Are you Purple?

[MisterJingo]

MisterJingo

Like you, I'm suspicious about the way the author dismisses retinal fatigue in the article I linked to. But I just thought it was a well-written and interesting introduction to the subject.

I agree its well written , I just have a feeling retinal fatigue might play a part – but this is usually discounted by proponents of auras. Something which increases this suspicion is answers given on certain internet forums concerning developing auric sight. It's usually stated in the early stages one only sees transparent auras around objects, which eventually turns into colour auras.
Due to how the eyes work (actually moving around by minute amounts quickly), staring at any object causes retinal fatigue, and due to the eyes minute movements, the outline of the object seems to expand out (which is simply a fatigued areas background changing from the object to around it) which produces a clear looking aura.
To me, I can't see how one could differentiate between this natural action and supernatural action of auras. The argument is usually about the time it takes for retinal fatigue to develop – which counters my own experience.
Please note I'm more questioning certain opinions of developing aura/seeing auras then the whole validity of auras themselves .

Edit: This raises a point. I don't hold scepticism because I believe certain things are impossible. I hold scepticism because for a lot of things taken as paranormal, I see an equally convincing natural explanation (or the possibility of an explanation).

Regarding your theory about aura-seers and synesthesia I think you're suggesting that aura-seers may be synesthetes, who actually experience body-language impressions as colours. This is an amazingly clever idea. Undoubtedly there are individuals who do see auras and this would be a perfect, simple, explanation for what they are experiencing. We all gain huge amounts of information by observing body language and we also know that synesthesia exists, so simply put the two together. Brilliant.

Cutting through my babble, that's exactly what I was suggesting . It just seems to fit for me.
I think people seriously underestimate the amount of information we can gain from body language alone. They seem to interpret body language as large movements such as folded arms, or moving from foot to foot etc. I think even minute movements, such as that of the eyes, or minute facial muscles etc give information. We might not interpret it consciously, but the information is there and can be accessed subconsciously. I also can't discount the possible information transferred by pheromones or other excretions. As small as these things are separately, taken all together, they could provide a rich tapestry of information.

One way to test this of course would be to get an aura-seer to view someone standing behind a wall, and get the aura-seer to describe the aura as it projects over the top of the wall. If it's just body language then he won't see an aura, if it's real aura-vision then presumably he will see the aura although he is unable to see the actual physical person.

Exactly. If we find people who seem to consistently see auras, this theory could be tested. Although strangers should be used, perhaps the aura seer standing in another room and looking through a glass wall/window to discount the possibility of them picking up pheromones etc. And the aura reader should not see any of subjects before the test.

I saw a TV program about a mathematical prodigy who "sees" numbers as colours. he could multiply two LONG numbers together in seconds. The way it worked was that he saw each number as a "colour blob". He concentrated on the two "blobs" and his subconscious mind would then quickly present him with the result "blob". He was then able to transform the "result blob" back into a mult-digit number, which he then reported.

I think I saw this too. Did he have a form of autism which didn't impair his social ability too much? And they created physical representations of these 'blobs'?

[catmeow]

MisterJingo - I agree with all your points, if you focus long enough on anything you will experience visual disturbances due to well-understood retinal/neurological mechanisms. I actually think it might damage your sight.  Regarding the TV program I also seem to remember in the back of my mind it may have been about savants, the most famous of which is Kim Peek, on whom the film "Rain Man" was based. I was thinking this as I wrote the post but wasn't sure.  Was the program about a guy who learnt to speak Dutch in one week fluently enough to be interviewed on Dutch TV?  He had a mild form of autism as you said... (and a major case of savantism)

[Nay]

Here you guys go.  His name is Daniel, I've watched the program twice.. He is just incredible and adorable.  The program was called, Brainman.

http://science.discovery.com/convergence/brainman/videogallery/videogallery.html

[MisterJingo]

Here you guys go.  His name is Daniel, I've watched the program twice.. He is just incredible and adorable.  The program was called, Brainman.

http://science.discovery.com/convergence/brainman/videogallery/videogallery.html

Thats the guy! Thanks Nay .

Ps Catmeow, I started to read that mentalism book and my eyes have already been opened . I'd never heard of swami gimmicks before now - very ingenious. It's amazing how simple some tricks really are. I haven't read much yet, but very enlightening so far.

[Nay]

You're welcome.

I wanted to mention but didn't have time earlier.   They did a test where they gave him some colored clay and one day they had him mold the clay into the shape of whatever random number they said.  I can remember some of the shapes but I can't remember the numbers that it went with.  

The next day, they had him do the same thing and the shapes where pretty much identical.. the first day, Daniel was tired, so the difference betweent shapes was just the neatness..or definition of them.  The reasoning behind that test was if he was making up the shapes he would not be able to be consistant in the colors and shapes for all of the numbers they gave.  When all was said and done, they were convinced that Daniel was definitely seeing shapes and colors, instead of numbers.

He said that the number nine was very tall and the number six was the hardest one for him to get a hold of... it was like a black hole, nothingness.  When he was in New York, I believe it was NY, he said it was little overwhelmed because the tall buildings made him feel like he had nines surrounding him.  Wild, huh?  

I would love to see the program again.  OH.. and he did get to meet the real rainman.. that was cool to see.

[catmeow]

Nice spot Nay!  I googled "brainman" and "daniel" and lots of stuff comes up.  Yes that was the program I saw, very interesting program. Daniel even made it into Wikipedia!

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Daniel_Tammet

MisterJingo - like you, I started to read the mentalism book intending to read from cover to cover, but the different chapters are so intriguing I couldn't help jumping around the book, dipping into different chapters.  None of it is rocket science, just plain simple ingenuity.  But once you see some of the simple techniques you realise how easy it is to pull the wool over people's eyes. It's a great book.  One thing though, whilst 99% of the book is obvious tricks, the section on "muscle reading" is really intuition bordering on ESP. Enjoy!

The other thing is that since dipping into this book I find it much easier to spot how magician's like David Blaine do their tricks.  I think the book changes your mindset and way of seeing things. Slow motion replay and freeze frame helps too!