving around me doing things and interacting with others like a movie is playing but they are all grey smoke coloured lacking perfect detail.
it has served purpose as a warning for me in the past to get a premonition then avoid something. it became normal to me for a few years. but it carry's a lot of baggage.
i dream in colour and have about 3 dreams a night that i can remember if i choose to.
my dreams are mostly fictional movies made around my lingering feelings.
i am highly skeptical about special abilities but i have experienced enough to know not to rule them out.
i have postulated that the mind dreams and processes soo much that with sheer volume of processes it is only logical that coincidences will occur where the mind has processed a similar potential event.
i think i know what Déjà vu is , it is where the mind recognizes a similar event and looses a time placement on it and the long term memory seeks to activate making it seem possible it may have happened in the past yet it is just a loss of time notation on a feeling and process that trigger the mind to seek a date in time. this is then processed as a reoccurring event in a new time scale. then the mind goes in to pattern matching mode seeking to identify recognized patterns to associate with the same feeling and action.
i have trained myself to identify the origin of the feeling which removes the feeling of Déjà vu and re asserts a time line on the recognized feeling in long term memory.
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Ему не снилось это постоянно. Это было один раз. И вообще, мне не нравятся эзотерические объяснения. Я материалистка. Тут может быть два объяснения: 1. Это редкое случайное совпадение. 2. Мы чего то не знаем о природе времени, материи, сознания, и реальности.
По моему глубокому убеждению, разных потусторонних сущностей обычно видят люди с больной психикой, либо употребляющие наркотические вещества. Но я так же знаю случаи, когда несколько здоровых людей утверждали, что видели привидение. Не один человек, а несколько, в одно и то же время, в одном и том же месте. Причём это были люди далёкие от эзотерики, и не склонные к фантазиям. И таких случаев можно найти в литературе не так уж и мало. Это тоже нужно как то объяснить с материалистической точки зрения. Я как то общалась на одном форуме с человеком, который всю жизнь занимался изучением таких случаев, и многих других непонятных явлений. Не как любитель, а это было его профессией, государство финансировало эти исследования. И он писал, что большинство всех этих медиумов, были либо шарлатаны, либо искусные фокусники, либо психически больные люди. Но иногда, очень редко, попадалось действительно что то реальное и необъяснимое на данный момент наукой.
Экстасенсорные способности действительно могут существовать. Например, есть старые монахи, к которым ходят паломники за советом, и вот один из них, например, знал имена пришедших к нему людей, хотя ему никто их не представлял, и сами они ему не представлялись. Но думаю, что и здесь есть какое-нибудь материалистичное объяснение.
RainbowSingularity
Valued Senior Member
i read your desire, it is contrasted between wanting things to be materialistic yet you still want an esoteric nature to the unknown.
if some esoteric things were true, would it change your morals ?
do you eat animals ?
Я ем животных. И я люблю животных. Не знаю, смогла бы я зарубить сама курицу, или ещё какое-нибудь животное. Но в природе все всех едят, за исключением растений. Даже если бы я отказалась от мяса, мне всё равно пришлось бы его покупать для собаки и кота, потому что они хищники, и нуждаются в животном белке.
Отношение к морали? Не понимаю о чём вопрос. Стала бы я аморальной?
Wizard of Whatever
Valued Senior Member
Just as in any thing else, in meditation it is "different strokes for different folks" and "one size does not fit all".
Ethical and political veganism is almost certainly going to become a dominant (or least ordained) norm in the future, as morality evolves. Given that human behavior has for decades been incrementally micro-managed by the progression of critical theory accepting and outputting new prescriptions for the rehabilitation of Western society.
An exception might be lab-grown meat, though, since no animal is directly harmed to obtain it. Human carnivores and omnivores will require an intermediate stage -- they can't give up addiction to meat on the spot. Somewhat akin in this era to tolerating the linguistic mishaps of the majority part of the population that is still not completely weaned from the white supremacist, misogynist, and anti-LGBT+ ideology baked into the post-ancient foundations of Western establishment. (Trump interruptions are mere brief anomalies in the trajectory of the overall reform; the humanities or literary intellectuals will be restored to their rightful position as umpires and engineers of the transition.)
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TheVat
Valued Senior Member
One could see it as not addiction but a limitation of the human gut microbiome - we don't synthesize B12, and some minerals and DHA (an om3 fatty acid) are in forms more absorbable in meat. I eat vegan four days/wk, and the other three days (pesceterian) are not owing to any addiction (I could take or leave fish) but to nutritional deficits that arise when entirely vegan. A fully vegan humanity would require some bioengineering in the gut to thrive. (And probably non-dairy milks that have the same nutrient density as milk - and without food intolerance triggers like soy, carageenan, guar gum, xanthan gum, etc). I hope we can do that, not least to discard the idea that other animal species exist for our entertainment or to serve us. Lab meat might be another answer, possibly better, given how difficult it is to redesign the delicate symbiosis of the gut microbiota.