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Is my reality the same as yours?

Hi, so there is a part of my garden bed that has this horrible clay soil that I can't get anything to grow in. It has rocky lumps when I try to till it and water just makes it more clayish. It's also an area in full sun. I'm wondering if anyone knows what kind of plants I can grow there - I'm thinking maybe natives (I'm in Australia) but I'm not sure which and going to the nursery overwhealms me for this particular section of soil. lol. HELP?

Just a question about huge life changes. Say for example something life changing happens to you and you do have some control over the situation to make things go in the direction you would like, but it is a very difficult decision to make, who do you turn to for advice - is it God, Allah, your family, friends, a specialist (like a psychiatrist/doctor/councellor for example), or someone/something else I haven't mentioned. I am intersted because I think when we have some control of life changing decisions, and we know what we want, it seems so simple what choice to make, but often people get confused, burdened and scared.

is it a part of your faith to try to convert or 'save' others actively? What I mean, is that whilst I understand that in most religions, those who do not follow that particular faith are deemed any number of things from 'sinners' to 'infidels' to 'people with no moral values', is it up to you, as part of your faith, to try and make those people 'see the light'? OR is it simply something you feel that you personally need to do in order to be compassionate and to help others?

Secondly, regardless of your answer to the above, how important is it to your personal happiness and sense of self (i.e thinking you are a good person) to make other people believe what you believe?

Thirdly, I understand about 'spreading the word', but I'm interested as to the way in which people go about this, as sometimes it seems like theists don't just spread the word, they try to change your mind or convince you in some way to agree with them and I am wondering why that is, since my understanding of the term 'spread the word' is simply about 'teaching' and not about judgement or force-feeding words.

AFTERNOTE: Please don't take this offensively, I am not targeting any particular faith and I am only asking this on my personal experience so of course I will have generalized a bit, however I am looking for some insightful NOT hateful answers from theists and atheists alike.

say they follow their religious teachings to a T? I only ask because in my experience most of you have committed at least one sin. The most common one being pride. I have never met a humble Christian.

Basically, do you think

a) that we can influence our thoughts and consciously change them, thereby changing our emotions and actions OR that our emotions and actions are influenced by our thoughts, which we cannot change because they are unconscious processes.

b) that we can change our personality through consciously changing our thoughts.

Please elaborate on your answers, anyone with a simple yes or no will not get best answer :)

for a young girl in her 20's to be dating a man in his early 40s? What are your thoughts on this - it is becoming more common these days and less tabboo (although in the old days it wasn't really taboo). Just wondering your thoughts/opinions. My personal opinion is that age shouldn't matter when it comes to love so I don't really understand what the big deal or taboo surrounding this age gap is?

I am just curious if the difference is only in language or if it extends to culture as well? thanks.

questions in this section that arent realted to mythology and folklore?

specifically, I want to know are there any tips or tricks to stimulating the pineal gland? I've had what some would say are clairvoyant experiences as well as spiritual guide experiences (NOT on drugs lol), and am wanting to explore them more, but at the moment the just come at random. I want to learn how to summon them or induce that state. I've heard meditation helps but so far I don't think it's really enhanced my ability at all. Any suggestions. Please don't reply if you are just going to make fun of me. :)

Hi - so I had the weirdest, most vivid dream I've ever had and I am wondering how each of you would interpret it?

it was a long dream, but the part that seemed most significant and where I was actually lucid dreaming in is the part I'd like to see you interpretations for, so that's all I'll write. If you ant more info just ask.

What's lucid dreaming?

A lucid dream is a dream in which one is aware that one is dreaming.In a lucid dream, the dreamer can actively participate in and manipulate imaginary experiences in the dream environment.

The dream:

Throughout the dream I had this feeling that I was sent on a mission but that I didn't really know what the whole mission was, just the steps to get there. At each point of getting to the goal of the mission I was to talk to a significant being. Every time, the being was a weird creature, but everything else that wasn't significant was human. So, just before I woke up I had met with one of these significant beings and it was the 2nd step in the mission (so the second being I had to talk to).

It was a translucent mermaid with a head that split in two. It's consciousness and soul was a bunch of cherries sitting in it's head (lol). For some reason the person next to me was convincing it to put it's two heads together. It didn't seem to want to and in the end said that if it has to put it's heads together it will leave. So it ended up gelling it's two heads together, and in the process all the cherries floated away out of it's body. I never got to speak to it and watched it's conscioussness and soul hover over it's body, now two separate beings. I needed to speak to the conscioussness and soul of the being, but now I couldn't because it was no longer in it's own body. Then I woke up.

Go wild with it - I can't make any sense of it but for some reason it seemed very significant when I woke up.

So, alot of people seem to think that having an nde is proof of something greater than us, because most people report seeing things that are similar when they have these experiences...

Near death experiences implie a set of diverse perceptions or hallucinations.

Two or three years ago, a team was able to induce with electrodes out of body experiences.

http://instruct1.cit.cornell.edu/Courses/psych113/...

It is also known that a natural chemical called DMT is secreted via the pineal gland during near death experiences. DMT is one of the most potent hallucinogens known to man.

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgicmd=R...

Indians and such would try to focus their meditative powers on the "third eye" (the pineal) in order to stimulate it to produce DMT, then they would travel to great places and have spiritual encounters.

NDE are found where no brain function is seen in the normal EEG's during the perceived experience. Given this, whether they be hallucinations or genuine memories of events in the ER or elsewhere, the fact that detailed and clear memories are formed under these conditions is difficult to explain. Apparently "deep" brain waves are found that are not detected with a normal EEG, but how these deep functions would allow for complex memory formation is apparently not well understood.

The following is an abstract of a presentation on the topic of ketamine and NDEs by Karl Jansen of the University of Auckland. The presentation itself was pretty much word for word what is included in the abstract.

Abstract: Ketamine is a dissociative anesthetic with powerful hallucinogenic and psychedelic properties, including out-of-body experiences, transcendence of time, an extension of awareness beyond consensus reality into other universes, and other effects. Ketamine can produce every feature of a near-death experience (NDE) (Jansen 2001), including the conviction that one has died, awareness leaving the body, ringing/buzzing/ whistling sounds followed by travel through a tunnel at high speed, emerging into light, communion with God, and a life review.

Because we know how ketamine acts in the brain, this provides us with an understanding of how NDE’s arise. Ketamine blocks ion channels attached to NMDA receptors, and causes a blockage so that salts cannot enter the cell. The neurotransmitter glutamate crosses the gap between cells and binds to NMDA receptors, turning the chemical key which should allow ions to enter the cell. However, while the tunnel is blocked by ketamine, this is not possible.

One key element of the NDE is the assimilation of real, new information. This is not mentioned.

THE QUESTIONS

What are the biological causes of near death experiences?

Is there any explanation from an evolutive viewpoint?

Wow wow! Wait! What is NDE, DMT and EEG?

NDE: Near Death Experience

DMT: N,N-Dimethyltryptamine

EEG: Electroencephalogram

Hi, I'm buying a second hand car for the first time and I've done some research but I'm not sure what to look for when I take it for a test drive. How long to test drives normally go for and what's involved with the paper-work (do i handle it all myself?). Any info will be helpful but I prefer personal experiences as I've trawled the net already. Cheers

Why or why not?

I personally take it as a compliment either way. I might look young for my age or act more mature for my age. lol. what about you guys - are you as arrogant as I am?

please elaborate a little in your answers.

1. terminate the pregnancy if you knew that your child would have a severe disability (physical or mental) that would have a negative effect on his/her quality of life, and your own quality of life, for the rest of both your lives?

WHY OR WHY NOT

2. terminate the pregnancy if you had other children already, and by having this baby, you would die.

WHY OR WHY NOT

PLEASE DON"T ATTACK OTHER PEOPLES ANSWERS - THIS IS A SENSITIVE SUBJECT BUT ONE I"D LIKE TO EXPLORE

thanks

why or why not

why or why not?

do you think it's normal?

then do you think we have individual purpose or a collective purpose. why or why not.

an unbiased approach, but still hold religious beliefs, OR do you allow your religion to dictate what you should and shouldn't learn?

I ask this because if you are religious, but open to learning about other things in an objective way, then why all the fuss about replacing the teaching of evolution in schools, with teaching creationism? why not teach both?