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My terrifying experiences - skeptical perspective much appreciated

truthlover

New Blood
Joined
Apr 24, 2015
Messages
13
Hi all,

I would first of all like to express my sincere gratitude at the work skeptics do to debunk fraudsters, dubious beliefs and general misinformation in our world. I want to let you all know, before you read the following, that I consider myself a sane, intelligent person. I am also a natural-born empiricist, rationalist, and materialist. I love the 'real' material world, and the notion that the world we're born into is it, and all that we have is material. Nonetheless, I have had experiences I find it hard to rationalise in a solely materialistic world. I want nothing more than a skeptic to debunk all my experiences as total products of the mind (i.e. the physical brain), nonetheless I also want truthful insight, not biased by any held worldview.

I have had what I perceive to be experiences of pure evil, experiences which I can only interpret to be demonic or satanic. These have manifested in my 'dream states' as well as in real life.

It all started when I was around 19, approx. 4 years ago now. I took this 16 year old guy to bed (I am gay), we fooled around, and after finishing up and being very satisfied with the handsome young man I had landed myself, lay there peacefully in the post-sex bliss. I was facing him as I laid there. I was in no way under any stress nor did I feel any guilt, but pure satisfaction and relaxation. As I faced him, his eyes rolled up into his head, he started shaking, he then came over to my side of the bed, sat on my chest and started choking me, with those eye-rolled demonic eyes. I felt as though I was going to die, become possessed, or otherwise something purely horrible was about to occur. I kept saying 'No, no, no', but I felt like I couldn't speak loudly. Next thing, he was no longer on top of me, but back right next to me in the bed, still shaking, eyes rolled, and I continued to in my terrified voice say 'No, no, no!'. I "woke up", and every single thing about the room stayed the same, except his face, which now was a 'normal' face, but looked very concerned at me like I was crazy, I could do nothing but apologise and say 'sorry, I had a really bad nightmare'. The whole time I felt I was totally awake and aware, but paralysed. During and after this experience, I felt as though this guy was demonically influenced or otherwise cursed, and probably had something very evil happen to him. Furthermore I felt complicit in seducing this young fellow into a gay encounter, as though this made me complicit in this evil and hence why the evil was interested in me joining the 'force'. I later learnt that this guy did indeed have a very dark childhood, I won't go into detail.

About 2 years later, I began having extremely disturbing, extremely vivid 'nightmares', night after night. Often, my whole room would stay exactly the same as in real life, and I didn't feel like I was sleeping at all. I would often feel an extremely evil presence lurking behind the storage area door at the other side of my bedroom. These dreams would mock me, and in one I was paraded with figures in my life who by the very tone of the discordant music playing were clearly cursed and seemed to me were being shown as being complicit with the devil. Notably I got up, walked into the hall outside my room (again, it didn't feel like a dream, everything was as it should be), with my step mother curled up in a ball on the floor, wickedly laughing . In these dreams, I would often 'wake up' repeatedly in my room, only to find I was still in the nightmare. One night I finally "woke up" for real looking at my alarm clock ominously reading '3:33'. I remember one time being so horrendously terrified I got up out of bed, switched on every single light in the house, went downstairs to the lounge room, turned on the television loudly. For a number of nights in a row I didn't dare sleep in my room, only on the couch with the lights and tv on.

Around a year later, when I had moved out of home, I started having demonic nightmares again. I often knew when I was going to have a horrible nightmare night, as I would feel a sense of intense evil lurking in my apartment and the place would creak incessantly far beyond what one would normally expect with the natural expansion and contraction of things in a home. There would also often be a very distinct buzzing vibration noise, like when you have tinnitus of the ear, but it would come out of nowhere and be quite a distinct and loud vibration. I remember one night waking up from a nightmare, and I kid you not there were red pentagrams burned into my retina floating around the room for a good 4 or 5 seconds. They were so discernable, and there were there, in my eyes, in my waking hours..

I couldn't help but research these phenomena and their spiritual implications. After all, these experiences seemed to me almost deniably real. I can't explain to you how terrifyingly real they were. One notion that I liked the thought of was that Satan was some pagan God that Yahweh (the Abraham God of Judaism, Christianity and Islam) had dethroned, scape-goated and that he now was really pissed off, and for whatever reason felt the need to come to communicate with me. At the time, a deity that represented strength, self-reliance, and male fecundity and sexual prowess (which my research indicated he was) seemed really appealing, so I gave worshipping him in my mind and verbally a go. It felt really good, as though I was being filled with power, ego and strength.

One occasion that completely astonished me was when I was particularly enamoured with his worship whilst grocery shopping, and when I went to the automated check-out to pay for my goods, I kid you not, the receipt printed out a total of $'66.06'.

I have since for the last year or so ceased to have such dreams, and thus I've defaulted back to the world-view I've long been most comfortable with - agnostic, secular materialism. Nonetheless it has been playing on my mind again as of late, these unresolved, experiences, and I want to know what to make of them. I feel as though something doesn't want me to post this post either.

What is everyone's opinion on all of this? Surely you can all see how improbable all this is by materialistic chance alone, and the real kicker for me was that receipt. What are the chances the one time I go grocery shopping with this mindset that I get the number of the beast on a physical receipt in the middle of the day??

Your thoughts and input would be much appreciated.

Thanks all,
 
Hi Slowvehicle,

Not exactly, no, but if it had to be represented within the constraints of a dollars and cents format, within the price range I was buying goods (i.e. well under $100), it would have to be either '66.60' or '66.06'. I think that if there is an 'it' at play here, if there was literally '666' printed where the total should display, it would be far too blatant to manifest on a physical, material object like a receipt. Anyways ... :/
 
As Slowvehicle said, 66.06 is not the number of the beast (nor, according to some, is 666).

There is likely a bit more to it biologically speaking, but it appears that the basis of your issue are the dreams/hallucinations that occur in the transitional stage from awake to sleep and from sleep to wakefulness. Both have been discussed quite a bit on this forum, and searches should lead you reams of info, but here is my layman's summary, and by layman I mean someone who used to frequently have very similar experiences and still has them infrequently:

During the time of transition between wakefulness and sleep, your brain shuts off most of your ability to control your physical movements; it does this to prevent you actually acting out your dreams. Also during that transition stage, it is common for you to fall into a version of dreaming, but since you are not yet fully asleep the perception and feeling are different and usually more intense. Hence, they feel more real and are prone to being remembered as actual events instead of as the hallucinations that they, in fact, are.

And that's all there is to it. It is suspected with a great deal of merit that such experiences are the root of several old superstitions such as the succubus.

Here are a couple of sciencey links. Hypnogogia is transitioning from wakefulness to sleep; hypnopompia is transitioning from sleep to wakefulness. The term "sleep paralysis" is often used as a synonym; it is technically incorrect as a reference to the hallucinations, but as layman's shorthand it works just fine.

Hypnogogic hallucinations

Hypnopompic hallucinations
 
Hi all,

I would first of all like to express my sincere gratitude at the work skeptics do to debunk fraudsters, dubious beliefs and general misinformation in our world. I want to let you all know, before you read the following, that I consider myself a sane, intelligent person. I am also a natural-born empiricist, rationalist, and materialist. I love the 'real' material world, and the notion that the world we're born into is it, and all that we have is material. Nonetheless, I have had experiences I find it hard to rationalise in a solely materialistic world. I want nothing more than a skeptic to debunk all my experiences as total products of the mind (i.e. the physical brain), nonetheless I also want truthful insight, not biased by any held worldview.

I have had what I perceive to be experiences of pure evil, experiences which I can only interpret to be demonic or satanic. These have manifested in my 'dream states' as well as in real life.

It all started when I was around 19, approx. 4 years ago now. I took this 16 year old guy to bed (I am gay), we fooled around, and after finishing up and being very satisfied with the handsome young man I had landed myself, lay there peacefully in the post-sex bliss. I was facing him as I laid there. I was in no way under any stress nor did I feel any guilt, but pure satisfaction and relaxation. As I faced him, his eyes rolled up into his head, he started shaking, he then came over to my side of the bed, sat on my chest and started choking me, with those eye-rolled demonic eyes. I felt as though I was going to die, become possessed, or otherwise something purely horrible was about to occur. I kept saying 'No, no, no', but I felt like I couldn't speak loudly. Next thing, he was no longer on top of me, but back right next to me in the bed, still shaking, eyes rolled, and I continued to in my terrified voice say 'No, no, no!'. I "woke up", and every single thing about the room stayed the same, except his face, which now was a 'normal' face, but looked very concerned at me like I was crazy, I could do nothing but apologise and say 'sorry, I had a really bad nightmare'. The whole time I felt I was totally awake and aware, but paralysed. During and after this experience, I felt as though this guy was demonically influenced or otherwise cursed, and probably had something very evil happen to him. Furthermore I felt complicit in seducing this young fellow into a gay encounter, as though this made me complicit in this evil and hence why the evil was interested in me joining the 'force'. I later learnt that this guy did indeed have a very dark childhood, I won't go into detail.

About 2 years later, I began having extremely disturbing, extremely vivid 'nightmares', night after night. Often, my whole room would stay exactly the same as in real life, and I didn't feel like I was sleeping at all. I would often feel an extremely evil presence lurking behind the storage area door at the other side of my bedroom. These dreams would mock me, and in one I was paraded with figures in my life who by the very tone of the discordant music playing were clearly cursed and seemed to me were being shown as being complicit with the devil. Notably I got up, walked into the hall outside my room (again, it didn't feel like a dream, everything was as it should be), with my step mother curled up in a ball on the floor, wickedly laughing . In these dreams, I would often 'wake up' repeatedly in my room, only to find I was still in the nightmare. One night I finally "woke up" for real looking at my alarm clock ominously reading '3:33'. I remember one time being so horrendously terrified I got up out of bed, switched on every single light in the house, went downstairs to the lounge room, turned on the television loudly. For a number of nights in a row I didn't dare sleep in my room, only on the couch with the lights and tv on.

Around a year later, when I had moved out of home, I started having demonic nightmares again. I often knew when I was going to have a horrible nightmare night, as I would feel a sense of intense evil lurking in my apartment and the place would creak incessantly far beyond what one would normally expect with the natural expansion and contraction of things in a home. There would also often be a very distinct buzzing vibration noise, like when you have tinnitus of the ear, but it would come out of nowhere and be quite a distinct and loud vibration. I remember one night waking up from a nightmare, and I kid you not there were red pentagrams burned into my retina floating around the room for a good 4 or 5 seconds. They were so discernable, and there were there, in my eyes, in my waking hours..

I couldn't help but research these phenomena and their spiritual implications. After all, these experiences seemed to me almost deniably real. I can't explain to you how terrifyingly real they were. One notion that I liked the thought of was that Satan was some pagan God that Yahweh (the Abraham God of Judaism, Christianity and Islam) had dethroned, scape-goated and that he now was really pissed off, and for whatever reason felt the need to come to communicate with me. At the time, a deity that represented strength, self-reliance, and male fecundity and sexual prowess (which my research indicated he was) seemed really appealing, so I gave worshipping him in my mind and verbally a go. It felt really good, as though I was being filled with power, ego and strength.

One occasion that completely astonished me was when I was particularly enamoured with his worship whilst grocery shopping, and when I went to the automated check-out to pay for my goods, I kid you not, the receipt printed out a total of $'66.06'.

I have since for the last year or so ceased to have such dreams, and thus I've defaulted back to the world-view I've long been most comfortable with - agnostic, secular materialism. Nonetheless it has been playing on my mind again as of late, these unresolved, experiences, and I want to know what to make of them. I feel as though something doesn't want me to post this post either.

What is everyone's opinion on all of this? Surely you can all see how improbable all this is by materialistic chance alone, and the real kicker for me was that receipt. What are the chances the one time I go grocery shopping with this mindset that I get the number of the beast on a physical receipt in the middle of the day??

Your thoughts and input would be much appreciated.

Thanks all,

What sort of home life did you have growing up? Were you involved in any formal religion, and if so, which one?
 
Hi William Parcher, I'm not exactly sure what a 'Woo' is, maybe someone who is trying to convert others to a certain supernatural cause, like religion? I can guarantee you I am not, I just want to make sense of this. I reveal the age of my lover as I feel it may have fed into the 'evil' dynamic of the situation (if it was indeed evil that was present), as though his younger age made me more complicit in the evil?? I will furthermore add that in my jurisdiction (NSW, Australia) the age of consent is 16 for homosexual and heterosexual sex.

Hi Garrette, thanks for that info. I have heard of some of that stuff before, I will read more into it and your supplied links.

Hi Resume. I have divorcee parents. My father is nominal Presbyterian Protestant and my mother nominally Roman Catholic. Neither are practicing, however my mother does believe in God. I attended a Roman Catholic high school, however I was extremely skeptical of the whole affair the entire way through and never attended church voluntarily. I was an agnostic through my youth. Nonetheless my experiences I must admit are extremely compatible with Catholic theology surrounding homosexuality, demons, Satan and possession.

Anyways guys, it is 4am here in Australia, I really wanted to post this before I went to bed. Looking forward to reading more responses and responding in more detail when I wake up tomorrow. Thanks everyone so much for your serious consideration and input, I genuinely appreciate it.
 
Hypnagogic and hypnopompic hallucinations appear to be very real; the motif of someone (often a demon or an animal) sitting on one's chest is a very common theme in these.

Night terrors and nightmares are qualitatively different but unless someone is monitoring you, it's hard for the sufferer to tell them apart.

The first experience you describe, shorn of the ex post facto guilt/evil you felt, is an absolutely classic description of a hypnagogic/hypnopompic hallucination.

Your second set of experiences appear to be severe night terrors or nightmares. Because the onset of night terrors in an adult can be indicative of some other conditions, it might be useful to mention them to your doctor especially if they return.

The coincidence of the numbers appears to be just that, a coincidence. We invest numbers with significance even though they don't have them. 666 is one of those numbers, just like lucky 3 or unlucky 13. The numbers themselves have no meaning, it's humans imposing a cultural significance.

We see patterns because we are hard-wired to make these kinds of connections. This evolutionary trait is very useful when deciding whether the pattern of light and shade at the edge of the clearing is a hungry tiger or just sunlight and grass - false positives for hungry tigers keep us safer than false negatives will - but less useful in our modern world.

We still make connections and see patterns, but now we have to worry less about tigers and more about being aware of selection bias (where you remember the receipt that read $66.06 and forget all the receipts that read $58.54 or $72.69, on days when you were equally enamoured of worship of this mythical Satan entity).

If you find yourself feeling that 'something' is preventing you posting, then first of all you've overcome that 'something' by posting, and secondly this is something you should probably chat to a doctor about.

Were you brought up to be religious? Have you ever had an experience which might have left you with post-traumatic stress?
 
Hi Slowvehicle,

Not exactly, no, but if it had to be represented within the constraints of a dollars and cents format, within the price range I was buying goods (i.e. well under $100), it would have to be either '66.60' or '66.06'. I think that if there is an 'it' at play here, if there was literally '666' printed where the total should display, it would be far too blatant to manifest on a physical, material object like a receipt. Anyways ... :/

All right. This is where you begin your search for evidence.
 
. What are the chances the one time I go grocery shopping with this mindset that I get the number of the beast on a physical receipt in the middle of the day??

Inappropriate view of odds. It isn't just that you have allowed any iteration with sixes, but have framed it as "the one time I go".

You would have allowed $6.66. $66.06, $66.60, $666, and would have noticed any other combination of sixes if it wasn't a receipt "Oh no! The odometer reads 66 miles on my 6th trip!"

You'd notice it on an mp3, the word that came at 666 seconds, you'd notice it 66 seconds into the 6th day of the week, etc.

What are the odds that a person predisposed to notice combinations of 6's is going to notice combinations of 6's, and shoe-horn it into 666 when it isn't actually 666?

It is a virtual certainty.
 
He's also put aside the zero being in the number as something that disqualifies it as being that demonic number (666). This suggests that he'd still be shocked with a receipt of $66.86 because the three sixes are still right there in the number.
 
I am wondering what you are looking for by posting this? Perhaps you are hoping that there are enough rational explanations here on offer to rid yourself of the fear that your experiences were real. There aren't. People can offer rational interpretations and they may or may not explain what happened to you.

But think for a moment what the alternative to accepting that you have very upsetting psychologically based experiences is. You will have to accept all the demonology claptrap, superstitious pseudo-religious clap trap including belief in possession, demons, ghouls of various kinds and evil in some sort of physical form.

Rest assured that these things do not exist and don't worry too much.
 
Hi William Parcher, I'm not exactly sure what a 'Woo' is, maybe someone who is trying to convert others to a certain supernatural cause, like religion?
A woo is one who would believe in the paranormal or supernatural and related things. They may not have intentions of converting anyone to anything in particular, but they often do.

I can guarantee you I am not, I just want to make sense of this.
I appreciate that, but a "guarantee" on this forum is not meaningful in any practical way.

I reveal the age of my lover as I feel it may have fed into the 'evil' dynamic of the situation (if it was indeed evil that was present), as though his younger age made me more complicit in the evil??
You spent a lot of words in your first post explaining how you are grounded in material reality and essentially stating that you are not woo at all. But then you contradict that by saying "if it was indeed evil that was present." What you have done is state that "evil" is a valid option for you at this time as well as several years ago. A woo would leave a door wide open for paranormal or supernatural explanations and be sure to mention that.

I will furthermore add that in my jurisdiction (NSW, Australia) the age of consent is 16 for homosexual and heterosexual sex.
Thanks for the info.
 
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At my shop there is a combination of items that adds up to $6.66 it is of no significance other than any meaning you attach to you. I always chuckle when it pops up but take no further interest in the number, I suggest you do the same. How many times have you been thinking of evil and not seen the number 6 repeated? Its conformation bias along the lines of people who attach meaning to seeing 11:11 on the clock or any 11 when they check the time, they ignore the thousands of times they don't see an 11. Coincidence.

I don't know much about sleep science but it appears there is quite a lot of info on this forum for you to familiarize yourself with it. Good luck.
 
It sounds like you had a catholic upbringing combined with a severe sleeping disorder.

On a more serious note, you very well might have some kind of neurological defect such as epilepsy or a benign tumor that is interfering with your temporal lobes. Why don't you go see a doctor?
 
I ONCE went to a 7-11 and the total was $7.11.

I asked the guy at the counter how often that happened, he said, "More often than you would think.".
 
It sounds like demons to me.

Luckily, I don't believe in demons or the supernatural, so I'm immune.
 
Others have noted possible causes of your sensations, all of which I agree with. I also second the idea of a all-around physical/mental check-up just to make sure there's nothing going awry.

I'll just note some things that caught my eye.

I am also a natural-born empiricist, rationalist, and materialist.
Not really. Those characteristics are not natural-born but must be developed and exercised regularly to keep them at a working level.

Nonetheless, I have had experiences I find it hard to rationalise in a solely materialistic world.
As a materialist, what alternatives to a "solely materialistic world" would you consider as possible explanations for your experiences?

I want nothing more than a skeptic to debunk all my experiences as total products of the mind (i.e. the physical brain), nonetheless I also want truthful insight, not biased by any held worldview.
As a materialist, what alternatives to "total products of the mind" would you consider as possible explanations for your experiences?

It is impossible for anyone to comment on your experiences without "any" worldview. After all, skepticism itself is a worldview.

I have had what I perceive to be experiences of pure evil, experiences which I can only interpret to be demonic or satanic. These have manifested in my 'dream states' as well as in real life.
You use that word often. Since you say you are not religious, what do terms like evil, demonic, and satanic mean to you?

....Furthermore I felt complicit in seducing this young fellow into a gay encounter, as though this made me complicit in this evil and hence why the evil was interested in me joining the 'force'.
This wording concerns me. You have indicated that this guy was of legal age to have consenting sexual relations so I am unsure what "this evil" refers to? Were you dishonest when you picked him up? Did he acknowledge being homosexual? Do you think homosexuality is evil or do you think a one-night stand is evil? Or something else?

What is the 'force'? What does it mean to join it?

..... One night I finally "woke up" for real looking at my alarm clock ominously reading '3:33'.
What is ominous about 3:33? At this point I'm questioning your assertion that you are a rationalist if some time on a clock can be ominous.

.... For a number of nights in a row I didn't dare sleep in my room, only on the couch with the lights and tv on.
Why didn't you "dare" do it? Did you think a real, evil presence threatened you somehow?

.... There would also often be a very distinct buzzing vibration noise, like when you have tinnitus of the ear, but it would come out of nowhere and be quite a distinct and loud vibration.
I have problems with tinnitus and the perceived sound is non-local and quite distinct so I'm not sure why you put the word "but" in there. Also, by the way, the presence of tinnitus is another very good reason to get a physical check-up. Sometimes there are causes that can be discovered and maybe dealt with.

I kid you not, the receipt printed out a total of $'66.06'.
And yet you describe yourself as a sane, intelligent rationalist. I have my doubts.
 
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