AquaMerina, on 15 March 2010 - 08:15 PM, said:
How did you know your experience wasn't a dream or a hallucination?
Sorry, forgot to answer this bit.
Short answer: I can't empirically prove that they weren't either of those things. I can say that I have seen things that lead me to believe they can't be though.
Example 1: One of them happened when I was a child, in the middle of the day at a rather deserted beach site. I wasn't asleep, so can't have been dreaming. During this incident a triangular lump of flesh was removed from the base of my thumb, leaving a scar that is there to this day. An hallucination cannot induce a physical scar, so I can't have been hallucinating. I suppose I could have had an advanced psychotic episode where I'd mutilated my own thumb, but I think a condition that severe would have produced more symptoms as time went by, and nothing has occurred. Also, I was only five years old or thereabouts, and I think that sort of delusion would be rather unusual at that age, to say the least.
Example 2: One of them happened in the presence of my father as we were out walking at night. He partly remembers this incident, up to and until the part when my normal memory cut off. In fact, he remembered something that happened that he hadn't before that came just after that cut-off point, so that either corroborates my story, or suggests that he could be suggestableised (George W. Bush eat your heart out!) by a nine year old boy. Possible yes, but how likely?