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Parapsycho warnings in the water? Anyone?

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CEngelbrecht

Well-Known Member
Oct 31, 2002
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Yello,

I have been wanting to post this question for a long time, but haven't really known how to without risking of being taken for...weird. But at the same time I really want to know if others have similar experiences, so here goes:

I have twice tried to get this cold feeling going down my spine prior to a fellow freediver suffering problems in a dive. On the other hand, the many times I have waited for a buddy coming up from a deep dive and nothing was wrong, I never got this feeling once, even when the dive took longer than anticipated.

I'm asking if any of you have experienced paranormal warnings when looking down for a buddy and feeling something is wrong, when in fact something was wrong. That's as close I get to wording it.

These are my two 'cases':
1) Copenhagen, christmas 1997, my first season training in a freediving club. During pool training, we're playing a diving game picking up plastic rings from the buttom while doing it as slow as possible, diving as long as possible. One of the guys do it for too long and blacks out(!). We're all awfully inexperienced and don't recognize it, thinking he's lying still on the buttom as a part of the game. People laugh, amazed that he can hold his breath for so long (doh!). At this point I too think so, as the guy just lies still and no bubbles comes out. But then I get this tiny cold feeling crawling down my spinal core, and a reflex makes me start swimming out towards him. The guy's girl friend has aparently gotten the same reflex, and she reaches him before me, realizing he's out and quickly grabs him. As we manage to bring the guy back out of the pool (he was out for about 45 seconds), we all feel incredibly stupid. (We started incorporating vast safety measures after that, we're still not too proud of it.)
2) Dahab, Egypt, April 2004. Swede Mikael Hurtig is trying for a Swedish record in no limits on his home made sled, he's going for 90 meters (there's a long thread about these attempts in the archives here on DB) and I'm residing judge on the attempts. The air filling hose falls out of the balloon when the sled lands on the buttom disc, and there is a delay before the safety diver gets it stuck back in. When Mikael finally gets to the surface, he gets a samba. Being on the surface, I half way through his dive get the exact same spinal 'warning' as five years earlier. On none of the many other record attempts or training attempts did it appear.

I simply haven't registered this 'warning' other than in the two cases where something DID go wrong. I even started to register my reactions when waiting for somebody coming up from some pitch black Swedish lake, to try to determine if I'm just being hysterical. I haven't registered any 'illusive' cold signal yet, they only come when it has actually gone wrong down there. No, really.

I got to thinking about it, watching The Big Blue (again) the other day. When Enzo gets in trouble on his last dive, Luc Besson shows us Jacques getting a sudden flashback to his father drowning in the beginning of the film. For a long time, I have just thought 'yeah, right', but now I can't help but compare it to my own experiences.

I feel like I'm asking if anyone else have tried to be obducted by aliens. Am I fooling myself, overinterpreting illusive implulses? I don't wanna be hysterical or 'religious'. I too am raised with science.

I'm taking a chance asking, 'cause I know some will inevitably think 'weirdo' (so would I, probably). I'm being absolutely serious.

Chris Engelbrecht, Copenhagen
 
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Hi Chris,

I have had far stranger experiences, both in the water and out. However, perhaps it would be better to discuss offline, otherwise we will both be considered crazy!


Eric Fattah
BC, Canada
 
not weird at all. In some ways quite lucky!

What is amazing is to get the feeling about someone else's problem. I've quite often had similar warnings/feelings about my own dives (before they actually get tricky!)

we are all pretty odd anyway so I wouldn't be scared of sharing!

Sam
 
Chris,
This is simply good intuition. We tend to think that our sensory apparatus or awareness is quite limited when in fact it has the capacity to be unbounded - limitless. However it takes the experience of it to convince us of its reality i.e., that we are not hallucinating or subject to weird coincidences.

When over time it happens again and again, often accompanied with specific sensations (such as your cold feeling) and this "feeling/intuition validates itself with concrete results, only then will we accept this as being an objective perception with only the mechanics of why and how this happens remaiining unexplained.

But trust and listen to these intuitions and learn to distinguish them from other quirky occasional feelings that we sometimes mistake for real intuitions.

This is a very valuable experience and means that when things happen you are a good man to have around.

Eric, you'ld be considered crazy by a lot fewer people than you think. :)

Adrian
 
Originally posted by efattah
Hi Chris,

I have had far stranger experiences, both in the water and out. However, perhaps it would be better to discuss offline, otherwise we will both be considered crazy!


Eric Fattah
BC, Canada

No please talk here :) Im interested, and no one will think your crazy, we have to much respect for you :t
 
Hi Chris,

Definately not hysterical, or otherwise wierd, you just are good at listening to you subconcious. It picks up stuff you don't notice and can clue you to all kinds of things, if you listen. I always figured there was a "normal" explaination, but maybe paranormal is possible too.
Many times, the alarm sirens have begun going off in my head just before a shark shows up, especially an excited one. I don't think its supernatural, my theory is I am picking up subtle differences in how the fish I can see are moving. But, who knows, maybe I have a paranormal connection with Mr. toothy small brain. Either way, I have learned to listen close to my subconcious on that subject.

Connor
 
I've experienced the same signs a few times, and not only freedive related. I do lesson to them and have avoid a few problems.

The rate of people missing a flight subject to an accident is surprisingly higher than a normal one... those a numbers everybody can check...

The only weird, or crazy think would be to ignore them.

afattah: he only think people have for you on this forum is a deep respect, and we all appreciate you good will to share you knowledge with us. But divers seem to be jokers and fun is part of the deal: I'm sure one day we will find that low O2 training helps to smile and see live from the fun side.
 
Originally posted by Alison
No please talk here :) Im interested, and no one will think your crazy, we have to much respect for you :t

Each to his own, and Eric will (as always) do what he wants, but I would advise anyone to think first about the very private experiences of an individual being seen by many, many people with a huge range of beliefs. Pure Objectivist to Sufi and beyond.
There are things I have seen and experienced that I simply would not reveal to even some of my good friends, let alone a public forum. Granted we are mostly nice people and certainly a very understanding and tolerant group, but still...... :naughty
Things experienced that are too far 'out there' are sometimes better left private. Many careers have been ruined and people discredited for going public with amazing tales.
:waterwork
Chris, you can't ignore feelings like that, whether believed or not. Maybe it will come in handy some day.
Cheers amigos,
Erik Y.
 
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Maybe it has something to do with electricity..... no, hear me out!

If you were in the water at the same time as these people who went into difficulty, maybe so, because of water's conducting abilities. Maybe when someone blacks out, their brain starts producing abnormal electrical impulses (not at all a bad bet), which are then felt by you, giving you this feeling in your spine.

Whaddya think?
 
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Originally posted by Swordfish
Maybe it has something to do with electricity....
Whaddya think?

I think you're on to something. Somehow, something has been transmitted and received. If only it could be measured and replicated :)
Cheers,
Erik Y.
 
I started spearfishing a lot this year. Something I have noticed is that if I am thinking aggressively about hunting fish while I'm waiting on the bottom, they don't show up. When I clear my mind, it appears they start coming into range. Could it be the same mechanism that Chris reported?
Cheers,
Erik Y.
 
Erik,

You are right on about the effect. It is pretty clear that the fish can sense when a diver is in an agressive mental mode. I always figured it was how I moved, which is directly affected by how I think, but maybe they are sensing some other form of energy we give off.

Fun story: When I was a kid, we shot a lot of flounder. If we were thinking "aha, there's one, go get him!", they would split before we could get a shot. So, we started thinking, very calmly "pretty flounder, sweet flounder, so nice to see you, flounder" until we were in range. Worked like a charm.


Connor
 
Many people I've spoken to say that if they dive without their gun, the fish almost come to them. Diving with the gun, the fish all run away. The people believed that the fish could see the gun and got scared. Perhaps the gun had nothing to do with it--perhaps it was the mindstate of the person who held the gun.


Eric Fattah
BC, Canada
 
I have also experienced such things... I experience them on a daily basis, not only in the water.
 
I have sometimes got the feeling that something is going to go wrong, and it has proven to be true. It is difficult to know what to do, but if that happens again I will definitely tell someone about it to try and avoid the problem before it happens.

I also think it is true that animals can sense someone's mental state, and that they behave differently as a result.

These things can be difficult to explain, but several of us seem to have had similar experiences.

Lucia
 
Read sometime ago in the newspaper about a guy who trains dogs to warn their owners of upcoming epileptic seizures.
Warning comes between 1-24 hours before.

He's not sure how it works, but his theory is that they can sense their owner's brainwave pattern in some way. His reasoning is that in nature they fix this sense on the pack's leader's brainwaves, and that's how they manage to hunt in groups so well with insufficient communication or something.

I don't really know how plausible it is, but so far, those dogs work (only 6 of when the article was written).
 
PAINTED BY RADAR

On several occasions, off both Hawai'i and Florida's East Coast,
I've been down in the water offshore while windsurfing and
had a sudden, electrical -sort of tingling over my body which
caused me to leave the area immediately.

I like the fantasy that I was sensing the presence of some big
critter, but it is probably just paranoia. One never knows, though, and there was no cost to heeding the warning.
 
CEngelbrecht, there is nothing to be surprised about your experience. This freediving experiences have just proved that all sentient beings in this planet are all interrelated, we are just one little parts of a great thing that trascends us in this physical plane. You may call it Tao, God, etc.

Your sense of self is just an illusion created by your always busy adrenal cortex, underneath there is a feeling of emptiness that will allow you to reach your spiritual you. This aspect of your existence is what is connected to the rest of the living things on Earth. If someone suffers the rest will suffer too to a greater or smaller extent, i.e. War, famine, etc.

I hope this helps your query.

Good luck.
 
Nah...

I don't buy that there should a spiritual bond between all biological beings with a nervous system. If there were, humans wouldn't be born as carnivors (well, omnivors). If parapsycho phenomenon is more than just personal hysteria, if we're potentially able to pick up abnormal spinal-electrical activity (in air or water), then it's just a weird side-product to us being born as pack animals, this then enlarged by this big computer our nervous system (ie. brain) has evolved into.

But now we're moving into philosophy...

Chris Engelbrecht, Copenhagen
 
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