Hypnosis is a topic that has always been of interest to me throughout my life. The idea of being able to connect with past lives has always been one of interest to me. In order to do so, the goal of the hypnotist is to get the individual into a state of mind that is easily guidable and malleable. During this, the hypnotist will push the individual towards recalling certain events that may have happened to them in a past life, and ultimately confront those traumas that may have passed over into their present. At first I used to see hypnotist as 100% fact, since I could not find any immediate answer to it, and my lack of exposure to hypnotism enforced this. As I have seen more and more examples of hypnotism, and even seen hypnotist “shows”, I have come to the understanding that the hypnotist does this guiding to pull an answer, especially in the shows. Every year, Stockton has a hypnotism show for freshman students, and I have become more and more aware of it. Interestingly enough, the hypnotist also refers to himself as a comedian too!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=16gaF1kprEc
Monday, March 2, 2015
Can Dreams Predict The Future?
There are many people who believe that dreams can predict the future. These dreams are called "precognitive dreams", according to the definition, a certain dream does not necessarily have to predict a person's future, it can be predict anything in the future. Some people claim that precognitive dreams are another way for our minds and or bodies to express themselves. Supposedly, when we suppress our deepest hopes or fears, they must find a way out and that's how most precognitive dreams happen.
On a large scale, many people often claim that they had a precognitive dream about something that happened in another place in the world. This could simply be coincidence, there are about 7 billion people dreaming every night, there are chances that many of us will have dreams that will be able to relate to many things going on all around the world.
On a smaller scale, when a person has a dream and then something alike happens to them in the real world the coincidence is much greater, but is it really just coincidence?
In 1865, Abraham Lincoln had a dream that he attended to a funeral in the White House. When he was in the funeral, he asked someone who's funeral it was and they said "the President of The United States." Two weeks later, he was assassinated.
On Thursday, February 26th, I had a dream of a car accident I had last year. This dream is more like a reoccurring nightmare and on February 26th, I woke up because of this nightmare. That morning, it had snowed and the roads were not very clean so on my way to school my car slid and I lost control of it. The car spun and crossed the opposite lane and backed into the woods. No one was hurt and there was only minimal damage to my car but I immediately remembered that I had that dream and wondered if it was a precognitive dream. Was that dream warning me or telling me that I was going to be in an accident in a few hours?
According to the Elements of Thought, the concept of precognitive dreams could explain this coincidence but there is no scientific proof or anything that can validate the relationship between my dream and my accident. Even though my dream and my accident only happened hours after the other, this could be simply a coincidence taking into account that I've had that dream multiple times and nothing has happened before. Also, another Element of Thought that can apply is "interpretation and interference", maybe I am just trying to find a justification for my accident or an explanation for my dream. It all depends on our interpretations and "points of view."
A few months ago some friends and I were enjoying a peaceful night relaxing and just shooting the breeze. My one friend Sam was telling us tales of his years growing up in North Carolina and some of the things he and friends would do for fun. He lived in a rural area where there was a good amount of farms and he didn't have a lot of money. As Sam was talking about life in North Carolina, our friend Justin, who had put a lot of thought into the question he was about to ask, spoke up. "Uh, hey Sam," he said to get Sam's attention mid-story. As the room grew silent and all eyes were on him, Justin posed his question. "Umm, stop me here if this is stupid, but, uhh, did you and your friends ever go cow tipping down there?" Sam immediately went into full laugh mode. "I don't think that is actually possible, buddy. Sorry," Sam replied still chuckling a bit.
That is where the debate of the night began. Of the six people in the room, the sides were evenly split, three people each, as to who actually thought cow tipping was a myth and who thought cow tipping was in fact possible. Being the open minded individual that I am, I thought anything was possible, especially cow tipping. My belief was that with enough man power and strategic planning it would not be impossible for a group of individuals to sneak up on a cow at night and force it to tip over. Cows are very heavy animals, but no animal is so stable that it does not have the chance of being pushed over. It was a heated debate full of good reasoning and laughs, but in the end nobody would budge and we decided we would all have to agree to disagree.
Having recently looked into it more, I still believe that it is possible and could potentially happen. The only difference now is that I think the chances of it happening are not nearly as great as I had originally thought.. According to my web source, cows are built very low to the ground and have a low center of gravity. Also, even though cows have a reputation of being very slow, they are actually very aware of their surroundings and quite smart. To sneak up on a cow, especially at night, would be a difficult task all in its own. Adding to the level of difficulty here is the fact that cows do not sleep standing up, which is something I believed to be true most of my life.
Here is a video explaining more about the myth of cow tipping:
So what do you think? Is cow tipping possible? Or is it just a myth?
The popular media and self-help industry is rife with extraordinary claims. Alien experimentation, psychic detectives, mediums, ESP, extreme therapies and miracle products are all examples of how pseudoscience and the paranormal have become prevalent, popular and even an extremely lucrative enterprise. The majority of these examples defy the basic laws of science, logic and common sense yet they appeal to a large number of people. Here we will use science, specifically a psychological perspective to explore these popular theories and claims, and learn to think critically in order to be able to constructively evaluate them.
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