This seems like the best folder to introduce this question. Hopefully I go it right.

I don't want to digress too much. But the true motivating factor here is what I personally call the "Up the ladder, down the ladder question (UTLDTLQ)". What is the space associated with OOBE. Is it up the ladder into NPMR? Or is it down the ladder into a purely personal space. I have many conflicting views on this issue. I can contruct a number of hopefully intelligent examples that support either. Maybe Tom gets into it in Book 3 which I start today. Though thus far, he seems to be implying that PMR is a constrained (nested) subset of NPMR. More on that later (actually, the reason I picked up MBT in the first place).

At the end of Book 2, Tom spends a great deal of energy deriving his conscioussness model. He also dives into the issue of perception. He points out the obvious factors which color perception ... religion, culture, personal experience, etc ...

I was dreaming the other night. I found myself flying along the North Shore of Long Island. I stopped and rested on the beach. I looked out into the water and saw an island about 1 mile out. On this island were a pair of buildings. The incongruence with PMR hit me and I realized I was dreaming. The buildings reminded me of the World Trade towers. A personal perception based on experience. It also brought about an emotional response stemming from their demise.

I had an unusually clear insight sitting on this virtual beach, unusual in the sense that my best thinking tends to be done awake. I pondered this issue of perception and wondered if it could be applied to the UTLDTLQ. So are characters in ones dreams independent sentient creatures, projections of ones mind, or something in between?

I plan to spend some energy on using the perception problem to sway me one way or another. Typically, discussions with characters in my OOBE's have demonstrated a unique and complex thought process that is sufficiently different from my own (oh, I have my share of dullards too, don't get me wrong). Of course the gotcha here is constructing a question, attempting to blank your mind and then receiving an answer for subsequent processing while awake. That too is a challenge. Even the smallest glimmer of expectation on your part (the questioner) would potentially impact the answer (even if it's just your perception of the answer.)

The apparent independence of my dream characters would be consistent with an up the ladder interpretation. I will be exploring this. I will be quite interested in others opinions and experiences with these types of interactions.

(EDIT: My gut tells me it's something in between. The more I dig into these questions, the more I realize there is no black and white, no right or wrong, only a fuzzy logic that has a propensity to gravitate one way or another)

_________________
You see, the universe IS well designed. It is designed to have loop holes that have a low risk to reward relationship. With risk comes potential reward. And Mother Nature has known this for a long time. Why would anyone second guess her? It's by design.

It is a fascinating question whether dream characters have sentience. We need a good Turing test or something for sentience--maybe NPMR telepathy would settle the question. Many eastern traditions make far-out claims: plants, rocks, tables, molecules, quarks all have sentience. I have a lot of difficulty with these claims since I have never had a two-way conversation with a machine. Anyway, I dream at night that I am communicating with deceased and living family members but they could just be recreations from the state vector database. It is unlikely that when I dream that I am communicating with a living family member, I actually am, since later the living family member remembers nothing of the conversation (at a conscious level).

Of course, the scary thing is that if dream characters have sentience and I have sentience, then I may just be a character in someone else's dream, and where do I go when s/he wakes up? I'll have to add that on this tedious Monday, somebody is having a pretty boring dream.

_________________
If you love animals called pets, why do you eat animals called dinner?

Yep, the shared dream paradigm (and difficulty proving this out) would be one example that suggests against the up the ladder interpretation. A state vector recall and projection approach is more the personal model.

Though if you are motivated to prove shared dreaming, I would suggest a specific approach. Emotion has the best chance of being transmit via PSI. Trying to use a verbal message or similar device would probably not create the desired effect.

Unfortunately, if you are well read on PSI, then I think you would agree that a strong negative emotion would be easiest to transfer. But now you're in the realm of unfairly messing with the mind of a loved one. That gets touchy.

_________________
You see, the universe IS well designed. It is designed to have loop holes that have a low risk to reward relationship. With risk comes potential reward. And Mother Nature has known this for a long time. Why would anyone second guess her? It's by design.

This needs to be put into perspective with Tom's paradigm for the reality of CS and the VRs and their relationship. Consciousness Space as a digital CS is the underlying base within which we as IUOCs exist. That is where we live, much as we live in PMR within our minds which are within our brains in a strictly physical model. Leaving aside the many other NPMRxs and PMRxs, we associate with our PMR VR and our NPMR VR primarily although we can visit and experience more than one PMR experience at a time or even different PMRs. We experience our NPMR VR continuously. We intermittently experience our PMR VR for a lifetime. Each of these experiences of a VR are experienced by a specific sub set of our total being as an IUOC that has its experience limited to match the rule set for the particular VR which it is intended to experience.

When you start talking OOBE, you have multiple options as to destination. You can experience the same general VR as PMR, with or without modifications. The PMR VR is just a data stream sent to you as your 'mind' within CS by TBC which is also within CS over the RWW network that interconnects everything. So an OOBE is just a connection to another data stream representing the PMR VR, with or without modifications. Or an OOBE can be an experience involving a visit to NPMR which again is just a connection to another data stream representing the NPMR VR, again coming to your mind over the RWW from TBC. Or an OOBE can be an experience involving a visit to another PMR with a different rule set which again is just a connection to another data stream representing thus PMR VR and its rule set, again coming to your mind over the RWW from TBC.

When you start talking about the consciousness of 'beings' viewed and interacted with in your dreams or OOBE, you are never interacting with those actual beings but with their representations within the VR data stream. In this case, it does make sense to talk about their consciousness. They are either 'puppets' or representations acting for 'minds' within CS or they are entirely figments of TBC, possibly courtesy of the past data base as for interacting with someone who is deceased in this PMR experience with their actions portrayed based upon their probable interactions. They might be entirely fictions to match your Intent. In these latter cases, it does not make good sense to think of their minds as being conscious. They may act 'as if' they were conscious, but this will be based upon probable behavior as determined by TBC or in the latter case, it can be any basis as determined by TBC to fit your Intent.

Does this make sense to you?

Ted

Ted:

Paragraph 1 resonates with me. I rather like Tom's explanation of our being "hybrid" PMR/NPMR creations

Paragraph 2 makes good sense as well. I'm up to speed w/ his model of packet exchange and how TBC basically facilitates our understanding of the physical surrounding that our senses take in.

I understand where you are coming from w/ paragraph 3. This is precisely what I mean by our expectation coloring the result realized in the dream or OOBE. I have plenty of first hand experience to prove that part.

So yes, I understand your points. What I am struggling with is a graphical interpretation of the inter-relations between the NPMRxs and PMRxs. I guess and am thinking in too much of a cause/effect manner. I'm going to read book 3 and see if that helps.

But to my point above ... how do you interpret it when a character you are talking with while OOB demonstrates a perceived sentience, even offering some hard data that you look up the next day and where otherwise unaware of, which turns out to be dead on accurate? I've had that happen and it's a compelling experience.

_________________
You see, the universe IS well designed. It is designed to have loop holes that have a low risk to reward relationship. With risk comes potential reward. And Mother Nature has known this for a long time. Why would anyone second guess her? It's by design.

Hi Ted,

Your answer makes partial sense to me. One never communicates with anything but rather with a datastream from that thing. That is like ?Kant?Tom? who said we never perceive the apple, just the photons from the apple. This form of second-hand perception would apply with real PMR people and I think also with dream characters--both are datastreams. But do these datastreams come from conscious beings, or beings reconstructed from past data on incarnations of beings, or fictions created by TBC to meet our expectations or guide our development? Some dream characters are said to be shallow and one-dimensional, and other characters are said to be for all intents and purposes real.

There is a story about a woman in ?Tibet? who created a tulpa--a being she imagined into existence through vivid meditations, until it achieved objective reality and was seen by others. When the tulpa's personality became evil she uncreated it. I have also heard a story about a group of experimenters agreeing upon intricate details of an imaginary, fictional prince who subsequently communicated to them via a Ouija board. Now I don't know if these stories are true--they are supposedly true--but I know it is possible (with a little help) for a woman to create an intelligent being that has physical presence out of an ovum, and such being is as conscious as I am.

I hope I'm not wandering too far off the point.

_________________
If you love animals called pets, why do you eat animals called dinner?

I would interpret it as evidence that it is just data. :)
Love
Bette

_________________
All That Is
what is?
Consciousness.

This is gold, it's more general about NPMR and OOBE but it might also answer your specific question. Foundations are always important.

"Bee: The thing that still bends my head out of shape is, for instance; Say we're at some NPMR locale I pick up what appears to me to be a rock and hand it to you, do you perceive it as a rock, or have I handed you a radish?

Tom: Your basic problem is thinking of NPMR as just a weird PMR with different rules. Its rules are so different that it is not like a PMR at all. Your habits of thinking force it to be more like a weird PMR in your mind and indeed make it seem more like a weird PMR when you go there because of the way you interpret your experiences [you must interpret all inputs (data collected in NPMR) in terms of the experience stored in your physical brain because you are projecting your awareness into NPMR from inside PMR - in this case, PMR is your base state]

There are no rocks or radishes in NPMR unless you use a rock or a radish as a metaphor for something you experience there. More generally, there is no stuff - except in your mind as a metaphor for (interpretation of) some data/energy exchange, or as you create them with your intent by habit or intentionally (like a chair to sit on, or a body to represent yourself or who you are talking to, or clothes).

Bee: I've heard it so many times now that errors in translation of subjective energy can creep in, so how can we agree on any level of objectivity in NPMR?

Tom: There is no objectivity that is like what we experience in PMR because the less constrained rule set of NPMR does not generate "objects". There is no meaning to the word "objectivity" if there are no objects. Objectivity requires a direct measurement and a direct measurement requires an object to measure. In your mind an object is a 3 dimensional thing with form and solidity (volume and mass). You have no sense of the term "object" except within a PMR context. If you do, please describe to me an object without using the 3-D PMR concepts of volume and mass or any artifacts of the PMR human senses (touch, sight, feel, smell, sound). Can't do it? See what I mean when I say you are, out of habit, forcing your perception of NPMR to be just a weird verrsion PMR.

For example, those same habits generate expectations about NPMR that make having an OOBE very difficult for most people. If it is not as they expect (as others have described it - actually interpreted it), then they believe that they must not be there. Before they can consider themselves successful, they must duplicate someone else's subjective experience - a subjective experience that is based on the experiencer's unique PMR experience set. That strategy works in an objective PMR (where other researchers must be able to reproduce the experiment) but it is a great source of confusion and frustration for those trying to experience NPMR. I do not wish to add to that difficulty. The lore of what the OOB reality looks like, and descriptions of the process of accessing it, and of of all the stuff that is there constitute just another set of belief traps (for you) that make it more difficult for you to explore the larger reality of consciousness on your own. That is not to say that these discriptions and processes are "wrong" or ineffective, but that they are limiting because they are not fundamental. Such descriptions also constitute a set of suggestions (called leading the witness in a legal forum) that often lead to your needing, creating or interpreting just such a thing. If enough people create similar metaphors, then it becomes an "object" or shared metaphor of group consciousness and thus takes on a "life of its own" independent of the individuals but dependent on the group. However, this similarity of metaphor is not always just a matter of leading the witness, but rather of NPMR explorers sharing similar cultures, thus sharing similar experiences, thus sharing similar metaphors and symbols. They are, after all, experiencing the same general thing, but just interpreting it into PMR language differently according to their own unique experience/understanding/belief set.

So, when you want to know what NPMR trees rocks, radishes, buildings, and beings look like, you are asking a meaningless question. If you want to know what I experience, I will (if I were willing to indulge your misguided curiosity) tell you the metaphors and symbols that I translated my experience in NPMR into so that I could communicate it to you. However, realize that I would be restricted to metaphors and symbols that are in my PMR brain (that are within my experience set) and to those that I think you would understand (that would also be in your experience set). To optimize our communication I would have to have some idea what was in your experience set - i.e., we would have to talk and get to know each other a bit. Yes indeed, People with larger experience sets can communicate what they experience more accurately, can define their experiences more precisely, but they can only do so with another who shares that larger experience set. They would only confuse and create beliefs in those who do not share their larger experience set - thus creating dysfunctional belief traps for these people.

Furthermore, if I did not understand that reality was a netted digital information system, I would share my metaphors and symbols with you as if I were describing an objective NPMR that I had experienced. I would tell you that it was difficult putting my experience into words; that our PMR concepts didn't really fit my experience very well, but that I was describing (interpreting) my experience as accurately as I could. And you and I both would take it all literally or roughly literally to account for my difficulty in finding the right words. In fact nothing you hear should be taken literally - it is all just metaphor and symbol for a data exchange experience that is likely to have absolutely NO -- that was a "NO and not even close" in case you missed it -- PMR analog. If an experience has no PMR analog, then how accurate and literal will the PMR metaphors be that describe it? How personal (dependent upon the individual's unique experience, beliefs, etc) will that description be? And what if that persons experience set is very limited relative to what he is experiencing?

Bee: I suppose even here in the PMR learning lab our perception of anything is ultimately subjective, since our own viewpoint is unique, colored by beliefs/perceptual filters.

Tom: Yes, exactly.
Bee: Or are these errors in viewing NPMR a result of us forcing our PMR viewpoint on objects and events?

Tom: Yes, exactly.

Bee: Maybe I should have asked are there commonly identifiable structures within the like of OS, .. It'd be helpful to know where 'stuff' is. The last thing I'd want to happen on my first trip out (So to speak), is end up plopping into the equivalent of Dante's inferno, for example.

Tom: There is no stuff. You will not pop up in the middle of someone else's metaphor. You will have to deal with whatever you encounter - same as here. Do not fear the unknown.

A thought experiment to develop perspective: Think of being in a dark quiet room without walls or gravity or the ability to move your body (total sensory isolation chamber) and only connected to the rest of the world by the internet. Now imagine you were born in that condition and so was everybody else (many millions) on the internet. What would you and your net friends (and enemies and persons barely known) eventually figure out and do with your time? What would you learn? What would be the objective nature of your reality? Or would it only be subjective. If subjective, how would you know the others were real? How close would that experience compare to walking around and interacting with others physically outside your isolation chamber room? And visa versa?
Would you and the gazillions of others eventually make a big multiplayer game with a rule-set to provide structure that provided goals and challenges and interactive feedback. Wouldn't that be fun - my how the time would fly then. Would more than one game likely spring up on the net? Could you play more than one game at a time?

Yes, there are identifiable structures in NPMR - but not objects - not physical structures - that is a PMR thing - as is a personal virtual structure (interpretation) perceived by a PMR inhabitant's perception of NPMR.
There is a personal structure (you - your intent, your entropy) and there are information structures (databases and messages), and functional structures (causality and rules of interaction), and relationship structures (communication meaning and content). There are also virtual PMR structures (the PMRsubk). There is a multitude of each of these types of structures, and they are persistent, consistent, dependable, interactive and real - i.e., they are there, and the same, every time you look. In fact they are more fundamentally real than what we usually call real because they are the consciousness system - at least in our neighborhood. One gets to know and gain competence working with and using these structures as one becomes familiar and experienced with the actual fundamental nature of NPMR (as opposed to the jumble of published personal metaphors and symbols that now definite the nature of NPMR in the popular literature.) A small sense of interacting with the structures within NPMR can be glimpsed if you imagine what your existence would be like if you were blind and had no nervers in your skin, could speak and hear normally, and were gifted with telepathy -- what would your reality be like then?

I started the same way as you. I more or less reproduced the experiences of others -- I traveled the OOB reality of Monroe and others for years -- I do personally relate to what others report especially if our metaphors and symbols (knowledge and limitations) are similar enough (i.e., we come from similar cultures and thus have similar personal realities that produce roughly similar interpretations). I have experienced NPMR rather extensively from that extremely limited perspective -- the perspective you wish to achieve because you can imagine no other. I had been there and done that for many years before I more fully understood the true nature of the larger reality and realized that even though all of it was my personal, real experience of an extant larger reality, none of it was fundamental. Data, information is fundamental, as soon as we touch it with our interpretation, it becomes personal. Personal means subjective. Consciousness is subjective by its nature. One cannot build something that is fundamentally objective out of something that is fundamentally subjective. "Objective" is found only in multiplayer virtual reality frames with rule sets that are sufficiently constrained to define an objective mutual "setting" (the game) within which its inhabitance interact to have experiences and exercise their intent.

This is just a glimpse that is slanted to answer your questions - probably not too eloquent and not detailed or complete. I hope it helps ease your confusion more than it creates more confusion - always a risk when one has this kind of conversation."


Read these two: (some of it is hilarious :) )

Illustrating other PMRs and NPMRs
Saying hello + a few thoughts.

then read Anatomy of the NPMR body? (and the related threads!)

Some more:

Dreams: What's REALLY Going On?
Doing OBE

It's a little to read, but well worth it (should be educating). Even fun :)

It is likely that these dream characters were a representation of the interface between you and the larger reality. The dream characters provides a personal interface with LCS with a metaphor you can easily relate to (a human being). Demonstrating sentience is not difficult when consciousness is information, and we have a database which captures every thought, action, emotion, intent of you, and everyone else. That's some good data to use as an accurate model of a sentient being.

This is one explanation, another explanation is that you were in a reality frame with other conscious beings. One will be allowed this if one is deemed ready for such thing (When it's facilitated by LCS). A dream character could also be animated by a guide, but that seems unnecessary in most cases.

Though I think there's a good chance that one will interact with real beings at some point, as what we label OBE tends to be more expansive than "normal" dreaming. I guess you should be open-minded sceptic when it comes to this, and as more experience is gained one eventually will learn to distinguish between the two.

Thanks SS.

I read the first part. Yes, that much I get. Makes perfect sense. We impose a PMR perspective onto the scene in order to interpret it.

But you understand where I'm coming from. It's the beyond coincidence PSI stuff that floats my intellectual boat. I should stop speculating and finish that 3rd book, so we're all talking the same language.

_________________
You see, the universe IS well designed. It is designed to have loop holes that have a low risk to reward relationship. With risk comes potential reward. And Mother Nature has known this for a long time. Why would anyone second guess her? It's by design.

Raymond Moody's video: Dr. Raymond Moody on “Shared Death Experiences”:



In such an experience of 'shared death' it would seem not like an 'up/down' perspective but a 'right where you sit' type of perspective.

The reason I say that is in the clip they speak of a case of several family members in a hospital room with a dying loved and the room is transformed at the moment of crossing.

Dr T wrote: " I will be quite interested in other's opinions and experiences with these types of interactions"

Hehehe...I love this topic.......

"DCs" have left me scratching my head quite a few times.Here are some of my more memorable experiences:

I'm Lucid and floating down a hallway.A voice from 'behind' says " you're pretty good at that." I turn and see a middle aged man with blond hair and prison style tattoos. I introduce myself and explain that I am dreaming as I extend my hand intending to shake hands- he fist bumps me instead!?

I ask "where is this place?" He explains " I was traveling in my RV around a corner and ,BOOM, -I found myself here." I ask, " where are you when I am not here?" He says " I was wondering the same about you! " I notice a DC in the background looking on in horror. A bright light approaches from behind the 'RV guy' and I wake.

Another one:
To a small group of 'DCs' on a city side street: I ask "Is there a Doctor here?" One 'DC' points to another in the group,shrugs and says- " He's a mortician...."

Man,there are so many I could go on and on...

In some more serious experiences:
I've interacted with physically deceased people on two particular occasions,one of which I am absolutely certain of.In both cases I had little or no prior knowledge of the individuals and was later able to confirm their existence. (The other just may have been confirmed over this past weekend.)

I communicated with my dying grandfather in a Lucid Dream while he was intubated and sedated 1,200 miles away.(I know that 'distance' doesn't matter though)At the time no one in my immediate family had recieved word of his condition. He actually intiated the contact,he told me he was "calling to say goodbye" on a dream phone.

"Dullards" ? Yes plenty of them for me too. But isn't this true in the waking PMR world as well? Besides,when I am 'non lucid' in a 'regular dream' I may easily qualify as a dullard myself many a time. With that said,I agree that there are "thought forms" or non sentient characters too-I like to think of these as TBC's creations as Ted explained so well.

Awesome examples Jeff. Especially the one w/ your deceased Grandfather.

_________________
You see, the universe IS well designed. It is designed to have loop holes that have a low risk to reward relationship. With risk comes potential reward. And Mother Nature has known this for a long time. Why would anyone second guess her? It's by design.

Great post SS... way leads to way with all those links embedded... lots of Best of Tom and great posts by several others as well.

Well worth anyone's time to take the detour.

Found an interesting nugget about free will and I will kachunk it in one of the free will threads presently.

-Montana

After reading this thread and all the links yesterday I had the most wonderful dream last night. I went into the past data base and visited with my mom, aunt, and sister in 1960. So much had not happened yet in 1960 - my dad, the Kennedy brothers, Martin Luther King, and Nat King Cole were still alive. My mom and her sister looked so young and happy. I talked to my 10 year old sister. It was an amazing experience.

Awesome Sainbury, I'm jealous. Were you lucid or no?

_________________
You see, the universe IS well designed. It is designed to have loop holes that have a low risk to reward relationship. With risk comes potential reward. And Mother Nature has known this for a long time. Why would anyone second guess her? It's by design.