Buried Memories

[commonsense]

I’m not a strange person posting on this forum, but I have a strange secret: I believe in ghosts.

When I was little, about 4 years old, on one occasion I was helping my grandparents move into an apartment. As I recall, I took charge of emptying a box of miscellany onto the floor in the bedroom. If my mother hadn’t wanted me to do so, then why did she bring me along? Oh yeah, I was just 4 and the only child care in those days was grandparents.

Anyway, I paused and looked over my shoulder only to see two grown-up’s who were standing—no, floating—in the doorway, watching me and smiling approvingly. They must have known that I was really being very helpful.

Later that day, I saw a framed picture of the two of them, wearing the same outfits they wore when I first saw them. So I asked my mother who they were. She said they were my great grandparents. I told my mother about meeting them earlier. But my mother said they had been dead a long time.

I may have been “seeing things” but I have never hallucinated before or since.

[vegetariantaxidermy]

I’m not a strange person posting on this forum, but I have a strange secret: I believe in ghosts.

When I was little, about 4 years old, on one occasion I was helping my grandparents move into an apartment. As I recall, I took charge of emptying a box of miscellany onto the floor in the bedroom. If my mother hadn’t wanted me to do so, then why did she bring me along? Oh yeah, I was just 4 and the only child care in those days was grandparents.

Anyway, I paused and looked over my shoulder only to see two grown-up’s who were standing—no, floating—in the doorway, watching me and smiling approvingly. They must have known that I was really being very helpful.

Later that day, I saw a framed picture of the two of them, wearing the same outfits they wore when I first saw them. So I asked my mother who they were. She said they were my great grandparents. I told my mother about meeting them earlier. But my mother said they had been dead a long time.

I may have been “seeing things” but I have never hallucinated before or since.

It's called 'dreaming'. Children sometimes have trouble separating dreams from reality.

[commonsense]

Thanks, V. That’s a relief

[Maia]

I’m not a strange person posting on this forum, but I have a strange secret: I believe in ghosts.

When I was little, about 4 years old, on one occasion I was helping my grandparents move into an apartment. As I recall, I took charge of emptying a box of miscellany onto the floor in the bedroom. If my mother hadn’t wanted me to do so, then why did she bring me along? Oh yeah, I was just 4 and the only child care in those days was grandparents.

Anyway, I paused and looked over my shoulder only to see two grown-up’s who were standing—no, floating—in the doorway, watching me and smiling approvingly. They must have known that I was really being very helpful.

Later that day, I saw a framed picture of the two of them, wearing the same outfits they wore when I first saw them. So I asked my mother who they were. She said they were my great grandparents. I told my mother about meeting them earlier. But my mother said they had been dead a long time.

I may have been “seeing things” but I have never hallucinated before or since.

I don't think it's too strange to believe in ghosts.

I was out camping once and late at night heard this strange, ethereal flute music in the distance, and smelt what I can only describe as incense. Just after this I heard a woman's voice right next to me, though there was definitely no one there. She carried on speaking for ages, going on and on, but strangely, I can't remember anything of what she was actually saying. I wasn't asleep either, as I hadn't been to bed that night yet and was sitting outside the tent.

[Iwannaplato]

It seems like the OP is wondering if childhood traumatic experiences can have led to strange personalities we could be said to find here, and perhaps also strange perspectives.

I certainly had, have had and continue to have both traumatic experiences and also strange experiences. Though the traumatic experiences in childhood were ones that are fairly non-controversial around being real. IOW most people here would acknowledge the existence of, in this case, psychotic episodes and associated behavior. Not mine, but someone else I was alone with for long periods.

There are a number of ways that experience affected later beliefs I hold: for example, it led to investigations of the pharmaceutical industry and psychiatry in general and around a specific medication. This led to me understanding that even consensus amongst supposedly scientifically-oriented professionals can have less to do with truth, than with the profit motive, paradigmatic filters and convenience. So, it gave me a base experience, later as a young adult to question what is considered objective in society. So, that could leads to positions considered strange by others. I know, I would say, that the consensus of humanist, supposedly scientifically grounded, experts can be biased and quite simply wrong. (I believe this is true of theist experts also, and each of these will be controversial depending on the reader's own paradigm.)

Spending time with a psychotic person (who it was later found was not, say, schizophrenic, but rather suffering from PTSD (which should in a sense have been obvious given that their medication of choice, which was used for schizophrenics, was tested on tramatized monkeys, not on mentally ill monkeys (however one might have come across the latter) - led to hypervigilance on my part. Not fun, but at the same time I've learned a lot about people via hypervigilance. This may have led to positions other people would think are strange. I have, for example, a bunch of opinions about people and their beliefs - one that is controversial to at least laypeople is that people may not realize what their beliefs are and also they have official beliefs and then other, even contradictory beliefs that they believe in more strongly than their official beliefs. This is not some complete fringe position and is supported by some cognitive science.

But then we have the more fringe beliefs I have. Are these associated with traumatic experiences? Hard for me to weigh in on, but I had them before and after the traumatic experiences. Did my tramatic experiences give me a curiosity about strange stuff? Was it more like my extremely open and not judgmental parents in paradigmatic ways allowed me to explore strange stuff without anxiety? Are other people encouraged to ignore and rapidly explain away anomolies (I think this is true) and it was not so anxiety laden in my home?

Was the fact that my parents had extremely different epistemologies and temperments a cause in my having to sort of start from zero when building up my own personal beliefs, since I was getting mixed messages from my primary authorities? I think there is truth in this.

My home was the complete opposite of for example a home where both parents have the same religion and the same ways of finding out what is true? via, say, the Bible, and religious experts, a priest or imam etc. I got no single worldview or set of tools.

It was also very different from the homes of many of my friends, whose parents fell more neatly into the humanist category and presented their children with a common set of tools and a more singular paradigm, if a somewhat hazy, sort of open, agnostic on many issues, one.

Of course on some level most homes are throwing contradictions and differing approaches at children, but mine presented two that were extremly different coupled with a parenting style that said 'Hey, you go work out what you believe as long as you don't do mean shit to us, endanger yourself too much, or are mean to other children.' Despite vast differences on many things, they both supported child centered pegagogy, you could say. Not that they would have used that term, but they let me run free and my mind run free. Sure, they would disagree, but I was free to question anything and free to conclude anything. And compared to most of my peers, free to do a lot of things. I cringe sometimes at the incredible freedom I had to explore a really rather dangerous city. Not dangerous by today's standards, but still.

You could say that on some level I was a budding little anthropologist of necessity when dealing with my contrasting parents and their worldviews.

I think this has allowed me to consider ontologies judge fringe by many humanists (and actually also by say Abrahamists) much more freely.

[Harbal]

I have, for example, a bunch of opinions about people and their beliefs - one that is controversial to at least laypeople is that people may not realize what their beliefs are and also they have official beliefs and then other, even contradictory beliefs that they believe in more strongly than their official beliefs.

That sounds interesting; do you want to say some more about it? I have come to doubt that people actually do believe some of the things they think they believe. God, for example; I have a suspicion that no one really does, deep down, believe in God. Don't ask what I mean by, "deep down".

[Iwannaplato]

That sounds interesting; do you want to say some more about it? I have come to doubt that people actually do believe some of the things they think they believe. God, for example; I have a suspicion that no one really does, deep down, believe in God. Don't ask what I mean by, "deep down".

And I noticed that IC doubts that you are actually an atheist, which makes the whole discussion rather funny.

I can assert with some certainty that I have had official beliefs that were, in the main, not my belief.
I'm trying to think of an example I feel OK about sharing.
While I am mulling, let me jump to an abstract third person example:
I think we have all met people who assert they are not sexist, or not racist, or are a middle class person who thinks the proletariat are more apt leaders or say they are optimistic or trust people,
but we observe their behavior and they treat women or other races disrespectfully or whine about how hopeless it all is.

We question they self-assessment around what belief they actually have.

Their belief might be something they want to have or think they should have, but actually they act like they have, and presumably unconsciously have, an opposed guiding belief.

It doesn't have to be binary. If we notice even a strong contradictory pattern of behavior this doesn't mean they only have a belief opposed to their official belief. It can be a mix. But I think most of us have encountered people where at the very least they ALSO believe something negative about women, latinos, X, which doesn't fit with their official position.

And even many theists for example will admit to doubt. And many saints have dark night's of the soul where doubt predominates, in fact certainly there is no God or hope dominates. I think the whole notion of simple assertions about continuous belief are pretty silly in situ.

OK, for me. I suppose I believed that I knew myself very well, when I was in my 20s and early 30s. I knew what my problems were and what my needs were. Not only was this not true. IOW not only was I incorrect in my assessment of the situation. I can see how much I avoided, very effectively, looking at certain patterns in my life, and also avoided certain situations. IOW there was a pattern of intellegent (if not wise) avoidance of situations and exploration that allowed me to keep my official belief about myself. So, a part of me knew that this belief was very fragile and guided a clever avoidance of anything that might reveal this fragility and an underlying terror and belief that I was a mess and had huge gaps in self-knowledge.

A bit vague and unfortunatel a very broad assessment, but I think you will get the idea. I'll try to think of something more concrete, like I believed in ghosts, say, and realists I didn't. Or didn't believe in ghosts but really I did.

[Maia]

Going into more detail, since this is an interesting area of exploration, my claustrophobia, although I hesitate to use that word as it's not particularly pronounced in everyday life, also manifests in dreams. I sometimes have dreams about being inside tunnels, for example. There's usually some sort of gap, too, that I have to climb across, or rather down, since it's always descending. The actual dreams vary in detail, but the feeling is always the same, and in that sense, they are recurring. There's always something odd about the angles too, either in the shape of the enclosed space itself, or in the configuration of the gap and how I have to climb over it. That's actually quite difficult to explain and the layout is not usually something that could exist in the real world.

I wouldn't call these dreams nightmares, though. I don't really have nightmares, in the sense of a dream that actually scares me. They do, of course, make me feel uneasy, and tend to come in bursts, too. I might go for ages without having one then a few come along in quick succession. This is also true of dreams in general.

I've had these types of dreams for as long as I can remember, so it's always possible that they derive from some specific incident from childhood that I've completely forgotten about.

[Harbal]

That sounds interesting; do you want to say some more about it? I have come to doubt that people actually do believe some of the things they think they believe. God, for example; I have a suspicion that no one really does, deep down, believe in God. Don't ask what I mean by, "deep down".

And I noticed that IC doubts that you are actually an atheist, which makes the whole discussion rather funny.

I hope he's wrong.

OK, for me. I suppose I believed that I knew myself very well, when I was in my 20s and early 30s. I knew what my problems were and what my needs were. Not only was this not true. IOW not only was I incorrect in my assessment of the situation. I can see how much I avoided, very effectively, looking at certain patterns in my life, and also avoided certain situations. IOW there was a pattern of intellegent (if not wise) avoidance of situations and exploration that allowed me to keep my official belief about myself. So, a part of me knew that this belief was very fragile and guided a clever avoidance of anything that might reveal this fragility and an underlying terror and belief that I was a mess and had huge gaps in self-knowledge.

A bit vague and unfortunatel a very broad assessment, but I think you will get the idea.

I think I do get the idea, because it chimes with my own experience.

[Harbal]

Going into more detail, since this is an interesting area of exploration, my claustrophobia, although I hesitate to use that word as it's not particularly pronounced in everyday life, also manifests in dreams. I sometimes have dreams about being inside tunnels, for example. There's usually some sort of gap, too, that I have to climb across, or rather down, since it's always descending. The actual dreams vary in detail, but the feeling is always the same, and in that sense, they are recurring. There's always something odd about the angles too, either in the shape of the enclosed space itself, or in the configuration of the gap and how I have to climb over it. That's actually quite difficult to explain and the layout is not usually something that could exist in the real world.

I wouldn't call these dreams nightmares, though. I don't really have nightmares, in the sense of a dream that actually scares me. They do, of course, make me feel uneasy, and tend to come in bursts, too. I might go for ages without having one then a few come along in quick succession. This is also true of dreams in general.

I've had these types of dreams for as long as I can remember, so it's always possible that they derive from some specific incident from childhood that I've completely forgotten about.

I have dreams where I am late and have a lot to do, and I have to be somewhere but can't find my vehicle, which is usually a truck -I used to drive for a living- and I'm just floundering about, getting nowhere. Like you say, not nightmares, but they leave me feeling uncomfortable. I feel those dreams are telling me something about myself, but I can only half figure out what it is. I don't think they have anything to do with any childhood incident, though.

[Maia]

Going into more detail, since this is an interesting area of exploration, my claustrophobia, although I hesitate to use that word as it's not particularly pronounced in everyday life, also manifests in dreams. I sometimes have dreams about being inside tunnels, for example. There's usually some sort of gap, too, that I have to climb across, or rather down, since it's always descending. The actual dreams vary in detail, but the feeling is always the same, and in that sense, they are recurring. There's always something odd about the angles too, either in the shape of the enclosed space itself, or in the configuration of the gap and how I have to climb over it. That's actually quite difficult to explain and the layout is not usually something that could exist in the real world.

I wouldn't call these dreams nightmares, though. I don't really have nightmares, in the sense of a dream that actually scares me. They do, of course, make me feel uneasy, and tend to come in bursts, too. I might go for ages without having one then a few come along in quick succession. This is also true of dreams in general.

I've had these types of dreams for as long as I can remember, so it's always possible that they derive from some specific incident from childhood that I've completely forgotten about.

I have dreams where I am late and have a lot to do, and I have to be somewhere but can't find my vehicle, which is usually a truck -I used to drive for a living- and I'm just floundering about, getting nowhere. Like you say, not nightmares, but they leave me feeling uncomfortable. I feel those dreams are telling me something about myself, but I can only half figure out what it is. I don't think they have anything to do with any childhood incident, though.

Sounds similar to another set of dreams that I have, about trying to find something, but never quite being able to. The thing itself can vary, and is sometimes a person, but the feeling, the emotional content of the dream, is always the same.

[Harbal]

Going into more detail, since this is an interesting area of exploration, my claustrophobia, although I hesitate to use that word as it's not particularly pronounced in everyday life, also manifests in dreams. I sometimes have dreams about being inside tunnels, for example. There's usually some sort of gap, too, that I have to climb across, or rather down, since it's always descending. The actual dreams vary in detail, but the feeling is always the same, and in that sense, they are recurring. There's always something odd about the angles too, either in the shape of the enclosed space itself, or in the configuration of the gap and how I have to climb over it. That's actually quite difficult to explain and the layout is not usually something that could exist in the real world.

I wouldn't call these dreams nightmares, though. I don't really have nightmares, in the sense of a dream that actually scares me. They do, of course, make me feel uneasy, and tend to come in bursts, too. I might go for ages without having one then a few come along in quick succession. This is also true of dreams in general.

I've had these types of dreams for as long as I can remember, so it's always possible that they derive from some specific incident from childhood that I've completely forgotten about.

I have dreams where I am late and have a lot to do, and I have to be somewhere but can't find my vehicle, which is usually a truck -I used to drive for a living- and I'm just floundering about, getting nowhere. Like you say, not nightmares, but they leave me feeling uncomfortable. I feel those dreams are telling me something about myself, but I can only half figure out what it is. I don't think they have anything to do with any childhood incident, though.

Sounds similar to another set of dreams that I have, about trying to find something, but never quite being able to. The thing itself can vary, and is sometimes a person, but the feeling, the emotional content of the dream, is always the same.

Yes, there is a common theme, and they always cause the same emotional state when I wake up. I would say the dreams are mainly characterised by the sense of helplessness and lack of control they bring about. I really don't like how they leave me feeling.

[Maia]

I have dreams where I am late and have a lot to do, and I have to be somewhere but can't find my vehicle, which is usually a truck -I used to drive for a living- and I'm just floundering about, getting nowhere. Like you say, not nightmares, but they leave me feeling uncomfortable. I feel those dreams are telling me something about myself, but I can only half figure out what it is. I don't think they have anything to do with any childhood incident, though.

Sounds similar to another set of dreams that I have, about trying to find something, but never quite being able to. The thing itself can vary, and is sometimes a person, but the feeling, the emotional content of the dream, is always the same.

Yes, there is a common theme, and they always cause the same emotional state when I wake up. I would say the dreams are mainly characterised by the sense of helplessness and lack of control they bring about. I really don't like how they leave me feeling.

The dreams are no doubt based on a natural anxiety about important things in our everyday lives that could go wrong.

[Harbal]

Sounds similar to another set of dreams that I have, about trying to find something, but never quite being able to. The thing itself can vary, and is sometimes a person, but the feeling, the emotional content of the dream, is always the same.

Yes, there is a common theme, and they always cause the same emotional state when I wake up. I would say the dreams are mainly characterised by the sense of helplessness and lack of control they bring about. I really don't like how they leave me feeling.

The dreams are no doubt based on a natural anxiety about important things in our everyday lives that could go wrong.

I get the feeling that mine are more to do with something about myself that I'm not happy with.

[Maia]

Yes, there is a common theme, and they always cause the same emotional state when I wake up. I would say the dreams are mainly characterised by the sense of helplessness and lack of control they bring about. I really don't like how they leave me feeling.

The dreams are no doubt based on a natural anxiety about important things in our everyday lives that could go wrong.

I get the feeling that mine are more to do with something about myself that I'm not happy with.

But you're not sure what, exactly?