June 25th, 2009
Author Stacy Horn was interviewed by Frank Stasio on WUNC’s The State of Things two months ago to discuss her new book Unbelievable, which is a history of the Rhine Center. Horn provided many good stories from her research and did well in presenting the topic. She made it sound far more exciting than it probably was (imagine staring at Zener cards, day in and day out)!
Stacy is as engaging in person as she is on the radio. If you get a chance to hear her speak about her book or her research, don’t pass it up!
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June 25th, 2009
Geek blog Boing Boing linked today to a video of Skeptic Magazine’s Michael Shermer presenting what he calls a “baloney detection kit.” Essentially the “kit” is a way to weed the truth from what someone only claims is true.
In spite of the biased, derogatory scenes that accompanied Shermer’s talk, he did provide many good points. Shermer kept referring to using science to test claims, and for “following the data” when trying to prove a claim. It sounded like the recipe for good science: when confronted with new phenomena, test it.
Then around the 13:10 mark of the video, Shermer throws this advice out the window. Read the rest of this entry »
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June 2nd, 2009
Former First Lady Nancy Reagan told Vanity Fair that sometimes she ’sees’ her late husband, Ronald Reagan.
“At night time, if I wake up, I think Ronnie is there, and I start to talk to him… And I see him,” she told the magazine.
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June 1st, 2009
This week, University of Hertfordshire professor Richard Wiseman will use Twitter to conduct a remote viewing outbounder experiment. At 3 PM (UK-time) each day this week, Professor Wiseman will travel to a certain location. Participants will then try to get an impression of where he is and “tweet” this information to Wiseman’s Twitter account. Thirty minutes later, Wiseman will upload photographs of the target location.
While it will be good fun, I would hope the good professor will make everyone well aware that this experiment is not being conducted under laboratory conditions. I also have concerns that reading the Twitter stream will unduly influence the imagination of many participants. However, if a participant were to simply concentrate on Wiseman’s location rather than the Twitter feed, I would think some good results could be obtained.
It would be interesting to have some of the more seasoned RVers I know join in on Wiseman’s experiment. If you’d like to try your hand, go to his Twitter Experiment website, visit his blog, or follow his Twitter feed.
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April 27th, 2009
I took the kids for a hike around a new nature preserve north of the city. We walked the perimeter of the property under the cool shade of hardwoods and pines. As we hiked along over tree trunks and leaves, we got into a rhythm and I let my mind wander a bit. Looking down as I chose my footsteps, a thought crossed my mind that it might be wise to watch for poison ivy.
Instantly, Hallie’s voice piped up from behind me. “We should watch for poison ivy!” she cheerfully declared.
I chuckled all the way back home, thinking how Hallie seemed to have read my mind once again!
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April 6th, 2009
I’ve long seen tornadoes in my dreams and used them as lucid dream triggers. They usually work well as triggers as my dream self asily recognizes that I’ve never before optical amplifier seen them in waking life.
I’ve noticed that these tornado dreams seem to precede severe weather events, usually ones theatening enough to spawn tornadoes. Now I wonder if the tornadoes I see in my dreams may be a mental weather forecast rather than a simple sign I’m dreaming!
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April 6th, 2009
I got an email today from the Lucidity Institute. As you may know, I’m a fan and practicer of lucid dreaming. I’m also interested in OBEs though its been years since I can claim to have had one or anything remotely similar. In the Lucidity email was a link to a paper Lynne Levitan and Dr. LaBerge wrote in 1990. Titled “Out-Of-Body Experiences and Lucid Dreaming,” Levitan and LaBerge attempt to brand OBEs as nothing more than dreams.
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April 6th, 2009
My grandmother died a few years ago after living to a fine age of 92 years. She was a widow for the last 30 of those years, living alone (and reasonably happy) right up to the end.
Since her passing my grandmother has occasionally appeared as a character in my dreams. Rarely do I get the sense that it’s really her, though: most of the time she appears more as a face in a crowd, so to speak. Or it could be that our communication occurred on a much deeper level and what remained in my groggy conscious mind was simply jumbled snippets.
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March 11th, 2009
One afternoon last week I came home to a bustling home as usual. As I put away my work things, Kelly asked me if I smelled anything. I took a few whiffs and smelled something, but couldn’t readily identify it. She thought it smelled like natural gas, but I was in the midst of a cold and wasn’t the best judge of anything at that point.
We turned our attention to dinner and then put the kids to bed. As she and I were in the den, we again smelled the smell. Befuddled, we both searched the house for all the usual suspects. Our dishwasher is notorious for stinky smells, so I bravely stuck my head into it to find it wasn’t the culprit. I searched the garage (the home of our water heater) and came up empty. Ditto for the gas fireplace. Checked the dog but he wasn’t it. The smell was in our bedroom, so I searched around there, but nothing. I even turned on the heat and sniffed the vents.
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January 14th, 2009
Yesterday afternoon, I toured a local business which makes digital video recorders for police cars. At dinner last night I spoke to Kelly about my meeting, though never did I ever mention anything about police, as Kelly was already familiar with the business. My conversation was limited to my interactions with the person I met there.
Travis was largely silent during my talk with Kelly. During a lull in the conversation, a moment of reflection, he jumped in with a comment seemingly apropos of nothing.
“I want to be a police officer when I grow up,” he said almost to himself.
I marveled at what appeared to have just happened. Thinking quickly back, I confirmed that I never mentioned police, though I realized I had been subconsciously thinking about the gear I’d seen and its purpose. He didn’t seem to be trying to hijack the conversation, nor did he seem particularly pushy with his comment – it simply spilled out of his mouth.
While its true Travis often talks about becoming a police officer, the timing of this particular comment strikes me as very suspicious, considering nothing I said mentioned anything about police or careers.
Travis is four years old now. The last time Hallie surprised me with her mindreading she was probably still three.
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