Thursday, March 19, 2009

The gates of Chapel Perilous swing open.





Mike Clelland begins his latest post with the following paragraph:

I am attempting to recount a very short memory. The incident described in this post lasted, maybe, less than 20 seconds. The implications of this event has been difficult for me to integrate into my life. I've been terribly conflicted about the truth of this foggy incident. It could have been a dream, true enough. I cannot allow myself to discount that.


Who can resist that? Read on!

12 comments:

RRRGroup said...

Jesus, Mac...

This "episode" of Mike Clelland can be explained any number of ways by dream analysis, which you can access in many psychiatric tomes, or publications, such as Psychiatric Dictionary, 4th Edition, Hinsie/Campbell (Oxford University Press, 1970).

Jeez, to try and make more of this than what it is goes to heart of what's wrong with ufology and most of what the UFO community parlays as worthwhile about the UFO phenomenon.

RR

Mike Clelland! said...

This post on my blog was weird for me to share. The question that has plagued me is:
are "experiencers" compelled to speak out?

At the end of a PARATOPIA audio podcast (episode: 9, Ted Phillips) - Jeremy (an experiencer) said that people are feeling an urgency, to get out and talk about this stuff, and bring it to a larger audience - and people are feeling it's important to do this - and he said, I just don't know why it's important.

And then Jeff (another experiencer) said: "I don't like feeling that I'm part of some plan I know nothing about."

They are exactly articulating my deepest feelings - and it has been weirdly oppressive for me - and I can't figure it out.

I was at the Laughlin conference (feb 2009) and I spoke with the "experiencers" I spent time with. And it came up a lot for me, to the point where I just felt like I was hit with the same message - over and over.

I had a long talk this morning with a woman (with a lot of contact experiences) and she made a huge effort to try and define what she was feeling. We actually got dictionary out and looked up COMPELLED and IMPELLED.

She said that what she was feeling was coming from outside of her. She was COMPELLED to come forward and share her story.

This matched what I am feeling - exactly. Especially right now. Is there anyone else out there feeling the same thing?

QUESTION: Is anyone else feeling this???

Mac said...

@RRRGroup

Am I claiming that Mike saw aliens? Certainly not. Mike isn't sure what to make of the experience either; his humility and sincerity are predominantly why I find his narratives so interesting.

I actually suspect Mike did, in fact, experience a waking dream. If so, I feel that exploring the circumstances that generated the the experience can further our understanding of at least a small portion of the "abduction" phenomenon.

Mac said...

@Mike

Just be sure to maintain vigilance and beware the "will to believe." I don't know if you've read any Robert Anton Wilson, but it seems you've entered the "Chapel Perilous" of this post's title: an interesting place, to be sure, but never entirely safe.

Mike Clelland! said...

In response to RR:

I think the text in my post is pretty clear that I am full of doubts.

But - there have been a lot of other events in my life that point to something more. A missing time event with a very odd light in the sky (2 hours unaccounted for). And, a very vivid and rather close UFO sighting. Plus a few other events that match the phenomenon.

I'll add that right now I am weirdly compelled to share this info. And this blog format is a sort of release valve.

I'm being careful NOT to embelish any of my memories.

M!

Mac said...

I'm being careful NOT to embelish any of my memories.

I can vouch for this insofar as Mike and I talked about the instances in his blog long before he wrote them down. No changes or embellishments.

RRRGroup said...

Mac and Mike...

Dreams don't need embellishment.

Mike, your "experience" can be found in accounts from the literature about dreams, going back to times well before the "abduction" phenomenon.

You know this, of course.

Your need to vent, or free associate, as we Freudians have it,
is psychoanalytic, and may be helpful in some psychological way.

And I'll give you that your "experience" may have even been of an alien nature.

But such accounts becloud an already confusing scenario.

So one has to make sure that their accounts and strange experiences are treated or evaluated by professionals of many stripes, and not thrown out for the masses to get their messy hands on.

RR

Mike Clelland! said...

RR -

I actually WANT my stories "thrown out" to the masses. I want to let these events to bubble up - without the "editing" that a professional would give them.

I have worked with Budd Hopkins, Leo Sprinkle, Dave Jacobs and Barbara Lamb. All of them are - in fact - professionals. But I trust myself more than I trust them.

They have helped me arrange some of the puzzle pieces, but the puzzle as is mine, it's up to me to fit them all together. It is my role alone.

Stay tuned on the BLOG, i have more stories to come. And many are just as elusive.
Mike C!

Anonymous said...

The "science" of Freud. Blah!

I'm reminded of this podcast though:

http://www.shrinkrapradio.com/2007/02/06/75-a-new-theory-of-synchronicity/

RRRGroup said...

Mike and Justin....

Mike: the rabble shouldn't have access to stories or accounts like yours.

That's like serving caviar to dogs.

Justin: Freud...Blah? Why he's the greatest, and back in vogue among cognoscenti.

RR

Unknown said...

What's missing here is that writing anything off as "just dreams" doesn't make any sense either. There's so little we understand about consciousness and the brain - even if it was purely a dream who's to say that literal EBE's weren't entering the dream world.

I feel the same way about crop circle "hoaxes." It's possible that an alien intelligence is working through these hoaxers to convey a message so it's no hoax at all.

Yes, this conveniently justifies every bit of possible UFO evidence, but there's so much up in the air about how consciousness works - and what an advanced intelligence would be able to achieve - that you can't discard these occurrences as being "just" anything.

RRRGroup said...

Henry,

You're right about the mysteries of consciousness.

But Mike's episode resembles dream accounts that are related in various psychological evaluations, from Freud, and Jung, right on down to those from current laboratory studies, at such places as the Sleep Disorders Center of Cincinnati.

The literature is rife with dream analyses that only differ in unique details while the bodies of the dreams, the gists, are very much alike.

Mike may have had an alien intrusion of some kind, but it's much easier for me (and others) to see his experience as dream-oriented.

RR