XPost: alt.folklore.ghost-stories, alt.dreams.lucid, sci.skeptic   
   XPost: bionet.neuroscience   
   From: david@edenroad.demon.co.uk   
      
   On Mon, 08 Jan 2007 10:51:22 -0800, neo wrote:   
      
   >   
   > David Mitchell wrote:   
   >> On Sun, 07 Jan 2007 09:24:50 -0800, h elmer | espeance wrote:   
   >   
   > I searched net to find whether some tests are carried out on diaphragm   
   > in ear of people who hear voices. As we know, diaphragm in ear vibrates   
   > due to air pressure waves when we hear sound, voice.   
   >   
   > I think that diaphragm in ear does not vibrate during auditory   
   > hallucination.   
      
   Correct, that's why they are defined as hallucinations, rather than some   
   sort of anomolous auditory perception.   
      
   > But wonder what if diaphragm vibrates. It will prove that air pressure   
   > waves are created by 'someone' who is invisible.   
   >   
   > I want proof. But no such experiment ever conducted.   
      
   True, but there are at least two things which seem to support the   
   "hallucination":   
   1) Other people would probably notice,  Humans tend to share beds, and   
   rarely fall asleep simultaneously.  Certainly I think I would have noticed   
   invisible people whispering into the ear of someone who is asleep with her   
   head on my shoulders.   
      
   2) As you fall asleep, a part of the brain called the Pontine RAS   
   gradually diverts attention from the exterior senses, and control from the   
   muscles (which keep you from being disturbed by irrelevant noise, and   
   stops you acting out your dreams).  At the point when you start hearing   
   hypnogogic voices this process is generally complete, so you would be   
   unlikely to hear any exterior voices anyway, unless they were perceived as   
   threatening or interesting by the RAS (which is an "intelligent" switch,   
   capable of waking us in that event).   
      
   3) Occams Razor tends to support the hypnogogic hallucination hypothesis   
   over that of whispering invisible entities.   
      
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    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)