What are ghosts, apparitions, poltergeists, EVP phenomena, so called intelligent haunts, mediumship etc? After my Dad died my mother saw him in broad daylight in the middle of the dining room, surrounded by a "brightness." How does all this fit in with the MBT theory. Is It a movement or attempted communication from NPMR to PMR ? Kind of a reverse Obe?
There does appear to be valid evidence supporting these type of events and I am not about to start doubting what my mother says she saw! Can these be "real" or are they a combination of hallucination, wish fullfillment and fraud.

Seven,

With your mother, this was an experience referred to as an After Death Contact/Communication, ADC, and this has been studied and books written. Search on the Internet and find many references. They are not infrequent, occurring typically shortly after the person's death. Shortly as in days or weeks. They are normally an assurance that the departed is all right and for the reassurance of the person remaining behind, perhaps a specific message. I have experienced this with my father and my mother. I cannot say that they were not dreams. My father was incomprehensible the first time and wearing strange clothing. Typical inability to interpret the information. The second time he reminded me of a forgotten situation from childhood with much content that had been forgotten. A message of reassurance. My mother's message was visual and had to be interpreted as well as to meaning. Basically thanking me for helping her achieve her wish to leave by helping remove fear, understand that what her church taught about an afterlife was basically true and not suffer worse from Alzheimer's. I have also contacted my sister about 30 years after her death asking for any advice she could give me regarding my mother. Again, could have been a dream, but she clarified information that I had never understood as a child when it happened 50 odd years earlier. My mother told me of experiencing my father's presence after his death.

I have a good friend who has experienced some form of 'visitation' after the death of family members, once as a floating flame in the corner of the room near the ceiling. She also hears and sees shadows of pets after their deaths, playing around the house. Those who live with her have also seen these 'visits'. Her still living pets respond to these visitations as well. She also sees ghosts and I have seen shadows moving where she said she was seeing a more detailed ghost image. She has also had a really scary premonition of the death of a friend with the nude image of the friend appearing over her 'actual' clothed body at work, running blood from multiple stab wounds. Within 3 days, the friend had disappeared and been found nude in a ditch with multiple stab wounds. My ex wife was visited by her mother at approximately the time of her death in a nursing home in another state. Not an appearance, but a message, a feeling of a presence sending love as she was baking in the kitchen. A different type of occurrence, but she also experienced herself jump up from bed and search for something that had bitten her. After we were both really awake, and in actuality still in the bed, she was stung by a small scorpion which I found and killed. Sort of an OOBE and premonition. These things are not that uncommon, just suppressed or not discussed.

In terms of how these things are possible in PMR under the normal viewpoints about the nature of reality, they are not. You have to think in terms of the 'super' natural. They are anomalies, like quantum anomalies of physics. In terms of MBT, they are not at all anomalous. Remember that we are talking about PMR as a virtual reality, appearing within your mind based upon an input data stream especially created for you to experience. PMR, NPMR, TBC, the RWW, your veritable self and all other aspects of reality that we name as conveniences in referring to them are actually all one thing. A Union, a Consciousness System, a continuum of existence as reality cells containing data/code that is really differentiable only by functionality. If you could look at the actual reality cells, which you cannot, you would see no differentiation or barriers, only cells containing data bits and cells not containing data bits. What comes into your PMR awareness can be modified for various reasons from the strict rule sets that normally define PMR reality. For an ADC, your relative or friend, newly departed, simply expresses their intent to send you a message. As this does or does not fit into your needs as a developing individuated being, it either does or does not so appear in your incoming data stream and you interpret it within your consciousness. The same general situation exists for all of these other special occurrences. If it fits your plan, you experience it.

Let me know if you have more need for explanation.

Ted

Ted,

Thanks. You have had some beautiful and stunning experiences. I think I understand the "big" picture. We are not really here in PMR at all, or only a part of us is here, experiencing a virtual reality in order to help evolve consciousness. The ADC's then seem somehow not necessary considering that a large (all?) part uf us is already outside of this reality. Our friends and relatives could merely establish contact with our greater self, no need to try and contact PMR, especially via things like EVP etc. Indeed maybe this is what you meant, only a part of the signal is entering into PMR according to whatever the rules governing our PMR experience allow. Is this correct?

Also you mentioned your mother's tragic experience with Alzheimers. This vicious disease has always troubled me on the consciousness front. I have seen my friend's father have a complete personality change because of this condition.
Alzheimers has always appeared to be a stark challenge to those of us who say consciousness is not brain dependant.
From an NPMR standpoint, can we say that the full consciousness is withdrawing or refocusing from PMR to NPMR, leaving the body to run as a less intelligent simulation? This seems more acceptable to me than the materialist alternative.

Finally, although it sounds somewhat silly, I wonder about "ghosts" which always seem to haunt the same location.
A persistant simulation? The same as an ADC? I don't understand the location orientation rather than a person orientation (such as in a genuine ADC)for some of these recurring happenings. Not an earthshaking question for sure, but an anomaly just the same.

Thanks for taking so much time explaining to a newcomer.

Seven,

The parts of us that are not virtual PMR are compartmentalized in terms of consciousness from virtual PMR so they must in fact contact the PMR part to get through. There was once a relatively more rigid barrier to passing of information between PMR and other aspects of Reality. You must remember that our higher self/total mind has its own consciousness stream or activities as does our NPMR self have its own. The same for those who have participated as your now departed relative. They are quickly disengaged from their role played in their now ended experience here in PMR. They still have a connection and relationship to you and wish to help you with their message. But remember, your father was not your father in the sense that you knew him as here in PMR. He was a being, probably a friend and frequent associate of yours and likely to have been involved with you in PMR roles as relatives before, who took this role for his own personal development. Just as you have taken your present role, agreeing to be 'Seven' in your present PMR role for purposes of your own development. Yes, you are really the you that you experience constantly. But you are also the collection of the 'distillation', shall we say, of all of your past roles played within PMR. And it is this higher self/total mind that you will remain a part of after this role is over.

Someone with Alzheimer's does not experience this disease within their total self/total mind nor within their PMR virtual being as it exists as a part of their whole self. It is a matter of communication, a modification of their incoming experience data stream that creates their experience of being here in PMR and having Alzheimer's disease which they are experiencing virtually within their real mind. As Tom has explained before, the virtual reality brain, if examined by scanning or surgery in PMR, shows results of disease as feedback from the disease that is part of the PMR virtual reality experience. There is no brain unless you look for it by a PMR activity such as surgery or MRI scan. It is a virtual brain. There is no other side of the world, for you, as what you can experience is the virtual reality of your immediate surroundings. Those living on the other side of the world have the same relative experience. They experience a virtual reality consisting of their immediate surroundings. The lights in the sky at night are only lights unless you can look through a telescope and experience them at this greater fractal level. The other rooms of your house are not out there, but become part of your PMR experience as you walk into them. Even if you talk to someone in the next room, they are not out there in the next room. They are within their own minds having the virtual experience of talking to you while you are having the matching virtual experience of talking to them, each in different virtual rooms. The hair on the back of your head does not exist except in high probility until you reach back and comb it or look in a mirror. It is virtual hair. Smoke and mirrors. Illusion. Tricky isn't it?

Localized ghosts I don't know the reason for. Someone needs the virtual experience to be that way. The perceiver or the creator of the effect. It probably varies by the situation. In how it is produced as an effect, it is the same as an ADC or other PMR anomaly, it appears in your input stream creating your PMR experience. Each would have to be investigated, and depending on your ability and persistence, you might find out if you cared enough.

My apologies if I have pushed this beyond your present experience in reading MBT. All of this is covered and further discussed in various threads as well.

Ted

What you've outlined, as well as Ted's shared experiences, are commonly reported experiences. I can attest to experiences within my own family. Most people do not talk about these things. Two of my children have been visited by deceased relatives and friends, mostly through dreams, and sometimes by 'physical' senses. But, then, both of these children have psychic experiences regularly.

If you read the literature covering OBEs, NDEs, regression therapy, and more, you'll find that an after death communication is merely common, is often part of adjusting to the new reality of NPMR for the departed, often has to do with a sense of unfinished business or a desire to assure those left behind that everything is alright.

As Ted has noted, PMR is a virtual reality, but then all >PMR realities are virtual as well. Tom speaks of being able to manifest a 'physical' presence in other realities, as well. I bring this up to say that switching between VRs is possible, even to the extent that one's presence can be perceived to be as real as anything else existing within the domain of that VR. People often talk of frequencies being a component of perceiving extra-ordinary realities. This is an analogy, of course, but tuning in or out of a radio band is likely a good analog to the phenomena of ghosts, both for those perceiving and for those creating presence. The virtual reality mechanism responds to the intent. (I believe Ted likes to use, Virtual Reality Rendering Engine [VRRE], a term apparently borrowed from computer science and the graphics rendering processor. It's a good term, even if a bit long.)

My mother see's my father (deceased) in broad daylight.
I am probably chasing my tail in smaller and smaller circles here, but are you guys saying that in such a situation she is not seeing the apparition as a stream of photons, but rather as a data stream projected into her mind? Or, is this a distinction without a difference. All is a data stream?

Seven,

Sorry for getting so far ahead of your study of MBT. As you said "All is a data stream." You will get there eventually if you continue reading MBT and hanging around on the forums.

Ted

OK. No matter where you are in Tom's book(s), go here now and read this paper: The physical world as a virtual reality, by Brian Whitworth (2007). http://arxiv.org/ftp/arxiv/papers/0801/0801.0337.pdf

Source page: http://www.brianwhitworth.com/papers.html

Read it, front to back; it is very well written, and covers things about the VR hypothesis not in Tom's book(s). I've not come across a better explanation yet, unless you want to get into Eastern philosophy.

I am not speaking from personal experience, although I have seen a ghost in peripheral vision as it passed down my hallway, entered a bathroom, turned on the shower, left through the garage and out the back door. But I am reporting to you what I've heard Tom say, in either interview or lecture (London); right now I don't recall which.

Roland you rock! Not just because of the information you are sharing, but also how you supply reference data, so important to my scholarly efforts. Thank you. Speaking of school, I just discovered I have financial aid (student loans) enough for another year, if I need it. As stupid as it is and sounds, I had avoided checking to see how close to maxed out on Stafford loans I was because I didn't want to actualize it being gone. If I didn't look the cat wouldn't die ;), except for it worked out that I looked and the cat said, meow.
Love
Bette

_________________
All That Is
what is?
Consciousness.

Thank you Bette. I loved doing research and the habits are hard to break. =) Glad to hear your cat lives!

p.s. What are you studying (if I may ask)?

Yes you may ask ;), are you kidding? A chance to talk about me, couldn't hold me back if you tried. I am working on my master in science degree in psychology at Walden University. I am to the thesis part, the finale, and have 1 twelve week term and 2/3 of another term under my belt at this point. I went through term 1 almost to the end before getting my thesis proposal approved so I could start working on the actual thesis. That is because I changed my thesis from the Let Our Vegetables Empower Us (LOVE U) organic garden project which included a proposed research design of putting elderly and disabled together to have a mediated quality interactive experience in specially designed garden beds. It was to effect quality of life issues for both, and had some basis in there being a bacteria in soil that effects our serotonin in such a way to be a natural antidepressant. http://discovermagazine.com/2007/jul/ra ... new-prozac. I still want to help actualize the garden for developmentally disabled, elderly, mentally ill, volunteerism and other groups. I just do not need it to be my thesis, I am very slowly working, networking, to get something going there other ways such as a community garden for all the above and sustenance in emergency situations. Unfortunately the easiest way for a community garden concept to gain approval is to use fear, fear of an earthquake cutting us off from supplies since we are isolated here, to motivate the project. I'm trying to avoid that, so I am on hold there.
I went to a topic in my thesis that is timely and that is smart as far as being important to a bigger portion of society with more interest from academia (I theorize), and that is gang violence and how, I opine and think I am correct, it is making the US society disengage out of fear of becoming collateral damage of gang violence. Ignoring PMR is effective in meditation, but disallows interactive experiences with other when the unspoken rule is don't meet eyes, don't attend to other or you risk death like that. The title is: A Critical Examination of Binaural Beat Therapy to Reduce Gang Violence: A Transformational Mixed-Methods Approach to Enhancing Human Potential. I am using, and therefore required to explain to a certain degree, MBT concepts of consciousness being a nonphysical digital information system and quality of consciousness with all related concepts by building up the readers apperceptive mass :) to where they can assimilate it with their current knowledge base. It is fun, challenging. There, aren't you glad you asked? Reader's Digest version, I'm studying psychology ;). Research, neuropsychological, cognitive, is what my PhD will be in when I get to that point, it will all be consciousness research bottom line. I won't have student loans for that one, but hope for scholarships and grants perhaps, if I do good work now with my MS. Thanks for asking.
Love
Bette

_________________
All That Is
what is?
Consciousness.

You could just teach them about Buddhism's philosophy of non-attachment, reality's virtual nature, meditation, and reincarnation. =)

Re: neuropsychology

Are you familiar with VILAYANUR RAMACHANDRAN?
----
BTW, that's a very interesting article at the link. I've wondered about that many times. One of my favorite videos I've seen during the last year has been Michael Wood's, India. I could not help but notice the differences in their hygiene and ours. Yet, they don't seem to be suffering from all of those illnesses SEEN ON TV! Also, I was very struck by the relaxed and happy demeanor of the adults and children filmed in everyday settings. It really impressed me. Great film too.

Actually I was watching a video, I'm sure from a post that supplied it here, possibly from you yesterday. I had to leave it, and now have to find it again, but yes I had heard him talk before, I recognized him. Phantoms in the Brain, that is his most recent work, as I recall. This interest in neuropsychology was something that I feared losing after intaking MBT, but I got over that. It is very important as it is the mechanics of the brain, mind to a certain extent and how we interact here in PMR. Buddhism isn't scientific so I have to come in from a different direction, but it all ends at the same place so it's all good. Thanks for these conversations Roland, they are fun.
Love to you and yours
Bette

_________________
All That Is
what is?
Consciousness.

I'm a firm believer ;) in the bucket of dirt theory, you have to eat a bucket of dirt before you will die. Seriously, people need to be exposed to nature. Too clean of a house is a bad thing and is associated with asthma, and a great rationalization for my habits. Kawasoki's dis ease is caused by too much cleaning, basically. We have paved paradise and then scrubbed it of all nature.
There is a special relaxed demeaner when nature is reality. I agree, you don't see the illnesses on TV. I imagine they have different issues, but not from stress or depression I'd bet, if I were a betting person. And they use their body as intended, I don't. I'm not very active physically, although mentally I'm all over the place. Use it or lose it is so true.
Love
Bette

_________________
All That Is
what is?
Consciousness.

Roland

Thanks for the link. I read it front to back. Found it outstanding, and yet, outside the additional context and meaning in Tom's work, a little unsettling. The explanation of the Big Bang as a mass infusion of data was perfect. Now back to my reading of MBT!