Thread: What if life actually is all a dream?

Originally Posted by tofur

that sounds like a free will kind of debate. I'll relay an experience I had a little while back, since it was I who experienced it and not anyone else I don't expect it to have an impact on you but whatevs. I was standing in a line in the early am in an airport, waiting to check in. I was wearing a red sox shirt and wondered to myself "I wonder if people occasionally mistake me for being a part of the red sox" and that idea of being on the red sox kind of came in and I tried it on because I was bored. I kid you not, a few seconds later the guy standing in front of me in line, who hadn't turned around up until that point or had seen me get in line, turned around and asked me "so do you play for the sox?". Once I picked my jaw up off the ground I said no and had a nice conversation with him, he mentioned it again asking if I worked for the team as opposed to played. Coincidence? technically maybe it was, the odds of it being pure coincidence must be astronomical though, no one has ever asked me that when I wore the shirt before and I've had it for years.

Did the thought and impulse to try on being a red sox member come to me because some all knowing intelligence knew the guy was going to ask me, therefore manifesting the thought in my experience beforehand so as to prepare me for it or something? that seems like an unnecessarily complicated way of explaining it just so that the external world continues to remain separate from and in the position of authority over a person.

?? Isn't the most likely answer also the most obvious here? I would say this is a case of the guy being slightly telepathic. You have a distinct thought while standing next to him. he picks up on it, but not on a conscious level, then voices his thought. So, a small innocent case of low grade ESP on his part?

Sorry too butt in, just an observation.

Originally Posted by sivason

?? Isn't the most likely answer also the most obvious here? I would say this is a case of the guy being slightly telepathic. You have a distinct thought while standing next to him. he picks up on it, but not on a conscious level, then voices his thought. So, a small innocent case of low grade ESP on his part?

Sorry too butt in, just an observation.

Based on my experiences, tofur's interpretation is as valid as your interpretation. But for most of my experiences neither interpretation works if making conventional distinctions between 'me' and 'him' and 'cause' and 'effect'.

Also worth noting, if tofur is 'slightly telepathetic' that will amplify that tendency in the other person also. If I'm interacting with a psychically 'strong' person, my experiences become much stronger, which is almost the whole reason that people follow gurus I guess. I think that tofur's role is probably more important than the other person's here, since tofur likely cares a lot more about the question than the other guy does.

Something else I forgot to mention when I responded earlier....I think that a person can experiment and probe the differences between

1. events are happening because I'm causing them to happen
2. events are happening because of historical, mechanical cause
3. events are happening because of what other people collectively want
4. some greater intelligence is causing things to happen
5. events are happening because of random chance

For me, it seems to be clear that the first four dynamics are all involved. My evidence for '4' is that experience is coordinated with what seems to me to be remarkable intelligence, even though the nature of that intelligence is elusive. For instance, if I ask a question mentally, I can usually count on getting some kind of answer within 24 hours. I don't come up with those answers or the metaphors that express them, something else is doing that. The answer might not even be right, but it definitely draws on thoughts that are outside of my personal experience.

Another kind of evidence, though not one I've paid much attention to personally, is that many things don't seem to add up if considering only the other causes. To use a celebrity example, Dave Mustaine convinced himself that God exists in large part by trying to kill himself repeatedly and never coming close to pulling it off. It seemed to him that he couldn't account for this outcome just in terms of luck and his own will, that something else seemed to be blocking him. He looked mentally in the direction of where that 'something else' seems to be, and found what seemed to be some other kind of internal confirmation.

For myself, the 'something else' that blocks me seems to be more directly related to environmental conditions and other people's desires. However, it seems to me that there is also a subtler coordination of those things. To use a hypothetical example, if two teams are playing a competitive game, one team will win and one will lose, that doesn't depend on any kind of unifying intelligence. And if both teams have equal athletic talent, the team with more mojo will win. Yet behind that there's also something else that manipulates the timing of the expression of those factors, affecting the outcome depending on how and when they counteract or reinforce each other.