Conference hydra::dejavu

    Hi Ravi,
    
    When a person channels an entity/energy another entity is present
    temporarily, such as a meduim or a channeler.  Sometimes when a
    channeler channels his entity, they can reside in your physical body
    as well.  It's like a shared domain.  However, this is ONLY if you
    give your permission can they reside in your body with you AND they
    (the entity) only comes out when you ask them.
    
    Sounds really weird....However, a friend of mine is a channeller and
    when he channels his guide this is what happened to him.  Also,
    entities/energies change when you are ready to take the next step. 
    Over the past 6-7 years Don has probably had about 15 entities.  
    
    This is the only information that I can provide to you.  I just wanted
    to let you know that your experience with an entity living inside your
    body is not just applicable to you.  
    
    Best of Luck,
    Deb
    

     re: .0,
    	What a frightening situation.   My wife had a similar experience
    	a year or so ago, but it never got that bad and (whatever) went away
    	by itself.  I was studying the psychological effects hermetic magic 
    	at the time, but not deliberately trying to invoke any kind of
    	incorporeal entity.   I have to admit to remaining unconvinced
    	of it's 'transpersonal' or objective reality, but it sure
    	had a definite presence in her consciousness.
    
    	Do you remember any details of what medicines you tried,
    	and what effect they had on the voices (if any ?), and
    	what particular irregularities (if any) they may have found on the 
    	EEG or the scans ?   This is an area of great interest to me,
    	I appreciate any information you can remember.
    
    						todd

    Did you, for instance, change brands of vitamins around that time?
    You mentioned that one of the doctors called it the result of a
    chemical imbalance.  One of the things that will have the effect
    of having your mind blather on in ways that no part of you, consciously
    or sub-consciously, would consider "you", is an amino acid, L-lysine,
    which your body needs.
    
    This is just a "for instance".  There are probably lots of compounds
    that would have the same affect as lysine.  I just don't know what
    they are.
    
    							Ann B.

    Ravi,
    
    What were you doing to allow those spirits to enter your body?  Spirits
    can't enter a body with out that persons own volitity.
    
    If what you say is true - you had to open yourself up to it sometime or
    another.
    
    
    
    Lorenzo
    

    Well, the thing about 'chemical imbalance' when dealing with
    neurology is that it tends to be the diagnosis of default, i.e.
    "we know the brain is electrochemical and we assume the auditory
    hallucinations and dissociation effect are a sensory disturbance
    (for the purpose of helping the person make them go away), so the
    problem must be a 'chemical imbalance'"  Sometimes it's just a way
    for the neurologist to say "I don't believe in spooks, so here's
    a chemical exorcism." ;-)
    
    In actuality, that diagnosis could mean almost anything, from a suspected
    toxic response to a true neurotransmitter system abnormality,
    a disturbed sensory-interpretative feedback loop of some kind.
    
    In most relatively straightforward cases, though, the dopaminergic
    antagonists like haloperidol usually quiet the voices and permit the
    person to function better.  The fact that they don't seem to have helped 
    here (if this is what was tried) seems to be significant.  
    
    							kind regards,
    
    							todd

    Hi,
    
    
    	I guess the worst part for you must be the helplessness and
    isolation of all this. It must also have taken much courage to have 
    publicly written this down. Like yourself, I would also seek the
    conventional medical approach but if the problem is as you state then you 
    should also approach an organisation which recognises and helps this 
    condition.
    
    I would recommend that you look up your local branch of the
    Spiritualist Church. They usually have a Spiritual healer. These people
    normally work to cure physical ailments, but are also trained to
    understand, recognise and treat spirit possession. Be wary of anybody
    who starts to treat the subject as something "devilish, a la EXOCIST".
    Spirit possession, although rare, is a possession by Earth bound
    spirits who are misguided.
    
    As for what you can do personally...your best "weapon" and protection 
    is the amount of love that you can a) feel and b) project to them. I guess 
    you wont feel all that disposed towards these beings, but projecting
    love and raising yourself spiritually is a good thing to do and will
    counter implanted negative suggestions.
    
    
    
    good luck 
    
    Steve 
    
    
    

    Hi again,
    
          just had another thought. I have had no experience with this
    organisation..but I have heard that the Rosicrutions (spelling..!) also
    work in this area and may be worth a try if you cannot find a
    Spiritualist church in yur area.
    
    
    regards
    
    Steve

    re: .6,
    	Very sorry to hear that.  I know about the side effects of
    	the potent neuroleptic drugs, and I understand why you'd want to 
    	stop the Navane if it wasn't helping you.  I hope it was discontinued
    	properly by the doctor, though.  If you stop Navane too abruptly
    	you can make the problem worse, or bring on other problems (!).
    
    	I do hope you can find some relief.
    
    	Take heart that very often this kind of experience turns out to be 
    	transient, and that other people do have similar experiences.
    	You aren't alone.   
    
    					best wishes,
    					todd

    re: .15, Ravi,
    
    	I had a thought that it might be useful to take a course
    	in self-hypnosis.  They will be able to explain the eye closure
    	phenomenon to you in detail (it's a standard hypnotic test),
    	and maybe give you a little better sense of control over
    	that sort of thing when it happens.
    
    	Even if you need to feel that it is a non-corporeal entity 
    	that is in control, you can develop a better sense of relationship
    	with that entity or entities by learning self-hypnotic skills.  That's 
    	just my feeling about it from my own experience.
    
    						take care,
    
    						todd

    Hi again,
    
    	your symptoms are very similar to a young lad who joined a pyschic
    development circle I was in. This lad also could hear voices, some of
    which was nice and some of which wanted him to do things he was not 
    always prone to.
    
    He had had these experiences for about 3 years and had been through the 
    usual child pyschologists, hospitals, a few stays in a mental
    institution... It turned out that he was a natural pyschic. 
    It may well be that you are too!
    
    The voices
    he thought were inside him were actually spirits talking to him. (like
    the variety that exists in people, not all spirits are nice, especially
    the earth bound ones). re the eyelid control, ..body control is very
    common. When a medium is being communicated to, the spirit often will
    impress on the medium the symptoms that brought about their death as a
    means of identifying themselves. ie being able to use your subconscious
    to control your body when you are in a semi-dream state 
    
    
    This is all easy to check, any decent medium will be more than aware if
    some spirit is hanging around you. Look at this this way...if you were
    "dead" wouldn't you hang around the one person you found that could
    actually know you were there?
    
    As I said before, try a spiritualist church, at least there you will
    have a good chance of not being duped by the many fakers that exist
    just to take your money. If you are pyschic they will be able to help
    you control and use this talent.
    
    
    
    
    
    all spirits are nice

    
    Last known whereabouts of Doug Wetherington was in Ypsilanti, Michigan.
    He left DEC about 3-4 years ago.
    
    Cindy

    re.6
    
    I once read a story a long time ago...about how drinking too much can
    open a void. Especially if they pass out. There were spirits who wanted
    to be back in the earth plane and they would hang out in places where
    people might have a tenancy to drink too much. (Like bars) They would
    wait for an opportunity or a void and they would then slip in. I can't
    remember the title of the story. I do remember talking to my sister
    about the story. When I talk to her again I'll ask her if she remembers
    the name of the story. Makes you wonder sometimes...

         
    Now that would explain a *LOT*!  
    
    Cindy

    Ravi, I can't pretend to be omnisicent, but a tremendous amount
    of evidence in neuroscience indicates (at least to me) that even if 
    discarnate entities exist, and even if the soul were of a cartesian 
    dualistic nature, the perception of them would most likely have to be 
    processed by the same kind of mechanisms of consciousness that we go 
    through to process more ordinary experience.  
    
    Sometimes it's hard to keep in mind, because of our familiarity with
    our own consciousness, that the brain, spooks or no, is by a longshot the 
    most complex thing in the known universe.
    
    So, I think you are probably on the right track in attributing the 
    problem to something other than literal invasion of powerful
    ghosts, unless you really need to believe in the ghosts in order
    to get past the problems, which is true in some people.  They are
    sometimes helped only by addressing the problem from within their
    own belief system.  Unorthodox therapists like the late Milton Erickson 
    pioneered that approach in the past.  He would observe a person's
    view of reality, and then enter into it to help them, rather than sit
    outside in judgement of it.  Makes sense therapeutically, but it's 
    a rare skill, I think.
    
>	Some of the physical symptoms were due to improper processing
>	of the sensory information. The brain is self healing and can 
>	fix itself iteratively if it knows the correct response. That's 
>	what the brain did over time and that could explain why over 
>	a period of 6 months most of the problems went away. Some spurious
>	connections were left which could not be corrected or are in
>	process of being fixed. Due to some spurious connections some 
    
    	This is extremely insightful.  Did you come up with this from
    	introspection about the problem alone, or did you do some
    	research also ?  If the former, you have an extraordinary insight into 
    	the nature of this kind of problem from the psychological 
    	perspective.
    
    						kind regards,
    
    						todd

    	Ravi (& others),
    
    You may want to obtain a copy of Julian Jayne's "The Origin of
    consciousness in the breakdown of the Bicameral mind". It's stocked at
    most major bookstores, should be in your library.
    
    It discusses at some length the details of communication between the
    left & right brain hemispheres, and what happens if (as is done
    intentionally to cure some types of epilepsy) the link between the
    hemispheres is severed.
    
    One point that I remember is that Language usage is developed in only
    one hemisphere, in a distinct area of the brain called "(?)'s Area".
    If this area is damaged, a similar area will be developed in the other
    hemisphere, and full language using skills are slowly regained.
    
    One of the book's hypotheses is that prior to the development of this
    hemisphere link (the name of which escapes me), ancient man would hear
    "the voices of the gods" speaking to him. Now that we have integrated
    the hemispheres, we talk to ourselves instead :^).
    
    In any case, even though I may have poorly represented the book's
    contents, you might find it relevant to your condition. Perhaps, for
    reasons unknown, your normally dormant hemisphere's language area is
    becoming active, perhaps stimulated by alcohol. Or perhaps the
    hemisphere link is weakened by alcohol in your case. In any case,
    interesting reading, which may offer a hypothesis for "voices of the
    gods (or ghosts)". 
    
    				Best of luck, take care,
    
    						chuck
    

    re: .25,
    Jaynes is still of great historical interest for the philosophy of
    the mind, but it might be of value to know as well that the simplistic 
    right/left hemisphere notion has mostly been replaced in neuroscience.
    The 'non-dominant' hemisphere also has language capabilities, though not as
    highly developed as the 'dominant.'  His speculative work is definitely 
    not the best place to go understand hemisphere specialization, though
    it still has value (imo) in appreciating aspects of human
    consciousness.
    
    The brain regions you are thinking of are Broca's and Wernicke's areas.
    Modern neurology views them not as originating language, but as
    critical points in expressing it.  A good analogy is a television set.
    Wernicke's and Broca's areas are analagous to resistors or components
    in critical circuits.  WHen they are damaged, language is severely
    disturbed, like the picture on the TV might go out when the critical 
    resistors burn out.  Yet that doesn't mean that language 'comes from'
    those resistors.  Today, the higher brain functions are mostly 
    envisioned in these terms, having critical regions, but not
    neccessarily locallized to a particular region functionally.
    
    This includes hemisphere functional specialization in things like
    expressing symbolic communication, problem solving, building 
    social self representations, expressing emotion, and so on.  
    
    It is extremely unlikely that auditory hallucinations actually are
    hemisphere communication, though in a more abstract and less locallized 
    way, Jaynes' theory might well have some truth to it, I think.
    
    							kind regards,
    
    							todd
    

    	re: .26, Todd,
    
     >highly developed as the 'dominant.'  His speculative work is definitely
     >not the best place to go understand hemisphere specialization, though
     >it still has value (imo) in appreciating aspects of human
    
    	Any pointers to some of these later writings which nullify Jaynes'
    theories, or render him primarily of "historical interest"? Anything
    out there as readable as Jaynes, or are the later tomes too technical
    in nature for interested laypersons? What would you reccomend as a good
    source manual for the current paradigms in Neuroscience?
    
    						thanks,
    
    							chuck
    
                          

    Chuck,
    	I hope I didn't sound like I was putting down Jaynes' contribution,
    	that wasn't my intention.  I just tend to be focused to examining
    	weaknesses in theories, sometimes without giving adequate credit
    	to their strengths.  It seems to be the way I think for some reason.
    
    	I do have a single favorite non-technical introduction to
    	neuroscience...
    
	An excellent non-technical grand overview of modern neuroscience
	is _The_Three_Pound_Universe_, by Judith Hooper and Dick Teresi,
	from Tarcher.

	This takes you on a constantly fascinating tour
	of hundreds of laboratories and interviews with
	pioneering neuroscientists to show how they think
	and what each feels they have discovered and its
	implications.  It ranges from a superficial overview
	of the philosophical questions of the science of
	mind, and basic neuroanatomy and neurophysiology
	through classic work on the stimulation of the
	brain by electrodes, to relatively recent speculative 
	work in EEG research, memory, and neuropharmacology.

	Less detailed but with an even better sense of historical
	perspective on the issues of mental health and psychiatric technology
	is Jon Franklin's _Molecules_of_the_Mind_.   

	Both are decidedly 'pro-technology,' and very positive about the
	potentials, but with various specific reservations.

    	If you decide you do want slightly more technically oriented stuff,
    	let me know.  There are a number of fairly readable articles 
    	published in recent years on models of hemisphere specialization and 
    	their implications.  In fact, there is still research being
    	conducted in this area.  Recent metabolic studies have suggested that
    	the traditional wisdom about cross-lateral motor control may
    	be somewhat in error, that one hemisphere may actually have 
    	more control of the ipsilateral side in certain ways than has been 
    	attributed in the past.  If something this fundamental can still
    	be this poorly understood, you can imagine how difficult the
    	problems around consciousness and complex behavior are.
    
    						kind regards,
    
    						todd

    	Hi Todd,
    
    Thanks for the pointers. It's traumatic enough to the ego to
    discover that one's paradigms are dinosaurs.... But I can recover,
    somehow (sniffle), as long as I have pointers to the cosmic
    rays/comet/meteor that killed 'em. :^). I just called the library, and
    they'll get the "Three Pound Universe" in for me shortly.
    
    					Thanks again,
    
    						chuck
                    

    Paradigms ...
    
    	The early 20th century 'paradigm' of the mind was pretty much
    	based on a hydraulic metaphor based on the technology of that
    	age, Freud's forces churning around in the unconscious and
    	spurting into consciousness.
    
    	More recent theories seem to clump around the technology
    	from the 1950's till now, information processing/computer
    	models, programming, multiple logical levels, hardware/software 
    	analogies.
    
    	Emerging models of the mind for the next century, judging from some of
    	the convergence in neural information processing and neurobiology,
    	look like maybe they will be based on complex connectionist 
    	network models, and maybe more and more on selectionist networks,
    	which actually develop and learn similarly to the way biological 
    	things apparently do, by selective survival and enhancement of 
    	specific neuronal groups, based on given criteria and on
    	interaction with the environment.  As opposed to the previous
    	generation of computer mind models, which were rule-based expert
    	systems (someone provides the programming intact at the start).
    
    	This is all pretty abstract compared to the hydraulic
    	and computer programming models though.  It's hard to predict what
    	effect all this complex math in models of the mind will have
    	on the popular image of the mind.   'Chaos' is already finding its
    	way into popular culture, though the nasty details of what it involves
    	are generally understood only by mathematicians and serious 
    	math students.   Yet that may well be one of the most important
    	principles in the new models.
    
    							kind regards,
    
    							todd	

    
      I'm sure Ravi, just like the rest of us, is finding this ego 
     trip fascinating, but I dont think it's helping much. 

>      I'm sure Ravi, just like the rest of us, is finding this ego 
>     trip fascinating, but I dont think it's helping much. 
    
    Thanks for the constructive commentary.
    								todd

.31>  I'm sure Ravi, just like the rest of us, is finding this ego
.31> trip fascinating, but I dont think it's helping much.

Whose, yours? I didn't notice anyone elses.