Pareidolia, or something more?

Hello ATS,

Haven't posted in a while, but here goes...

So I've been through a very rough twelve months, with some up's and many low's... it's really been tough...

I was raised as... I wouldn't quite say agnostic or atheistic, but more "believe what you'd like to believe" kind of mindset.

The past few months I've started feeling... something... I don't know what it is, but for someone who's never been a firm believer in anything, it's quite intimidating...

Anyways, back to topic...

So this evening I had a fairly in-depth discussion with a friend of mine who's going through a similar situation to me... and theology came up (by the way, she's the one who made me question my views and opinions on the whole subject).

Now, after coming in from my balcony, I was sitting before my confuser waiting for youtube to load, and had my hands together in a semi-prayer (palms together and fingers locked over the tops of my hands). While sitting like so, I put my head down on my closed hands (it's past midnight here so I'm quite tired) to close my eyes a bit. after a minute or so I opened my eyes, head still rested on my fists, and I saw, through my tear-blurred eyes, a near exact mirror of myself on my hands.

Granted, it WAS just my hands that I saw; however, the creases and wrinkles matched exactly how my face would be, including one distinguishing feature of mine - I'm pretty much blind in my left eye, and in the visage that I saw, there was no crease to the mirror-image's left "eye". The right eye had detail matching my own eye-shape, and there was even my trademarked downturned mustache.

I sat up after a few moments staring at this "mirror image" of myself, and clamped my hands together again just as they were, but I could not get the same result.

Am I going crazy? Did I just imagine the wrinkles on my hands looked like me? Or did I have some "reflect on yourself for a moment" moment? Did I get a moment of something higher saying to me, "Look at yourself and observe who you are"?

I hope someone can help with this - as I mentioned, I've been going through what might be called a crisis of faith here, whereby I'm starting to FIND faith, and not losing it.... and that in itself is quite intimidating....

a reply to: Havoc40k

Here is what to do.( My Mom did this and something happened.)

Say a prayer out loud to the God of Moses, Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, King David, and his son .
Say this: God, I don't believe you exist, but if you do, make yourself known to me.

Something will happen

Find faith in yourself first and foremost and the rest will fall into place.

Most likely your mind was in a place of extreme concentration on a spiritual subject and not at all unusual to contemplate what happened as woo-woo.

Enjoy your journey but don't lose yourself in the process. Mind, body and spirit don't always mesh well together.

a reply to: Havoc40k

I'll have to assume a few things.

You haven't seen an image of yourself in your wrinkles before; like this is the first time.

Four months ago she (your friend) suggested an alternative to being agnostic. It's been kicking around in your head while going through a bad time. She evidently is also going through similar bad time. Whether the conversation with her was by phone, or in person is not specified.

----------
If there is a reasonable chance that you can be with her, like both not otherwise engaged, because I wouldn't recommend this otherwise, then entertain her way of things.

If the above does not apply then you're only thinking for one. Ummmm… keep an open mind?

As for Pareidolia, I have experience with that, even with no girl in the mix; just me and the drywall texturing. Usually a stressor involved, like illness, or illness plus medication.

a reply to: Havoc40k

You are not going crazy. Crazy people do not consider if they are crazy or not.

I think many people lose sight of the astounding fact we are made of the very thing we are experiencing in the Universe. We are conscious of our own existence. And at the same time we are part of something else that transcends us. Our consciousness is a receiver and mirror for a consciousness we call reality. People are capable through religious practices of experiencing higher realms or other forms of consciousness outside our normal experiences. I think what you may have experienced is a transcendent moment of your self connected to a higher plane of existence. And the only way your mind was able to grasp the experience was by filling in the hole with a reflection of your own image. And the thought you had, "Look at yourself and observe who you are", was also a reflection of what you were experiencing.

This video may help you transcend in the future:



Congratulations on your new found faith. We are all drawn to God to experience God's infinite perfection and completeness.

I believe in the supreme consciousness, the same god many different religions believe in and claim they have the patent to.

I am more interested in trying to figure out what god really is. Some sort of supreme collective consciousness of everything that exists everywhere I guess. Everything is connected, linked together by some sort of energy. I am more interested in the collective consciousness of this world, because this is where I reside. That collective consciousness is a little part of god. Just think of how much power could be obtained if you were to tap into one thousanth of all the energy created by every living thing on this planet. Every last cell.

Oh well, I will never be able to do that but I do realize that this being could be real, in fact, I actually am pretty sure that it is.