If George Everett Hale said that "elves" came to him at night and gave him clues about how to design the 200 inch reflecting telescope mirror on Palomar (he did) does that make the achievement less worthy?
I agree, and maybe that was his real experience. It certainly wouldn't be the first time in human history that information was given by some non human entity.
Even in dreams, such as with Einstein having the dream about riding on a particle of light.
Human history is rife with these types of stories. I'm beginning to take all of it all very literally lately. People have told stories throughout the ages, and we are taught that these stories are not literal... but what if they are?
I'm new here... just having found both the podcast and then the forum (but not new to podcasts or forums
). I'm also not new to the paranormal. We have been on intimate terms since I was a young child. Same thing with my older brother and several close childhood friends. The list of odd things includes ghost cats, poltergeist activity, being hit by pebbles from the sky while on a rooftop, a UFO landing and small dark creatures with big green eyes that left foot prints in the mud, streetlights going out, always seeing patterns on clocks (like 11:11) and one of the earliest, being "saved" from possible death by a fallen branch of a large tree when I was about 7. Most of these events included at least one other person., and in the case of the UFO and creatures, about 9 people on three separate occasions.
I've had strange experiences since I was a very young child. I know these things happened, but of course adults would say you had a bad dream, (like the glowing white scull face that came down on me while laying in bed at the age of 4), and after a while I just accepted that stuff happens we can't explain. If you take all these stories you hear literally, then apparently strange things have been happening to a lot of people for a very long time.
On a few occasions I had information just put in my head. It's that "eureka" type of moment. And often nothing I was even thinking about, or was familiar with. One time when I was about 16, I had the complete plan for a tool just pop in my head. It was a type of pipe clam that used a bicycle chain. I had never seen such a tool, and later when I saw my first pipe clamp, it was totally different, and the one I was shown was much better. But I was too young to do anything with it.
Another time is was a odd bicycle that was good for off road cycling, and you reclined with your legs higher than your seat. Once again, I saw bikes like that years later, but not the same. This used to happen all the time.
Another aspect of this is with any kind of creative work. I'm a musician, and you hear musicians talking about "being in the zone". When that happens things take on a life of their own and you are only going along for the ride.
The first
really weird event was back in the mid 80's..... probably '86 or '87. I was playing in a band where I was the main songwriter. There were three of us, and we were at rehearsal. We were playing a song where I played the guitar solo (there was another guitarist and a bassist). I composed the solo and would normally play it as written. But I enjoy improvising, so that evening I decided I would pick the first note, and the last note, and then clear my mind (not an east feat!) and just let things happen.
So just as I'm about to start my solo, I hear a voice in my head. It's not like I'm thinking, and it's not like someone is taking in my ear either. It was super clear, and just right in my head. It was a male voice, very calm and soothing. It had a sort of "pure" tone about it... not like a person.
The voice said "play these notes, they will work for you". I thought "who talks like that?" and then was compelled to look at my guitar neck, something I don't do when I play, and there, on the neck, were shapes, I think they were white circles, with numbers, and dotted lines connecting them from note to note. It reminded me of those cartoons where someone is learning to dance, and they have the foot prints on the floor to show them where to put their feet.
So I followed the notes and played the most amazing thing I ever heard. It wasn't like I was doing it though, I just started playing it.
After the song ended I was standing there thinking "whoa! what just happened" and I couldn't remember what I played, or what it sounded like. As strange as the whole event was, it didn't seem strange. Everything was sort of different.. it just seemed like this was normal. I looked up at my two band mates, and they were just looking at me with their mouths open... they said "what was that you played? It was amazing!"
I simply said "well you wont believe me but..."
That never happened again. I have woke from dreams with a full song in my head though.
Now the kicker... and why I'm here, in a round about way.
About a year ago (I don't remember exactly when it happened.. my wife probably remembers) I woke about 3 am, and was totally wide awake. I lay in bed for a few minutes, and when I realized I wasn't going to fall asleep anytime soon I got out of bed and went into the living room, and sat on the couch in the dark. Since I was a kid I'd fall asleep first sitting in a big armchair in the dark, and then at some point would wake up and go to bed.
So I sat cross legged on the couch and all of a sudden I have a stream of information flowing through my mind. I could actually see it, coming from the lower left, to the upper right, on my left side, in a sort of arc. It was all manner of things. Pictures of stuff, technical drawings, video images, and then just ideas, and more ideas. It was going really fast. I thought to my self "Wow! This is really good information" It struck me as odd that I would phrase it that way... "good information." That's a funny way to talk. The information filled me with bliss. Then the voice... same voice as years earlier. It started telling me something, or maybe I just had the idea, but it said I had to write a book about what I was being shown. It said it would be helpful to people. People would need this at some point... It said I had to write the book and then get people together, like a following. I'm thinking this is how religions got started! The thing it was showing me was something about vibrations. At the time it all made sense. I understood it... it was simple and even obvious, but was something I had never thought of. Something about raising vibrations.
So now I'm calm, but starting to be concerned. Part of me was thinking of the people who make claims of some entity coming to them and instruction them to do such and such, and then they end up like Joseph Smith! :frown:
I wanted to know the information, and I wanted to help, but was also thinking about all the work it wanted me to do so I said back to it, just by me thinking to myself "...I don't know if I can do all this, it seems like a lot of work" and then the images stopped. I had it in my mind to get up and go into the kitchen to get a pad on the fridge and write the vibrations thing down, I start the book tomorrow... but then I was suddenly
very tired, and since I remembered it fine, I said to myself, "Oh I don't need to write it down, I'll remember it, I'm certain I will" and I had to lay down and fell asleep on the couch.
I woke up several hours later and went to bed.
In the morning, I remembered the event, and even vaguely remember what all the streaming images looked like (but not in detail or content), but I couldn't remember what I was told to write a book about.
I'm been hoping it will happen again, but so far nothing.
Days later I started thinking I was being manipulated. It promised all this information in return to get me to do something. I wasn't sure the intentions were all that good, but not that they were bad either.
Anyway, that's the story. It's not the first strange thing to happen to me, or even the strangest. But it seems like just another event in a long string of events. But I can't help but thinking the information it told me in still locked away in my head. It's easy to see how you could read something like this and think the person is a nut. As much as I am open to many things, it still seems surreal that it actually happened. And at the same time, not.
Since that night I seem to be coming up with new ways of looking at things, and it almost seems I'm being influenced by what I can't remember.... like it's slowly leaking into my awareness.
Probably not the right part of the forum for all that, but it seemed apropos.
I think some people are sincere in their stories and beliefs, and some of them might have even been mislead by whomever or whatever it is. And that makes things even more muddled.
What does it all mean? I'm still trying to figure that out. This seems like a good place to start.
