I have never been clinically dead, but I have been drunk and I have had dreams.
Once when I was very, very drunk, I had the most brilliant idea anyone had ever conceived, or so I believed at the time. I remember thinking that this idea would change not just my life, but the lives of everyone on Earth. I remember feeling incredibly elated about this idea, as though I'd won the lottery, found the love of my life, and learned to fly like Superman all at once. Of course I carefully wrote down my idea and put it in a safe place.
The next day, after I sobered up, I pulled out my brilliant idea and read through it. As you've no doubt guessed, it turned out to be idiotic and nearly delusional. This wasn't just a near miss -- it was clearly the result of a dysfunctional state of mind. And yet I'd been convinced of my idea's transcendent properties.
Another time, I had a very difficult problem on the job and I went to bed that night with this problem nagging at me unbearably. The problem turned into a long, grinding dream about looking for various solutions and finding none. Then, in the middle of the dream, I mentioned the problem to a character who was a complete stranger to me. He proceeded to solve the problem for me, acting as though I was a total incompetent for not getting it myself. I became extremely jealous of this character, and did indeed feel incompetent.
This time when I returned to a fully conscious state of mind, the idea turned out to be correct, if mundane. I had the answer to my problem at work. But I still felt terribly ashamed for not being able to figure it out "by myself," and I still felt very jealous of the character in my dream who had solved it for me... even though both the character and the solution came from inside my own head.
The point of these two little anecdotes is only to suggest that beliefs are fueled by feelings, and feelings don't necessarily stem from reality. You can feel angry based on an imagined insult. You can feel that you're an expert on a subject even though you know nothing about it. You can feel that something is extremely important to you, even if it is demonstrably insignificant. And you can feel you had a profoundly real experience, even if you only had a hallucination.
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[ 3.8 ms ] story [ 14.2 ms ] threadOnce when I was very, very drunk, I had the most brilliant idea anyone had ever conceived, or so I believed at the time. I remember thinking that this idea would change not just my life, but the lives of everyone on Earth. I remember feeling incredibly elated about this idea, as though I'd won the lottery, found the love of my life, and learned to fly like Superman all at once. Of course I carefully wrote down my idea and put it in a safe place.
The next day, after I sobered up, I pulled out my brilliant idea and read through it. As you've no doubt guessed, it turned out to be idiotic and nearly delusional. This wasn't just a near miss -- it was clearly the result of a dysfunctional state of mind. And yet I'd been convinced of my idea's transcendent properties.
Another time, I had a very difficult problem on the job and I went to bed that night with this problem nagging at me unbearably. The problem turned into a long, grinding dream about looking for various solutions and finding none. Then, in the middle of the dream, I mentioned the problem to a character who was a complete stranger to me. He proceeded to solve the problem for me, acting as though I was a total incompetent for not getting it myself. I became extremely jealous of this character, and did indeed feel incompetent.
This time when I returned to a fully conscious state of mind, the idea turned out to be correct, if mundane. I had the answer to my problem at work. But I still felt terribly ashamed for not being able to figure it out "by myself," and I still felt very jealous of the character in my dream who had solved it for me... even though both the character and the solution came from inside my own head.
The point of these two little anecdotes is only to suggest that beliefs are fueled by feelings, and feelings don't necessarily stem from reality. You can feel angry based on an imagined insult. You can feel that you're an expert on a subject even though you know nothing about it. You can feel that something is extremely important to you, even if it is demonstrably insignificant. And you can feel you had a profoundly real experience, even if you only had a hallucination.