A Guiding Presence

[+Desertrat56]

2 hours ago, freetoroam said:

No one can possibly help you are advise you if you do not tell us what the strange experiences are?

Please give us an insight so we know what we are working with.

 

She isn't asking for help or advise, she is asking for opinions and experiences.

[zep73]

We must be careful not to explain away things with psychological/neurological hypotheses that doesn't even have consensus. That is bias.

There are thousands of stories about things like this, and only one of them has to be true, to make the phenomenon real.

The scientific way to go is to analyse and get proof. And, based on evidence, then make a hypothesis.

Edited October 13, 2019 by sci-nerd

[TigerBright19]

7 hours ago, RoseDancer said:

I would be interested in your thoughts on this and have you ever felt 'a guiding presence' in any form? 

In 2014 we had a blizzard in the countryside and I got lost for 4 hours in a woodland area.  I had no idea which way to go.  I came to an old stone wall and had two choices, left or right.  The path to the left just led to more trees, and the path to the right led to a large open wide area that was covered in snow.  I was about to turn right and walk across the open snow when I saw a robin on a tree.  When I looked at the robin something in my mind just said "do not walk across that open area".  Like an instinct or something.  I then watched the robin hop from tree to tree as it flew towards the left path.  Something in my mind told me to go in that direction with the robin, and I took the left path.  I walked through the trees for another 20 minutes and found the car park (civilization again) and I felt a wave of relief and happiness that is hard to describe.  I returned later that year during the summer and discovered that the open wide area that I was about to walk across was not a field covered in snow.  It was a lake.  

I truly believe that little red robin saved my life.

 

[freetoroam]

1 hour ago, Desertrat56 said:

She isn't asking for help or advise, she is asking for opinions and experiences.

She has not given any details about the experience. 

She has asked

A Guiding Presence

Strange or not

 

I would be interested in your thoughts on this

Thoughts on what? The guiding presence was not the experience.

How can anyone comment and give an answer to something "strange" when they have no idea what strange is?

 

I would like to know what the experience was. 

[XenoFish]

44 minutes ago, sci-nerd said:

We must be careful not to explain away things with psychological/neurological hypotheses that doesn't even have consensus. That is bias.

There are thousands of stories about things like this, and only one of them has to be true, to make the phenomenon real.

The scientific way to go is to analyse and get proof. And, based on evidence, then make a hypothesis.

So far none of them are true. They are at most subjective. So I respect your opinion, but I will be ignoring it. I much prefer a psychological explanation to any mystical magical woo woo any day. 

[zep73]

2 minutes ago, XenoFish said:

I much prefer a psychological explanation to any mystical magical woo woo any day. 

That is my first option too.

But, there is no mystical magical woo woo about guiding an artificial intelligence in a game.
I bet, within the next 20 years, we got games like that. Who said it didn't already happen somewhere else, and we are it?

[XenoFish]

3 minutes ago, sci-nerd said:

That is my first option too.

But, there is no mystical magical woo woo about guiding an artificial intelligence in a game.
I bet, within the next 20 years, we got games like that. Who said it didn't already happen somewhere else, and we are it?

Do you have anything outside of we're in The Matrix to share? I know you've got a deep love for that idea. But it's just mysticism with science. 

[zep73]

2 minutes ago, XenoFish said:

Do you have anything outside of we're in The Matrix to share? I know you've got a deep love for that idea. But it's just mysticism with science. 

Nope. Just thought it should be mentioned as an alternative, logical no-woo-woo explanation.

I'm good, we can quit now.

[XenoFish]

4 minutes ago, sci-nerd said:

I'm good, we can quit now.

Good, because I'm tired. I barely have the will to engage in these types of arguments anymore.

Edited October 13, 2019 by XenoFish

[zep73]

1 minute ago, XenoFish said:

Good, because I'm tired. I barely have to will to engage in these types of arguments anymore.

Me too.

[RoseDancer]

4 hours ago, freetoroam said:

No one can possibly help you are advise you if you do not tell us what the strange experiences are?

My post wasn't about the 'strange experiences' it was about the feeling of being guided. 

I'm not looking for help. I'm simply asking a question. 

[RoseDancer]

1 hour ago, freetoroam said:

She has asked

A Guiding Presence

I didn't ask 'the guiding presence' about the experiences. The guiding presence is a part of the experience. 

 

[freetoroam]

2 minutes ago, RoseDancer said:

My post wasn't about the 'strange experiences' it was about the feeling of being guided. 

I'm not looking for help. I'm simply asking a question. 

A question about a guiding presence. You mentioned an experience. 

Having a feeling of a guiding presence is not strange. It is also something which people can imaging and create for many different reasons, those reasons will have a meaning behind them and some an experience.

As you mentioned an experience, it would give an inside as to why you created this feeling.

What you feel about the guiding presence is your own perception,  why you began to feel it is the interesting part.

 

[freetoroam]

2 minutes ago, RoseDancer said:

I didn't ask 'the guiding presence' about the experiences. The guiding presence is a part of the experience. 

 

You asked 

Quote

A Guiding Presence

Strange or not

I am addressing the "strange or not" part.

No it is not strange

See my previous post.

[RoseDancer]

I mentioned what caused me to talk to a priest. The feeling of guidance was one of the experiences. Today I take it all with a pinch of salt. Just wondered if others on here had ever experienced something similar. 

[the13bats]

18 hours ago, RoseDancer said:

I was young and did't take it particularly serious at the time but have always felt a guiding presence that I paid more attention to as I got older. 

I would be interested in your thoughts on this and have you ever felt 'a guiding presence' in any form? 

My grandmother simply called that inner voice or feel a persons "conscience"

I personally do not believe there is any outside entities, guardian angles etc guiding us to help ourselves or others but rather its just us being intuitive yet i fully grasp why some like to or down right have to subscribe it to special powers, beings etc, it makes it more epic less mundane, if i had something good happen i likely would say my guardian angel had my back, but thats fugitive for me.

One big problem i have like with phychics giving cold readers it seems most people do not notice or quickly forget fails and think it was 100% on the money when it wasnt.

Today 1000s of people will board aircraft and fly and at least a few will have it cross their mind that something bad might happen but they blow off that feeling fly anyway and all is well, most times, if something bad happens to them we likely wont know but when planes sadly crash its seldom very, very rare, that a person thought they shouldn't fly that day, didnt and the plane crashed,

I know of not one case where the feel not to fly saved a person was in any way proven that they actually had the feel not to fly and acted on it before the fact, of course loosing out on an expensive plane ticket from a last minute cancel might make me take notice, or think the person wanted an excuse,

Any cases i do know of cant be confirmed, enough off that babbling, Seems our inner voice just tries to help us along in a naritive style and if it feels right and goid whats the harm going along.

 

[XenoFish]

11 hours ago, RoseDancer said:

I mentioned what caused me to talk to a priest. The feeling of guidance was one of the experiences. Today I take it all with a pinch of salt. Just wondered if others on here had ever experienced something similar. 

I'd say that most of us have had those moments. Perhaps it was instinct, the subconscious, so long as the results were beneficial in a good way, I don't think the exactness of what it is matters. 

[littlebrowndragon]

22 hours ago, Kittens Are Jerks said:

I know the unseen presence is a creation of the human mind because SCIENCE. There is strong (and interesting) science behind the Third Man Factor, and the explanations behind the phenomenon range from bio-chemical reactions to misfiring brain activity. What is most interesting is that it is not a hallucination, but, rather, a part of us. Even more interesting is that the 'third man' is calm during a moment of crisis or trauma, capable of providing advice, comfort and/or support.

interesting.  So, the science behind the Third Man Factor attributes this phenomenon to a chemical imbalance or some or physical attribute of the brain.  This sounds to me a bit like the difference  between psychiatry as opposed to psychology i.e. psychiatry treats mental illness with chemicals, whereas clinical psychologists do not (as far as I am aware).  Do you know at all if there is also a psychological explanation for this phenomenon?

 

Speaking personally, I do not think of these "guiding presence" incidents that I have had as hallucinations.  I once did experience an hallucination and it was a quite different sensation from the "guiding presence" incidents I experience.

[RoseDancer]

A difficult childhood may have caused me to develop a heightened sense of awareness, a coping mechanism, in order to protect myself. 

It may lie in the area of synchronicity - meaningful coincidences. Jung may have had something similar going on. 

It may feel like some outside, or inside, entity was guiding one to pay attention to the 'signs'. When in fact the person was simply extra-sensitive to what was going on around them. 

[+Desertrat56]

8 minutes ago, RoseDancer said:

A difficult childhood may have caused me to develop a heightened sense of awareness, a coping mechanism, in order to protect myself. 

It may lie in the area of synchronicity - meaningful coincidences. Jung may have had something similar going on. 

It may feel like some outside, or inside, entity was guiding one to pay attention to the 'signs'. When in fact the person was simply extra-sensitive to what was going on around them. 

Yes, a lot of us had to keep an ear out so we would know when to duck and still keep doing what ever as if nothing was wrong.

[Kittens Are Jerks]

On 10/14/2019 at 11:32 AM, littlebrowndragon said:

interesting.  So, the science behind the Third Man Factor attributes this phenomenon to a chemical imbalance or some or physical attribute of the brain.  This sounds to me a bit like the difference  between psychiatry as opposed to psychology i.e. psychiatry treats mental illness with chemicals, whereas clinical psychologists do not (as far as I am aware).  Do you know at all if there is also a psychological explanation for this phenomenon?

Speaking personally, I do not think of these "guiding presence" incidents that I have had as hallucinations.  I once did experience an hallucination and it was a quite different sensation from the "guiding presence" incidents I experience.

There is still much to learn about the Third Man Factor, but Swiss scientists were able to replicate the experience just a few years ago. From the article cited below:

The scientists developed a device that allowed a healthy human test subject to draw a pattern that was then replicated on the subject’s back with a slight time delay.  The scientists determined that the delay between the subjects’ movements and the mirrored pattern caused the subject to misidentify the source of sensory and motor input-essentially, it caused a disconnect between the body position and senses to create the eerie feeling of a ghost in the room.  The sensation was so powerful that a few participants even refused to continue the test.

Years earlier, these same scientists: demonstrated damage to the brain’s parieto-temporal junction-the part of the brain that distinguishes between the self and others-can cause visions of another person, frequently mirroring one’s own movements. They demonstrated that electrical stimulation to this area can provoke similar visions.  Then the researchers in Lausanne ultimately induced a vision, first by exploring the cause, and finally-after over a decade of effort-demonstrating the effect. They caused a disconnect between the body and the senses and there it was.  The third man appeared.

Yet, in spite of all we know, we still don't quite understand why these 'presences' are benevolent helpers (interestingly, the presences that appeared during the lab tests were not as kind), and why do they disappear when real help arrives? Why are they often people we know?

The source article is really quite interesting, and worth a read:

https://www.adventure-journal.com/2017/03/finding-the-third-man-in-the-lab/

[littlebrowndragon]

1 hour ago, Kittens Are Jerks said:

There is still much to learn about the Third Man Factor, but Swiss scientists were able to replicate the experience just a few years ago. 

The source article is really quite interesting, and worth a read:

https://www.adventure-journal.com/2017/03/finding-the-third-man-in-the-lab/

Thank you very much indeed for providing that link, I found it extremely interesting.  I note too, that the article was mentioning Shackleton's experiences on South Georgia as well as the experiences of others, some  who I have never heard of.  I shall follow these up.  As I say, it's all very interesting to me, so thank you very much again.

 

As to the science behind the Third Man Factor while, as I said, it is new to me and is all extremely interesting, I'm afraid I don't find it convincing - well, I do routinely read oracle and tarot cards and such like so I don't necessarily view life through the scientific lens!   

My personal thoughts about the scientific explanations/theories are these::

First, science is generally hostile towards alternative i.e. non-scientific, views of the world such as religion and it is likewise hostile to, and dismissive of, astrology etc, etc, therefore I do think that science is not approaching an exploration of the Third Man Factor with an open mind.  In fact, I would even go so far as to say that I do not think that science wants to find out that there is such a thing as a "guiding presence".  It would be too embarrassing!

Secondly, by its own admission, science understands very little about how the mind works (psychology is a very young branch of science, after all), and therefore I think it is in no position to make judgements regarding such phenomenon.  

Finally, science disallows personal experience.  So no matter what I experience personally, no matter how I try to make sense of those experiences, experiences such as sensing a "guiding presence", then unless my attempted explanation is scientific, it is disallowed (actually, it would also be disallowed on the grounds that I am not a scientist).   In fact, I think that this is one of the great benefits of forums such as this one.  Where I live, there are only a few people to whom I would feel comfortable admitting to sensing a "guiding presence", but on this forum that is perfectly acceptable. 

 

The article raised some questions at the end.  Here are my responses to those questions:
 

Quote

 

The most poignant elements of the third man syndrome remained unaddressed.

(a) Why did so many people at the breaking point see someone they knew?

 

Because seeing someone they knew would be more calming in a stressful situation.  Also, they would be more likely to trust and follow someone they knew than, say, an unfamiliar, maybe ghost-like or possibly  frightening, apparition.

Quote

(b) Why did they disappear the moment rescue was at hand?

They need to disappear so that the person being rescued, who is likely to be under some considerable stress, can concentrate fully on being rescued.  Also, would many of us admit to seeing an apparition to our rescuers?  (I've already said that I myself do not always feel comfortable telling people I sense a "guiding presence".  Not in the culture I live in, anyway.)

Quote

(c) Why were these helpers almost always benevolent, while those in the lab were not?

The helpers were almost always benevolent because how else would their advice be trusted and acted upon, especially if the person needing help is frightened/exhausted etc?  Would you accept the help of someone who seemed hostile? 

As to the lab, well, as I suggested, science is hostile to such phenomena and so I think the hostility of the apparitions that appeared in the lab reflect that.  Actually, now that I think about it, the apparitions may be hostile because that person's guiding presence is alerting them to the idea that science is, in this case, hostile.

Quote

(d) Why did these real people in distress try to aid their ghostly companion, as when Frank Smythe offered half of his mint cake to a ghost on Everest?

I don't know but perhaps this boosted the morale of the real person experiencing the apparition/guiding presence.

 

Quote

(e) Why, as in Shackleton’s party or a group of miners trapped underground, does the third man appear to multiple people at the same time? 

Well, as a former secondary school teacher who took children away from school on excursions, sometimes long walks into the hills, imagine if the entire school party got into serious trouble and I was the only person seeing the helping apparition/guiding presence?  They'd all think I was nuts and, not only would my suggestions via the guiding presence be ignored,  I'd be carted off to the psychiatrist as soon as the party returned to school!!  I think in those situations that everyone experienced the guiding presence was so that all party members would pull together and take each other seriously.

Edited October 17, 2019 by littlebrowndragon
pressed the post button by mistake before I had finished reply