Ever Had a "Religious Experience"?

DeBunny

You often hear about people's belief in god coming from personal experience. I know a number of Born Again Christians who tell of moments of great awakening, joy, gratitude and love during religious ceremonies.

I recently had an experience similar to the one my Christian friends have described. I had spent a whole week staying up till dawn browsing this forums Interesting Stuff Thread, watching Carl Sagan videos, learning about fractals, playing Conway's Game of Life, and reading about memes. Prior to this I had been reading about Taoism and listening to a lot of Alan Watts.

I was watching the sun come up one morning when it hit me. Everything that exists is just a bunch of patterns. Sometimes, under the right conditions, those patterns collide with each other to form self repeating patterns, and some of those self repeating patterns evolve to become self aware patterns. And all the while, everything becomes more and more complex.

This realisation (and perhaps the lack of sleep) triggered an enormous wave of emotion like nothing I've ever felt before. The only way I can describe it is, a sense of being loved and being unbelievably grateful for it, and everything else. I felt free, as if all my fears and regrets had been washed away. It was exactly the feeling described by friends who became Born Again Christians after their "religious experience".

I've read a couple of pop science books about the brain but none of them seem to cover these kinds of experiences. I'm guessing that they're well documented. Does anyone know of relevant studies or books?

Have any other atheists ever had a similar experience?

token56

Genuinely just wondering if you were under the influence of anything at the time this happened, alcohol or anything else? Might have had an impact along with the lack of sleep. But cant say I've ever experienced anything like what you described.

DeBunny

I meant to cover that in the op actually, I hadn't even been drinking tea.

I've tried mushrooms in the past, I used to smoke the occasional bit of pot and I have a few drinks every other weekend, but this wasn't anything like being drunk or high. It was feeling of clarity.

Pygmalion

DeBunny wrote: »

Everything that exists is just a bunch of patterns. Sometimes, under the right conditions, those patterns collide with each other to form self repeating patterns, and some of those self repeating patterns evolve to become self aware patterns. And all the while, everything becomes more and more complex.

DeBunny wrote: »

this wasn't anything like being drunk or high. It was feeling of clarity.

Sounds exactly like something someone on LSD would experience tbh. :pac:

DeBunny

Having never tried LSD I wouldn't know. There were no hallucinations.

sink

I've had epiphanies before. After spending a long time thinking about something all of a sudden a new perspective will emerge from my subconscious. It's like noting else, a moment of clarity were everything fits together, like a fog over my mind has been lifted, it's exciting and gives me great satisfaction and comfort. Buddhists call the feeling satori, a moment of pure zen, Abrahamic religions would likely view it as divine inspiration a message from god or the angels. In science and medicine it's known as a 'eureka moment' or 'aha effect'.

They've studied it in neuroscience using functional MRI by giving people problems to solve and watching what happens to the brain when they solve it. They found that a specific region of right cerebral hemisphere would light up right at the moment, the more perplexing the problem (i.e. the greater number of factors involved) the greater the number of neurons involved. Obviously one of these moments at the level of religious experience, the thought would be one that involves many neurons which would correlate the depth of the realisation.

One thing to bear in mind is that the sudden realisation is not infallible, what you experienced is simply a moment of original creative thought, but it is not necessarily correct. A scientist would devise a way to test the idea before accepting it, a zealot would likely immediately accept it as absolute truth.

strobe

All the time.

antiskeptic

DeBunny wrote: »

Have any other atheists ever had a similar experience?

I don't know what you would have described me as at the time. I certainly wasn't a believer. I gave the subject of the question of god so little thought that I could only be described as positionless on the subject.


-


I was sitting in a chair in my flat in flatland muttering curses to myself: "bloody wagon - a measly 20 quid! ... Feckin bitch - some mother she's turned out to be... Feck her ..."


I'd used the last of my bikes petrol to tip back home to try and scrounge a few bob from my mother to tide me over to next dole day (I was a student at the time). And she, having grown tired of this particular habit of mine refused point blank. I stormed out with her words: "If you want money then get a part-time job. Or consider giving up smoking perhaps..." ...stinging like a slap around the ears.

So there I was, muttering all kinds of murder about her when WHAMM!!.

Physically, it felt like someone had poured a bucket of molten lead over my head and it was running down my shoulders. I say 'lead' in the sense of it feeling like a tremendous weight was pressing me down into the chair. But unlike molten lead - which would also give the physical sensation of burning - I had this intense sense of love for my mother.

It was like my life was flashing before me: video-clips of situations where my mother had loved me most unconditionally: the sacrifices made, the pain gone through, the hard work done, the mess mopped up, the fights fought for me.

The strange thing was that I was still in whinging mode. It was as if I was trying to argue against this revelation. "But she's a fecking bitc.." Before the words would even get out of my mouth a fresh bucket of lead would be poured over me and all I could feel was tremendous love and appreciation for my mother.

It seemed to last for a while but was probably only a minute - I couldn't have born the weight any longer I suspect. Then it lifted. And I promptly forgot about it.

Until about 10 years later when I met the source of such intense love.

Love Himself.

mewso

antiskeptic wrote: »

Until about 10 years later when I met the source of such intense love.

Yourself in a human response to a caring, loving mother?

MagicMarker

Hmm, a person experiences something that they can't explain...... GOD DID IT!!!

OP, don't underestimate the power of the human brain, it's capable of incredible things, there's nothing supernatural about what you experienced.

magicbastarder

DeBunny wrote: »

Everything that exists is just a bunch of patterns. Sometimes, under the right conditions, those patterns collide with each other to form self repeating patterns, and some of those self repeating patterns evolve to become self aware patterns.

you were watching pendulums!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yVkdfJ9PkRQ

liamw

mewso wrote: »

Yourself in a human response to a caring, loving mother?

Well, either that or the supernatural all-powerful, all-loving, all-knowing creator of the universe that exists eternally outside of space and time and will send you to hell for not believing in him. P.S He doesn't like gays and masturbation.

DeBunny

MagicMarker wrote: »

Hmm, a person experiences something that they can't explain...... GOD DID IT!!!

Not a morning person MM? Is this quote directed at me? If so you didn't read my post properly or I didn't explain myself clearly enough for you. Either way, please let's not get into the whole 'god doesn't exist', 'oh yes he does', 'oh no he doesn't' thing.

OP, don't underestimate the power of the human brain, it's capable of incredible things, there's nothing supernatural about what you experienced.

I fully realise that. This experience washed away any lingering feelings of belief in a god. I am aware that this feeling of a connection to a higher power came from within.
Experiences like these have been documented from a religious perspective for thousands of years. I am looking for a more meaningful explanation of what happens in the human brain during such an event.

Dades

Let's attempt to keep this thread jibe-free for a change. Otherwise nobody is going to bother being honest.

MagicMarker

DeBunny wrote: »

Not a morning person MM? Is this quote directed at me? If so you didn't read my post properly or I didn't explain myself clearly enough for you. Either way, please let's not get into the whole 'god doesn't exist', 'oh yes he does', 'oh no he doesn't' thing.

It wasn't directed at you, but if you don't want this conversation leading down that path may I suggest you not start threads entitled ''Ever had a religious experience'' in the A&A forum? Maybe one of the science forums would be better suited?

nozzferrahhtoo

DeBunny wrote: »

I've read a couple of pop science books about the brain but none of them seem to cover these kinds of experiences. I'm guessing that they're well documented. Does anyone know of relevant studies or books?

Have any other atheists ever had a similar experience?

I highly recommend you spend a few hours watching all the videos by VS Ramachandran on you tube as he talks very much about the kind of things you are describing and how his research explains many of them at the Level of the Brain.

I have spent hours listening to this scientist speak on this topic, and not one minute of that time feels wasted to me, even when I listened to one talk that was essentially the same in content as another one I had listened to the day before.

If you come out of listening to his videos without hearing much about what you are looking to learn about I will be genuinely very shocked.

nozzferrahhtoo

DeBunny wrote: »

Have any other atheists ever had a similar experience?

A quick summary/paraphrase and example from VS Ramachandran’s work is that he is the kind of person that looks at brain damage as a way of learning how the brain works. One of the best ways to learn how something works is to find broken versions of it and understand why the broken version acts in the way it does.

For example he discovered some patients with a rare condition where after some brain damage they were fine in every way, but when a loved one came into the room they seemed to the patient in every way to be an impostor. Patients would say things like “This looks like my mother, sounds like my mother, acts like my mother, but it is an imposter”.

Comically if the mother then left the room and phoned the patient, the patient would go “Mother! Where have you been!” And would be convinced this was their mother. The mother returns to the room however and the patient is again convinced it is an impostor.

He discovered from analyzing their cases that there is a part of our brain that is dedicated to attaching significance to objects or people. If the link to that part of the brain and some other object or person is damaged, the person will view the object or person, but will not feel the feelings of significance, love and connection associated with that person or object. They therefore become convinced they are fakes.

He further discovered that it is possible to over stimulate these areas of the brain. This results in the kind of “I love everything, everything loves me, and everything is connected” kind of feelings you describe and are interested in. Many drugs have the same effect. Suddenly everything, even the most insignificant things, seem relevant to everything else, and connected.

This is but one of the fabulously interesting and useful things he has learned in his research. Many other things he says are massively interesting, such as how he and his team discovered methods for treating phantom limb pain in amputees.

DeBunny

antiskeptic wrote: »

I was sitting in a chair in my flat in flatland muttering curses to myself:

Funny you should mention flatland. I'm reading a book called the Happiness Hypotheses by Jonathan Haidt. In the book he uses the experiences of the Square in Edwin Abbott's Flatland as an analogy for the extra dimension that a feeling of spirituality (lack of a better word) brings to peoples lives. Square's revelation that there is a third dimension is akin to feeling connected to a higher power.


Disclaimer:
I realise that feeling connected to a higher power does not prove it's existence

mewso

Dades wrote: »

Let's attempt to keep this thread jibe-free for a change. Otherwise nobody is going to bother being honest.

Well speaking for my jibe it was intended as a point too but it was a personal story and I accept it was perhaps unfair to question it here. Far better for a separate discussion. Apologies antiskeptic.

DeBunny

sink wrote: »

It's like noting else, a moment of clarity were everything fits together, like a fog over my mind has been lifted, it's exciting and gives me great satisfaction and comfort. Buddhists call the feeling satori, a moment of pure zen, In science and medicine it's known as a 'eureka moment' or 'aha effect'.

I had actually been reading a lot of koans, which are designed to bring about satori.

They've studied it in neuroscience using functional MRI by giving people problems to solve and watching what happens to the brain when they solve it. They found that a specific region of right cerebral hemisphere would light up right at the moment, the more perplexing the problem (i.e. the greater number of factors involved) the greater the number of neurons involved. Obviously one of these moments at the level of religious experience, the thought would be one that involves many neurons which would correlate the depth of the realisation.

The 'aha effect' sounds familiar. I think there was a Horizon documentary about the studies. They used a picture of what appeared to be random black dots. Hidden in the picture was a dalmation. As soon as people could see the dalmation, the 'aha effect' was detected.

One thing to bear in mind is that the sudden realisation is not infallible, what you experienced is simply a moment of original creative thought, but it is not necessarily correct. A scientist would devise a way to test the idea before accepting it, a zealot would likely immediately accept it as absolute truth.

Another realisation I had at the time was that that, the only thing we know for sure is that we don't know anything. Since then I've become a lot more comfortable with being wrong, well . . . comparatively.

IamtheWalrus

When I was 21, I was on a working holiday in the USA. I had been socialising with a friend and was going to bed. When I arrived at my bed, there was a bag of clothes sitting on it. When I lifted it to move it off my bed this image appeared. The image resembled the face of Jesus. It stayed there for a couple of seconds then disappeared. I was taken aback. My heart was racing and I had my hands on my head.

Now here's the bit that everyone may jump on (and maybe rightly so), I had been smoking joints before it. I wasn't drunk and didn't feel stoned. Just a quiet night in with a friend.

To this day I don't know what it was. I consider myself an athesist I think but this had put real doubts in my head ever since, 10 years later.

I am well aware that the mind is a strange thing and can play tricks all the time but why did it do that? I wish it never happened.

Zillah

If the omnipotent creator of the universe wanted to make a personal appearance to you, do you think it likely he would send a brief vision of his face while you were looking at a messy pile of cothes and under the influence of marijuana? And then sit back for the next 10 years, mission accomplished?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pareidolia


I do find the OP quite interesting, a nice example of religious sensations occuring independent of their supposed cause.

No

IamtheWalrus

Zillah wrote: »

If the omnipotent creator of the universe wanted to make a personal appearance to you, do you think it likely he would send a brief vision of his face while you were looking at a messy pile of cothes and under the influence of marijuana? And then sit back for the next 10 years, mission accomplished?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pareidolia


I do find the OP quite interesting, a nice example of religious sensations occuring independent of their supposed cause.

No I don't think that but I'm trying to find a plausible reason for it to happen, with that image, at that time. It doesn't make it any less unnerving.

Zillah

IamtheWalrus wrote: »

No I don't think that but I'm trying to find a plausible reason for it to happen

Your brain misfired because you put drugs in it. I don't understand why this is difficult to accept.

Caoimhín

Mild stroke?

IamtheWalrus

Zillah wrote: »

Your brain misfired because you put drugs in it. I don't understand why this is difficult to accept.

Ok, I just read your wiki page on Pareidolia. I understand this phenomenon but isn't that just people trying to see images, e.g. looking at the sun at knock and trying to see a face for your own comfort. I certainly did not want to see this floating image. The image wasn't made out of the creases in the bed clothes, it was a floating image.

Dave!

IamtheWalrus wrote: »

Ok, I just read your wiki page on Pareidolia. I understand this phenomenon but isn't that just people trying to see images, e.g. looking at the sun at knock and trying to see a face for your own comfort. I certainly did not want to see this floating image. The image wasn't made out of the creases in the bed clothes, it was a floating image.

No it's nothing to do with wanting to see it mate, it's just a normal feature of our brains. We're hard-wired to seek out patterns and connect dots. There's an evolutionary advantage to erring on the side of caution and sometimes seeing things when they aren't there (rather than risking not seeing something when it is there!). Similarly if you hear something, it's safer to believe that it's an intruder or predator and get scared, than to assume it's something mundane and it turns out to be a grizzly bear!

A couple of famous examples are the 'face on mars':



and the devil in the WTC smoke:



This is a good one too.

You should also note that faces are particularly significant for humans, given that we're social primates, so we see them more than most things.

An example of pareidolia that I experienced myself:

Once I woke up during the night and saw the shape of an old woman towards the end of my bed. Nearly shít myself. A paranormal believer would probably throw the covers up and try to go asleep, and then tell all their true believer pals about it as evidence of the paranormal. I went to the bother of turning on the lights, and discovered that it was just an article of clothing hanging in a particular way, and being slightly illuminated by light from outside (the moon possibly).

Sometimes in cases like this, you can see the pattern and then 'unsee'/lose it, or dip in and out, and other times once you see it (as in my case above), you can't 'unsee' it, that's why I could feel my heartrate increase every time I looked at it, and why I had to get up and move the clothes (I needed to get to sleep!). It's funny.

Another one that comes to mind is when I was camping somewhere a few years ago, and at night my friend and I were looking up through the trees, and with all the different combinations of overlapping branches, and the moon providing the light, I could see faces all over the place! But I knew exactly what I was looking at because I was reading about pareidolia fairly recently.

I can understand people getting freaked out by that kind of thing, but once you're familiar with the phenomena and how they work, it becomes less scary and more interesting. Similarly I can understand people getting tricked by psychics who give seemingly accurate readings, but once you read about cold reading, it makes sense.

krudler

IamtheWalrus wrote: »

When I was 21, I was on a working holiday in the USA. I had been socialising with a friend and was going to bed. When I arrived at my bed, there was a bag of clothes sitting on it. When I lifted it to move it off my bed this image appeared. The image resembled the face of Jesus. It stayed there for a couple of seconds then disappeared. I was taken aback. My heart was racing and I had my hands on my head.

Now here's the bit that everyone may jump on (and maybe rightly so), I had been smoking joints before it. I wasn't drunk and didn't feel stoned. Just a quiet night in with a friend.

To this day I don't know what it was. I consider myself an athesist I think but this had put real doubts in my head ever since, 10 years later.

I am well aware that the mind is a strange thing and can play tricks all the time but why did it do that? I wish it never happened.

because you were on drugs?

IamtheWalrus

Dave! wrote: »

No it's nothing to do with wanting to see it mate, it's just a normal feature of our brains. We're hard-wired to seek out patterns and connect dots. There's an evolutionary advantage to erring on the side of caution and sometimes seeing things when they aren't there (rather than risking not seeing something when it is there!). Similarly if you hear something, it's safer to believe that it's an intruder or predator and get scared, than to assume it's something mundane and it turns out to be a grizzly bear!

A couple of famous examples are the 'face on mars':



and the devil in the WTC smoke:



This is a good one too.

You should also note that faces are particularly significant for humans, given that we're social primates, so we see them more than most things.

An example of pareidolia that I experienced myself:



Sometimes in cases like this, you can see the pattern and then 'unsee'/lose it, or dip in and out, and other times once you see it (as in my case above), you can't 'unsee' it, that's why I could feel my heartrate increase every time I looked at it, and why I had to get up and move the clothes (I needed to get to sleep!). It's funny.

Another one that comes to mind is when I was camping somewhere a few years ago, and at night my friend and I were looking up through the trees, and with all the different combinations of overlapping branches, and the moon providing the light, I could see faces all over the place! But I knew exactly what I was looking at because I was reading about pareidolia fairly recently.

I can understand people getting freaked out by that kind of thing, but once you're familiar with the phenomena and how they work, it becomes less scary and more interesting. Similarly I can understand people getting tricked by psychics who give seemingly accurate readings, but once you read about cold reading, it makes sense.

Yea, I understand. If I was looking at the sky and I saw a face I would be able to explain why (random bits of cloud forming). Similarily, if I saw a face in a piece of toast, I would be able to explain it because maybe some burned parts randomly made it look like a face.

I can't apply this logic to my seeing the Jesus face. This wasn't a crease in clothes, it wasn't light shining in the room, it was something floating on top of the bed sheets. I tried to rationalise the face by looking for reasons (creases etc) but couldn't. That's what freaked my out.

Maybe it is just this pareidolia thing but a different version.

IamtheWalrus

krudler wrote: »

because you were on drugs?

Possibly and likely the reason but I can honestly say I didn't feel stoned. I've been properly stoned before and I've went to bed thinking things were in my room (just the usual dope paranoia) but those times I knew it was because I was stoned. I could rationalise it. This time I couldn't.

Maybe I'm over reacting but sometimes it's hard to accept the 'ah, it's your brain playing tricks' reasons, even though they are probably right.

Just wanted to get other people's opinions.

liamw

IamtheWalrus wrote: »

Maybe I'm over reacting but sometimes it's hard to accept the 'ah, it's your brain playing tricks' reasons, even though they are probably right.

It's difficult to accept because you're trying to accept it using the same brain that misfired/tricked you in the first place. :pac:

I've looked into the phenomenon of pareidolia quite a bit, as it's similar to something I experience myself. As somebody who "suffers" from extreme hallucinations during sleep (a form of parasomnia) I see things similar to what the poster above (figure of Jesus) is describing quite a lot.

I'll often suddenly wake up during the night, during various stages of sleep. Once I wake up, I'm almost fully conscious, but parts of my brain are still dreaming, so to speak. When this happens your mind tries to interpret what you're actually experiencing with your senses and what you're dreaming about. This results in very, very strange sights, smells and sounds. The most important point being that, for a period of time (as much as a minute), you literally can't determine what is real and what isn't. What you're seeing, hearing or smelling is as real to you as can possibly be.

90% of the time the hallucinations manifest themselves as rats, spiders, snakes and insects (even though I don't have a fear of these things). But, 10% of the time, I'll see a figure in the room that can often start walking towards me, even saying my name or speaking other words. It's, again, important to note that the figure you see is as real to you as if somebody was actually standing there, speaking what you're hearing. The room need not be dark for these things to be visible, either.

It's a very, very interesting phenomenon. I've no doubt that if I were a religious or spiritual person I'd be interpreting the phenomena as messages or signs, and not as the parasomnia that they are. It's my personal opinion that the vast majority of reported sights of ghosts, aliens, etc., are related to what I experience. The figure of Jesus mentioned above may have been something similar to what I experience.

sbsquarepants

Zillah wrote: »

Your brain misfired because you put drugs in it. I don't understand why this is difficult to accept.

I think this is quite obviously the answer!

nozzferrahhtoo wrote: »

He further discovered that it is possible to over stimulate these areas of the brain. This results in the kind of “I love everything, everything loves me, and everything is connected” kind of feelings you describe and are interested in. Many drugs have the same effect. Suddenly everything, even the most insignificant things, seem relevant to everything else, and connected.

Having tried a lot of drugs in my time, i can personally attest to this. But even knowing this and actually specificaly going looking for it, on at least 2 occasions using ketamine, i was completely and totaly overwhelmed by the "reality" of the experience - the sense that i had been let in on some vast cosmic secret, by god himself no less, was absolutely enormous and took me quite a while to shake off with logic, days in fact (the k hole can be a strange and utterly mesmerising place!)
All this from a hardened atheist who specifically sought this experience for fun! I can only imagine the effect it would have on someone of a religious persuasion.
Also, ive read that certain meditations etc, specificaly those designed to raise kundalini (i hadn't heard of koan or satori before, but it's probably similar) are very similar to the experience of ketamine and other dissociatives, so i can easily understand how a spirtual/religious person would be completely convinced. I spoke to god and i don't even believe in him!

Zillah

I remember having a disagreement with someone once. He was angry at me for being an atheist because he was positive that there was some sort of mystical meaning to the universe and that everything was connected spiritually. I asked him why he was so sure of this and he told me an anecdote that began "Once when I was on acid..."

DeBunny

nozzferrahhtoo wrote: »

I highly recommend you spend a few hours watching all the videos by VS Ramachandran on you tube as he talks very much about the kind of things you are describing and how his research explains many of them at the Level of the Brain.

I have spent hours listening to this scientist speak on this topic, and not one minute of that time feels wasted to me, even when I listened to one talk that was essentially the same in content as another one I had listened to the day before.

If you come out of listening to his videos without hearing much about what you are looking to learn about I will be genuinely very shocked.

Just started watching some of his stuff now. Seems to be what I was looking for.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PFJPtVRlI64

nozzferrahhtoo

DeBunny wrote: »

Just started watching some of his stuff now. Seems to be what I was looking for.

Glad to help. Do let us know what you thought of it all when youre a few hours into his stuff. Its all good stuff. First time I heard him speak I was mesmorised, though I am convinced he artificially over does his accent for added effect

Beruthiel

IamtheWalrus wrote: »

Possibly and likely the reason but I can honestly say I didn't feel stoned.

Doesn't matter. Anything that happens to you while under the influence of drugs/drink, doesn't count!

sensibleken

I used to be a practicing magician, the pagan kind, so i had religous experiences all the time. They felt great, really wonderfull. In reality they were completly contrived and a construction of my own mind and once you reaslise its bulls*t then thats a really good feeling too, much better actually.

DeBunny

nozzferrahhtoo wrote: »

Glad to help. Do let us know what you thought of it all when youre a few hours into his stuff. Its all good stuff. First time I heard him speak I was mesmorised, though I am convinced he artificially over does his accent for added effect

Hey, he can over do as much as he likes as far as I'm concerned. He could talk about watching paint dry and I'd still listen. I love the way he rolls his rrrrrs.

midlandsmissus

Hi debunny maybe you could have a chat with me. I seem to be going through the opposite- a moment of existential angst. If that's the right phrase.

Galvasean

The amount of people who claim to have seen paranormal things while on drugs that aren't sure if these experiences were legit or not...

REALLY!?!?!?!?!?!!?!?!?

sink

Galvasean wrote: »

The amount of people who claim to have seen paranormal things while on drugs that aren't sure if these experiences were legit or not...

REALLY!?!?!?!?!?!!?!?!?

It's the equivalent of

"I may have had 20 shots of tequila but I swear the ground really did move and smack me in my face"

liah

In fairness to the lad, actual visual hallucinations on marijuana are insanely rare and if that'd been me I'd probably have been pretty shocked (though would probably still have rationalized it somehow). I've never, ever had one and I've smoked (on and off) for about half my life. I only know one person who has them when smoking, but he's schizophrenic to begin with so I don't exactly count that..

liamw

Galvasean wrote: »

The amount of people who claim to have seen paranormal things while on drugs that aren't sure if these experiences were legit or not...

REALLY!?!?!?!?!?!!?!?!?

No you don't understand, the drugs are simply a gateway to god's love!