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Premonition?

fuelair said:
With a totally pointless meaningless anecdotal story with no verification but yours.
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Whole sentences with a subject and a verb and commas are much easier to follow. At least your adjectives were not redundantly redundant. I can see why you might be put off on the mention of further education. My apologies.
 
RandomElement said:
Even so, some sort of external cueing is needed to rely on experience.
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That's kind of my point. And since I wasn't there, I don't know what external cueing there was. And, like I said, there's no reason to assume you'd even remember what it was that made you cautious.

Reno said:
Maybe it was the same phenomenon that occurred the day RandomElement just got up out of the blue and discovered a vase in a box hidden in a deadspace in a cupboard.
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Oh yeah. It's the same guy. I hadn't noticed.
 
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I think this is exactly the same as that phenomenon when you're driving down the road, and happen to glance over right into someone's eyes.

It really does seem like you looked exactly there because you somehow sensed someone's gaze on you. In fact, you probably glance a lot of different directions many, many times while driving. The vast majority of them are utterly unremarkable, and forgotten. When, on occasion, you happen to glance toward a face, it is remembered and marked down as "evidence" that you can sense someone's gaze on you.

And I'll bet there are many times when you do slow a bit and glance to the right when approaching an intersection, even with a green light. In driver's ed, I recall they advised doing just that when it's a "stale green"--meaning it could change as you approach it, and someone trying to shave a bit off their red light to avoid braking might be coming.

Again, what if there wasn't a car approaching this particular time? I guarantee this thread would not exist.

It's just the confirmation bias.
 
W Wright said:
I expect the driver may have heard something, or perhaps seen in the distance a person turn their head or a reflection or shadow - something in the brain said "that's not quite right!" and sent up a red flag.
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While that is certainly a consideration is most cases, my view was blocked by a brick-walled building (which if I claimed to see through, well - 'nuff said) and at the time, the other car must also have been several hundred feet from the BUSY intersection. In other words there were dozens of cars ahead of the speeder.
 
RandomElement said:
Whole sentences with a subject and a verb and commas are much easier to follow. At least your adjectives were not redundantly redundant. I can see why you might be put off on the mention of further education. My apologies.
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Do you need a hug RE?

Can I call you RE?

You're taking this very personally. I'm sorry that you are not any more (or less) special than the rest of us. That's how the universe really operates... it's a "crap happens" kind of place. Sometimes good. Sometimes bad. You got lucky once.

Do you feel better?

(Random chance)
 
Oh. . .I sense a pattern. "I'm a hard core skeptic, but how do you explain this?" I notice you're careful to maintain your "skeptic" status only by never explicitly saying what you think.

OK, you reject some sort of unconscious cuing, or simply confirmation bias, what then is YOUR explanation? (Ditto the vase finding story. I think most of us responded to that by asking what you wanted to have explained.)

I think you're making some sort of paranormal claim by implication, but avoiding anything explicit just so you can claim to be a skeptic.
 
I think this is exactly the same as that phenomenon when you're driving down the road, and happen to glance over right into someone's eyes.

It really does seem like you looked exactly there because you somehow sensed someone's gaze on you. In fact, you probably glance a lot of different directions many, many times while driving. The vast majority of them are utterly unremarkable, and forgotten. When, on occasion, you happen to glance toward a face, it is remembered and marked down as "evidence" that you can sense someone's gaze on you.
I never do that sort of post hoc analysis. Nor do I play the telephone game. This was CLEAR action taken BEFORE the event.

And I'll bet there are many times when you do slow a bit and glance to the right when approaching an intersection, even with a green light. In driver's ed, I recall they advised doing just that when it's a "stale green"--meaning it could change as you approach it, and someone trying to shave a bit off their red light to avoid braking might be coming.
I understand safe-driving practices. Hitting the brakes hard is quite different than feathering them just-in-case.

Again, what if there wasn't a car approaching this particular time? I guarantee this thread would not exist.
Naturally. You guys seem to be taking the bent that I am trying to prove something. I had an unusual 'vision' that seemed to be tied to an external event and I put it up for dissection, nothing more.
 
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JoeTheJuggler said:
Oh. . .I sense a pattern. "I'm a hard core skeptic, but how do you explain this?" I notice you're careful to maintain your "skeptic" status only by never explicitly saying what you think.

OK, you reject some sort of unconscious cuing, or simply confirmation bias, what then is YOUR explanation? (Ditto the vase finding story. I think most of us responded to that by asking what you wanted to have explained.)

I think you're making some sort of paranormal claim by implication, but avoiding anything explicit just so you can claim to be a skeptic.
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I am saying that my analytical mind has failed to come to any conclusion whatsoever and it bothers me. Likewise with the vase story.

Do I believe that it was a guardian angel or spirit protecting me? No.

Do I believe that I have special powers? No.

Do I believe that there was an external cue? I cannot find one.
 
This actually is fairly interesting in connection to what I've been reading about sensory processing.

See, here's the thing: our senses don't immediately report to our conscious mind, but in fact are sending info into other parts of our brain first. It's a simple survival mechanism: immediate danger signals can be immediately reacted upon without conscious consideration. Cars make vibrations when they drive. Motors make noise. Lights reflect off of other surfaces. Some tiny bit of information came into your hearing or sight that you didn't get an immediate chance to process consciously, and put you on alert.

I use techniques like this when I drive a lot - specifically, for difficult and/or blind turns, the blind spot on my van, etc. I've spent time working on recognizing the indirect clues other vehicles provide as to their location.

The specifics of a 'vision of being t-boned' could simply be that sensory data was processed in the non-conscious portions of your brain, and a warning issued in the form of a brief mental assimilation of that data. It's actually similar to what goes on in martial arts - from simple body language clues, a seasoned practicioner can predict exactly what attack is going to commence - which limb, what angle, amount of force, etc. This allows the practicioner to react appropriately and accurately without conscious thought.

My platoon at Ft. Sill gained a considerable amount of this automatic subconscious skill during crew drills. We had a timed event during evaluations in which we had to pull our command center into position and set up a camoflage net, tent extension, communications antenna, and establish basic communications - voice and digital - in under 15 minutes. After training about two weeks, each of us had gained excellent subconscious skills in doing these tasks, and honed our procedure to the point we could set up in under four minutes. We would weave and throw equipment and run hither and yon, never once consciously processing where we or our equipment were, immediately detecting problems and snags and dealing with them, etc.

Several observers wondered whether we had some weird psychic link, because we also did all of this in complete silence.

NEVER underestimate the power of the human brain!
 
RandomElement said:
I am saying that my analytical mind has failed to come to any conclusion whatsoever and it bothers me. Likewise with the vase story.

Do I believe that it was a guardian angel or spirit protecting me? No.

Do I believe that I have special powers? No.

Do I believe that there was an external cue? I cannot find one.
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Sorry, where did you mention earlier that someone had lent you an analytical mind?

Oh, as to what I think. I think either your entire OP is a lie , or you are looking for some kind of validation of a random occurence. Your responses since the OP lead purely to the belief that you are a common troll.
 
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RandomElement said:
I am saying that my analytical mind has failed to come to any conclusion whatsoever and it bothers me. Likewise with the vase story.

Do I believe that it was a guardian angel or spirit protecting me? No.

Do I believe that I have special powers? No.

Do I believe that there was an external cue? I cannot find one.
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Why do you think an ordinary event requires a special explanation? Why do you reject the confirmation bias? As far an an external cue--I'm not fond of that explanation myself (because I think it's unnecessary in explaining slowing down and looking to the right at an intersection), but the point of it is that it was something you weren't aware of.

I think you're still being at least a little insincere. You seem to be arguing for something, but unwilling to say what it is. All you can say is that you're dissatisfied with any explanation anyone comes up with. So?

Do you think there's ANY paranormal explanation for this event?
 
RandomElement said:
Does repetition make things clearer? Reread the post where I go through the math.

Is it ordinary for YOU to brake hard on a green light with no apparent stimulus?
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At the risk of boring you by repeating your OP (or, more precisely, a portion thereof) I seem to recall you saying 'premonition of being t-boned by a car in an intersection' (paraphrase). You get near intersection as light changes, premonition still in mind, you hit brakes. BFD. Do not construe this to mean I believe, at this point, anything you have to say. I don't.
 
RandomElement said:
Does repetition make things clearer? Reread the post where I go through the math.

Is it ordinary for YOU to brake hard on a green light with no apparent stimulus?
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Yes, it is ordinary. (In fact, I have hit the brakes approaching an intersection when the light is green. As I've already pointed out, that's even recommended in defensive driving when you approach a "stale green".)

I mean ordinary in the sense of an event that doesn't require any explanation. I don't know what else you're looking for. Nothing supernatural happened. There's no math necessary.

I don't think this is a "sincere inquiry". I think you're being cagey and coy. Out with it: do you or do you not think there is anything paranormal going on? If so, what? If not, what's your point?

Twice now you claim that you have done something "inexplicable" that worked out to your advantage but you don't know why you did it. (By the way, does your body frequently do actions without your intending them? If so, maybe you should be talking to a doctor instead of us.) You keep rejecting all sensible explanations, yet you refuse to admit that you're building a case that you have some kind of e.s.p. or something.
 
RandomElement said:
Does repetition make things clearer? Reread the post where I go through the math.

Is it ordinary for YOU to brake hard on a green light with no apparent stimulus?
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Bolding mine.

Yes. It is ordinary for a person to brake hard on a green light with no apparent stimulus. That's what makes it subconscious. It's also ordinary for someone to raise a hand and block their face from an incoming blow, even if they don't realize they're about to be hit.

Ordinary.

Get over it.
 
I've driven on what you refer to as "auto-pilot" before. You're on a familiar stretch of road, and after several miles you sort of "snap out of it" and realize that you were going on reflexes and memory alone. In my case, though, what snapped me out of it was generally an external stimulus like a sound or an onrushing traffic signal.

My reaction, not knowing if the light had been green for a few seconds or a few minutes and realizing that I didn't know how I'd gotten up the road as far as I had, was to step on the brakes. No, my life wasn't saved - in fact it was endangered, because I did a 180 and could've smacked into a bridge pylon (but didn't).

Even allowing for parts of the OP to be accurate, that's the part that I don't believe is as precise as you make it out to be. If you'd accept that you probably couldn't judge quickly whether the light was green for five or fifty seconds, I think it'd be more believable, and since you're reciting something from a year ago I believe you've had time to reinforce things they way you'd like to remember them having happened.

A normal skeptic's (if you are as you claim) reaction is to realize that there are a number of possibilities here:
a) mere coincidence (add to the "auto-pilot" mode and this makes the most sense
b) you don't realize whatever stimulus it was, but you likely saw or heard something that told your conscious or sub-conscious mind, "Hmm, something's not right..."
c) confirmation bias

Ya know, we could've probably handled this topic a year ago when it happened. What exactly has you posting this rather minor anecdote now? Just curious. It seems so much like a weak attempt at a ghost story told around a campfire at Kamp Krusty.

The vase in the secret compartment was better, frankly, and that one only merited three spiders.

I'm giving this one a mere one-spider salute. Carry on. :spjimlad:
 
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