An experiment with Time Loops

[streeb]

Time Loops

Anyone else read this yet? There’s a practical component that I tried with fairly startling results.

Wargo’s premise is that all humans are precognitive, and that we most commonly encounter information from our own future in dreams. Because these “premories” are cloaked in dream logic and symbolism, and because we’re conditioned to assume cause and effect as forward moving, we tend to misinterpret or dismiss their significance.

Wargo further suggests that we are oriented toward future events in this way; that information from the future triggers the causative actions in the present. These are “time loops” which are dependent up one another, but might otherwise be partially understood as self-fulfilling prophecy.

In any case: I cannot do justice here to this wide-ranging, very engaging book, which naturally makes some audacious claims, even in RI company, not the least being that precognition might offer a parsimonious explanation for almost all psi phenomena.

But anyway, here’s the really fun part: prompted by Wargo’s book to keep a dream diary, I could identify two (I think) strong episodes of precognition within a month.

Keeping a dream diary means going back to the diary frequently and discovering how much and how quickly we forget. For instance: after taking my kid to the pool and discovering, on arrival, that I’d forgotten his trunks, I was shocked to find a dream fragment recorded days earlier in which I reached into my bag and—you guessed it—pulled out my son’s bathing suit. Which in turn, I had noted, “gave me a feeling of relief.”

Forgetting my son’s bathing suit had been upsetting to him and embarrassing to me. If I’m understanding Wargo correctly, that’s enough emotional payload to disturb my sleep prior to the event, dream-adapted as wish-fulfillment. The emphasis here is on the randomness of that detail inside the dream, and my forgetting it, and my surprise upon reading it later.

The second instance was related to a real-estate purchase my wife and I briefly considered just last weekend, and which was giving me a lot of anxiety. It all fell through very quickly, but anyway, returning to my diary, there was a dream from about a week earlier that was drenched in associations unique to the would-be purchase, including its unusual location, and the uncommon event (a live outdoor concert series) that takes place every summer on a neighbouring property.

I would even argue the significance of the mood I described in the dream. "The locals are wary of strangers buying property,” I was told, while we mingled with a group of people who didn’t seem very keen on us. Which comports strongly and painfully with my first real-life experience at that very location, a couple years ago, as a newcomer to a small community. The specific location has a substantial emotional charge for me. Of course, I had no inkling at all when I had this dream that we would seriously consider moving there only a few days later.

Pretty interesting stuff.

Let me add that I do not in any way consider myself gifted. Quite the opposite. (I envy your border experiences. Even the terrifying ones!) I am average. This is Wargo’s point. He’s stumping for the banality of precognition.

(One of the closing chapters, about Philip Dick, ponders that neurosis might be a product in some ways of our failure to reconcile with our native precognitive talents. In a case like Dick, the neurosis and the precognitive ability are both exceptional, tragic even.)

(Also, around the time I started reading Time Loops, I had the presentiment of being hit by a car while riding my bike—the feeling was strong and troubling enough that I slowed down considerably from my normal speed—and yet I still got cut-off by some idiot about 15 minutes later, and ended up flying across their trunk and landing in the ER. This one is harder for me to explain. But another chapter in Wargo’s book looks at turn-of-the-century writer Morgan Robertson, remarkable for his predictive powers, most famously for anticipating the Titanic with the 1898 novel Futility. [His ship was called the Titan.] Wargo suggests the very title reflects a tragic figure’s deep melancholy over the essential uselessness of his gift.)

[Wombaticus Rex]

I haven't read the book, but if it encourages such engagement with innate facilities, I will start recommending it to people.

I would hope that RI, Professor Pan's materialist liturgies aside, is comfortable dealing with the reality of human psychic abilities.

"You're Soaking In It Right Now," as we used to say around here.

Edgar Allan Poe also nailed one of the great precognitive hits in literary history with The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym...fairly certain Jeff covered that but it's at least been unpacked here before.

[BenDhyan]

Time Loops .... "Because these “premories” are cloaked in dream logic and symbolism, and because we’re conditioned to assume cause and effect as forward moving, we tend to misinterpret or dismiss their significance."

The forward moving cause and effect concept is not violated by prescient dreams, the reason being that in metaphysics, this physical world is seen as the world of effects, causes originate in the subtle realms, I did keep a dream diary for many years and learned to see the manifested effects of many of my dreams, so the effect always follows the dream event. I see it as a cascade process of the dream's subtle vibrations working their way down to the more gross planes of manifested existence.

[Belligerent Savant]

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I've always been very intrigued by this topic - thanks for starting this thread, and the initial replies.

I had a similar "pre-cog" moment as referenced by Streeb above in his re-telling of a bike accident (though I've also had a couple run-ins with cars while on my bicycle as well...)

I was driving, late to a college class that day. While rushing to get there (I was in my early 20s at the time), I suddenly had a distinct but very palpable sense of dread, that something 'bad' was going to happen very soon. I told myself that all would be fine as long as I focused on the road, but couldn't shake the odd feeling.
Less than 2 minutes later, in an effort to beat a traffic light about to turn red, i sped up, initiated a sharp right turn and came into contact with a pedestrian.

I still clearly recall the temporary horror I felt; my world changed instantly in that moment: I caused the loss of a human life. Sat in my car for several minutes with my eyes closed/head down, disbelieving what happened. Miraculously -- or so it seemed at the time -- the pedestrian not only managed to get up, but walked to the nearby sidewalk. Bruised, but not broken. Overwhelming relief at the sight of the pedestrian moving, talking, interacting. I got out of the car at that point to lend a hand.

An intense experience for me at the time. To this day I remain taken by the acuity of the premonition moments before the incident.

I've had a few similar, but less intense, premonitions since then, but none quite as distinct.

[DrEvil]

Well, this thread is making me somewhat uneasy. For as far back as I can remember I've had exactly one dream that really freaked me out. In that dream I encountered what I can only describe as pure evil. Not Adolf Hitler evil or Ted Bundy evil, but evil evil, a black force of pure malevolence in the shape of a man.

I had the nightmare several years ago, but just thinking about it now makes me uncomfortable. I've never felt anything like it before or since. Pretty please don't be a premonition.

[seemslikeadream]

dreaming of my high school boyfriend's mother being burned to death was my first experience .....it definitely frighten me


she was lighting a hurricane lantern...I didn't dream that detail

I've had many experiences since then ...even with people here

[elfismiles]

Eric Wargo – Time Loops and Retrocausality
Posted on January 15, 2019 by Greg

Eric Wargo has written perhaps one of the most important popular science books in the last year. Time Loops proposes that future events can affect the past, and provides detailed descriptions of experimental findings that suggest (some would take it a step further and say “prove”) that this concept, called “retrocausality,” is poised to make over physics and other sciences with its implications.

Wargo proposes that dreams are the most basic way that we can experience a peek into the future, and we discussed the dreams and writings of Sigmund Freud as an early, well-documented and prime example of precognition, even though Wargo points out that Freud did not dare suggest that his (and his patients’) dreams foretold the future. When people apparently see events to come (such as the Titanic disaster and 9-11) in startling detail, Wargo says that there is ample evidence to suggest that what is experienced is not a sort of mental travel to the future, but a presentiment of our reaction when we learn about the event (such as reading or hearing about it in the news.)

Wargo also suggested that precognition could be a tool that the human brain has evolved as a defense/ survival mechanism. There were many exciting and indeed controversial issues raised (as indeed they are in his book.) We may be looking at one aspect of a shift in how science is conducted, and that may be the most exciting thing of all. As Wargo said, “anomalies are building up, and that’s when paradigm shifts occur.”

His blog is called The Nightshirt. Check it out.
http://thenightshirt.com

LISTEN/ DOWNLOAD
http://radiomisterioso.com/audio/Eric_W ... _30_18.mp3

http://radiomisterioso.com/2019/01/15/e ... causality/

[JackRiddler]

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No one (including my skeptical inner self) will be able to persuade me that I did not experience vivid precognition on at least one occasion, with immediate specific confirmation following within days, and likely several other times. It's also one of the least ridiculous speculations in the field. It might at least partly explain the perpetual sense of deja vu, although age/experience/repetition is also serviceable as a pedestrian cause for that.

[Freitag]

In that dream I encountered what I can only describe as pure evil. Not Adolf Hitler evil or Ted Bundy evil, but evil evil, a black force of pure malevolence in the shape of a man.

I had the nightmare several years ago, but just thinking about it now makes me uncomfortable. I've never felt anything like it before or since. Pretty please don't be a premonition.

I've had that dream. My quick story: I encountered a shadow person walking down a dark street at night. The experience shook me up. That night, it attacked me in a dream and tried to steal my soul. It was a life-or-death struggle, at the end of which a beneficent being came to my rescue and I woke up. It was several minutes before I could move - I was paralyzed. My attacker was the most maliciously evil presence I've ever felt.

Since then, I sometimes reach a lucid state in a dream where I realize I'm dreaming, but am also paralyzed. At that point, a malign being often materializes in my dream. For example, if I'm laying helpless on the floor of a room, the door opens and I can sense someone standing there. Over time, I've learned to wake myself up to escape the situation. It's hard to explain, but it amounts to a surge of willpower. I just think myself up off the floor.

After the experience, I'm always amused by discussions of whether evil is "real". People argue that it's an abstract concept, but they've just never felt it.

I don't know if that sheds any light on your experience, probably not, but at least I can commiserate.

[JackRiddler]

Since then, I sometimes reach a lucid state in a dream where I realize I'm dreaming, but am also paralyzed. At that point, a malign being often materializes in my dream. For example, if I'm laying helpless on the floor of a room, the door opens and I can sense someone standing there. Over time, I've learned to wake myself up to escape the situation. It's hard to explain, but it amounts to a surge of willpower. I just think myself up off the floor.

Know this well. I'd describe it more like I think I'm awake, or not sure, but discover I'm fully immobilized and dreading. One must will oneself into waking, doing so feels violent. This often comes with the sudden appearance of a malign being (a couple of whom I can remember still) but we may not agree on whether this is an outside sentient entity that "materializes" in the dream, and not one of your own mind's devising. I hope you would at least allow that possibility?

After the experience, I'm always amused by discussions of whether evil is "real". People argue that it's an abstract concept, but they've just never felt it.

I doubt very many people have never felt it. In denial, sure.

Oh, evil is real. But what is it? The question you are raising seems to be whether it is human and personal and deep-psychological and social and political all at once, as seems self-evident from the empirical side -- and the totality of which can absolutely be FELT in the way that you mean, as a dread and stench and terror -- or (as you seem to suggest) an intervention by non-human spirits-beings-energies that come from without the human and manifest themselves in dreams.

.

[Sounder]

Jack wrote..

Oh, evil is real. But what is it? The question you are raising seems to be whether it is human and personal and deep-psychological and social and political all at once, as seems self-evident from the empirical side, or (as you seem to suggest) an intervention of non-human spirits-beings-energies that come from without and manifest themselves in dreams.

Or both of these things together.

[JackRiddler]

Or both of these things together.

Philosophically, no reason why both cannot be simultaneously true, and together. The one is undeniable, the other unproven but also nothing I am in a position to exclude with the chimera of absolute certainty.

If an entity's willing to do interventions in my dreams, why doesn't this evil (or good force of light) make itself clearly known? This almost requires us to posit a kind of hidden ecology of energy within which these entities-forces gain something from hiding, from toying and sucking on particular fears or joys of ours.

Isn't it curious that when such entities do "make themselves known" explicitly, it is not only to prophets and visionaries, but also to so many evident scammers and bad actors?

In any case, I cannot be persuaded away from what happened with my own precognitive cases, and I don't really care if someone who wants "proof" doesn't believe me or wants to sort these into the Coincidence File. In the same way, many no doubt genuinely believe to have encountered entities or phenomena that aren't supposed to exist (and are therefore labeled "supernatural"), even as I tend to explain their claims to myself as something more pedestrian.

I have no doubt there is stuff, including a non-coincidental material basis for precognition of future (or specific potential) events, that I don't or can't sort into my collection of known words & graspable concepts, and that it probably can't be so sorted. (I would never call it supernatural or non-material; these are false dichotomies: either it exists or it doesn't).

Yet I have great skepticism about others' claims about such things, especially when these claims fit certain patterns, like

- they come with selling, profit, self-aggrandizement, claims to leadership/prophethood, spectacle, celebrity, grabs at attention-ratings-clicks, offers to feel super to others if one partakes in the claims, promises of prevailing in life competitions, promises of a formula for individual happiness, etc. (And yet any of these devices could be a necessary tactic for getting the word out about something true.)

- they fit into one of the multitude of organized-industrial religion-spirituality complexes, cults or prophet cons.

- they (the claims) are perfunctory invocations by someone whose role requires conformity to certain expected appearances, as when a politician who may not be a believer attends church and says "god bless america."

- they seem to fulfill desperate spiritual or life needs, as when boxers and ghost dancers convince themselves they are immune to the white man's bullets, or in many cases, when people hope for cures for big diseases, etc.

- the claimants demand allegiance to one side of a dichotomy that doesn't really apply to the case, such as good/evil, heaven/hell, natural/supernatural, member/nonmember, faith/nonfaith, truth/lie, false/true reality, etc.

- the claims mystify things that are already evident or pedestrian, or close enough, as with "crisis actors" at school shootings. (Although more generally, to use that stupid platitude about zebras and horses, whether the stamping hooves in the distance are more likely zebras or horses depends on which habitat you find yourself in, and you can be wrong about that, and even given the "horse context" it can still sometimes be a zebra and vice-versa, or of course a zebra-horse or some other unknown animal altogether.)

- the claimant is already for whatever reason a confirmed unreliable narrator on other things (although that too is not an absolute indicator and I refuse to name names but you can probably think of some examples from our broader milieu of interests).

All of these criteria can be relativized as heuristics; exceptions and blindspots and general fogginess can always apply.

And yet at the same time, the bullshit is plentiful, undeniable, and incentivized.

Where is my guru?!


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bb1dCTszGKI

[Freitag]

Since then, I sometimes reach a lucid state in a dream where I realize I'm dreaming, but am also paralyzed. At that point, a malign being often materializes in my dream. For example, if I'm laying helpless on the floor of a room, the door opens and I can sense someone standing there. Over time, I've learned to wake myself up to escape the situation. It's hard to explain, but it amounts to a surge of willpower. I just think myself up off the floor.

Know this well. I'd describe it more like I think I'm awake, or not sure, but discover I'm fully immobilized and dreading. One must will oneself into waking, doing so feels violent. This often comes with the sudden appearance of a malign being (a couple of whom I can remember still) but we may not agree on whether this is an outside sentient entity that "materializes" in the dream, and not one of your own mind's devising. I hope you would at least allow that possibility?

Yeah, of course. Most dreams are random brain nonsense. But some... well, I guess we can't know for sure. I tend to trust my ability to feel an outside presence. I have had one additional experience - while awake - with an inorganic being that I distinctly "felt" (I'll tell the story below).

After the experience, I'm always amused by discussions of whether evil is "real". People argue that it's an abstract concept, but they've just never felt it.

I doubt very many people have never felt it. In denial, sure.

Oh, evil is real. But what is it? The question you are raising seems to be whether it is human and personal and deep-psychological and social and political all at once, as seems self-evident from the empirical side -- and the totality of which can absolutely be FELT in the way that you mean, as a dread and stench and terror -- or (as you seem to suggest) an intervention by non-human spirits-beings-energies that come from without the human and manifest themselves in dreams.

.

Right. Naturally, people can be moved to commit heinous acts by normal human conditions, no metaphysics required. For all I know, the evil entity I encountered was some kind of tulpa or poltergeist, born out of commonplace human misery. I just know it had a presence that could be felt. In other words, I don't believe I simply felt my own reaction of fear/loathing/disgust to a perceived threat. It was more like picking up on the vibe, the actual malevolent field of energy the entity was projecting.

Okay, my other story. I was heavily into Carlos Castaneda at the time, devouring all his books. I was relaxing on my couch, letting my mind wander after eating a pot brownie (back when that was a novelty, and you had to make them yourself). I closed my eyes, and my consciousness seemed to expand. Noises, in particular - I could distinctly hear noise from blocks away. I heard everything clearly within a huge radius. I felt myself floating up, and suddenly realized my consciousness had floated several feet up and behind my head. At that moment, had I not been afraid, I know I could have astral projected and visited the fucking moon if I'd wanted to. It's an experience I've never had again. But in Castaneda's books, he warned about how tricky an ally can be, and specifically, one type that likes to steal souls. I freaked out - plunged back into my body and opened my eyes. A few moments went by. Then I heard a distinct noise in my kitchen, that I somehow knew announced the presence of an entity. I knew it with 100% certainty. I actually said, out loud, "I know you're there". And here's where shit got real: the lamp shade on the lamp next to the couch started to move. Right in front of my eyes, it swung back and forth wildly for several seconds. There is absolutely no explanation for it. I was wide awake. Later, I tried to move it myself in the same way, but couldn't do it - it was screwed on tightly. When I tried to move the lampshade, the whole lamp moved. But I had seen only the lamp shade moving, while the lamp stood still. To this day I believe it was the entity answering me, saying "Yes. I'm here". Had I let the entity usher me out of my body, would I have died? Or acquired an ally and become a sorcerer? I don't fucking know, but I'll never forget that day as long as I live.

[Karmamatterz]

Since my days in college roaming about photographing everything and anything I've had dozens of unusual experiences. One still sticks in my head I wish I hadn't stumbled upon. The smell of rubber and leaking gasoline on a hot summer afternoon. The wheels just slowly coming to a halt with their vehicle turned sideways. The wife clawing at her husband's seatbelt to free him from his death seat, wishing he was alive and frantic. The blood and gore bizarrely framed with cicadas buzzing in the air surrounding the rural intersection. Helpless to pull anyone free as the vehicle was grossly mangled and required the jaws to open it up.

I shot a few frames and wanted to vomit.

In my minds eye just minutes before i was compelled by intuition to take that route knowing I would put my camera to use and have an image for the next day's newspaper. I felt sick and walked away as the fire truck approached and I helplessly watch the extrication.

A few years earlier in college I was "searching" for a photo. I felt compelled to walk into the massive construction zone for the new basketball arena being built on campus. The largest cranes I'd eve seen crept in tandem carrying the massive middle section of the roof structure. I clicked the shutter button a few times capturing the engineering feat from the highest perch on the bare concrete upper deck. Then the screeching, sway and groan of the huge girders bowed and flopped in a massive thud ripping to shreds the cranes and interconnected section of roof. The concrete I sat on shook like a earthquake and I thought it might all collapse. I hammered the motordrive of my Nikon and captured the entire sequence of an engineering mishap. Thankfully no deaths, just tons of twisted steel.

Both times I knew I should be where I was because of a premonition. I had no idea of what would happen, but my mind's eye told me to be there. This happened several other times. I don't know if it would be considered a time loop, but I swear that already knew I was suppose to be at each location without thinking and both were absolutely random events.

It was fascinating at times to press the viewfinder up to my eye and wonder what would happen. The amount of random death and mayhem I witnessed still seems, 30 years later, to be more powerful than the "cool" factor of feeling like time was being rewound on spool of imagery and all I had to do was point myself in the right direction. I'm probably not describing this very well, but I damn well know for certain this is the right thread.

I've had a recurring dream that began before desktop computers, Harry Potter, Photoshop and Final Cut. I am using my lupe to edit a contact sheet and one frame becomes a motion picture. In it something bad happening to a woman. It's all strange and surreal. I've yet to happen upon that in real life and hope never to. The face of the woman I've never seen. Perhaps it's just a strange random dream, but I don't believe in random dreams that repeat. i could probably write about all this much better after a good dose of mushrooms.

If you've ever wished for even the slight bit of prescience in your life it may not present itself in a pleasant fashion.

[JackRiddler]

As I've implied, I don't know how to respond to reports of manifested entities that are "not supposed to exist" but I take those of precognition very seriously, in part for the conformist reason perhaps that it is easier to theoretically sort as "possible" within present models and speculations in physics. So I can't rule out Freitag's story (and don't want to) but cannot even formulate questions I could ask about it. karmamatterz's stories speak more clearly to me, also as something I'm convinced I've also experienced (in one case in absolutely beyond lottery-winning fashion as far as the odds of a random event would go). I see these as reports of precognitive events, not just luck (bad or good?!) fueled by good instincts and a sensibility tuned to life photography. Still, the skeptics' question for you karmamatterz would be, how many false positives do you have? How many times did your intuition that something would be there for you to witness positively urge you to deviate from the path you were following, but did not lead to a discovery of the unlikely kind you describe? (This is phrased carefully but subject to a lot of fuzziness; any time you go off an intended path on a hunch you will end up finding something interesting to shoot. So it's worthwhile in itself to follow hunches this way.)