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Post by ripper on Nov 13, 2020 20:30:12 GMT
Apparitions by Celia Green (1975) Unusual book where the author attempts to catalogue the characteristics of apparitions from various accounts, many from old SPR publications, such as how they appear, disappear, if they intercept light, how they are integrated into the landscape, and so forth. Celia Green has published some intriguing stuff over the years. She's probably best described as an extreme libertarian cum radical sceptic. Her "Apparitions" book is linked to some of her long-standing interest in hallucinations, out-of-body experiences and other altered mental states. She followed it up with "Lucid Dreams", one of the first books to focus on dreams in which the dreamer actually knows that they are dreaming while it's happening. She made some theoretical links between lucid dreaming, OOB states and apparitions. Impressively, she correctly predicted that periods of lucid dreaming should correlate with periods of REM sleep, which sleep labs later showed to be the case. Even better, she went on to predict that it would be possible for the dreamer to signal to a waking onserver that they were now dreaming, allowing direct communication between the "normal" waking state and the dream state. Some years later this prediction was also proved conclusively by psychology researchers. Her "Lucid Dreaming", though a little dated now, is definitely worth reading. The Celia Green book, so far as I can remember, doesn't attempt to explain ghosts, she just lists all the characteristics. It is also valuable as there are a great many cases presented that she uses to illustrate each characteristic. The late Andrew MacKenzie mentioned the book in one of his SPR lectures as being a very good read for those interested in apparitions. I have not read anything else by Green but her work on lucid dreams sounds fascinating.
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Post by Swampirella on Nov 13, 2020 20:36:02 GMT
Apparitions by Celia Green (1975) Unusual book where the author attempts to catalogue the characteristics of apparitions from various accounts, many from old SPR publications, such as how they appear, disappear, if they intercept light, how they are integrated into the landscape, and so forth. Celia Green has published some intriguing stuff over the years. She's probably best described as an extreme libertarian cum radical sceptic. Her "Apparitions" book is linked to some of her long-standing interest in hallucinations, out-of-body experiences and other altered mental states. She followed it up with "Lucid Dreams", one of the first books to focus on dreams in which the dreamer actually knows that they are dreaming while it's happening. She made some theoretical links between lucid dreaming, OOB states and apparitions. Impressively, she correctly predicted that periods of lucid dreaming should correlate with periods of REM sleep, which sleep labs later showed to be the case. Even better, she went on to predict that it would be possible for the dreamer to signal to a waking onserver that they were now dreaming, allowing direct communication between the "normal" waking state and the dream state. Some years later this prediction was also proved conclusively by psychology researchers. Her "Lucid Dreaming", though a little dated now, is definitely worth reading. I've read books on lucid dreaming and made feeble attempts at trying to achieve it. It seems my body wants sleep more than my mind wants lucidity.
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Post by ripper on Nov 13, 2020 20:56:15 GMT
Well I went back to the source and found more details. My dad tells me that it was a road off the A5 around Newport, Shropshire very general area. Apparently there was a pool on one side of the road in which a woman drowned...suicide, accident or murder not known...and her ghost was supposed to walk across the road as it was close to the pool. My dad couldn't remember a wall, but I can clearly remember it and when I saw it would hide. This would be in the early 70s when my dad drove a corn-grinding lorry for animal feed and delivered to farmers in the area. He says he never saw anything and was on that road quite a bit.
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Post by Dr Strange on Nov 13, 2020 22:48:10 GMT
Celia Green has published some intriguing stuff over the years. She's probably best described as an extreme libertarian cum radical sceptic. Her "Apparitions" book is linked to some of her long-standing interest in hallucinations, out-of-body experiences and other altered mental states. She followed it up with "Lucid Dreams", one of the first books to focus on dreams in which the dreamer actually knows that they are dreaming while it's happening. She made some theoretical links between lucid dreaming, OOB states and apparitions. Impressively, she correctly predicted that periods of lucid dreaming should correlate with periods of REM sleep, which sleep labs later showed to be the case. Even better, she went on to predict that it would be possible for the dreamer to signal to a waking onserver that they were now dreaming, allowing direct communication between the "normal" waking state and the dream state. Some years later this prediction was also proved conclusively by psychology researchers. Her "Lucid Dreaming", though a little dated now, is definitely worth reading. "Extreme libertarian cum radical sceptic" sounds a lot like Ayn Rand to me, which would rather put me off. That dreaming in general happens during REM sleep was already known by the end of the 1950s, so I'm not sure that her saying lucid dreams would also occur during REM is actually that impressive. I have had one completely lucid dream in my life, entirely spontaneous, but I have no idea how or why - which is a bit of a pisser. For a horror novel featuring lucid dreaming, see Sarah Pinborough's Behind Her Eyes (2017).
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Post by Swampirella on Nov 14, 2020 1:59:58 GMT
A few righteous (but entertaining) compilations of ghostly experiences:
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Post by helrunar on Nov 14, 2020 2:24:32 GMT
Fascinating Miss Scarlett. But I've had a sudden mental switch of scene...
"Holy Ghostbusters, Batman!" "Easy there, chum..."
H.
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Post by Swampirella on Nov 14, 2020 3:01:58 GMT
Fascinating Miss Scarlett. But I've had a sudden mental switch of scene... "Holy Ghostbusters, Batman!" "Easy there, chum..." H. That must have been what they said just before this happened:
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Post by Shrink Proof on Nov 14, 2020 8:21:47 GMT
"Extreme libertarian cum radical sceptic" sounds a lot like Ayn Rand to me, which would rather put me off. That dreaming in general happens during REM sleep was already known by the end of the 1950s, so I'm not sure that her saying lucid dreams would also occur during REM is actually that impressive. I have had one completely lucid dream in my life, entirely spontaneous, but I have no idea how or why - which is a bit of a pisser. For a horror novel featuring lucid dreaming, see Sarah Pinborough's Behind Her Eyes (2017). Quite agree with the Ayn Rand thing. Green would definitely fail my pub test ("is this someone I'd happily spend an evening with, drinking in the pub?"). Lucid dreaming was known many decades earlier (Dutch psychiatrist van Eeden coined the term in 1913 and Freud wrote about it too) but then it dropped out of the picture for years and was forgotten about. Green's book real value is that it was the first to bring it back to the limelight. There are better, more modern books on the subject now available, and written in a more modern and easier style of writing too - "Lucid Dreaming" by Dr Stephen LaBerge (he's a psychologist) and "The Hidden Door" by Dr Peter and Elizabeth Fenwick (he's a psychiatrist, not sure what his wife does) are both better.
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Post by andydecker on Nov 14, 2020 10:01:00 GMT
Batman likes his ghosts :-)
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Post by andydecker on Nov 14, 2020 10:02:49 GMT
A few righteous (but entertaining) compilations of ghostly experiences:
The editors didn't understood irony, did they?
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Post by ripper on Nov 14, 2020 10:35:35 GMT
I have had just one lucid dream, where I found myself standing on our front lawn and for some reason knew I was dreaming. Well, I did what a lot of us wish we could do and kind of floated up into the air in preparation of flying, but then I suddenly awoke, so in the dream it only lasted a matter of 20 or so seconds.
Haunted England by Jacqueline Simpson and Jennifer Westwood (2005)
A county-by-county selection of accounts of ghostly phenomena. Jacqueline Simpson is a well-known folklorist and uses her knowledge to give each story a unique twist. Well worth a look.
Ghosts and Family Legends by Catherine Crowe (1859)
Various collections have used extracts from Crowe's book over the years. I prefer this one to her Night-Side of Nature.
Haunted Liverpool series by Tom Sleman
There are over 30 volumes in this series plus he has written others such as the Tales of the Weird series. There's a heavy bias towards the Liverpool area or involving people from that city. As well as ghosts, Slemen presents accounts of otherworldly creatures like demons, vampires and werewolves, time anomalies, prophetic dreams, people with strange powers, and a whole lot more high strangeness. Slemen has been a frequent guest on radio shows in Liverpool where people would ring up with accounts of odd experiences. Extremely entertaining.
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Post by Michael Connolly on Nov 14, 2020 11:45:26 GMT
"Extreme libertarian cum radical sceptic" sounds a lot like Ayn Rand to me, which would rather put me off. That dreaming in general happens during REM sleep was already known by the end of the 1950s, so I'm not sure that her saying lucid dreams would also occur during REM is actually that impressive. I have had one completely lucid dream in my life, entirely spontaneous, but I have no idea how or why - which is a bit of a pisser. For a horror novel featuring lucid dreaming, see Sarah Pinborough's Behind Her Eyes (2017). Quite agree with the Ayn Rand thing. Green would definitely fail my pub test ("is this someone I'd happily spend an evening with, drinking in the pub?"). Lucid dreaming was known many decades earlier (Dutch psychiatrist van Eeden coined the term in 1913 and Freud wrote about it too) but then it dropped out of the picture for years and was forgotten about. Green's book real value is that it was the first to bring it back to the limelight. There are better, more modern books on the subject now available, and written in a more modern and easier style of writing too - "Lucid Dreaming" by Dr Stephen LaBerge (he's a psychologist) and "The Hidden Door" by Dr Peter and Elizabeth Fenwick (he's a psychiatrist, not sure what his wife does) are both better. Ayn Rand or Ken Dodd?
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Post by Swampirella on Nov 14, 2020 13:12:29 GMT
I have had just one lucid dream, where I found myself standing on our front lawn and for some reason knew I was dreaming. Well, I did what a lot of us wish we could do and kind of floated up into the air in preparation of flying, but then I suddenly awoke, so in the dream it only lasted a matter of 20 or so seconds. Haunted Liverpool series by Tom Sleman There are over 30 volumes in this series plus he has written others such as the Tales of the Weird series. There's a heavy bias towards the Liverpool area or involving people from that city. As well as ghosts, Slemen presents accounts of otherworldly creatures like demons, vampires and werewolves, time anomalies, prophetic dreams, people with strange powers, and a whole lot more high strangeness. Slemen has been a frequent guest on radio shows in Liverpool where people would ring up with accounts of odd experiences. Extremely entertaining. I have childhood memories of what I believe were out of body experiences rather than lucid dreaming, in which (obviously) I was floating for a brief period of time & then got sucked back into my body with my mind protesting against it. The book I read on lucid dreaming was by LaBerge.
I have all the Haunted Liverpool books (it's "SlemEn") myself, mostly in ebook format, and a few others of a similar nature such as Weird Wirral. He's also written a few true Liverpool crime books that I haven't read. They are extremely entertaining but (hope he never reads this as we follow each other on Tw*tt*er) even I have a hard time believing that all the stories are true, so wasn't planning on mentioning his books here. How can so many people in such a comparatively small area of the world have had so many anomalous experiences (many of them in public view) without it making headlines there & elsewhere? Many of the experiences happened in the 50s or 60s, or late 1880s so harder to verify. I love his books but I wonder if he's not modeled himself on dear old Elliott O'Donnell.
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Post by ripper on Nov 14, 2020 15:03:09 GMT
I have had just one lucid dream, where I found myself standing on our front lawn and for some reason knew I was dreaming. Well, I did what a lot of us wish we could do and kind of floated up into the air in preparation of flying, but then I suddenly awoke, so in the dream it only lasted a matter of 20 or so seconds. Haunted Liverpool series by Tom Sleman There are over 30 volumes in this series plus he has written others such as the Tales of the Weird series. There's a heavy bias towards the Liverpool area or involving people from that city. As well as ghosts, Slemen presents accounts of otherworldly creatures like demons, vampires and werewolves, time anomalies, prophetic dreams, people with strange powers, and a whole lot more high strangeness. Slemen has been a frequent guest on radio shows in Liverpool where people would ring up with accounts of odd experiences. Extremely entertaining. I have childhood memories of what I believe were out of body experiences rather than lucid dreaming, in which (obviously) I was floating for a brief period of time & then got sucked back into my body with my mind protesting against it. The book I read on lucid dreaming was by LaBerge.
I have all the Haunted Liverpool books myself, mostly in ebook format, and a few others of a similar nature such as Weird Wirral. He's also written a few true Liverpool crime books that I haven't read. They are extremely entertaining but (hope he never reads this as we follow each other on Tw*tt*er) even I have a hard time believing that all the stories are true, so wasn't planning on mentioning his books here. How can so many people in such a comparatively small area of the world have had so many anomalous experiences (many of them in public view) without it making headlines there & elsewhere? Many of them happened in the 60s, or late 1880s so harder to verify. I love his books but I wonder if he's not modeled himself on dear old Elliott O'Donnell.
I've never had any OOBEs. There were a number of cases in the late 19th century of people experimenting with trying to appear to someone else. Typically person A would concentrate at a specific time and will that they should appear where person B was. Person B would have no idea beforehand that Person A was going to try to appear to them. There are a number of accounts in SPR publications describing these experiments. There is also a rather famous case of a woman who dreamed she was flying through the air towards a ship where her husband was a passenger. She entered his cabin, approached his bunk and kissed him. In the upper bunk was another passenger who saw the woman approach the man in the lower bunk and receive the kiss. In the morning the man in the upper bunk teased the husband about having a sweetheart on board ship. If I remember correctly the husband thought he must have been dreaming when he saw his wife enter the cabin so was amazed when his companion confirmed he saw it as well. I don't know if the experiments and this seemingly spontaneous case are related to OOBEs but I think they are interesting. I love Slemen's books; for me, they are such good page-turners. The stories are certainly among the most incredible I have read in the realm of paranormal experience. I do like that there is so much variety to the stories. Once you pick up one of his books you have no idea what to expect.
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Post by helrunar on Nov 14, 2020 16:12:54 GMT
Miss Scarlett, that Batman cover is a great find. I don't know if you are of an age or cultural background to get the reference, but that's a riff on this bizarre rumor that I was actually told about at a friend's home circa 1968--that Paul McCartney was dead and there were visual clues to this on a couple of Beatles album covers. The art here references the "I am the Walrus" track and photo shoot (from a TV film the Fabs did) from the Magical Mystery Tour concept LP (and thanks to the Vault, I now know that "mystery tours" are, or were, a "thing" in mid 20th century Britain).
I don't know just how long the whole "Paul is dead" thing went on. An early instance of an urban legend? It was also said that if you played a certain track on the disc backwards, you'd hear somebody saying the words "Paul is dead" over and over again in the background. Creepy!
Also love the cover with the image from the old folklore about the Cóiste Bodhar or Death Coach from Ireland and elsewhere. Fabulous find Andreas!
When I was a child every sentence in a comic book had to end with an exclamation point. Funny old days.
H.
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