Feil
06-07-2005, 19:14
Roughly eight months ago, I was lying in my bed, in the upstairs room of my house. It is located in the corner of the room opposite the door, with the head to the wall, with a skylight above. I was awake, not dozing, though tired from the day; my light was off and I had just closed my eyes to begin approaching sleep. (It usually takes me from ten to twenty minutes to go from awakeness to sleep, regardless of how tired I am.)
In this state, I experienced a very compelling audio halucination.
To explain further: I heard, clearly, through the ears not "in my head", a harpsichord and at two or three strings, playing a (at least) three-part piece of chamber music, beautiful and complex and-more importantly-entirely without me consentrating on it. It lasted perhaps ten minutes. Within the first minute I had analised what was going on and concluded that it was a halucination; even knowing I was halucinating did nothing to the strength of the halucination.
I had never halucinated before that time. I have never halucinated since. At the time, I had no drug in my body save whatever was left of a 10mg pill of Zyrtek (an antihystemine with practically no side-effects) that I had taken that morning. Yet, at that time, I experienced a complex, believable (only able to have reality ruled out because I knew there was no source whatsoever for the sound and because nobody else remembered hearing it when I asked the next morning) halucination in a state of reasonable consciousness and while still able to reason and think lucidly.
I can, and have in the past constructed for myself multi-part melodies. I can construct in my head a song with one instrument with no difficulty; two or three I can manage aswell so long as one is playing a simple harmony. (For instance, drums and bass guitar along with a melody instrument in Jazz or Rock). I cannot manage more than three instruments, nor can I manage more than one line of more complexity than a drum beat or chord changes. In short, the halucination was beyond the capacity of my conscious to develop on its own under optimal circumstances.
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What would I have thought, one must wonder, if I had heard God telling me to abide by the commandments? What if, in stead of a complicated three- or four-part piece of chamber music I had heard a chorus of angels chanting "glory to god in the highest". Would it have been grounds for a miracle? Would I have had any right to claim it was a real experience and not a simple halucination?
I love music. I have listened to hours apon hours of music--mostly classical, a good percentage beroque chamber music.
Some people love the idea of God. They have spent hours and hours praying and listening to sermons.
Some people love their wives, and spend hours and hours living with them until they die.
It is little wonder, I think, that I heared music; or that a man who spent his life with his wife could hear, on occasion, her calling to him after her death?
Is it wonderous, I demand, that someone who spent his life with the idea and the translated voice of an imaginary God would hear him speaking?
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Do I have a right to claim that, rather than it being a series of electrical misfirings in my frontal brain triggering a complex but entirely imaginary audio halucination, there was a convocation of invisible angels playing a harpsichord, a viola, and a cello next to my bed that night?
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Of interest, my father has had a similar encounter with a false vision. He noticed, apon waking up early one morning, that the Virgin Mary, complete with face, arms, legs, robes, facial features, etc. was standing at his bed, arms outstretched in supplication. After a few minutes of rational deduction and gradual waking-up, he placed himself in the room, thought of what was in the direction of the "virgin Mary", realised it was a window with the curtains tied to the sides, and watched the "virgin Mary" dissolve into the trees and grass and sky of his back yard.
Tell me though. If he had not been a rational person, if he had been a tabloid-reader or a blind follower of the teachings of the church (he is a Christian, but a rational one, not credulous), would he have been so quick to discover the true nature of "Mary"? Would he have even noticed at all, or turned quickly to his wife to wake her, turn back, find that "Mary" had vanished, and ascribe some profound religious significance to the event?
Would his report of visitation be any more relyable than my report of invisible ghosts playing 17th century chamber music?
-Feil.
In this state, I experienced a very compelling audio halucination.
To explain further: I heard, clearly, through the ears not "in my head", a harpsichord and at two or three strings, playing a (at least) three-part piece of chamber music, beautiful and complex and-more importantly-entirely without me consentrating on it. It lasted perhaps ten minutes. Within the first minute I had analised what was going on and concluded that it was a halucination; even knowing I was halucinating did nothing to the strength of the halucination.
I had never halucinated before that time. I have never halucinated since. At the time, I had no drug in my body save whatever was left of a 10mg pill of Zyrtek (an antihystemine with practically no side-effects) that I had taken that morning. Yet, at that time, I experienced a complex, believable (only able to have reality ruled out because I knew there was no source whatsoever for the sound and because nobody else remembered hearing it when I asked the next morning) halucination in a state of reasonable consciousness and while still able to reason and think lucidly.
I can, and have in the past constructed for myself multi-part melodies. I can construct in my head a song with one instrument with no difficulty; two or three I can manage aswell so long as one is playing a simple harmony. (For instance, drums and bass guitar along with a melody instrument in Jazz or Rock). I cannot manage more than three instruments, nor can I manage more than one line of more complexity than a drum beat or chord changes. In short, the halucination was beyond the capacity of my conscious to develop on its own under optimal circumstances.
---
What would I have thought, one must wonder, if I had heard God telling me to abide by the commandments? What if, in stead of a complicated three- or four-part piece of chamber music I had heard a chorus of angels chanting "glory to god in the highest". Would it have been grounds for a miracle? Would I have had any right to claim it was a real experience and not a simple halucination?
I love music. I have listened to hours apon hours of music--mostly classical, a good percentage beroque chamber music.
Some people love the idea of God. They have spent hours and hours praying and listening to sermons.
Some people love their wives, and spend hours and hours living with them until they die.
It is little wonder, I think, that I heared music; or that a man who spent his life with his wife could hear, on occasion, her calling to him after her death?
Is it wonderous, I demand, that someone who spent his life with the idea and the translated voice of an imaginary God would hear him speaking?
---
Do I have a right to claim that, rather than it being a series of electrical misfirings in my frontal brain triggering a complex but entirely imaginary audio halucination, there was a convocation of invisible angels playing a harpsichord, a viola, and a cello next to my bed that night?
---
---
Of interest, my father has had a similar encounter with a false vision. He noticed, apon waking up early one morning, that the Virgin Mary, complete with face, arms, legs, robes, facial features, etc. was standing at his bed, arms outstretched in supplication. After a few minutes of rational deduction and gradual waking-up, he placed himself in the room, thought of what was in the direction of the "virgin Mary", realised it was a window with the curtains tied to the sides, and watched the "virgin Mary" dissolve into the trees and grass and sky of his back yard.
Tell me though. If he had not been a rational person, if he had been a tabloid-reader or a blind follower of the teachings of the church (he is a Christian, but a rational one, not credulous), would he have been so quick to discover the true nature of "Mary"? Would he have even noticed at all, or turned quickly to his wife to wake her, turn back, find that "Mary" had vanished, and ascribe some profound religious significance to the event?
Would his report of visitation be any more relyable than my report of invisible ghosts playing 17th century chamber music?
-Feil.