Matt Rouge's thought-provoking guest post has stimulated a lot of discussion, and it got me thinking, as well. Lying in bed last night around 2 AM, I couldn't help noodling on the whole question of UFOs and some related matters. The idea I kept coming back to was "bleed-throughs."
According to Wiktionary, the three main definitions of "bleed-through" are:
- The seepage of ink from one side of a printed page to the other
- The discolouration of a wood veneer due to seepage of glue
- A weak imprint of magnetic information transferred to adjacent layers of audiotape, resulting in an unwanted echo.
I remember reading a passage in the Seth material channeled by Jane Roberts in which Seth tells us that reality consists of many parallel dimensions or timelines, only one of which we occupy. There can be intrusions from other dimensions or timelines, resulting in anomalous phenomena. This is essentially what I mean by "bleed-through."
The third definition quoted above is the one closest to my meaning. "An imprint of information transferred to an adjacent layer of the information storage medium" could be a valid explanation – or at least the beginning of an explanation – for UFOs and a variety of other seemingly inexplicable phenomena.
As readers of this blog know, I'm partial to the idea that information is fundamental to our reality. In other words, the physical reality that we perceive with our senses can be likened to the virtual reality rendered in a headset by a computer program. In both cases, the seemingly real world of three-dimensional objects reduces to an unseen realm of data and data-processing algorithms.
If each stream of reality in Seth's multi-dimensional scenario is ultimately a stream of information, then perhaps some of this information can be transferred from one stream to another, either intentionally or by chance. The resulting bleed-through would yield artifacts in our reality that seemingly don't belong here – weird intrusions from other timelines.
UFOs seem to have much in common with apparitions, which may be another form of bleed-through. Apparitions vary in their degree of corporeality; some seem wispy and insubstantial, while others are reported to be quite tangible and solid. In cases where an apparition has been observed by several people at once, it appears that it is seen from various perspectives, like any other physical thing; the person facing the apparition will see it head on, while the person standing to the side will see it in profile. Apparitions also have been seen reflected in mirrors, and they can match the light-and-shadow conditions of their environment. In some cases, apparitions seem to have been caught on film, videotape, or other recording media, while the field of electronic voice phenomena offers many examples (admittedly often disputed) of voices captured from the ether.
In short, apparitions can, in some cases, seemingly have the physical characteristics we associate with ordinary physical objects. And yet they are certainly not ordinary physical objects, because they walk through walls, appear and vanish unpredictably, and sometimes are seen by only certain observers while remaining invisible to others in the vicinity.
All of these characteristics can be ascribed to UFOs, as well. Do they sometimes show up on radar? Yes. Are they sometimes captured on film or video? Yes. Do they appear and vanish unpredictably? Yes. Are they sometimes seen by certain observers but not others who are equally well situated? Yes.
We can extend the argument by looking at other paranormal or anomalous phenomena such as poltergeists, deathbed visions, out-of-body experiences, near-death experiences, after-death communications, and episodes of cosmic consciousness. Any of these could be seen as a bleed-through, sometimes accidental, sometimes intentional. This presumes, of course, that one (or more) of the parallel timelines can be characterized as "the afterlife," and that the "spirits" occupying this zone can cross "through the veil" from one timeline to another.
In many of these phenomena, an altered state of consciousness is involved, so we may be talking about a combination of the bleed-through of information and an adjustment of the "frequency" of consciousness to perceive it. As a rough analogy, imagine listening to the radio and hearing a faint signal from another radio station; if you adjust the dial, you can tune in the other station more clearly. The bleed-through itself may be only half the equation, with the fine-tuning of consciousness as the other half. Either factor, alone, can result in some degree of perception of an anomalous phenomenon, but when both factors are in play, the perception will be more vivid.
This notion might go some way toward explaining why both UFOs and apparitions vary in their degree of physical reality. Some UFOs do not show up on radar. Some do not appear on film or video even when the camera operator is certain he got the image in frame. Perhaps the correct combination of informational bleed-through and perceptual fine-tuning is needed to get fully "real" results.
The same line of thinking may also explain why UFO sightings sometimes come in waves. An initial sighting may trigger a subconscious adjustment of perception in other people's minds, making them more likely to perceive UFOs. It is said that when Uri Geller performed his spoon-bending act on television, many people – especially children – started bending spoons spontaneously, something they had never done before. Seeing Geller do it was enough to alter their consciousness so they could do it too, at least temporarily. The same thing has been known to happen in the "PK parties" hosted by Jack Houck; it can take a while for anyone to start bending spoons, but once one or two people have done it, the rest of the crowd will find it much easier to follow suit. A small adjustment of consciousness, perhaps merely a lowering of inhibitions, seems to help bring the phenomena into being.
Consider also the recurrent waves of excitement about spiritualism from the mid-19th century through the early 20th century, which can be compared to a social mania. The positive results obtained by some amateur experimenters – hearing raps or getting messages via planchette – would stimulate other people to obtain similar results. Simply seeing or hearing about the phenomena may be enough to alter consciousness just a bit and make it more susceptible to picking up bleed-throughs.
Returning to our list of anomalous phenomena, we can consider how each one might relate to bleed-throughs.
- Poltergeists — a persistent bleed-through of a particular spiritual entity, often associated with the consciousness of a particular person (typically an adolescent or young adult who is emotionally disturbed or high-strung, perhaps exhibiting traits of altered consciousness).
- Deathbed visions — the bleed-through of the afterlife timeline into our own, as perceived by the altered consciousness of the dying person and sometimes by people nearby.
- Out-of-body experiences — possibly a way of projecting our own awareness into another timeline; in effect, a reverse bleed-through. Are poltergeists in our world simply entities that are having out-of-body experiences in their world?
- Near-death experiences — essentially a combination of deathbed visions and out-of-body experiences, with the altered consciousness that attends the dying process tuning in to information from a nearby dimension and then projecting itself into that timeline.
- After-death communications — intentional bleed-throughs on the part of people who are no longer alive in our timeline, but who have a strong emotional connection to somebody here. These are most common, I think, when the living person is dealing with the emotional shock and disorientation of grief and loss – in other words, when the percipient is experiencing an altered state of consciousness.
- Episodes of cosmic consciousness — "cosmic consciousness," a term coined by Richard Maurice Bucke in his book of the same name, is an epiphany in which a person has a sudden, profound sense of the meaning of life and the ultimate nature of reality. Again, this could be understood as a combination of a shift in consciousness and a bleed-through of information that is normally masked from our perception.
Other phenomena, such as the Mothman, Bigfoot, visions of the Virgin Mary or other iconic figures, alien abductions, and even levitation and miraculous healing may also be connected with the idea of information transfer and consciousness fine-tuning.
Michael, I think you are in rather good, if not notorious company when you say you are partial to the idea that information is fundamental to our reality. Rupert Sheldrake has proposed something similar in his theories of morphic resonance and formative causation. Sheldrake is attempting to explain why if DNA only codes for proteins, what is it that produces form; that is, what causes the proteins to form livers, hearts, brains, etc. as well as crocodiles, bears, and giraffes etc; water lilies, sunflowers and corn etc rather than one giant amorphous mass of goo. "Morphic resonance" has been likened to a kind of cosmic immaterial memory bank that stores all kinds of information about form and growth in nature. Similar to what you have suggested previously at times.
Sheldrake has also referenced tests on animals (rats) which suggest that once an individual or genetic line of individuals learns something, it becomes easier and easier for succeeding generations of rats of that species to learn it, even if they are on the other side of the world; as if the new behavior somehow became part of the universal memory bank from which new generations of individuals draw up on as they develop. - AOD
Posted by: Amos Oliver Doyle | June 01, 2019 at 04:44 PM
Michael,
What you say makes sense to me. It explains what we observe with parsimony.
I must say, this forum has really been arriving at some meaningful theories and conclusions lately! So many great thinkers contributing level headed pieces of the puzzle!
Posted by: Eric Newhill | June 03, 2019 at 10:52 AM
I think that "bleed throughs" are most likely to happen to us when our normal attention (or focus) breaks down via certain drugs, meditation, repetitive behaviors, deliberate concentration on non-normal aspects of reality or due to the influence of others who for one of those reasons (or others) have at least temporarily let their hold on normal reality slip. Then the larger realm of possibilities opens up to us (i.e. we re-set the tuner a la the transmitter/receiver model of consciousness).
Posted by: Eric Newhill | June 03, 2019 at 02:35 PM
Michael,
As usual, I appreciate your post and your knocking away at the problem of Reality. I think this practical kind of philosophy has the greatest potential to produce real breakthroughs, and I think your blog represents some very good work indeed in this regard.
I am curious about your use of the word "timeline," which is trendy these days in New Age circles. I would appreciate your thoughts on what it means to you.
To your list I would also add "dreams." Yes, I think dreams are a paranormal phenomenon hiding in plain sights. A paranormal phenomenon that is extremely normal, if you will. Simply put, dreams are OBEs, a shedding (mostly but temporarily) of our corporal limits for a dip in the astral waters. I'd appreciate your thoughts on that as well!
Posted by: Matt Rouge | June 03, 2019 at 05:54 PM
Matt, I may as well keep knocking away at Reality, because Reality sure does have a way of knocking away at me!
I didn’t know "timeline" was trendy, and it may not be the right word. I’m thinking of parallel storylines that sometimes brush up against each other, allowing for weird anomalies. I wouldn’t say these narrative lines, or data streams, or different VR environments, or parallel worlds, or whatever they are, are necessarily running at the same clock speed. Or even that clock speed (or time as we understand it) would apply when comparing two different streams. Clock speed would seem to be a feature within a given stream, but not necessarily one that two streams would have in common.
Dreams seem to be related to OBEs, premonitions (as in Bruce Siegel's book and some other studies), and access to a different level of consciousness that is more symbolic and holistic than ordinary left-brain reasoning. I think some dreams — perhaps many — are projections into another plane of existence, though others may only be the mind crunching data. The only experiences I’ve had that *might* qualify as OBEs have taken place while I was asleep, and took the form of exceptionally vivid dreams. (Of course, they may have been "ordinary" dreams and not OBEs. But I suspect the dividing line between dreams and OBEs is pretty permeable, so it may be a distinction without much of a difference.)
Thanks for the good questions and kind words!
Posted by: Michael Prescott | June 03, 2019 at 09:39 PM
I think "bleed throughs" is a good explanation for reincarnation phenomena. I think the evidence we have for reincarnation is real enough only our explanation for what it is and what it means is not quite how we interpret it. I believe it has more to do with the interconnectedness and oneness of the Universe.
Posted by: Art | June 04, 2019 at 07:42 AM
I'm sorry if this is off topic but does Chris Carter, author of Science and the Near Death Experience, read this blog? I am presently reading this book and in the first part he spends a lot of time talking about the productive model versus the transmissive model of consciousness and how insults to the brain affect consciousness but that doesn't mean the brain produces consciousness....
While reading I kept thinking about Terminal Lucidity and how people with alzheimer's and other brain problems sometimes wake up right before they die and become lucid and have normal conversations with their loved ones right before they die? And that scientists have no explanation for terminal lucidity and can't explain it? Also Dr. John Lorber's research and work with people essentially no brains but they led fairly normal lives, one guy who had an I.Q. of 126 and was good at math, but only like a centimeter of brain?
These two things alone negate the production model of the brain and consciousness? I wonder why Chris Carter didn't talk about or mention them in his book? I have met people at my church whose family members woke up right before they died and also I met a Methodist Minister at the hospital who told me that right before his mother died (just a few weeks before I met him) woke up and started talking to him even though she hadn't been able to talk for a couple of years due to alzheimer's. From what I've read terminal lucidity is very common and has been known about for years?
Anyway if any of ya'll know Chris Carter, author of Science and the Near Death Experience could you ask him why he didn't talk about or bring up terminal lucidity or Dr. John Lorber's work in his book? I think both of these things negate the brain producing consciousness question.
One Last Goodbye: The Strange Case of Terminal Lucidity - Scientific American
https://blogs.scientificamerican.com/bering-in-mind/one-last-goodbye-the-strange-case-of-terminal-lucidity/?redirect=1
Posted by: Art | June 04, 2019 at 04:02 PM
Art, thanks for linking to the article on terminal lucidity. What a great intro:
"I'm as sworn to radical rationalism as the next neo-Darwinian materialist. That said, over the years I've had to "quarantine," for lack of a better word, a few anomalous personal experiences that have stubbornly defied my own logical understanding of them."
I'll bet *lots* of experiences remained similarly quarantined within the minds of skeptics.
And you're right: terminal lucidity is yet another strong indication that consciousness originates elsewhere than in the brain.
Posted by: Bruce L Siegel | June 04, 2019 at 10:47 PM
I'm a big dream person, I keep up a huge dream journal, and my dreams are, for me, just as exciting and interesting as my regular life.
Personally, I do believe that our dream world is synonymous with the astral plane. I believe the extremely mercurial nature of our dreams is due to "coloration" by our waking mind, because the dreams we can remember are those we experience when we're partially awake. The more awake we are, the more our dreams are colored by our conscious thoughts, worries, environment, and physical senses. When the ratio is at 100% asleep: 0% awake, I have little doubt that our deep dreaming -- our nightly experiences on the astral plane -- are more stable, consistent, and perhaps more profound, than the "adulterated" taste of the astral plane that we get in our remembered dreams.
Posted by: Ro | June 04, 2019 at 11:04 PM
Ro said:
"the dreams we can remember are those we experience when we're partially awake."
Hmmm. I wonder if you dream differently than I do, Ro! I've recorded hundreds of dreams, many quite vivid, and it's my impression that I'm 100% asleep during many—or even most—of them.
Now sometimes I do recall dreams that occurred in the hypnagogic state, so I know what that feels like. But to say that the *only* ones we remember take place when we're partially awake doesn't feel right to me. What's the experience of you other readers?
Not that it really matters, Ro, but are you male or female (or other)? Your name has me perplexed. :)
Posted by: Bruce L Siegel | June 05, 2019 at 02:33 AM
Hi Bruce,
When I say I believe we are partially awake during the dreams that we recall, I don't mean that we are groggily lapsing between sleep and waking as though we're in full hypnopompic mode. I just mean that, in my admittedly anecdotal hypothesis, the dream/astral world is our unconscious mind, and it is completely closed to us unless it is illuminated by at least a shred of waking consciousness. When you sleep and are able to remember the dream, I would suggest that you are not 100% asleep during those times, but that the ratio is more like 98% asleep: 2% awake, so that a small sliver of waking consciousness is aware of, is able to bring back, and is even coloring what is taking place in your dream. You may believe you are "100% asleep," but I would suggest that you're close to 100%, but not quite that far gone; I'd bet that you still retain a teeny-tiny sliver of waking conscious during those times. The times that you are truly 100% asleep and are dreaming, I believe those dreams would be very difficult to remember or comprehend, or would fade very quickly like sand through fingers, because they did not have the spotlight of consciousness to bring them into one's waking awareness. They were only experienced by your deep unconscious, which operates on completely different thrusters than the waking awareness of the physical world.
This is just my interpretation as a long-time fascinated dreamer.
I am a woman in my early 40s. Ro is a contraction of my name. :-)
Posted by: Ro | June 05, 2019 at 02:11 PM
Thanks for the clarification(s), Ro! I think it's cool that your dream life is such a thrilling adventure for you.
Posted by: Bruce L Siegel | June 06, 2019 at 01:49 PM
“There can be intrusions from other dimensions or timelines, resulting in anomalous phenomena. This is essentially what I mean by "bleed-through.”
Michael, Matt, I like the idea of bleed-through. It’s close to my own way of perceiving these things, for which I long ago adopted the phrase “intersections.” It’s my way of describing intrusions from other realms or states of consciousness.
And my favorite insight into such anomalies is perhaps best demonstrated in the analogy of Lord Sphere, as he intersects the plane of Flatland. For just as there is no way—NO WAY—that a Flatlander can ever understand such an intrusion, there is no way we, from our Earthly perspective, can EVER understand what’s happening with respect to the sorts of events we’re discussing, be they ET’s, the afterlife state, past lives—you name it.
The best we can do, when we’re lucky or brave, is to learn of such things through our own spiritually transformative experiences. With the caveat being that once we return to ordinary consciousness, only echoes of the truth remain.
Which brings to mind a book I’m currently reading and loving: Michael Pollan’s “How to Change Your Mind: What the New Science of Psychedelics Teaches Us About Consciousness, Dying, Addiction, Depression, and Transcendence.”
Thanks for your great posts over the years, Michael, that keep these marvelous mysteries rolling around in my mind.
Posted by: Bruce L Siegel | June 06, 2019 at 04:32 PM
@Ro:
"the dream/astral world is our unconscious mind, and it is completely closed to us unless it is illuminated by at least a shred of waking consciousness. When you sleep and are able to remember the dream, I would suggest that you are not 100% asleep during those times,"
A few decades ago the Maimonides (sp?) dream lab in Brooklyn woke people up when they were in REM mode and asked them about their dreams. I don't know if those dreams differed from the ones we remember or not.
Posted by: Roger Knights | June 07, 2019 at 11:58 PM
Here's a quote I posted before but not in threads as relevant as this one:
------------
Upstairs in his Evanston, Illinois home, Dr. J. Allen Hynek leaned back in his office chair, puffed on his pipe and explained his thinking on the theoretical presence of UFOs in our world to Quinlan.
Between the nucleus of the atom and the outside electrons there is relatively as much space as between the sun and the planets. There is a lot of space in matter. Matter is almost a vacuum really.
There could be interlocking universes. The cultists have been saying that for centuries but that’s not science.
If I had to be pressed to the wall for a hypothesis I would say we live in a multi-dimensional spacetime continuum and the typical world we see around us represents a cross-section through that.
Look at the evidence that these things are reported to do. They appear very suddenly and disappear very suddenly. The question is where are they right now? Where is this thing that visited these two in Mississippi [Pascagoula Abduction] right now physically?
Time and again I’ve had reports of where a sort of fuzzy cloud appears around them and then the whole cloud disappears. Almost like ectoplasm disappearing into another dimension.
They violate gravity. They take off with enormous acceleration without any sonic boom. A physical object can’t do that. They make right angle turns. Any object with appreciable mass can’t do that.
They behave more like holographic images, like projections, more than physical things. Yet they produce real physical effects, stop cars, frighten animals, break branches, leave marks on the ground, and in that sense they are almost like poltergeist phenomena. Nobody knows what they are but they’re pretty well documented.
That is why I say think the UFO phenomenon is a signal of another domain of nature that we haven’t explored yet.
Posted by: Roger Knights | June 08, 2019 at 01:09 AM
||They appear very suddenly and disappear very suddenly.||
They could be plasma balls, because that's exactly what a plasma ball would do. They could also not be, but there is no need to postulate bleeding from other dimensions for it.
Posted by: Juan | June 08, 2019 at 11:25 AM
Juan, have you read this book? I found it generally persuasive, with the exception of the "Phoenix lights" case, which doesn’t impress me.
https://www.amazon.com/UFOs-Generals-Pilots-Government-Officials/dp/0307717089
In case the link doesn’t work, the book is "UFOs: Generals, Pilots, and Government Officials Go On the Record," by Leslie Kean.
I haven’t read much about UFOs, but these cases seem pretty airtight, unless they’re being grossly misrepresented.
Posted by: Michael Prescott | June 08, 2019 at 08:19 PM
I experience what might be called "reincarnational bleedthroughs" fairly regularly, both in the conscious waking state and in dreams. I accept them, but also allow for the possibility that, possibly, I am simply imagining them, although if I focus on this, I remember that "imagination" is one of the primary doorways to inner worlds.
One particular experience was much more intense than others -- it was certainly not an everyday experience, and too strong to be "mere imagination."
I was sitting in the back room of a coffeehouse/cafe in Marblehead, MA, in 1983 or so with a woman friend. The decor featured cable spool tables; the room was dark, lit by candles.
Without warning I was simultaneously in a barn in France during WWI with a young French woman. "I" was wearing a uniform.
This "bleedthrough" lasted for a long moment.
A kind of bleedthrough -- but involving "probable" selves, not "reincarnational" selves, can be initiated by doing the exercise found at the beginning of Session 687 in Seth's _The "Unknown" Reality_ Volume One.
Per my understanding, both types of experience involve accessing what could be called "information" that resides in the "region of self" (my term) Seth refers to as the "soul or entity" linked to the "outer personality" or "outer ego" by the "inner self," although Seth stresses that there is no place where any of these start, the other begins.
Although some would place the "soul or entity" in the "unconscious," there's nothing even slightly unconscious about it -- that's a belief or view of the "outer personality" that is quite biased.
Per Seth, probable realities are created whenever anyone makes a choice, but this can be extended beyond personal realities and here is where Michael's use of "bleedthrough" in relation to UFOs (and other experiences) makes great sense to me.
Another part of this, though, has to do with perception -- I could provide a variation of Seth's teachings on this but if anyone is actually interested in those teachings, I suggest they get this more directly by reading Seth's words, not my paraphrasing, but note that Seth spoke through an entranced Jane Roberts from 1963 until her death in 1984; later explanations are often somewhat more sophisticated.
Meanwhile, I've just finished Gary Lachman's _Lost Knowledge of the Imagination_. The book features a number of "esoteric" thinkers, some very well known(Lachman is something of an historian of the esoteric).
Here you can find ideas and concepts that have much in common with some of core concepts of Seth's teachings, but expressed by human personalities -- writers, philosophers, etc. -- not an invisible "energy personality essence no longer focused in physical matter" as Seth described himself.
(Ms. Roberts at one point questioned her sanity -- was Seth real? -- and was thoroughly tested by a professor of psychology, but as with UFOs and "psi" in general, who ultimately decides what is "real" and what isn't?)
Here's a 34-page pdf on the topic (_The Problem of Seth's Origin: A Case Study of the Trance-Possession Mediumship of Jane Roberts Paul Cunningham Rivier College_ for anyone who wishes to wade through it):
https://www2.rivier.edu/faculty/pcunningham/Research/Problem_of_Seths_Origin.pdf
Posted by: Bill Ingle | June 08, 2019 at 09:24 PM
Bill Ingle,
Thanks for the link to Mr. Cunningham's paper considering possible sources of the Seth personality of Jane Robert. It is clearly written and thought provoking, well worth the time required to read it. - AOD
Posted by: Amos Oliver Doyle | June 09, 2019 at 12:17 PM
One example of bleed-through no one's mentioned is the appearance of mysterious strangers. The most famous of these is said to be the case of a man in 1954 who's said to have arrived at a Japanese airport and claimed that he came from the non-existent country of Taruad. The Taruad case might be urban legend, exaggerated retelling of a Cold War spy story, or something else. But there do seem to be many stories of mysterious strangers speaking strange languages and hailing from non-existent countries.
And then there are fictional animals such as the unicorn that might be bleed-through. Occasionally,animals that are thought to be myth, like the giant squid, or kraken, actually turn out to be real though.
Posted by: Kathleen | June 09, 2019 at 08:24 PM
Hey Bill,
I'm reading that paper on Seth whose link you posted. Much appreciated!
Posted by: Matt Rouge | June 11, 2019 at 10:24 AM