Bill wrote:


"Peg...it seems to me that the operative parts of your answer are "If one believes.." and "..to imagine that .."

If one doesn't believe & imagine these things, what then?"
--I can't answer that in detail since it is such a subjective question, but the most obvious response seems to be: that's your   choice. And if I CAN and DO imagine and believe these things, then that is MY choice.


In one place you say "I experienced it for myself." In another, you acknowlege what hallucinating can do...
--are you suggesting my experience was the result of hallucinating? That is inaccurate and presumptuous of you. Also, I did not   "acknowledge what hallucinating can do"; I said that sleep deprivation/lack of REM sleep can lead to hallucinating.


"The point is not whether or not you had an experience (I don't doubt that you did!), but rather the real cause of that experience, and this unfortunately is not usually subject to verification."
--what sort of verification is needed? It happened. I can describe it in detail. I am convinced of its veracity, as is the other person involved. I know others who have had similar experiences. You really don't seriously expect that phenomena connected to dreams and psychic activity can be somehow empiricaly verified through machinery or some other "scientific" means, do you? *YAWN* Why take part in this discussion at all if all you want to do is play the know-it-all skeptic?
As for the "real cause" you seem to be implying that I have somehow manufactured or imagined a cause for this phenomenon that is not its "true" one. I don't know what "caused" it and to be honest I don't think it matters all that much, because I am sure the answer is a complex and ambiguous one.


"There is a good reason to apply the principle of Occam's Razor to many of our experiences that are difficult to explain...but no one can insist that people do this, especially when some explanations are just clearly more 'interesting'."
--I am not trying to be "interesting," merely truthful. Some peoples' truths are more interesting than others, I will admit that. Your life, I'd wager, is probably way more boring than mine, but that is just my opinion based on your narrow-minded and, I'm afraid, rather patronizing, dismissal of my experiences. I am a creative person, attuned to creative impulses and thought-forms. These arise from all sorts of unexpected sources. It's an exciting way to go through life.


"I, myself, have had dreams that upset me, thrilled me, confused me and referred in strange ways to my concious life, but I have NEVER had one that could not be explained by random firing of neurological memories as my brain coped with it's stored patterns in different levels of sleep. Of course, I could find more complex explanations, and much more interesting ones...*grin*...but although they 'might' be true, I am constituted to need something pretty convincing."
--again, it's your choice. I personally find the process and its resultant effects fascinating and very useful, often inspiring. You can do whatever you want with your dreams.