Are panic attacks uncanny? Common symptoms of a panic attack include “rapid heartbeat, perspiration, dizziness, dyspnea, trembling, uncontrollable fear such as: the fear of losing control and going crazy, the fear of dying and hyperventilation. Other symptoms are sweating, a sensation of choking, chest pain, nausea, numbness or tingling, chills or hot flashes, faintness and some sense of altered reality. In addition, the person usually has thoughts of impending doom. Individuals suffering from an episode have often a strong wish of escaping from the situation that provoked the attack.” [Wikipedia] I once had a panic attack in the middle of the night and I ran out of the house and down the street before I realized that I was trying to escape myself. I would call that uncanny. I have read about episodes that Martin Luther recounted where he felt the devil was present. It seems to me that he was perhaps having a panic attack. I would prefer a sublime experience to a panic attack any day.
Say that someone is very sad and disturbed for some reasons. He is lying in the bed thinking about all this. During this, he enteres into trance in which he sees a motherlike angel who consoles him that everything will be okey.
Now, according to your definition, it is a sublime experience because it is confortable, non-threatening and pleasant too. But, is it not unknown and unecpected? If so, then how it is not uncanny as well?
That is true.
That is preciesly what spirituality realy means. Spirituality is not about beliefs but confirming those in person. Beliefs are for masses but scholars have to experience those.
You rightly said that it is a difficult thing to do because it invites an extra burden on one’s shoulders and routine life takes a beating.
I guess I was thinking the “known” would fit in with the expectations of those who have chosen ignorance. After all, god(s) are there to protect and/or comfort me. So what is uncanny isn’t uncanny. I expected a visit from someone to pat me on the head and tell me everything is good.
So perhaps there are two sublimes. One of ignorance and one of facing terror and evil and dismissing our devils one by one. I’m not sure that confronting ourselves is a burden. I can’t quite characterize it in that way. It is more something done in personal honesty and integrity and no, it isn’t necessarily “fun”, but it is necessary? Ignorance is an excuse and failure. Those who have decended into hell and returned are those who can be trusted implicitly. They know who they are, and that is their strength - and in that, they find the sublime.
if the last quality is present, it might be uncanny, but it could be other kinds of unpleasant spiritual experience also.
I would say that if you experienced it as trying to escape yourself - with a fairly literal take on that - then that sounds rather uncanny.
Sure, me too. Though the uncanny is not generally so dramatic. It is more a sense of unease coupled with what seems like (possibly) an experience of non-ordninary reality. It is unsettling rather than terrifying. I would rather have an uncanny experience than a dark night of the soul, for example. Generally I would say, the uncanny experience does not feel catastrophic. It is more limnal.
I Think the sublime can be new and hitherto unknown - otherwise I tend to agree. People have all sorts of sublime experiences coupled with insights that surprise them. While having a sublime experience one is much more likely to easily make the sound ‘mmmmmmmm’. Uncanny experiences make this sound less easy to mouth.
I don’t Think most people realize how much Control they exert over what they can experience and that the removal of something from consciuosness can happen very quickly. The Clean up crews are very fast and if whatever it was challenged one’s sense of self or reality, we are generally glad to have whatever it was removed and move on to the next distraction.
A good description of most of the believers, but burying an experience is the coward’s way out. To experience the truly sublime is to bring those experiences close, examine them, and understand them. Then one can be at rest amidst all the chaos and have no need for distractions. But… you have to see being uncomfortable as an opportunity, not a threat.
I was actually focused mainly on disbelievers, though aware it fit believers also. Disbeliever being a more Active role than those who simply lack a belief, in this context.
Martin Luther (“Here I Stand”) claimed he threw an inkwell at the Devil who appeared in his study. My devils are not that theatrical; but, they come on as uncanny. The dark side, the shadow,IMHO, is a necessary part of the Light of understanding.
I feel that many of the things I experience are uncanny, that is inexplicable, because when I look deep enough, my understanding seems to fade and mystery surrounds me. I then tend to run back into the house of language and give the experience a coating with the sublime.
I think I know what you mean. What Barrett calls nothingness, Tillich refers to as "nonbeing.
Experience is always a combination of being and nonbeing. So while anxiety is an intimation of nonbeing, we can take comfort in the fact that we will never experience nonbeing except in the presence of being.
is that what they mean? I mean, Bob’s experience that is. It sounds like he slid out of language and habitual experience, briefly - in his self-effacing description at least. But is this an experience of non-being?
But we are in a good area, in any case, to contrast with the uncanny. To me, for example, a sudden experience of non-being or the inexplicable that scares us, but could not really be put into Words, is not quite the uncanny. It is a kind of negative sublime.
I experience this all the time and am often stumped for words (in any language) by mindful observations, overrun by a wave of feeling and impressions, sometimes they are scenes that run past my mind’s eye, or pictures. The really “uncanny” is accompanied by a inexplicable sense of fear of something undefined, wrapped up in such feelings but not associated with them. I used to say tp myself that it is a “God-experience” - something with meaning, but the meaning of which I was unsure. Through mindfulness I have stopped giving it that label.
I am not sure that it has the connection that felix saw with Tillich, not being completely sure that I know what he meant by “non-being”. However, today it seems more like Barret’s “nothingness” - I’ve wondered whether it is perhaps a forerunner of dementia, where the cognitive ability to reason eludes us and we fail to bring stimulations of the senses together. Perhaps it is just a moment when the brain say’s, “I don’t know!”
I think “non-being” gives the wrong connotation. I see sensing the uncanny as almost ultra-being. It is being acutely aware that something is happening that I can’t put my finger on, but it’s there. In a sense, I am never more “being” when the hair raises on the back of my neck. No proof, but it seems reasonable that a few million years of having to be aware of the tiniest details in order to survive, we have developed that capacity labeled “sixth sense”. Something is out of whack here and I’d better pay attention. For me, THAT is experiencing the uncanny. Granted, this capacity has been dulled over millenia as we have become ever more “socialized”, but what was commonplace every day observing of the world is now seen as something special. It isn’t. Without that sensing of uncanny, we couldn’t survive.
Yes, I can grasp that, “ultra-being” or ultra-awareness speaks to me here - perhaps it is a “sixth-sense” in the Buddhist sense, in that the mind is somehow magnifying something that we would otherwise oversee.
It is strange that I have these feelings when I feel I don’t need them and vice versa - perhaps an example of the socialization you were talking about. On the other hand, many times I have seen something coming a long way before my peers and have not been able to convince them - until it is too late. Sometimes they then look at me suspiciously, as though it wasn’t a “normal” prophecy but a self-fulfilled one … but it wasn’t :-"
Yeah, one of my more irritating hobbies is playing futurist. I like to take cutting-edge new technologies and project them into a likely/plausible future. sometimes, I even surprise myself when they develop along lines I predicted years before. But that is just technologies. My projections on the direction of social issues comes from deep seated cynicism. Unfortunately, I get too many of those projections right. I suppose I’m missing the point, but what is often uncanny is simply paying attention to the tell tales and seeing where experiences are going.
But experiencing the uncanny from a spiritual perspective, I try not to explain or talk about that. It’s a good thing because I couldn’t explain those experiences anyway.
It could be an experience of not concluding but without searching. IOW a stable not knowing, even to the Point of not making a gestalt out of a perception, rather than one step in a by comparison frantic hoping to settle on what it is that is perceived or concluded. That to me would be in the category sublime.
Yes, exactly, thank you, that is my experience. There is somethign glorious about the experience of the uncanny, even though it is also scary. I feel more alive. Not the adrenalin jumping of horror Movie shocks, but a creepier, less distinct mood. I feel connected to my full being or at least a lot more of it. It feels like am more real myself than usual.
It sounds like your experiences are mostly subjective reactions alone. IOW without some object or possibly present object that is experienced adn triggers those feelings. A simple pretty mundane example are dolls, whose near lifelikeness - especially older well made dolls - can elict these feelings. There may be other less ‘I can get a scientist to verify the object’ type triggers also.
Unfortunately, I get too many of those projections right. I suppose I’m missing the point, but what is often uncanny is simply paying attention to the tell tales and seeing where experiences are going.