Hello Everyone,
These are some notes I took from doing a little research on the internet that might be interesting. They are in note form but I have provided the URL so you can read the article yourself. It's probably better to do that first before reading the notes. Tell me what you think...
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Temporal Lobe Epilepsy:
-Cause for dramatic hallucinations
-Cause for "huge" galvanic skin response when religious image is presented ie: the word "God"
Founder of 7th day adventist movement had "hundreds" of religious visions which "were key in the establishment of the church"
Biography of Ellen (the founder of the 7th day movement)
-Age of 9 suffered severe blow to the head, as a result she could not go to school; semi-conscious for weeks
-following accident Ellen became changed dramatically and she became "highly religious and moralistic"
-Had powerful visions for the first time
-Blow to the head caused the TLE
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The reason this is interesting to me as well is because I used to be a believer in God but now I'm more of an agnostic. I had a vision/hallucination once, it was 3:16 AM when the ordeal was over (I don't know why I remembered the time) and something was right beside my bed. I don't know what it was (I was half asleep) but at the time I thought it was a demon or the devil himself. I was absolutely racked with fear that I was totally paralyzed and unable to move even the slightest bit. I then heard the figure, it was whispering something in my ear but I didn't want to listen to it because I know the devil is all lies, so I simply thought in my mind over and over "Jesus help me!" The interesting thing about this is that I remember the pain of my temples. They were throbbing like mad and I thought I was definitely going to have an aneurysm. Although I've never had any blows to my head that I'm aware of I do remember that I had taken a heavy dose of ginko biloba pills (because I was studying during the day or something) which increases blood flow to the brain.... something to think about.
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URL:
BBC NEWS | Science/Nature | God on the Brain