Loading up my iPod

I had a dream a while back that I should get a subscription to unknowncountry.com. I thought it was a strange dream. I was once a subscriber, one of the first, back in ‘03, but I let my subscription lapse after a few months.

In the the intervening years, I have gone from being a believer in the paranormal to what can best be described as a general skeptic--skeptical in the sense that I no longer accept these accounts at face value, unless there is some independent confirmation of the experience, or if the experiencer or the reporter has been previously vetted, or is a credentialed academic in a field associated with the paranormal. There simply is too much out there masquerading as paranormal knowledge that is either fraudulent, or, while being a valid paranormal experience, is a "cover" experience--not what it purports or is perceived to be. There does seem to be something about the paranormal in general that attracts fraud, disinformation, and deception, and while this aspect itself might be a clue to the experience's essential nature, it is simply too bothersome to waste time to comprehend.

I am still drawn to the subject, however, mostly from a need to validate and explain my own experiences, and, possibly, to gain some insight into the nature of a reality where these experiences seem to originate.

So, with the return of autumn walking weather, I’ve sprung for a year’s subscription to unknowncountry.com and am loading up my iPod with programs that might, possibly, provide that missing link in my efforts to synthesize these disparate experiences into a cogent whole.

With my newly-minted mantel of skepticism, I confess to cherry-picking the shows. Over the years, I have become disenchanted with most of Unknowncountry's guest hosts (and guests), and I'm no longer really interested in many of the phenomena discussed. But there is simply so much material available on the subscriber site, and some of it is quite intriguing. My particular interest is in experiences involving contact and interaction with non-physical consciousness, and in this arena, Whitley Strieber is the master. I'm also intrigued with Strieber's high-strangeness experiences with what Starfire Tor calls "time slips"--as well as his past-life hypnotic regression, which I located. So I am looking forward to seeing what I can see.

I also think that I might have an experience or two worth submitting to Project Core.  At first, I thought, "Nahh."  My experiences, at their strangest, have generally been lame.  I have no conscious knowledge of seeing a Grey or of being abducted.  I've seen UFOs, but they never landed.  I've seen a few ghosts, but nothing spectacular.  Still, as the premise behind the project percolated in my brain, and the more I listened to Jeff and Jer talk about it, I realized that I have had a couple of high-strangeness experiences in my past that have been *so* strange that I have not been able to categorize them as anything.  Think about it--if you see a UFO, or a ghost, and are reasonably acquainted with the paranormal, you will automatically categorize the experience; you will say, "Oh, I just saw a UFO," or, "Oh, that's a ghost."  But many of us have had experiences that are so strange as to be essentially impossible to categorize.  Is this what Jeff and Jer are looking for?  They won't divulge.  But I have had at least one such experience, and I plan to submit this.