goosebumps? Why?

[donq]

If you watch the voice or singing contests, sometimes you might see one of the judges raise his arm to show that the contestant gives him goosebumps. So this kind of goosebumps happens when we are listening to awe-inspiring music etc.
There are another kind of goosebumps that we are also familiar:

Who is the third who walks always beside you?
When I count, there are only you and I together
But when I look ahead up the white road
There is always another one walking beside you
Gliding wrapt in a brown mantle, hooded
I do not know whether a man or a woman

—But who is that on the other side of you?

The Waste Land By T. S. Eliot

Eliot's Note-The...lines were stimulated by the account of one of the Antarctic expeditions (I forget which, but I think one of Shackleton's): it was related that the party of explorers, at the extremity of their strength, had the constant delusion that there was one more member than could actually be counted.

There are some scientific explanations that we get goosebumps because of cold, fear, or excitement etc. But fear what? Sometimes we even don't see the thing that make us fear. It's nothing there. As Eliot's poem above, it seems it has something to do with changing perspective suddenly. Far and then beside. I don't know. And why we get goosebumps when we walk into the dark room and suddenly feel as if there's someone behind us. But when we look back, no one is there. Hmm...changing perspective suddenly again, right? I cannot recall that I ever got goosebumps from something that is in front of me.

[honey]

Wow Monty, I got goosebumps reading that. Have you read the book? I would love to read it. 

I think we you remove a lot of visual stimulation from the equation, and are left with a stark snow covered landscape, it leaves a blank canvas for the mind, sight to fill in, or add too. I know the science would say it might be down to dehydration, cold, hunger and sensory deprivation.  But I don't know... for example - if you want to see the auric field, it is recommended that you get someone to stand against a white or cream wall. You narrow your eyes or let them go slightly out of focus, and for some people it allows them to either see, or get glimpses of a persons auric field or colours. I've tried it a few times, and mainly what I see is like a shimmer around the person. A bit like a heat haze rising up from tarmac on a very hot day. But I guess where I am going with this, is.. its possible that snowy landscape, plain and un-changable, was the blank wall for shackletons explorer! 

On another level, is it hard to believe that when we are going through a traumatic and challenging time, that we are supported spiritually. I don't know about you, but in my darkest moments I have felt an unseen presence. Or have been sheilded to a degree from the worst consequences of a situation. As a child of about 7 or 8, I can remember playing ball with my sister by a main road. We lived in the city then. Anyway, the ball went out into the road, as it invariably does. I went to run out to grab it, when I heard a voice shout my name, really loudly in my ear. It stopped me in my tracks. As I stopped, a red sports car sped by at speed. If I had carried on with the momentum I had started to go into the road, It would have hit me head on. I hadn't seen or heard it. As my view was blocked by parked cars, and I was so focused on retrieving the ball, I was deaf to any noise. 

I have had the sensation of someone being near or behind me many times. Be interesting to hear the stories of others too. If they can relate to any of the above experiences.

Love and light
Karen

[donq]

About aura, I used to try it many times. For example, (I read how to do it from somewhere very long time ago) when I was in my room and turn the light off, then moving my index fingers of each hand closing to each other and stay around 3-4 centimeters apart. I could see...how to call it in English?...shadow (as I was in a rather dark room). But was not really a shadow, for sure. And it could move when I moved my two fingers closer or more apart. I didn't think my eyes tricked me to see that either.

That being said, I never succeeded in seeing the colors of the aura no matter how hard I tried.

Hmm...I got some experience that was so alike. I remember that I told this before, once or twice, but because I'm talkative, so I don't mind to talk about it here again.

As you know I used to live in the forest (temple) many years. My friends (monks) and I had to deal with the forest fire (wildfire) every year. The forest around our temple was vast. The only thing we could do was literally nip the fire in the bud by being the forest guards and patrolling around our temple as far as we could. If the fire started, usually because of the heat, and some leaves started to burn, we put the fire out. The sooner we find it, the quicker we could extinguish it. I walked around with my (wood) staff and knife. Didn't look like Davy Crockett at all. As my knife was just the ordinary knife you can find in any kitchen.
Once, while walking into the forest, thrashing the fire here and there with my staff, I just realized that the fired that I had just put off behind me started burning again, and burning even quicker. Suddenly, I was surrounded by fire. With many years of my mindfulness practice, honestly, I still was scared. I knew that even I could survive (which seemed highly unlikely at that moment), I highly likely would look like a roast pork for sure. I tried my best to put down my knife and staff down. I knew (as I had some experiences before) that it would slow down my running. I asked myself the left or the right? The right were vast thick of tall (over my head) glasses, . Even I could not think clearly at that time I still knew that it would be a very bad choice. Dried grasses and fire? Come on. Anyway, suddenly I heard some sound in that glasses. I knew somehow that it was a deer's cry. I knew before that there were some deer living/hiding in our forest. But how the hex I knew it was the deer's cry when I never heard it before in my life. Anyway, didn't know why but I decided to go that way, into the sea of grasses. If the deer chose that way, why wouldn't I?
To make the long short, yes, I survived. Otherwise, you might get very very big goosebumps, who was typing this. I went back there some hours later, after the fire was extinguished by itself . I almost could not recognized it. And found that my staff completely became dust. And my knife, well, was buried deep under the tall dust piles. Its handle was gone. And it didn't look like a knife any more.
Epilogue-My friend asked while I was walking back to the temple what happened. I even had no strength left to tell him until the morrow.

[donq]

Oh! I forget about the book.

Here's T. S. Eliot's the Waste land
Honestly, I read it many times but still didn't get it all. :-)


www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/47311/the-waste-land

[donq]

My first being a firefighter was so funny...if not so pathetic. I lived in a city all my life. Our temple forest was really the first forest I ever encountered.
It's around 8 P.M. and I was near the temple when I heard the bell signal. (We agreed that if any of us saw a fire, we would ring the bell as loud as possible). I tried my best to be cool, grasped two buckets, filled them full in a canal nearby, then running toward the fire I saw not far way. Aha! came to papa, you...bad fire!
Then, I slipped because of the slope of the hill, and lost all of the water. hahaha
Anyway, after I tried the same thing a few (if not many) times, I succeeded to reach close the fire I saw and threw all the water into it. Well done! It was extinguished at once. Then came the problem. I could not see anything. And no moon that night. Before that, there was a fire, so I could avoid some thorn leaves and branches. But now it was only darkness, even after my eyes started getting used to it some, I still could not move so far from there much. Besides, what if I went in the wrong direction? I might have to walk all night, alone in the forest. I had to wait there for a very long while before I heard some of my friends walking close and shout to call him. Pretending that I was going to go that way anyway. Yes, I didn't shout at first because I didn't want him to know how stupid I was.