Belief in God is part of human nature - Oxford study

Humans are naturally predisposed to believe in gods and life after death, according to a major three-year international study.

By Tim Ross, Religious Affairs Editor 8:17PM BST 12 May 2011

Led by two academics at Oxford University, the £1.9 million study found that human thought processes were “rooted” to religious concepts. But people living in cities in highly developed countries were less likely to hold religious beliefs than those living a more rural way of life, the researchers found.

The project involved 57 academics in 20 countries around the world, and spanned disciplines including anthropology, psychology, and philosophy. It set out to establish whether belief in divine beings and an afterlife were ideas simply learned from society or integral to human nature.

One of the studies, from Oxford, concluded that children below the age of five found it easier to believe in some “superhuman” properties than to understand human limitations. Children were asked whether their mother would know the contents of a closed box. Three-year-olds believed that their mother and God would always know the contents, but by the age of four, children start to understand that their mothers were not omniscient.

Separate research from China suggested that people across different cultures instinctively believed that some part of their mind, soul or spirit lived on after death. The co-director of the project, Professor Roger Trigg, from the University of Oxford, said the research showed that religion was “not just something for a peculiar few to do on Sundays instead of playing golf. We have gathered a body of evidence that suggests that religion is a common fact of human nature across different societies. This suggests that attempts to suppress religion are likely to be short-lived as human thought seems to be rooted to religious concepts, such as the existence of supernatural agents or gods, and the possibility of an afterlife or pre-life.”

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/politics/8510711/Belief-in-God-is-part-of-human-nature-Oxford-study.html

Monkey see, monkey recall: Like humans, they can remember what they've seen, say scientists 

By Daily Mail Reporter  Last updated at 8:01 AM on 29th April 2011

Monkeys can recollect what they've seen, according to the study which offers some of the first clear evidence that, like humans, they have the capacity for memory.

Scientists found that rhesus monkeys can flexibly recall extremely simple shapes from memory, as evidenced by their ability to reproduce those shapes on a computer touch screen. They say the findings suggest that human and monkey memory is more similar than scientists knew. Unlike recognition, recall shows an ability to remember things that are not present in the moment, the researchers explained.  Recall is necessary for planning and imagining and can increase the flexibility of navigation, social behaviour, and other cognitive skills.

Benjamin Basile, of Emory University in the United States said: 'The ability of monkeys to recall these shapes flexibly suggests that they might be able to recollect other types of information that would be useful to them in the wild. 'It's exciting to speculate that they may be able to recollect the appearance of monkeys they know, what favourite foods look like, or the path they would have to take to get to a water source.'

He said it's also possible that the monkeys use their recollection in very limited ways Basile added: 'Maybe it's often just easier to recognise the monkey, the food, or the landmark in front of you. What we do know is that they do seem to have the ability to recall information in the lab.' Earlier studies had shown that recall and recognition tests given to humans require different types of memory.

However, it had been difficult to devise recall tests suitable for other primates, given that they don't draw or talk. In the new study, Basile and Robert Hampton trained five rhesus monkeys on a novel recall test in which they had to reproduce a simple figure on a touch screen from memory. Those shapes included two or three boxes in a grid. After a delay, part of the shape appeared in a different location, and the monkeys had to 'draw' in the rest of the shape by touching where the other boxes should be.

As in humans, the monkeys remembered less in recall than in recognition tests, even under matched conditions, and recall performance deteriorated more slowly over time. Importantly, the monkeys were able to transfer their memory skill to novel shapes; their recall ability wasn't limited only to the shapes they had seen during training. The researchers say that the ability of rhesus monkeys to recall what they've seen in the past suggests that the ability to recollect does not depend on language and may have been present in our common ancestor 30 million years ago.

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-1381790/Monkey-monkey-recall-Like-humans-remember-theyve-seen-say-scientists.html#ixzz1Kts1AnRL

Did aliens establish a primitive postcode system in ancient Britain?

http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/blog/2011/apr/21/aliens-postcode-system-ancient-britain

Ancient monuments align with every postcode in the UK, suggesting powerful extraterrestrial influences at work. The uncanny alignment of prehistoric monuments indicates some form of external guidance. 

Every single location in the UK is at the convergence of three or more ley lines between ancient monuments. As I type this, the line formed by the ancient Brill Earthworks and the Southam Holy Well crosses the line running through Morden Park Mound and the Leydene Ditches, pinpointing my precise current location. Not only that, but the ley line that crosses Small Down Knoll and the most renowned of all ancient sites, Stonehenge, also goes right through my house.It's as though prehistoric Britons built monumental sites as a form of "ancient postcode".

In fact, all modern postcodes mark the convergence of three or more prehistoric ley lines, one of which will always include Stonehenge. If you want to look up your home's ancient monumental alignments, just enter your postcode into this site built by programmer Tom Scott.

The "ancient postcodes" theory is very similar to the work of Tom Brooks, who believes the locations of ancient monuments in England and Wales form such precise isosceles triangles that prehistoric Britons must have built them as a form of ancient satnav. Mr Brooks has been back in the news recently as he has just reissued his press release from 15 months ago to help promote his new book, Prehistoric Geometry in Britain: the Discoveries of Tom Brooks.

The fact that every single modern postcode is mapped out in the alignment of prehistoric monuments must be significant because, in the words of Mr Brooks, "you cannot do that by chance". We are forced to interpret these amazing alignments the same way he does his triangles and "conclude that they received some form of external guidance".

World to see biggest full moon in two decades

Wednesday, March 9 04:39 pm

Yahoo!UK News

The world is set to experience the biggest full moon for almost two decades when the satellite reaches its closest point to Earth next weekend. On 19 March, the full moon will appear unusually large in the night sky as it reaches a point in its cycle known as 'lunar perigee'.

Stargazers will be treated to a spectacular view when the moon approaches Earth at a distance of 221,567 miles in its elliptical orbit - the closest it will have passed to our planet since 1992. The full moon could appear up to 14% bigger and 30% brighter in the sky, especially when it rises on the eastern horizon at sunset or is provided with the right atmospheric conditions.

This phenomenon has reportedly heightened concerns about 'supermoons' being linked to extreme weather events - such as earthquakes, volcanoes and tsunamis. The last time the moon passed close to the Earth was on 10 January 2005, around the time of the Indonesian earthquake that measured 9.0 on the Richter scale.

Hurricane Katrina in 2005 was also associated with an unusually large full moon. Previous supermoons occurred in 1955, 1974 and 1992 - each of these years experienced extreme weather events, killing thousands of people.

However, an expert speaking to Yahoo! News today believes that a larger moon causing weather chaos is a popular misconception. Dr Tim O'Brien, a researcher at the Jodrell Bank Centre for Astrophysics at the University of Manchester, said: "The dangers are really overplayed. You do get a bit higher than average tides than usual along coastlines as a result of the moon's gravitational pull, but nothing so significant that will cause a serious climatic disaster or anything for people to worry about."

But according to Dr Victor Gostin, a Planetary and Environmental Geoscientist at Adelaide University, there may be a link between large-scale earthquakes in places around the equator and new and full moon situations. He said: "This is because the Earth-tides (analogous to ocean tides) may be the final trigger that sets off the earthquake."

Written by Gaby Leslie

http://uk.news.yahoo.com/38/20110309/tsc-world-to-see-biggest-full-moon-in-tw-98fda55.html

Mainstream media halts accurate reporting on Japan's worsening nuclear catastrophe; disinfo campaign now underway

 

Friday, March 18, 2011, by Mike Adams, the Health Ranger, Editor of NaturalNews.com

Almost as if on cue, the mainstream media today halted nearly all accurate reporting of the worsening situation in Japan, writing off the whole thing as a "non issue." This all happened in a seeming coordinate effort following President Obama's speech on Wednesday that urged Americans to NOT prepare for anything. The American people, Obama insisted, should simply watch television to "stay informed." (http://www.naturalnews.com/031735_O...) Shortly after, mainstream television news returned to its regularly-scheduled sports and entertainment programming, barely touching on the reality of the worsening situation at the Fukushima nuclear power plant in Japan.

Nuclear experts that were on mainstream news channels two days are now nowhere to be found today. Scary (but accurate) news stories about Fukushima have now been all but completely banned from the MSM. The word from the top is clearly that media outlets should start downplaying this nuclear accident, which even now ranks as the second worst nuclear accident in the history of human civilization (right after Chernobyl).

Learn more: http://www.naturalnews.com/031748_mainstream_media_nuclear_catastrophe.html#ixzz1H2XxqrIk

Census: How religious is the UK?

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-12507319

A publicity drive has started for the census, now just five weeks away, but the survey is being criticised for its question on religion. So is it even possible to accurately measure how religious the UK is?

According to the Gospel of Luke, it was a Roman census that sent Mary and Joseph to Bethlehem, where she gave birth to Jesus Christ And more than 2,000 years later, the same kind of counting exercise is being used to gauge the religious make-up of the UK.

According to the last census 10 years ago, more than two-thirds of people in Britain regarded themselves as Christian - 72% in England and Wales, and 65% in Scotland. More than 1.5 million in England and Wales, more than 3% of the population, said they were Muslim and nearly eight million ticked "no religion". There were also 390,000 self-proclaimed Jedi.

Is it a leading question?

"It fairly allows you to answer it because you can say 'no religion' but if you wanted to make it as neutral as possible, you might ask 'Which of these would you describe yourself as?' says Stephan Shakespeare of YouGov. "It does have a slight assumption, although not a strong one, but these wordings do make a difference."

But five weeks before the next census day, Sunday 27 March, some groups are questioning whether the religious numbers are at all accurate, and could ever be. They prefer to use the British Social Attitudes survey, carried out annually by the National Centre for Social Research, which paints a picture of a less-religious country, with 51% describing themselves as non-religious and 43% as Christian.

The religious question in the census was first introduced in 2001, as a voluntary option. In some other countries such as France, state questions about race, ethnicity or religion are not permitted. But in the UK, the vast majority of people answered it despite not having to, although the reappearance of the same question in the forthcoming census has prompted complaints. Question 20 in England and Wales will say: "What is your religion?" In Scotland, question 13 will ask: "What religion, religious denomination or body do you belong to?"

The British Humanist Association (BHA) believes they are leading questions that actively encourage people to tick a religious answer, thereby inflating the numbers, especially among Christians because many people hold a weak affiliation. The BHA begins a poster campaign next week on buses and at railway stations that urges people who are non-religious to "for God's sake, say so".

If you were baptised but had not been to church since then, you might be inclined to say you were still Christian, says Naomi Phillips, the head of public affairs at the BHA. She says the actual number of secular people is probably double the number the census recorded. "Many people tick Christian but wouldn't consider themselves to be religious if you asked them otherwise. And this is used to justify maintaining faith schools and used by local authorities to make their planning decisions to allocate resources to public services. "It means more budgets go to Christian groups and the needs of non-religious groups are not taken into account."

Ms Phillips says it would be preferable not to have the question, because it's hard to get an accurate picture. "It's very difficult to measure. There are so many different things to measure - by belief, practice, whether you believe in God, whether you attend places of worship, whether you pray." The census question pre-supposes you have a religion, she says, and a two-part question like they have in Northern Ireland would be fairer, which differentiates between your faith at birth and your faith now.

The humanists are not alone in wanting the question changed. The Foundation for Holistic Spirituality (F4HS) wants it easier for those people who have a spiritual but non-religious tendency to answer the question.


Census director Glen Watson explains changes

Click to play

Click to play

Holier than thou

• Outside London, the counties with the highest proportion of Christians were Durham, Merseyside and Cumbria, all with 82% or more
• The districts with the highest proportions of Christians were all in the North West: St Helens, Wigan and Copeland (Cumbria) each with 86% or more
• The number of people who stated Jedi was 390,000

Source: 2001 census

Elephants are quick learners, offer helping hand

Posted by gp at Tuesday, March 08, 2011

Elephants quickly learn to lend each other a helping hand — ah, make that a helping trunk. In a series of tests, the giant mammals learned to cooperate to solve a problem, researchers report in Monday's edition of Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

Elephants are socially complex, explained lead researcher Joshua M. Plotnik. "They help others in distress," he said. "They seem in some ways emotionally attached to each other, so you would expect there would be some level of cooperation." However, he added, "I was surprised how quickly they learned."

The elephants caught on as quickly as chimpanzees, elevating themselves to such heady company as great apes, dolphins and crows, according to Plotnik, of the department of experimental psychology at England's Cambridge University.

The tests, conducted in Thailand, involved food rewards placed on a platform on the ground connected to a rope. The elephants were behind a fence. To get the food, the elephants had to pull the two ends of the rope at the same time to drag the platform under the fence. Pull only one end and all you get is rope.

Six pairs of elephants were tested 40 times over two days and every pair figured it out, succeeding on at least eight of the last 10 trials. Then the scientists tried releasing the elephants into the test area separately, up to 45 seconds apart. The elephants quickly learned to wait for their partners, with a success rate of between 88 and 97 percent for various pairs on the second day.

However, one young elephant had what the researchers termed an "unconventional" solution to the problem. As Plotnik and co-authors explained, the elephant firmly put one foot on the end of her rope, "forcing her partner to do all the work to retrieve the table." In another experiment, the researchers left only one end of the rope within reach of the elephants, with the other end coiled on the table. The elephants didn't bother to pull the rope, seeming to recognize that it wouldn't work if their partner couldn't pull the other end.

It is hard to draw a line between learning and understanding, the researchers concluded, but the elephants did engage in cooperative behavior and paid attention to their partner.

http://www.phenomenica.com/2011/03/elephants-are-quick-learners-offer.html

Monkeys 'display self-doubt' like humans

By Victoria Gill Science and nature reporter, BBC News Monkeys trained to play computer games have helped to show that it is not just humans that feel self-doubt and uncertainty, a study says. US-based scientists found that macaques will "pass" rather than risk choosing the wrong answer in a brainteaser task. Awareness of our own thinking was believed to be a uniquely human trait.  But the study, presented at the AAAS meeting in Washington DC, suggests that our more primitive primate relatives are capable of such self-awareness. Professor John David Smith, from State University of New York at Buffalo and Michael Beran, from Georgia State University, carried out the study. They trained the macaques, which are Old World monkeys, to use a joystick-based computer game. The animals were trained to judge the density of a pixel box that appeared at the top of the screen as either sparse or dense. To give their answer, the monkeys simply moved a cursor towards a letter S or a letter D. When the animals chose the correct letter, they were rewarded with an edible treat. There was no punishment for choosing the wrong answer, but the game briefly paused, taking away - for a few seconds - the opportunity for the animals to win another treat. But the monkeys had a third option - choosing a question mark - which skipped the trial and moved on to the next one. This meant no treat, but it also meant no pause in the game. The scientists saw that the macaques used this option in exactly the same way as human participants who reported that they found a trial too tricky to answer; they chose to "pass" and move on.  Dr Smith presented footage of the animals playing the game at a session that was organised by the European Science Foundation. "Monkeys apparently appreciate when they are likely to make an error," he told BBC News. "They seem to know when they don't know." In the same trial, capuchins, which belong to the group known as New World monkeys, failed to take this third option. Dr Smith explained: "There is a big theoretical question at stake here: Did [this type of cognition] develop only once in one line of the primates - emerging only in the line of Old World primates leading to apes and humans?" http://news.bbc.co.uk/earth/hi/earth_news/newsid_9401000/9401945.stm

Half of us believe in the Hereafter... and 1 in 5 want to talk to Diana

By Daily Mail Reporter
Last updated at 9:00 AM on 28th January 2011

More than half of Britons believe in life after death and two in five believe in angels. Some 53 per cent believe in psychic powers and the possibility of life after death, a survey reveals. One in five say they have seen a ghost or felt the presence of a spirit while two in five believe in ‘guardian angels’.

Many people believe they have seen the ghost or felt the spirit of a close friend or relative who has passed away. Two in five say they want to speak to dead relatives and one in five has visited a medium or psychic to help them do so – spending an average of £31 per visit.

Almost two in five adults believe someone in their family is gifted with psychic ability. A third of the nation describe themselves as ‘spiritual’ but only a quarter claim to be ‘religious’, according to the study carried out for the Clint Eastwood film Hereafter.

However, a third of the nation still believes in heaven and a fifth believes they will be reincarnated when they pass away. One in five British adults would also love to have a conversation with the former Princess of Wales. Albert Einstein came second in the online poll of 3,000 adults, followed by Marilyn Monroe and Freddie Mercury. Seven per cent of us want to chat to Adolf Hitler.

Penny Sartori, an expert on near-death experiences and author of the study, said people are now less worried about being ridiculed for believing in spirits. But one in five of us would still be too embarrassed to admit we had seen or felt the presence of a ghost.

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1351249/Half-believe-Hereafter--1-5-want-talk-Diana.html#ixzz1CKURBl5A

Fox 'may have been prehistoric man's best friend'

By Daily Mail Reporter
Last updated at 8:43 AM on 28th January 2011

Early man may have preferred the fox as a pet rather than dogs, new findings suggest. Researchers analysing remains at a prehistoric burial ground in Jordan have uncovered a grave in which a fox was buried with a human, dated thousands of years before dogs were kept as companions.

The University of Cambridge-led team believes that the unprecedented case - in which the remains of the animal and the man were then partially transferred to an adjacent grave - points to some kind of emotional link between human and fox.  Their research suggests that the fox may have been kept as a pet and was being buried to accompany its master, or mistress, to the afterlife. If so, it marks the first known burial of its kind and suggests that long before man hunted foxes using dogs, our ancestors were keeping them as pets.

The cemetery, at Uyun-al-Hammam, in northern Jordan, is about 16,500 years old, which makes the grave 4,000 years older than the earliest known human-dog burial. However, the close relationship between man and fox was probably short-lived. Writing in the journal, PLoS One, published today, the researchers say it is unlikely foxes were ever fully domesticated and, despite their early head start, humans took to the more companionable dog for pets as time went on.

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-1351182/Fox-prehistoric-mans-best-friend.html#ixzz1CKXZFIlf

http://www.physorg.com/news/2011-01-fox-prehistoric-friend.html

Prairie dogs have a language all of their own and 'can describe what humans look like'

Rodent species: Prairie dogs - only found in North America - call out to warn their friends when a predator approaches their habitat, scientists believe

By Graham Smith , Mail Online
Last updated at 5:49 PM on 21st January 2011

It's a language that would twist the tongue of even the most sophisticated linguist. Prairie dogs talk to each other and can describe what different human beings look like, according to scientists. The species - only found in North America - call out to warn their friends when a predator approaches their habitat.

Not only that, but they have calls for 'human', one for 'hawk' and another for 'coyote', radio station NPR reports. Professor Con Slobodchikoff, of Northern Arizona University, has been studying prairie dogs for 30 years. He is particularly interested in deciphering their language because to do so would 'open the door for understanding how other species communicate'.

The prairie dog's barks, yips and chirping sounds are really a sophisticated form of communication that contains a vocabulary of at least 100 words, Professor Slobodchikoff claims. 'The little yips prairie dogs make contain a lot of information,' he said. 'They can describe details of predators such as their size, shape, colour and how fast they are going. They also can discriminate whether an approaching animal is a coyote or a dog, and they can decipher different types of birds.'

Professor Slobodchikoff and his students hid themselves in prairie dog villages and recorded the noises the rodents made whenever a human, hawk, dog or coyote passed through. What they found was that the prairie dog issues different calls depending on the intruder. The researchers discovered this by analysing the recorded calls for frequency and tone.

They concluded that it doesn't have one call for 'danger', rather it has a collection of warning noises - or a language. To further develop this line of investigation, Professor Slobodchikoff gathered four volunteers and had them walk through a prairie dog village four times. On each occasion they wore the same clothing, except for different colour shirts.

The prairie dogs responded by issuing different calls, depending on the colour of the volunteers' shirts. Professor Slobodchikoff then discovered they also issued different calls for varying heights, and even for abstract shapes including cardboard circles, squares and triangles. He told NPR: 'Essentially they were saying, "Here comes the tall human in the blue," versus, "Here comes the short human in the yellow."'

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-1349372/Prairie-dogs-language-humans-look-like.html#ixzz1BiCpBSxA

Unlucky for some: How hitherto unknown 13th sign of zodiac Ophiuchus could be why your stars never seem right

By Daniel Bates, Mail Online
Last updated at 12:05 AM on 15th January 2011

• Horoscope horror because Earth has 'wobbled' out of alignment with the moon
• Most who thought they were Virgo are actually Leo - but only in the East
  

If your horoscope has never made any sense to you, there may be a good reason why - it could be out of date. Astronomers have called for the zodiac signs to be overhauled because they no are no longer accurate.

The ancient Babylonians based zodiac signs on the constellation the sun was ‘in’ on the day a person was born. But during the thousands of years since, the moon's gravitational pull has made the Earth shift on its axis and created a one-month shift in the stars' alignment. Astronomers are now proposing to move all the star signs back one month and introduce a 13th star sign, Ophiuchus, to help readjust the zodiac calendar.

The change will come as a shock to many who will discover they have been reading the wrong star sign their entire lives - and will not necessarily be happy with their new ones. Those under dominant and creative Leo could now find themselves a Cancer, which means they are moody and sensitive. A passionate Scorpio could become a more diplomatic and balanced Libra whilst if you were a Taurus, you could now find yourself a stubborn Aires.

 
The change was suggest by Professor Parke Kunkle, who teaches astronomy at Minneapolis Community and Technical College. Astronomers study space and the stars from a scientific viewpoint whilst astrologers write horoscopes and claim that celestial bodies can give clues to personality traits.

Professor Kunkle said that those who read theirstar signs could have been reading the wrong one their whole lives and should readjust accordingly. ‘When astrologers say that the sun is in Pisces, it's really not in Pisces,’ he said.

STAR WARS: REVENGE OF THE SIGN 

There are two major systems that control our zodiac signs - tropical astrology and sidereal astrology. Tropical astrology is based on Earth's relationship with the Sun and the four seasons. It preserves the seasonal associations of the star signs worked out by early astrologers by laying out new horoscopes against a first-millennium sky. 

 

‘Historically, people looked at the sky to understand the world around us. But today I don't think people who are into astrology look at the sky very much.’ The signs of the zodiac have roots in mythology and relate to the legend of how the 12 Olympian gods took animal shapes to flee the monster Typhon who was causing havoc on Earth. They date back to Roman and Babylonian times and are based on the ecliptic, which is the path of the sun over the celestial sphere, or imaginary path around the Earth for a year. 

 

In the beginning your star sign was indeed determined by the constellation in the sky that the sun lined up with at the time of your birth. Since then, however, astrologers have adopted a mathematically equal division of the sky, so the position of the constellations is no longer relevant. 

 

The proposed 13th star sign, Ophiuchus, is a constellation in space and existing prints of its symbol indicate it is a heavily muscled individual holding a snake to the sky. Those born under Ophiuchus are said to have lofty ideals, enjoy longevity and are inventive. Those who are currently Scorpio or Saggitarius could make the switch. 

 

The Earth 'wobbles' on its axis, so the star constellations we see change over a cycle of 26,000 years. So it is irrelevant that the solsticial points (tropics) have drifted from one constellation to another over time as the relationship is symbolic. 

 

Tropical astrology is mainly practised in North America and Europe. The alternative is Sidereal astrology which is the Hindu system and is also practised by some western astrologers. It is based on Earth's relationship with the stars and therefore zodiac signs against the actual sky. 

 

An adjustment is made for the 'precession of the vernal equinox'.  This is the gradual shift in the orientation of Earth's axis of rotation, which traces out a cone once every 26,000 years. Therefore the dates of the zodiac signs change.

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-1347140/Horoscope-change-2011-Sidereal-astrology-reveals-13th-OPHIUCHUS-zodiac-sign.html#ixzz1B3gOy856

Extra Sensory Perception: a brief history

The concept of Extra Sensory Perception has been around for more than a century but was only popularised in the 1930s.

The Telegraph, Science News, 10:00PM GMT 06 Jan 2011

1870 – Term 'Extra Sensory Perception' allegedly coined by the British explorer Sir Richard Burton.

1882 – 'Telepathy' – mind reading – formally introduced after research undertaken by the Society of Psychical Research in Britain, and in 1884 by similar organisations in the US.

1892 – Dr Paul Joire, a French researcher used the term ESP to describe the ability of a person who had been hypnotised or was in a trance-like state to sense things without using ordinary senses.

1930s – Duke University psychology JB Rhine popularises the term to denote psychic abilities such as telepathy and clairvoyance. Rhine and his wife Louisa tried to develop research into "parapsychology". They used a set of cards, originally called Zener Cards, now called ESP cards, which bear the symbols of a circle, square, wavy lines, cross and a star. There are five cards of each in a pack of 25. In an experiment, the "sender" looks at a series of cards while the "receiver" guesses the symbols.

Rhine argued that when his subjects scored highly, it could only be expect by chance once in a thousand.

The experiments faced several criticisms, namely that the statistics were not reliable, that only favourable results were published and that "fraud" was possible. Computers are now being used to determine ESP.

1940 – Rhine, JG Pratt and others at Duke author a review of card-guessing experiments conducted since 1882 – 'Extra-Sensory Perception After Sixty Years', which becomes recognised as the first meta-analysis in science. More than 60 per cent of the results indicate the presence of ESP ability.

1953 – Report by Rhine on the ability of dogs to detect landmines through ESP. After a training period of more than three months, two dogs in California successfully found mines six out of seven times without any sensory cues.

1964 – Scientists demonstrate that through use of hypnosis, there is a success rate of 64 per cent.

1971 – Apollo 14 astronaut Edgar Dean Mitchell allegedly conducted secret ESP experiments during the mission with collaborators on Earth. Following 'sleep time' on the ship, he concentrated on a series of symbols and shapes on a clipboard. Four men on Earth tried to 'receive' them.

1974 – Ganzfeld test findings published by Charles Honorton and Sharon harper in the Journal of the American Society for Psychical Research. The 30-minute procedure involves two subjects, one the sender and the other the receiver. Both persons lie on chairs, eyes covered with halved ping pong balls so the visual field was solid white. White noise was played in the background. Subjects were asked to free-associate out loud while their responses were put on to a magnetic tape. In another room, the telepathic sender chose at random a set of slides to look at and try to send the subject. After the experiment, the subject was asked to guess which of the reels, of a group of four, had been the target.

1984 – Test results from 10 different laboratories find superior results. Hypnosis proved to enhance ESP ability more than anything else.

1988 – Psychologist Gertrude Schmeidler finds that higher scores are obtained when the experimenter was warmer and friendly to the subject than a cold, formal one. Dr Schmeidler, in her research, also divided subjects into "sheep", who believed ESP might work, and "goats", who did not. Her studies found that "sheep" scores were generally above expectation and "goats" scored below.

2011 – Academic paper argues that people may be able to see into the future to be published by the respected Journal of Personality and Social Psychology.


Prof Daryl Bem of Cornell University, said the results of nine experiments he carried on students over the past decade suggested humans could accurately predict random events.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/science/science-news/8244695/Extra-Sensory-Perception-a-brief-history.html 

ESP Study Gets Published in Scientific Journal

Cornell University Psychologist Daryl Bem Writes Paper on Precognition

By NED POTTER

Jan. 6, 2011

Daryl Bem is a Cornell University psychologist who says he's been doing magic as a hobby since he was 17. Now he has managed what some scientists may call his greatest trick: he's written a paper attempting to prove the power of ESP -- extrasensory perception -- and had it accepted for publication in a major scientific journal. "From seeing my own data, and from looking at other research on ESP, I think I could be classified as someone who now believes there's something there," Bem said in an interview with ABCNews.com.

But the scientific community is filled with grumbles over Bem's work. Many researchers question the wisdom of writing, much less publishing, research on humans' ability to see the future.

Now retired from a long career of mainstream psychological research, Bem says he started looking at ESP for fun, then began to take it more seriously. Over an eight-year period, he says he conducted experiments with more than 1,000 volunteers on "precognition" -- the ability to perceive things before they actually happen -- and submitted it to The Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, a peer-reviewed journal published by the American Psychological Association. The reviewers went over it and accepted it for an upcoming issue, despite some initial skepticism.

"It is not my job to decide what hypotheses are good or bad," said Charles Judd, a professor at the University of Colorado who has been serving as the journal's editor. "It's our responsibility to look at papers and give them a fair hearing, even if they fly in the face of conventional wisdom."

Judd provided ABC News with the text of an editorial that will run along with Bem's paper: "We openly admit that the reported findings conflict with our own beliefs about causality and that we find them extremely puzzling," it says in part. "Yet, as editors we were guided by the conviction that this paper — as strange as the findings may be — should be evaluated just as any other manuscript on the basis of rigorous peer review."

http://abcnews.go.com/Technology/extrasensory-perception-scientific-journal-esp-paper-published-cornell/story?id=12556754

A curse on taxes! Furious witches in Romania cast spells against government as they have to pay state for first time

By Daily Mail Reporter
Last updated at 10:59 AM on 7th January 2011

Witches and fortune tellers join driving instructors in having to declare tax

Everyone curses the taxman but Romanian witches furious about having to pay up for the first time have used cat excrement and dead dogs to cast spells on the president and government.

Also among Romania's newest taxpayers are fortune tellers - but they probably should have seen it coming.

Superstitions are no laughing matter in Romania - the land of the medieval ruler who inspired the Dracula tale - and have been part of its culture for centuries. Romanian witches from the east and west headed to the southern plains and the Danube River yesterday to threaten the government with spells and spirits because of the tax law, which came into effect on January 1.

A dozen witches hurled the poisonous mandrake plant into the Danube to put a hex on government officials 'so evil will befall them', said a witch named Alisia. 'This law is foolish. What is there to tax, when we hardly earn anything?' she said. 'The lawmakers don't look at themselves, at how much they make, their tricks; they steal and they come to us asking us to put spells on their enemies.'

The new law is part of the government's drive to collect more revenue and crack down on tax evasion in a country in recession. In the past, the less mainstream professions of witch, astrologer and fortune teller were not listed in the Romanian labour code, as were those of embalmer, valet and driving instructor and they used their lack of registration to evade paying income tax.

But under the new law, like any self-employed person, they will pay 16 per cent income tax and make contributions to health and pension programmes. Some argue the law will be hard to enforce, as the payments to witches and astrologers usually are made in cash and relatively small at £4.50-£6.50 a consultation.

Mircea Geoana, who lost the presidential race to Mr Basescu in 2009, performed poorly during a crucial debate and his camp blamed attacks of negative energy by their opponent's aides.

Geoana aide Viorel Hrebenciuc claimed there was a 'violet flame' conspiracy during the campaign, saying Mr Basescu and other aides dressed in purple on Thursdays to increase his chance of victory. They continue to be seen wearing purple clothing on important days, because the colour supposedly makes the wearer superior and wards off evil.

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1344940/A-curse-taxes-Furious-witches-Romania-cast-spells-government-pay-state-time.html#ixzz1AMOeW2Zc

UW student group raises awareness of Japanese religious persecution

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The Daily (University of Washington)

By Joon Yi
November 22, 2010

When he lived in Japan, Luke Higuchi said he was drugged by his family 21 years ago and later woke up in a mental hospital — all because of his faith. He shared this story on campus Saturday.

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“If I acted crazy, I would stay longer, so I had to give up my faith and tell my parents that I would be a good boy at home,” he recalled.

Higuchi, founder and president of Survivors Against Forced Exit (SAFE), is one of an estimated 4,300 victims of religious persecution directed at members of the Unification Church in Japan. He told his story to students at the Human Rights and Religious Freedom conference hosted by the UW chapter of the National Collegiate Association for the Research of Principles (CARP) on Saturday.

“Being aware is the first responsibility of this issue,” UW CARP president Kayeon Amaral said. “When groups are silent and issues are shut in the dark, that allows the biggest tragedy to take place.”

Amaral first became interested in raising awareness about Japanese persecution after listening to a speech Higuchi gave this past summer in New York. She worked with Chun-Mi Araki, executive secretary of the Washington chapter of the Women’s Federation for World Peace (WFWP), to organize funding for an on-campus event.

“When we heard that [Amaral and Araki] wanted to stand up for the Japanese human rights, we knew we wanted to support them right away,” said Friederike Buczyk, chair of the Washington chapter of WFWP. “Our theme this year is ‘Stand Up for Human Rights and the Dignity of Women,’ so it fit directly with this event.”

While in Washington, D.C., a few months ago, Amaral and Araki also met with Raymond Mas, deputy director of the International Coalition for Religious Freedom, who shared an interest in bringing awareness of the issue to the UW. With financial support from WFWP, Amaral and Araki were able to work together to bring Higuchi and Mas to this event.

Speakers at the CARP event said that the abuse, starvation and forceful conversion faced by members of the Unification Church in Japan stemmed from familial pressure. When believers announce their faith to their families, the family then contacts ministers of other religions to “deprogram” its son or daughter and force him or her to abandon allegiance to the church, the speakers explained. They said that often the family sends its son or daughter to a mental hospital or locks him or her in a completely sealed-off apartment, with no access to the outside world and bars on the windows.

“The bars are not to keep someone from the outside [out]. They’re there to keep someone inside,” Mas said in his introductory remarks at the conference.

Families pay a large sum of money to ministers for providing this “deprogramming” service. Higuchi estimated that his parents paid his minister more than $100,000.

Persecution of members of the Unification Church began in 1966, and is allowed to continue in large part because Japanese police and civil courts are hesitant to intervene in what they regard as a family matter, according to presentations and speeches at the event.

At the event, Mas and Friederike encouraged UW students to write to their congressmen to bring attention to the issue and prompt a hearing. Mas and Higuchi are also circulating a petition to raise awareness among representatives, and Higuchi asked students to make their voices heard via social networking sites such as Facebook.

“This is not just a church-related religious issue. It’s a human rights issue,” said freshman Leon Granstrom, vice president of UW CARP. “Revolutions always start with young people, and UW can stop this issue by spreading awareness about it.”

http://dailyuw.com/2010/11/22/uw-student-group-raises-awareness-japanese-religio/

Experts call for global action on harmful cults

China Daily, December 4, 2010 

Researchers at an international symposium on cult studies called for global coordination in combating threats posed by destructive groups.

"Destructive cult groups study the law, they evade regulations, they update their communication techniques and they evolve quickly," said Pierre Picquart, an expert on China from the University of Paris.

Picquart was among 21 scholars in the fields of religion, history, psychology, law and ethics from home and abroad who spoke at the two-day symposium sponsored by the Institute of Religious Studies of the Shanghai Academy of Social Sciences.

Although concepts and definitions of cults differed in many countries, Picquart said, most destructive cult groups represented a danger to individual liberty, health, education, social institutions and governments to the benefit of the cult leaders who gained wealth and power.

Ye Luhua, a researcher from the Institute of Religious Studies, also noted that the activities of cults were becoming rampant in some places around the world.

It was also a problem in China, which faced groups from overseas as well as those inside the country such as Falun Gong, which was identified as a destructive cult group by the government and was banned in 1999, Ye said.

Ye suggested the government should improve the functioning of community groups and organizations so that people, especially the migrant population, could settle down rather than feel lost - a feeling that could prompt them to seek support from cults.

David Clark, a cult intervention specialist from the United States, pointed out in his paper that Falun Gong, founded by Li Hongzhi in China in the 1990s, was a typical destructive group that continued to deceive and harm people in the US.

Describing it as one of the most difficult groups he had faced during his career working with many families affected by cults, Clark said, "I have observed the growth of the Falun Gong in my own country where Li Hongzhi now lives. The central focus of Falun Gong was on religious and civil liberty issues. That ignored the real harm done by those who seek such protection under the banner of freedom."

Yan Kejia, director of the Institute of Religious Studies, told China Daily that the symposium aimed to provide a platform for scholars from around the world to share their views on cult trends and to seek effective countermeasures.

http://www.china.org.cn/china/2010-12/04/content_21480566.htm

Hoaxes 'n' Spoofs

Wiki: Hoax

This article is about false information. For the film, see The Hoax.

For the Wikipedia policy about false information, see Wikipedia:Do not create hoaxes.

A hoax is a deliberately fabricated falsehood made to masquerade as truth. ^[1] It is distinguishable from errors in observation or judgment, ^[1] or rumors and urban legends that are passed along in good faith by believers or as jokes. ^[2]

Contents:
1. Definition
2. Character of hoaxes
3. Hoax traditions
4. See also
5. References
6. Further reading
7. External links

 

1. Definition

Thomas Ady's A candle in the dark ... (1656) contains the earliest mention of hocus pocus, the origin of the word hoax. ^[3]

The British philologist Robert Nares (1753-1829) says that the word hoax was coined in the late 18th century as a contraction of the verb , which means "to cheat", ^[4] "to impose upon" ^[4] or "to befuddle often with drugged liquor". ^[5] Hocus is a shortening of the magic incantation hocus pocus, ^[5] which in turn is a contraction of the phrase Hocus pocus, tontus talontus, vade celeriter jubeo, mentioned in Thomas Ady's 1656 book A candle in the dark, or a treatise on the nature of witches and witchcraft. ^[3] According to the book, the Latin-like gibberish phrase was uttered by a conjuror to distract his audience from his sleight of hand. ^[3]

The term hoax is occasionally used in reference to urban legends and rumors, but the folklorist Jan Harold Brunvand argues that most of them lack evidence of deliberate creations of falsehood and are passed along in good faith by believers or as jokes, so the term should be used for only those with a probable conscious attempt to deceive. ^[2] As for the closely related terms practical joke and prank, Brunvand states that although there are instances they overlap, hoax tends to indicate "relatively complex and large-scale fabrications" and includes deceptions that go beyond the merely playful and "cause material loss or harm to the victim". ^[6]

According to Professor Lynda Walsh of the University of Nevada, Reno, some hoaxes—such as the Great Stock Exchange Fraud of 1814, labeled as a hoax by contemporary commentators—are financial in nature, and successful hoaxers—such as P. T. Barnum, whose Fiji mermaid contributed to his wealth—often acquire monetary gain or fame through their fabrications, so the distinction between hoax and fraud is not necessarily clear. ^[7] Alex Boese, the creator of the Museum of Hoaxes, states that the only distinction between them is the reaction of the public, because a fraud can be classified as a hoax when its method of acquiring financial gain creates a broad public impact or captures the imagination of the masses. ^[8]

One of the earliest recorded media hoaxes is a fake almanac published by Jonathan Swift under the pseudonym of Isaac Bickerstaff in 1708. ^[9] Swift predicted the death of John Partridge, one of the leading astrologers in England at that time, in the almanac and later issued an elegy on the day Partridge was supposed to have died. Partridge's reputation was damaged as a result and his astrological almanac was not published for the next six years. ^[9]

It is possible to perpetrate a hoax by making only true statements using unfamiliar wording or context, such as in the Dihydrogen monoxide hoax. Political hoaxes are sometimes motivated by the desire to ridicule or besmirch opposing politicians or political institutions, often before elections.

A hoax differs from a magic trick or from fiction (books, movies, theatre, radio, television, etc.) in that the audience is unaware of being deceived, whereas in watching a magician perform an illusion the audience expects to be tricked.

A hoax is often intended as a practical joke or to cause embarrassment, or to provoke social or political change by raising people's awareness of something.

A borderline case between fiction and hoax is a 1938 radio broadcast by Orson Welles describing a Martian invasion of earth. Many people who tuned in without hearing the introduction of the program as fiction were concerned that the invasion was real. It has been suggested that Welles knew the schedule of a popular program on another channel, and scheduled the first report of the invasion to coincide with a commercial break in the other program so that people switching channel would be tricked.

Governments sometimes spread false information to assist them with aims such as going to war; examples are the Ems telegram and the "dodgy (Iraq) dossier"; these often come under the heading of black propaganda. There is often a mixture of outright hoax and suppression and management of information to give the desired impression. In wartime and times of international tension rumours abound, some of which may be deliberate hoaxes.

Examples of politics related hoaxes:

• Belgium is a country with a Flemish- and a French-speaking region. In 2006 French-speaking television channel RTBF interrupted programming with a spoof report claiming that the country had split in two and the royal family had fled.
• On Saturday 13 March 2010 the Imedi television station in Georgia broadcast a false announcementRussia had invaded Georgia. that

2. Character of hoaxes

Hoaxes vary widely in their processes of creation, propagation, and entrenchment over time. These possess frequently one or more of the following:

• Hoaxes perpetrated on occasions when their initiation is considered socially appropriate, such as April Fools' Day
• Apocryphal claims that originate as a hoax, gain widespread belief among members of a culture or organization, become entrenched as persons who believe it repeat it in good faith to others, and continue to command that belief after the hoax's originators have died or departed
• Hoaxes that are not affirmatively propagated but rather indirectly "invited," as when persons fabricate evidence consistent with a false claim but do not advocate that claim as a conclusion, instead hoping that observers desiring to draw their own conclusions will reach an erroneous one and spread it in the belief that it is true, such as the use of disinformation in war and counterintelligence
• Hoaxes formed by making minor or gradually increasing changes to a warning or other claim widely circulated for legitimate purposes
• Hoaxes perpetrated by "scare tactics" appealing to the audience's subjectively rational belief that the expected cost of not believing the hoax (the cost if its assertions are true times the likelihood of their truth) outweighs the expected cost of believing the hoax (cost if false times likelihood of falsity), such as claims that a non-malicious but unfamiliar program on one's computer is malware
• Some urban legends and rumors with a probable conscious attempt to deceive ^[2]
• Humbugs
• Computer virus hoaxes became widespread as viruses themselves began to spread. A typical hoax is an email message warning recipients of a non-existent threat, usually quoting spurious authorities such as Microsoft and IBM. In most cases the payload is an exhortation to distribute the message to everyone in the recipient's address book. Sometimes the hoax is more harmful, e.g., telling the recipient to seek a particular file (usually in a Microsoft Windows operating system); if the file is found, the computer is deemed to be infected unless it is deleted. In reality the file is one required by the operating system for correct functioning of the computer.
• A hoax of exposure is a semi-comical or private sting operation. They usually encourage people to act foolishly or credulously by falling for patent nonsense that the hoaxer deliberately presents as reality. A related activity is culture jamming.

The essential characteristic of a hoax is that it convey information that is, although false, at least somewhat credible. The subjective intent of hoax perpetrators varies, with the intent determining the content the perpetrator chooses and/or the content affecting the perpetrator's intent regarding whom to deceive: A person seeking to deceive the public as a whole may propagate a hoax consisting entirely of objectively credible claims, often bolstering it by including claims that are true or have a basis in fact. A person seeking to deceive only a specific person or set of persons (as by means of a practical joke) will likely select a premise that is subjectively plausible in the eyes of the victim(s), treating whether others will fall for the hoax as a secondary concern. Treated as such, the hoax's objective or intersubjective plausibility or implausibility can cut both ways: On one hand, a person may construct a hoax out of only credible information in order to prevent sympathetic outsiders from "catching on" and informing the victim in advance; on the other, he or she may include implausible information in order to heighten the victim's eventual embarrassment at having "fallen for" the hoax (along with the enjoyment observers feel when watching the victim being deceived).

Some sets of claims popularly labeled hoaxes are better categorized as allegory, fable, satire, or parody: If a person describes a situation or event with the intent to illustrate a principle but without the desire that his audience believe his assertions' literal meaning to be true, the assertions likely form an allegory or a fable. (Note that these claims may eventually develop into an apocryphal hoax or an urban legend if their literal meaning gains belief as they are passed from person to person.) If a person makes statements that have some basis in fact but are in some respects patently absurd, with the intent that the audience notice the similarity between the patent absurdities in the statements and absurdities latent in statements widely accepted in the real world, the person engages in satire. Parody does not require any basis in fact or the intent that any part of it be accepted; rather, its essence is the partial but not total imitation of the thing parodied, along with the elicitation of humor from the simultaneous occurrence of similarities and differences between the parody and its subject.

3. Hoax traditions

During certain events and at particular times of year, hoaxes are perpetrated by many people and groups. The most famous of these is April Fool's Day.

4. See also

• List of hoaxes
• E-mail spoofing
• Musical hoax
• Conspiracy theory
• Counterfeit
• Humbug
• April Fool's Day

• Fictitious entry
• Forgery
• Impostor
• Pseudoscience
• Confidence trick
• Münchausen by Internet

• Tall tale
• Simulated reality
• Urban legend
• Virus hoax
• Website spoofing

http://wapedia.mobi/en/Hoax

Giant race 'came from mutant gene' 

  
6th January 2011 

A race of giants may have sprung from a mutant gene that first emerged around 1,500 years ago and causes uncontrolled body growth, scientists believe.

The "gigantism gene" was identified in the DNA of an 18th century man known as the "Irish Giant" who stood almost eight feet tall.

Copies of the same mutation have been found in living patients suffering from gigantism and other symptoms of over-growth.

Scientists writing in the New England Journal of Medicine said they suspect all inherited the gene from the same common ancestor who lived up to 66 generations ago. Around 200 to 300 people may be carrying the same mutation today.

http://uk.news.yahoo.com/21/20110106/tuk-giant-race-came-from-mutant-gene-f858358.html

Extracted from

DISSOCIATION AND MEMORY: A TWO-HUNDRED YEAR PERSPECTIVE

by Adam Crabtree

Full article http://www.joannecrabtree.com/psychotherapyarts/innerMind/dissociationAndMemory.html

A COMPREHENSIVE APPROACH TO DISSOCIATION

In the late 1960's a new wrinkle on dissociation and memory was introduced. It was the discovery of "state-dependent" effects in human beings. The notion, briefly stated, is that when people learn information, undergo an experience, or develop a skill in a specific state of consciousness, they can recall that information, reclaim that experience, or exercise that skill most easily when the original state of consciousness is re-establish. The earliest experiments in this area investigated the effects of certain drugs on memory in animals (Overton 1964, 1968). These were followed by investigations of the effects of alcohol or barbiturate intoxication on human memory (e.g., Goodwin et al. 1969 and Eich 1977). The results proved the old saw that if a person when sober could not remember where he put his keys when drunk, the best way to get the memory back was to get drunk again.

Roland Fischer, a pioneer in this field of investigation (Fischer et al., 1970, Fischer and Landon 1972, Fischer 1976, 1977), attempted to place our understanding of state-bound memory in a framework that takes into account both context and a spectrum of psycho-physical arousal, ranging from hypo- to hyper-arousal (Fischer 1971). He speculated that the more discontinuous the states of arousal, the less ability to retrieve a memory in one state of an event in another. In 1971 Fischer stated: "The implications of this amnesia between disparate levels of arousal for criminology, jurisprudence and psychotherapy have not yet been realized" (Fischer 1971, p. 33); that statement seems to be quite valid yet today.

The implications of the notion of state-dependent learning and state-dependent memory are vast. It can be said that for all people, the so-called normal and the disordered, memories are attached to specific states of consciousness and gaining access to memories depends on returning to the proper state of consciousness.

Memory as state-dependent serves as an experimental model for verifying the understanding of dissociation and memory of Janet. It also confirms the notion that "amnesia" or "forgetting" are misleading concepts to use in attempting to describe dissociative experience, and points instead to dissociation as a partitioned assimilation of information and experiences.

So this is what is comes down to: dissociation, normal and disordered, is the partitioned assimilation of information and experiences. And memory is the retrieval of information and experiences by returning to the compartment into which they were assimilated. There is no "forgetting" followed by "remembering." Instead we move from state of consciousness to state of consciousness and retrieve information or experiential data with greater or less efficiency, depending on the "disparity" of the present state from that in which the information was obtained or the experience was undergone. If the disparity is too great, retrieval will fail.

http://www.joannecrabtree.com/psychotherapyarts/innerMind/dissociationAndMemory.html

Dissociation & Dissociative Identity Disorder 

History of Dissociation

Dissociation has long been somewhat of an intrigue to clinicians and the general public. In the United States, as far back as 1860 (i.e., the case of Mary Reynolds), cases have been reported in which clients experienced state specific dissociative disorders. It was in the mid 1970's however, that clinicians began recognizing considerable numbers of clients with symptoms of dissociation that resembled Dissociative Identity Disorder (previously known as Multiple Personality Disorder.) At that time it was estimated that the prevalence of the disorder was about one in a thousand.

In the mid-eighties, the number of clients with Dissociative Identity Disorder in treatment began to increase. There has been a great deal of speculation offered as explanation. One thought is that as clinicians become more aware of the disorder and its symptoms, the more able they are to detect and treat it. Others believe that DID has been over diagnosed, especially with those clients who are highly suggestible. Dissociative Identity Disorder is diagnosed up to nine times more often in females than in males. It wasn’t until the 1970's, when the women’s movement began to bring child abuse issues to public awareness that clinicians became open to the idea of a trauma induced disorder. DID has been shown to have a strong link to severe trauma, especially sexual and physical childhood abuse.

   

What is Dissociation?

The essential feature of a Dissociative Disorder is a disruption in the usually integrated functions of consciousness, memory, identity, or perception of the environment. The disturbance may be sudden or gradual, transient or chronic. In other words, an event is processed in a way that breaks up the pieces of the event into differing states of consciousness.  Dissociation is common and nearly everyone experiences mild dissociation from time to time. If you have ever had the experience of driving somewhere, and suddenly you realize that you have little or no memory of driving the last few minutes.  Perhaps you even passed your exit. Your driving ability wasn't hindered because the mind was still utilizing the part of the brain that was needed to drive the car. However, instead of your thinking-mind focusing on the driving, it was somewhere else. That is dissociation. Daydreaming is a very mild form of dissociation.  On the other end of the dissociation-continuum, dissociation is often a way for the brain to tear apart the sensations, or the memory of a traumatic event in order to survive the situation with as little damage as possible. For instance, the actual memory might be put so far back in the subconscious mind, that it is perceived as being forgotten. However, the body sensations may still be present and may be experienced from time to time as somatic eruptions, body memories. The feelings related to the trauma may be "switched off," generally taking with it the individuals ability to experience other feelings later in life.       http://www.psych-net.com/dissociation.html