psychic experiences

[James]

Has anyone on the forum had, or felt like they had a "psychic experience" or similar ?


http://www.personalitypage.com/html/INFJ.html

INFJs have uncanny insight into people and situations. They get "feelings" about things and intuitively understand them. As an extreme example, some INFJs report experiences of a psychic nature, such as getting strong feelings about there being a problem with a loved one, and discovering later that they were in a car accident. This is the sort of thing that other types may scorn and scoff at, and the INFJ themself does not really understand their intuition at a level which can be verbalized.

It used to really trouble me, but shortly after my fathers death, I had an experience where I was fairly certain I'd seen him. It was broad daylight, and I had left the house to walk to the village shops. I had not been drinking, no medication just a regular normal day. I suddenly noticed a man who seemed to be watching me. Immediately I noticed him, he turned away so I only caught a very fleeting glance, but everything in his manner seemed to be my father.

I was stunned, and the man walked away very quickly. I followed after him, rapidly, trying to catch up and get a better look at him. For an older man he moved very fast, I was practically jogging and struggled to keep up. I wish now I had just called out and ran after him, but I was shocked. Eventually I did manage after 3 or 4 minutes catch up, but when the man turned around it was not my father.

The whole thing felt surreal. I realize it's irrational and sounds like I just chased some random guy, but I could have sworn it was him. I have read about these things since, and the most likely and rational explanation is I just got confused having recently suffered an emotional shock, with his death. I was only 17 and naturally that seems more plausible. However to this day, I still feel, like it was him. The whole manner of it, his reaction. It all seemed to fit his behavior. Even the way he moved and walked.

My mother was INFJ - I am sure. She told me that twice in her life, she'd had a premonition about relatives who were ill. Both times, they actually were ill. She was a catholic lady who used to feel guilty even about reading the horoscope in a newspaper, and she was painfully honest, often to her own detriment. So I always believed she'd had the 'experiences' but questioned whether they could be true. As I've gotten older, I think with INFJ they may well be.

On the night my father died, I had a bad dream and woke with no clear memory of it - but a very strong feeling that my father was dying. He was in hospital already and my mother was with him. I woke my brother and told him, this was our last chance to see him. We got dressed and went to the hospital in the middle of the night, and sadly he died some short time later.

That's the full extent of my personal experiences. I can't "read minds" or tea leaves etc lol. But I am guessing that others may have had clearer/fuller experiences. I have no rational way to explain it, and to me ? Those that have them, seem to be highly sensitive and are reluctant to discuss it. They certainly don't try to put on shows or make money from it. I do quite often seem to experience very strong feelings of deja-vu which I've gotten used to. But to me that's far more normal, and most people experience that in some form.

 

[jyrffw54]

I'm no stranger to these types of experiences, and I sense that these are going to start becoming more common for people in the coming years.
I look at it as simply being connected to/with the Universe, and that the more connected/in-tune you are, the more frequently these experiences will tend to occur for you.

 

[jyrffw54]

Probably one of the most interesting experiences that I have had was a few years ago when I had a dream that I was giving a Reiki healing to a former student of mine. Young guy, around 20. But then I was guided to use the Transition Symbol on him, which is a symbol I typically only use when someone has died or is on their death bed or is giving birth. Well, as I finished my session with him, my phone IRL rang. It was a phone call informing me that said person that I was working on in my dream had just died of a heart attack.

 

[Scientia]

The night my grandfather died, I saw him standing at the foot of my bed in my the dark early hours of the morning. He smiled and gave a little wave. I knew he was gone.

I woke up the next morning to get ready for school and my mother was sitting on the couch, staring into space. She told me her father had died. I said nothing about his visit, gave her a hug and went to school because that's what she needed.

I was eight years old.

 

[Ryso89]

Does this include paranormal experiences? I could write a book.

But, one day a few years ago I was hanging out with my dad and my friend while football was on behind us. The name "J. Graham" entered my mind in such a haste, I had to verbalize it... moments later the name Jim Graham appeared on TV. Odd moment for sure.

 

[Skarekrow]

The night my grandfather died, I saw him standing at the foot of my bed in my the dark early hours of the morning. He smiled and gave a little wave. I knew he was gone.

I woke up the next morning to get ready for school and my mother was sitting on the couch, staring into space. She told me her father had died. I said nothing about his visit, gave her a hug and went to school because that's what she needed.

I was eight years old.

The visit of a relative right after they die is actually the most common paranormal experience out there.
It’s just so incredibly hard to predict to try and capture or measure such a thing, but the subjective evidence is overwhelming.

 

[Eventhorizon]

Yes. I have dreamt of movies a decade before they were ever talked about. I knew months in advance close family members would no longer be here. I knew I would become sick at the age of 40 (actually I believed it would be my death) decades before.

Oh and...my cat communicated with me in dreams when she was a kitten.

 

[Skarekrow]

Yes...lots...and some besides myself have been witness to the different types of Psi or paranormal activity encounters that have happened to me in my life ever since I was a child.
Even now, I am getting better at purposefully meditating and going out of body...sometimes it devolves into a lucid dream, which is still fun...but hardly the same.
There is pretty incredible science that precognition exists.
I can link you to some videos or articles if you like?

 

[Eventhorizon]

There was also a telepathic experience with my brothers cat that stopped me in my tracks as well.

No, I am not a cat whisperer.

 

[Professor Snep]

INFJs have uncanny insight into people and situations. They get "feelings" about things and intuitively understand them. As an extreme example, some INFJs report experiences of a psychic nature, such as getting strong feelings about there being a problem with a loved one, and discovering later that they were in a car accident. This is the sort of thing that other types may scorn and scoff at, and the INFJ themself does not really understand their intuition at a level which can be verbalized.

This made me squint so hard.

 

[Kaotiklysm]

From what I understand, psychic experiences, whether feeling one can detect occurrences outside of the immediate environment, or that one can make predictions about the future, or pick up what another is thinking or transfer a thought to another, whilst having a long standing record in spiritual/magical traditions, are in this day and age, put under the banner of schizophrenia by the modern mental health system, and dismissed as delusion.

 

[Skarekrow]

From what I understand, psychic experiences, whether feeling one can detect occurrences outside of the immediate environment, or that one can make predictions about the future, or pick up what another is thinking or transfer a thought to another, whilst having a long standing record in spiritual/magical traditions, are in this day and age, put under the banner of schizophrenia by the modern mental health system, and dismissed as delusion.

Yes...it’s a sad dismissal.
There is actually quite a bit of evidence that something is going on...some kind of collective consciousness, somehow our bodies react to stimulus that we would not be privy to knowing it was about to happen...but yet, this has been measured and replicated and is being studied around the world by Universities, labs, and militaries.
Something is happening, we just don’t have a good understanding and grasp of what that thing is.
lol

The Shamanic View Of Mental Health
By Jonathan Davis on Tuesday August 18th, 2015

Is there another way of looking at the mental illness epidemic?

In November 2014 the peak psychology body in the UK, the British Psychological Association, released their new flagship report Understanding Psychosis and Schizophrenia.

It was a watershed moment in the mainstream treatment of mental illness, containing statements such as this:

"Hearing voices or feeling paranoid are common experiences which can often be a reaction to trauma, abuse or deprivation.
Calling them symptoms of mental illness, psychosis or schizophrenia is only one way of thinking about them, with advantages and disadvantages."
– The British Psychological Association: Understanding Psychosis and Schizophrenia

With mental health problems reaching epidemic proportions in the UK and throughout the western world, this document reads as no less than an admission that the current model of mental health treatment has failed; and a cry for help to anyone with an approach that may be useful.

There are indeed a great many cultures who have had, and still carry, a deeper understanding of mental illness.
While these perspectives don’t fit within the boundaries of rationalist reductionism, this has little relevance to their efficacy.

"From American Indian shamanism* to esoteric judaism, this concept has dominated for millennia.
As it has now become clear, western civilisation is unique in history in it’s failure to recognise each human being as a subtle energy system in constant relationship to a vast sea of energies in the surrounding cosmos."
– Dr Edward Mann, Sociologist

Ancient indigenous shamanic practice​

What Is The Shamanic View Of Mental Health?
Broadly speaking any form of awareness around mental health that includes spiritual, mystic and/or mythic considerations could be included in a shamanic view of mental health.

This ranges from ancient indigenous shamanic practices to yogic methods involving kundalini awakening, through to Jungian and transpersonal psychology (which draw heavily from ancient cultures).

Jung, for example, characterised schizophrenia and psychosis as a natural healing process.

"When conscious life is characterised by one-sidedness and false attitudes, primordial healing images are activated – one might say instinctively – and come to light in the dreams of individuals and the visions of artists… Schizophrenia is a condition in which the dream takes the place of reality."
– Carl Jung

Another foundation stone of this perspective is the phrase made famous by Joseph Campbell: ‘The schizophrenic is drowning in the same waters in which the mystic swims with delight’ (an idea borrowed from Jungian psychiatrist RD Laing).

There has been a long history throughout human culture of people having mystical experiences, and then becoming ‘weller than well’ as Dr John Weir Perry put it.

The key here is that in these instances the person completed a process that western medicine would have labelled as sickness and then medicated.
They instead passed through it and went on to lead lives without relapse into ‘psychosis’, instead living a more fulfilled existence than if they had never gone though their temporary break with consensus reality.

Throughout history there have been examples of people who have gone on to use their visionary insights, newly found drive and focus to create great social reform for the benefit of all.

Psychospiritual Crisis / Spiritual Emergence
Proponents of transpersonal psychotherapy, like one of its founders Prof. Stanislav Grof suggest that ‘spiritual emergence’ experiences are often misdiagnosed as psychosis and medicated unnecessarily.

Grof sites 11 different types of spiritual emergencies, including the classic initiatory experience of the shaman, unitive experiences of oceanic oneness, kundalini awakening, the crisis of psychic opening, and the messianic experience common within what John Weir Perry called the ‘renewal process’.

"Interpreted from this point of view, a schizophrenic breakdown is an inward and backward journey to recover something missed or lost, and to restore, thereby, a vital balance.
So let the voyager go.
He has tipped over and is sinking, perhaps drowning; yet, as in the old legend of Gilgamesh and his long, deep dive to the bottom of the cosmic sea to pluck the watercress of immortality, there is the one green value of his life down there.
Don’t cut him off from it: help him through."
– Joseph Campbell, Schizophrenia: The Inward Journey

John Weir Perry, who put these ideas into practice in a medication free facility called Diabasis, suggests these experiences are a dramatic re-ordering of the person’s psyche from a distorted state to an more ordered one.

To me this is like cleaning a messy house, sometimes it needs to get messier in order to sort everything out.
Perry also said that ‘it is justifiable to regard the term “sickness” as pertaining not to the acute turmoil but to the prepsychotic personality… the renewal process occuring in the acute episode may be considered nature’s way of setting things right.’

This is echoed by Jiddu Krishnamurti‘s statement that ‘it is no measure of health to be well adjusted to a profoundly sick society.’

The Problems Of Pathology, Symptom Suppression, Stigma and Trauma
Pathology: A fundamental difference between the approach of calling these experiences mental illness, psychosis or schizophrenia and ‘other ways of thinking about them’, is the very act of pathologising them.

The labelling of something as a sickness, when working in the realms of the psychospiritual can have a dramatically negative effect on what happens next.

Like a person experiencing an overwhelming psychedelic experience, a person in this kind of state is highly influenced by their surroundings including what they are told, for good or for ill.

A suggestion that the experience is a sickness can become a self fulfilling prophecy.

"Having been encouraged to see the voice, not as an experience, but as a symptom – my fear and resistance towards it intensified.
Now essentially this represented taking an aggressive stance towards my own mind – a kind of psychic civil war, and in turn this caused the number of voices to increase and grow progressively hostile and menacing."
– Eleanor Longden

Symptom Suppression: The next big challenge is symptom suppression.
Critics of the current model of care (who now seem to include the British Psychological Association) argue that psychiatric medication merely suppresses symptoms.

"Many people find that ‘antipsychotic’ medication helps to make the experiences less frequent, intense or distressing.
However, there is no evidence that it corrects an underlying biological abnormality.
Recent evidence also suggests that it carries significant risks, particularly if taken long term."
– The British Psychological Association: Understanding Psychosis and Schizophrenia

Those of the shamanic or transpersonal persuasion go further in suggesting that medication tends to ultimately prevent the person from completing a natural experience such as the ‘process of renewal’ John Weir Perry describes.

Instead this process keeps trying to complete itself and symptoms keep reappearing, and then drugs suppress it again in an endless cycle.
It’s unsurprising that the phrase ‘you have a mental illness, and you will have it for the rest of your life’ is so often heard by people experiencing psychosis.

Stigma:

"They [shamanic cultures] have a cultural context.
The physiological crisis, although it’s difficult, it’s believed to be… they put it in a positive light.
It’s something the person’s going to come out of and be stronger in the end, and have more abilities in the end.
The other thing that’s a big advantage is – it’s not stigmatized."
– Phil Borges, maker of upcoming film CrazyWise

‘It’s something the person is going to come out of and be stronger in the end.’​

Trauma: Thankfully, even in the western model there is a strong surge of recognition occurring around the fact that trauma and neglect in childhood (and in adulthood) can lead to serious mental health crisis.

"We had a lot of trouble with western mental health workers who came here immediately after the genocide and we had to ask some of them to leave. They came and their practice did not involve being outside in the sun where you begin to feel better.

There was no music or drumming to get your blood flowing again.
There was no sense that everyone had taken the day off so that the entire community could come together to try to lift you up and bring you back to joy.

There was no acknowledgement of the depression as something invasive and external that could actually be cast out again.
Instead they would take people one at a time into these dingy little rooms and have them sit around for an hour or so and talk about bad things that had happened to them. "

We had to ask them to leave.
– A Rwandan talking to writer, Andrew Solomon

The Bridge Between Two Worlds – Sickness or Acute Sensitivity?
Dr Joseph Polimeni states that ‘In most traditional societies those persons who were overcome by hallucinations in young adulthood were more often than not destined to become shamans’.

If someone presented with symptoms we would call psychosis, the people of their tribe or village would send them for training with someone who had learned a level of mastery over the sensitivity that once overwhelmed them.

Phil Borges states that ‘they have a mentor; they have somebody who has been through this process that can take and hold their hand and say listen, I know what this is all about and this is how you manage it’.

In cultures around the world, before western civilisation the idea of schizophrenia as a disease was, quite simply, non-existent.
The assumption was that a person experiencing the challenges known in modern times as psychosis was in fact experiencing things that were actually real, but only able to perceived by those who were gifted.

"They have a community that buys into what they’ve gone through, and not only that, they have an outlet for their talents – and many of these people have specific talents that the normal person doesn’t have."
– Phil Borges, maker of upcoming film CrazyWise

To me it is clear that we live in a culture that immediately labels these moments of crisis as sickness, and our culture has almost no level of acceptance for the people that go through it.

When face to face with a person experiencing involuntary states of non-ordinary consciousness, most of us – to put it bluntly – just want them away from us.

It’s almost as if we fear that ‘crazy’ is contagious and we want it quarantined.
It’s unfortunate that this approach may be compounding the problem, however another way forward is re-awakening.

When I look at a person in such a crisis, I see a future potential mentor for others.
The more we can assist people in passing through their dark night of the soul, the more guides we will have with lived experience to help others come through in the future.

In an upcoming article I’ll be writing about how shamanic training can assist people going through ‘spiritual emergency’.

For peer support and further information of this kind you can join The Shamanic View Of Mental Illness on Facebook.

 

[Skarekrow]

Also...when you feel a “gut” feeling...it’s because you have more Neurons in your bowels than are in your brain.
The same goes with your heart...it sends twice as many signals to the brain, than the brain sends to the heart.
Our bodies give us subtle signals of the usually ignored feelings we have the ability to sense or know.
It’s very easy to let the overwhelming amount of information that is coming into our brains at any given time take over your perception instead of finding the ability to ignore that information in order to detect, hear, or feel the subtle signals we all receive and transmit.
That is why I think meditation is helpful in that regard...it takes time to train your mind to just be quiet and to be comfortable with that quietness.
You could be in the most relaxing place ever...but your mind could turn it into a variable trash heap when thoughts start clogging up your ability to use your mind to it’s fullest extent.
Meditation helps you regulate that IMHO.

 

[14Sandals]

I don't have what they usually call "psychic experiences", but I and some members of my family have these gut feelings about people. Who are nice, not so nice, who can be trusted. What to invest in for the future. Our family has managed to stay safe from utter poverty, natural calamities or freak accidents. Could also be the effect of prayer, as my mother (IxFJ probably) is a religious woman.

I'm what "real" psychics call "psychically dense", paranormal stuff don't happen around me. Our ancestral home is definitely a haunted house, but none of our family feel anything, and we used to sleep 1-2 nights per year there. Visitors freak out and wouldn't even go there at night. lol.

I've definitely had 2-3 psychic dreams though, maybe more. Hard to talk about them as I'd already given up on the psychic thing. And it seems I went too far for astral travel. Like I'd broken some astral rules there.

 

[Kaotiklysm]

Thank you @Skarekrow for a very comprehensive and well written post!

I am someone who has gone through what is termed as "psychosis", and through it, the mental health system has essentially positioned itself as my enemy. There was no help in coming to understand what I was going through and helping me through it, but merely the attempt to suppress it through pathologising the experiences and hence medicating me, with drugs that I found highly distressing (and actually, still find highly distressing, because despite having, to the best of my understanding, completed the process, I was forcefully medicated during the "last stretch" of the process, and now while I am no longer going through it, I must remain on the medications, which of course, to their minds, are the reason I do not have any "symptoms"). When they tell me about psychosis, I am left in bewilderment thinking "that's nothing like what I'm going through", but when I read descriptions where it is described as a "spiritual emergency" I am like... wow, that fits me very well! In order to try and demonstrate that the process is a sickness, they must distort their interpretation of the events to make it sound like that's what it is, and through distorting things they prevent themselves from being able to properly understand what is occurring. It is a sad state of affairs, and one that I very much wish would change, and it gives me hope that there are much healthier approaches in existence, it's just that they have not become the norm, for whatever reason - probably due to pressure from companies creating the medications, as well as (and maybe this is the primary reason) the resistance of the materialist culture we live in from accepting the spiritual aspect of life.

 

[Wyote]

I could write a book on all the crazy bullshit I've experienced, and that the people around me have experienced.

Just today I was merely thinking about pizza (massive craving) and a completely free and unsolicited entire pizza ended up in my possession.

I have pizza powers. And other things too.

 

[ZcM4xzkjgzCjytBc]

You weirdos need Jesus, and stop meddling in the dark arts

 

[Kaotiklysm]

You weirdos need Jesus, and stop meddling in the dark arts

Joke though it may be, the fact that this stuff is seen as dark, and hence something to be avoided, is part of what's wrong with the world today. I mean what's actually bad is acting like this stuff isn't real, or is something to be avoided if it is.

The world needs a spiritual awakening, and I think we're getting to be on the verge of that, because this materialistic regime we're all subject to is sending humanity down the wrong path and has been for quite some time.

 

[14Sandals]

Just today I was merely thinking about pizza (massive craving) and a completely free and unsolicited entire pizza ended up in my possession.

I have pizza powers. And other things too.

Cool food manifesting ability! I mentioned a Pepsi commercial one day and ended up getting some with my dinner that night. But that's about it, and wasn't sure if the restaurant had switched to Coke.

 

[Sandie33]

You weirdos need Jesus, and stop meddling in the dark arts

Jesus is the reason for the bleedin' @ruji