Well, this is going to affect my belief system...

[Elder Iptuous]

oh.
well.
he never made that claim...  i guess i said she 'milked him for all he was worth', and that perhaps was the wrong way to say it.  he implied that she got a ton of money out of him, which she did. (according to his friends up at the bar)
i think he probably fucked up the rest to knock himself down to his current point.

[P3nT4gR4m]

oh.
well.
he never made that claim...  i guess i said she 'milked him for all he was worth', and that perhaps was the wrong way to say it.  he implied that she got a ton of money out of him, which she did. (according to his friends up at the bar)
i think he probably fucked up the rest to knock himself down to his current point.

No offence but I'm getting the impression you've already made up your mind?

[Mesozoic Mister Nigel]

Yeah. me too... nothing more to say.

[Elder Iptuous]

no offense taken.  
that's why i brought it up here.  it's a community with healthy skepticism that isn't afraid to call bullshit.

i can't say that i've made up my mind about what happened, but i find it hard to maintain doubt that something happened beyond bullshit.

i don't mean to give the impression that i'm recalcitrant on any points though...

[Bruno]

Any reason given as to why she got so much? Was it more than half?

[P3nT4gR4m]

no offense taken.  
that's why i brought it up here.  it's a community with healthy skepticism that isn't afraid to call bullshit.

i can't say that i've made up my mind about what happened, but i find it hard to maintain doubt that something happened beyond bullshit.

i don't mean to give the impression that i'm recalcitrant on any points though...

Yeah, I'm with Nigel. Reason being that I find it really hard to carry on conversations along these lines without becoming sarcastic or insulting. I've never heard of any psychic phenomenon that doesn't have at least a dozen really straightforward alternative explanations and, having never seen any evidence myself I find it impossible to buy into any such tale. Let's agree to disagree and at least that way we wont fall out.

[Elder Iptuous]

Any reason given as to why she got so much? Was it more than half?

No idea.

Yeah, I'm with Nigel. Reason being that I find it really hard to carry on conversations along these lines without becoming sarcastic or insulting. I've never heard of any psychic phenomenon that doesn't have at least a dozen really straightforward alternative explanations and, having never seen any evidence myself I find it impossible to buy into any such tale. Let's agree to disagree and at least that way we wont fall out.

That's cool.  I can deal with sarcastic, and i don't get insulted too easily. 
i can totally understand your hesitation to buy into anything like this.  anyone that didn't hesitate would likely seem flaky.

It can certainly be explained as unintentional cold reading, but it would seem a pretty impressive example of that imo, and being unintentional, i would maintain that there are still some interesting implications, mundane as it may be relatively.
I am fairly convinced that he was not just playing along, as the story was presented to me.  i want to talk to the other people present to get their take on it.

but i'm not really trying to convince anyone here.  (ive resisted listing the other incidents she has had as corroborating evidence) I was just looking for a skeptical sounding board to help anchor me, and i appreciate you guys obliging me. 

I'm not the falling out type, and i should say that i really enjoy the flavor that you lend to this board, so it's all good, even if i do seem more gullible for the conversation...

[Dysfunctional Cunt]

Let's cut to the chase, the dude was drunk, he was getting attention from an attractive woman, he's going to agree to damn near anything if he thinks it is going to get him laid.

Not saying she may not have had some type of brain fart during this time, but as for it being a true psychic vision.....  I'm not buying it.

I bet almost every guy here at some point in their single days would have sat and nodded along with the whole thing if they thought it meant sex was the outcome!!!

[Kai]

In regards to metaphysical realities, i try to be agnostic and skeptical.  I've worked up some rudimentary beliefs that seem rational to me, and although lacking real concrete details, work reasonably well in filling the gap left by abandoning an inherited faith.

My wife never grew up without any particular structured faith, and developed her spirituality in ad hoc fashion from what she gleaned from the various people around her, with a draw towards supernatural/madjique (which she holds with some degree of secrecy and guilt rather than the frequently brash displays of the 'Pagan' crowd)

Well, although i sometimes mock what i see as unfounded belief in supernatural horsefeathers and use of horribly imprecise language to discuss abstract concepts, i give her great leeway and preferential respect in these matters because of the stories she has told me regarding her experiences of what would most often be described as spiritual or supernatural occurrences.  I believe that she perceived what she claims to have perceived, and i cannot explain some of it.  she has around a dozen life experiences that take a mundane world model that i would otherwise default to, and blow it out of the water.  Furthermore, i've been present with a few of them (although not the really dramatic ones).

Last night she had another experience.  This was more significant in its implications, to my mind, than those in her past.
A dead lady talked through her.

She got off work last night and went to a bar to grab a gin and tonic and a smoke before heading home.  There was this fellow that had crawled into a glass, miserable, and had apparently been there all day.  At some point they were talking and he was making vague comments that he was mad about an ex getting married that day.  She's a very empathetic person (a real fixer/healer), and i would assume was trying to encourage him when he said something that suggested the ex was the mother of his children, but not his wife.  At this point in the conversation, she said the bottom dropped out.

She described that the feeling of presence when you are near somebody that is sort of a connection, but also a separation, was no longer there.  she felt a unity with this guy, where some barrier fell away.  She further felt a presence trying to communicate.  she has said that she has felt this before, but hasn't ever pursued it because of some combination of fear or cynicism, but this time, she reached out and asked who this was.  what was wanted.  She says she very clearly heard the word 'Grandmother' in her head.
She told the guy his grandmother wanted to say something to him.

she says she saw very clearly in her minds eye some images.  she said she saw a bird.  and a cat.  they flashed back and forth.  (i asked whether she was actively looking, or passively seeing, and she said she felt that she could not have 'not seen' the images even if she tried)  She tells the guy that she sees a bird, and the guy shrugs saying he doesn't know what birds have to do with his grandmother.  She says it's a red bird.  he immediately gives a look of surprise and questioning understanding, and at this point she says she knew to say that the orange cat killed the red bird.  he's shocked at this point because the day before, there was a red bird on the balcony of his apartment and he didn't know what to make of it.  there is a neighbors cat that he is fond of and pets.  She felt that his grandmother wanted to say not to worry about it because the bird was an offering of friendship.  the guy's amazed.

now this is strange, right?  not a simple coincidence that one would expect in a cold reading.
I asked her whether the things she felt to say were strong intuitions.  she says she felt that they were not coming from within her but from the grandmother.  she said that this time (as opposed to some less dramatic occurrences in the past) she actually heard the grandmother speaking, too.  a distant murmur that she could make some words out of, along with the images presented to her.

She then tells the guy that the bird isn't what the grandmother needs to tell him, though.  She said she heard the grandmother speaking verbally inside her head that 'the number 7 isn't important', and that he needs to live.

The guy busts out crying and relates that the reason he's drowning himself in a bar is because of his Ex that is marrying some other guy.  She was apparently a gold digger, and they lived in their fancy ass house with fancy ass lifestyle and she was a trophy that became more.  they had kids and lived together for 7 years.  She left him a year or two ago, and through common law marriage stuff was able to milk him for all he was worth.  She milked him for, -get this-, seven hundred and seventy seven thousand dollars.  now he's a ruined man, living in a crappy apartment, giving up on actually living.  stuck in the suck.  So this little message was of immediate impact to him.

She tells the guy that she sees a bowl of lemons.  whole lemons in a bowl. a bunch of them.  he says he received a giant bowl of lemons as a gift from somebody and they are taking up a ton of space in his fridge and he doesn't know what to do with them.  She heard and relayed from the grandmother that he needs to make lemonade.  The grandmother said that she was given lemons and always made lemonade, and that's what he needs to do.

The guy then relates that his Grandmother was the saint of the family because it was an open secret that the grandfather was a philanderer and hurt her their whole life, but she kept it all together and gave the whole family the love that it needed despite this.

she says she saw images of some kids and that the grandmother was telling him that they were what was important now, and that he needs to begin living for their sake.  this also seemed to hit him like a ton of bricks.

She says that the grandmother told him that lust was standing in the way of love, and he needs to stop what he's doing.  The guy then confesses, crying, to my wife that he has been seeing a prostitute to get the affection that he needs, but it's eating him up.  well, grandma says to stop it, she says.

she says that she could SEE the grandmother in her mind's eye with decent detail.  she had short white hair with tight curls,  very vividly blue eyes, was short, wore brightly colored clothes (that were vague in detail, more swaths of light), and gaudy necklaces.  was accompanied by the smell of cooking, and a sense of structure and order.
he confirmed that these details didn't falsify anything.

she says the images she sees are set in a background of light or mist.  like clouds composed of the spectrum of light.  she called it the medium that she sees the images in, and that it is dynamic and that the images form on this backdrop as isolated stills.  like the bird was just a bird, no surface that it was on, no movement.  (incidentally she said that the detail was vivid enough that she could draw it.  it had one wing down, one lifted up, and it's tail was cocked to the side.  it seemed a strange pose initially, but became perfectly clear to her after she realized it was dead)  She said the images seemed to 'come out at her'.  like, particularly when she saw the grandmother the eyes seemed to zoom at her and fill with more detail.

She says the connection she felt was 'L-shaped'  coming from him through her, and then up through her head, and out.  she also said that it felt directional in that way.

she says he started asking for more information, but as his mind filled with questions she could feel his concentration waning and frustration growing.  she said there was a simultaneous sense of frustration and waning concentration on the part of the grandmother, and it faded away.

the ordeal lasted about an hour.

she was very freaked out.  She wanted to know my opinion on whether what she experienced seemed genuine or whether she was just filling her head with bullshit.  i indicated that it seemed to me that a mundane explanation would feel pretty hollow given the story at hand.

I could feel a peace in her that has not been there since losing several loved ones over the past year, and i'm grateful for that.

we stayed up late discussing the implications.

I'm still chewing on it and wondering what the longer term impact this experience will have on her and her beliefs, and also mine.


TL;DR - My Wife talked to a dead lady last night.  What do i do now?

Yeah, cold reading is really cool like that, isn't it?

[Mesozoic Mister Nigel]

I've had some pretty intense experiences. I've seen ghosts, had apocalyptic waking visions of the future, and intense dreams the events of which later played out exactly as I described them to friends.

I also have temporal lobe epilepsy which causes hallucinations among other shifts in perception, am unwittingly a good unconscious cold reader, and am skilled at manipulating the Law of Fives.

So...

[Elder Iptuous]

Nigel, i've always wished that i would have some intense experiences such as you describe, but never have.
ghosts.  never seen them.  they can be explained as hallucination, i guess.
visions, ditto.
shifts in perception, cold reading, Lo5... all amazing things, but they don't really raise a huge flag that calls into question fundamental notions of things.

but, how do you explain your precognitive dreams/visions?  this is one of the things that she has had a good number of that lend credibility to her claim in my mind.

[East Coast Hustle]

If you dream about enough things that could reasonably happen, some of those things WILL happen. This doesn't mean your dream was precognitive.

[Kai]

Nigel, i've always wished that i would have some intense experiences such as you describe, but never have.
ghosts.  never seen them.  they can be explained as hallucination, i guess.
visions, ditto.
shifts in perception, cold reading, Lo5... all amazing things, but they don't really raise a huge flag that calls into question fundamental notions of things.

but, how do you explain your precognitive dreams/visions?  this is one of the things that she has had a good number of that lend credibility to her claim in my mind.

Cognitive bias.

[Mesozoic Mister Nigel]

Nigel, i've always wished that i would have some intense experiences such as you describe, but never have.
ghosts.  never seen them.  they can be explained as hallucination, i guess.
visions, ditto.
shifts in perception, cold reading, Lo5... all amazing things, but they don't really raise a huge flag that calls into question fundamental notions of things.

but, how do you explain your precognitive dreams/visions?  this is one of the things that she has had a good number of that lend credibility to her claim in my mind.

I can't explain them beyond two possibilities: one, that time is an illusion and my particular form of brain damage means that sometimes when I'm sleeping my linear time-perception system fucks up, or two, that the Law of Fives plus the malleability of perception and memory means that if I have and remember a particularly vivid and realistic dream, and describe it to someone else, that when a similar-enough sequence of events occurs we Law of Five it into fitting my memory of the dream and their recollection of what I told them.

[Elder Iptuous]

possibility one would be astounding and profound.
possibility two would be merely interesting.  did the details leave enough room that this is the likely candidate?

My wife has, on three occasions, awoken from sleep to inform me that someone had just died.  that's pretty specific and immediate.  i have only been able to imagine explanations that require connections that are outside the scope of my understanding, and would have pretty broad implications...