Strange experiences

[Hayman]

If you want to see something so much, sometimes you think you have seen it.

That's all.

And what if you do NOT want to see something, or feel or sense something? I never wanted to feel sick when seeing those yellow sodium street lights, but I did.

 

[Hayman]

Plenty of scientific proof that dowsing is absolute nonsense, enough to disregard it completely.

Wiki below, but google for a wealth of other info regarding it.
Dowsing is a type of pseudoscientific divination employed in attempts to locate ground water, buried metals or ores, gemstones, oil, gravesites,[1] malign 'earth vibrations'[2] and many other objects and materials without the use of a scientific apparatus. It is also known as divining (especially in reference to the interpretation of results),[3] doodlebugging[4] (particularly in the United States, in searching for petroleum[5]) or (when searching for water) water finding, water witching (in the United States) or water dowsing.

A Y-shaped twig or rod, or two L-shaped ones—individually called a dowsing rod, divining rod (Latin: virgula divina or baculus divinatorius), "vining rod", or witching rod—are sometimes used during dowsing, although some dowsers use other equipment or no equipment at all.

Dowsing is a pseudoscience and the scientific evidence is that it is no more effective than random chance.[6][7] Dowsers often achieve good results because random chance has a high probability of finding water in favourable terrain.[8] The motion of dowsing rods is now generally attributed to the ideomotor phenomenon,[9][10][11] a psychological response where a subject makes motions unconsciously. Put simply, dowsing rods respond to the user's accidental or involuntary movements.

"Plenty of scientific proof that dowsing is absolute nonsense, enough to disregard it completely." Please define "scientific" and "proof".

For decades I have used steel rods bent at right angles and held free to turn in my hands to find where water pipes run. I hold a rod in each lightly-clenched fist, the long end pointing horizontally forward, the short end hanging vertically in the space formed by the tips of my fingers pressing into the gap between the base of the thumb and the forefinger and the palm. As I walk forward, the rods swing to align with the direction of the pipe, the right hand rod swings to the left, the left hand rod to the right. This happens whether the pipe is at right angles to the direction in which I am walking, or diagonal to my route. In the first case, both rods swing towards each other through 90 degrees; in the second one swings through, say, 45 degrees, the other through 135 degrees.

I once tried using the rods to find the foundations of ancient walls at a site where the walls had long been demolished and grassed over, leaving foundation brickwork or stonework in the ground. The rods did not turn.

That utility companies use divining rods – maybe not yew twigs – to find the positions of pipes says something about their efficacy. A separation needs to be made between looking for artificial (usually metal) pipes and for natural underground springs, etc. Is there some connection between yew twigs for divining and the prevalence of yew trees in churchyards?

 

[rvf400]

"Plenty of scientific proof that dowsing is absolute nonsense, enough to disregard it completely." Please define "scientific" and "proof".

For decades I have used steel rods bent at right angles and held free to turn in my hands to find where water pipes run. I hold a rod in each lightly-clenched fist, the long end pointing horizontally forward, the short end hanging vertically in the space formed by the tips of my fingers pressing into the gap between the base of the thumb and the forefinger and the palm. As I walk forward, the rods swing to align with the direction of the pipe, the right hand rod swings to the left, the left hand rod to the right. This happens whether the pipe is at right angles to the direction in which I am walking, or diagonal to my route. In the first case, both rods swing towards each other through 90 degrees; in the second one swings through, say, 45 degrees, the other through 135 degrees.

I once tried using the rods to find the foundations of ancient walls at a site where the walls had long been demolished and grassed over, leaving foundation brickwork or stonework in the ground. The rods did not turn.

That utility companies use divining rods – maybe not yew twigs – to find the positions of pipes says something about their efficacy. A separation needs to be made between looking for artificial (usually metal) pipes and for natural underground springs, etc. Is there some connection between yew twigs for divining and the prevalence of yew trees in churchyards?

Just look up the dictionary definitions and that's what I mean by "scientific" and "proof."

Anecdotal evidence is not proof.

 

[Hayman]

I have been there installing some equipment but they may have been developing an MRI a lot of companies did but most were copying us. The first one was sent to Nottingham University and they did have part of one in the science museum London. they had to build screening into the magnets because of the stray field.
Have a read of this British Engineering Stamps.

That explains the presence of the earthing rail at the Eurostar servicing depot at North Pole Road, west London. Was the road named after a local pub?

 

[Hayman]

Just look up the dictionary definitions and that's what I mean by "scientific" and "proof."

Anecdotal evidence is not proof.

"Anecdotal"? I am more than happy to come to your home and show to you what happens. Would you trust your own eyes? Would you try using the rods yourself? "There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy." Or in Wikipedia.

 

[Roderick]

Plenty of scientific proof that dowsing is absolute nonsense, enough to disregard it completely.

Wiki below, but google for a wealth of other info regarding it.
Dowsing is a type of pseudoscientific divination employed in attempts to locate ground water, buried metals or ores, gemstones, oil, gravesites,[1] malign 'earth vibrations'[2] and many other objects and materials without the use of a scientific apparatus. It is also known as divining (especially in reference to the interpretation of results),[3] doodlebugging[4] (particularly in the United States, in searching for petroleum[5]) or (when searching for water) water finding, water witching (in the United States) or water dowsing.

A Y-shaped twig or rod, or two L-shaped ones—individually called a dowsing rod, divining rod (Latin: virgula divina or baculus divinatorius), "vining rod", or witching rod—are sometimes used during dowsing, although some dowsers use other equipment or no equipment at all.

Dowsing is a pseudoscience and the scientific evidence is that it is no more effective than random chance.[6][7] Dowsers often achieve good results because random chance has a high probability of finding water in favourable terrain.[8] The motion of dowsing rods is now generally attributed to the ideomotor phenomenon,[9][10][11] a psychological response where a subject makes motions unconsciously. Put simply, dowsing rods respond to the user's accidental or involuntary movements.

There is no reason why you will want to believe what what I'm about to describe and equally there is no reason for me to lie but it would be good if you could reproduce the experiment your self so at least you can speak from first hand experience of it working or not (for you).

In the 1970s I worked in the special projects division of a large steel works (Dunford Hadfields) where the Meadow Hall shopping centre stands today. The works had grown very fast and in the process the routing of water mains had been lost. Water supplied to the site was metered but thousands of gallons were leaking somewhere, the works maintenance crew had dug holes all over the place but without any joy. In desperation a dowser was called in, he went into the maintenance shop, picked up a pair of mild steel gas welding rods, bent them at right-angles about 6" from the end and held them (one in each hand) in a pair of empty biro tubes so they were completely free to swivel. After a couple of hours walking around the site he told them where to dig a hole and sure enough there was the leak. After that there was a short craze of people walking about with rods and Biro tubes, I was skeptical but found when I experimented that it seemed good at finding steel. I got 20 trade magazines and laid them out on the drawing office floor, in one of them I put a sheet of thin shim steel, no thicker than a sheet of paper. I asked everybody in the department to come into the drawing office when called one at a time, the first was given the rods and told to walk around the office treading on all the magazines, remember where they crossed but not say anything, at the end, go back to the door, call for the next person, give them the rods and sit on the window sill. In every case the rods crossed when the holder stood on the mag with the shim steel, we also got a cross in another part of the room not on a magazine where we later established there was water pipe running under the floor.

When I told this to my then girlfriend's father, who worked for the water board as part of a leak fixing team, he admitted that when he went deaf and could no longer hear the sound of water leaking with a bar on the pipe, afraid of losing his job he would go to the job early in the morning before work, find the leak with divining rods, secretly mark the spot then later pretend to find it by listening from both ends of the pipe.

 

[Roderick]

I have been there installing some equipment but they may have been developing an MRI a lot of companies did but most were copying us. The first one was sent to Nottingham University and they did have part of one in the science museum London. they had to build screening into the magnets because of the stray field.
Have a read of this British Engineering Stamps.

I'm loving your website!
Philips have been very good at developing all kinds of x-ray machines, scanners + MRI + electron beam machines. See Magnetic Resonance | Philips, they built their first working scanner in 1978 though as you say the technology was developed originally in the UK.

 

[Des Head]

When I was aged about 8 or 9 I was a weekly boarder at a school in Paignton, Devon, with my home at Staverton, near Totnes. The street lights in the Paignton area were the yellow sodium type; those near Totnes were white (or close to white). Travelling in the family Austin Ten, I would cover my eyes from the yellow lights because they made me feel sick, almost to the point of vomiting. Once we were under the white lights, I would come out from under the car rug. This happened as a matter of course. For some reason - either the colour itself, or the frequency of the light - my brain was affected by the sodium lights. A few years later I was on holiday in Bournemouth, where the street lights were a bluish white - which I found very restful. I had no ill effects from the one nMRI scan I have had; and that was a brain scan.

Mate, your brain was affected by the sodium lights. Way back when you were a stupid kid you've had a dream, or seen something on TV, or had a weird night time experience or have been told about one by a family member and it's tickled something in the back of your brain. Something about something creepy under sodium lights. So it's stuck in your tiny underdeveloped brain and the next time you see sodium lights you feel sick, you're not even sure why but there it is. Then you subconsciously build it up into a thing and your adult brain tries to rationalise the feeling and next thing you know you've come to the conclusion you're affected by electromagnetic frequencies. Where in reality your brain has been misleading you because of an association you formed decades ago. Deep down, you know that associating sodium light with negativity is purely psychosomatic, you cannot be physically affected by being in proximity to a streetlight. You know this.

 

[Des Head]

There is no reason why you will want to believe what what I'm about to describe and equally there is no reason for me to lie but it would be good if you could reproduce the experiment your self so at least you can speak from first hand experience of it working or not (for you).

In the 1970s I worked in the special projects division of a large steel works (Dunford Hadfields) where the Meadow Hall shopping centre stands today. The works had grown very fast and in the process the routing of water mains had been lost. Water supplied to the site was metered but thousands of gallons were leaking somewhere, the works maintenance crew had dug holes all over the place but without any joy. In desperation a dowser was called in, he went into the maintenance shop, picked up a pair of mild steel gas welding rods, bent them at right-angles about 6" from the end and held them (one in each hand) in a pair of empty biro tubes so they were completely free to swivel. After a couple of hours walking around the site he told them where to dig a hole and sure enough there was the leak. After that there was a short craze of people walking about with rods and Biro tubes, I was skeptical but found when I experimented that it seemed good at finding steel. I got 20 trade magazines and laid them out on the drawing office floor, in one of them I put a sheet of thin shim steel, no thicker than a sheet of paper. I asked everybody in the department to come into the drawing office when called one at a time, the first was given the rods and told to walk around the office treading on all the magazines, remember where they crossed but not say anything, at the end, go back to the door, call for the next person, give them the rods and sit on the window sill. In every case the rods crossed when the holder stood on the mag with the shim steel, we also got a cross in another part of the room not on a magazine where we later established there was water pipe running under the floor.

When I told this to my then girlfriend's father, who worked for the water board as part of a leak fixing team, he admitted that when he went deaf and could no longer hear the sound of water leaking with a bar on the pipe, afraid of losing his job he would go to the job early in the morning before work, find the leak with divining rods, secretly mark the spot then later pretend to find it by listening from both ends of the pipe.

My good man, dowsing is not a thing. Yes, a gazillion stories have been imprinted on the impressionable mind, but in repeatable tests dowsing has never been proven to be better than random chance. There are myriad tells when searching for a leak, pretending you found it by magic ensures you're the guy they come to when it's time to find the next one.

 

[Hayman]

My good man, dowsing is not a thing. Yes, a gazillion stories have been imprinted on the impressionable mind, but in repeatable tests dowsing has never been proven to be better than random chance. There are myriad tells when searching for a leak, pretending you found it by magic ensures you're the guy they come to when it's time to find the next one.

I can reproduce the steel rods crossing in line with an underground iron or steel pipe time and time again. No "random chance", no "pretending", no "magic". I see little difference with this and how a compass needle aligns itself with the magnetic field of the Earth. I do not know about finding leaks that way, but modern electronic leak finders also use some sort of field effect to pinpoint the leak. When a neighbour had a leak under her driveway,its position was found with such an electronic finder.

 

[rvf400]

Many articles can be found showing there is no 'magical' power of dowsing.

1 such article Is there any scientific evidence for dowsing? but there are many and all come to a similar conclusion on how its 'works'

 

[Sarah Waldock]

And what if you do NOT want to see something, or feel or sense something? I never wanted to feel sick when seeing those yellow sodium street lights, but I did.

Not enough is known about the way coloured light affects the brain. I have the kind of Dyslexia called Irlen's Syndrome where a coloured overlay - different colours for different people - can immediately cure the effects of the word blindness of Dyslexia. I literally cannot read red writing on black, and have trouble with black on red. The brain is a complex organ, still incompletely understood. I don't drive because flashing lights make me sick and giddy. It's not epilepsy; it's something to do with the thalamus. And a fast indicator light, sun through railings, or emergency vehicles can set it off. I have no doubt there is some bit of badly wired kit inside your brain which caused this. It may even be related to Seasonal Affective Disorder [SAD] where the winter light leads to lethargy and can cause nausea in those of us affected. Winter light tends more to the yellow, so for what it's worth, I make the suggestion. I just go torpid and go to sleep in candle light.

 

[Sarah Waldock]

Many articles can be found showing there is no 'magical' power of dowsing.

1 such article Is there any scientific evidence for dowsing? but there are many and all come to a similar conclusion on how its 'works'

Dowsing is illogical. I cannot explain how I have managed to find lost cats for people using a map. It shouldn't work; but with 60% success I'm not going to knock it.

 

[Hayman]

Mate, your brain was affected by the sodium lights. Way back when you were a stupid kid you've had a dream, or seen something on TV, or had a weird night time experience or have been told about one by a family member and it's tickled something in the back of your brain. Something about something creepy under sodium lights. So it's stuck in your tiny underdeveloped brain and the next time you see sodium lights you feel sick, you're not even sure why but there it is. Then you subconsciously build it up into a thing and your adult brain tries to rationalise the feeling and next thing you know you've come to the conclusion you're affected by electromagnetic frequencies. Where in reality your brain has been misleading you because of an association you formed decades ago. Deep down, you know that associating sodium light with negativity is purely psychosomatic, you cannot be physically affected by being in proximity to a streetlight. You know this.

You appear to be totally unaware of how recessive and dominant colours affect the brain. Much of advertising is based on it, also what colours are used to paint different types of building. The use of red and yellow in advertising is very common; Kodak has used it for well over half a century. Red, yellow and green for traffic lights and railway signals come from how the brain sees these colours. Red - being the colour of blood - has come to symbolise danger, hence to mean STOP. Green - a recessive colour and seen naturally in all manner of quiet settings such as areas of grasses, plants, trees - has come to mean CLEAR or GO, the lack of danger. Yellow - or orange or amber - also a dominant colour, has become used to mean CAUTION. Yellowness in human skin and eyes indicates unwellness, such as jaundice.
And places such as hospitals tend to have their walls painted in recessive colours, to induce calmness.

As for my feeling sick at seeing the yellow sodium street lights, it was years before I ever saw any television; we had no TV in Devon at the time. You are right that I do not know why the yellow lights made me feel sick, but equally I do not know why the blue-white lights had the reverse effect - making me feel calm. Having been involved in photography for over 60 years, I do know a little about colours, and how different colours affect the human brain differently.

Everyone's brain is different. Everyone responds to stimuli differently. As for the sick feeling being psychosomatic:, i.e., "pertaining to the apparent effect of mental and emotional factors in contributing to physical disorders. These definitions imply the possibly untenable assumptions enshrined in the long-held view (Cartesian dualism) that the mind and the body are distinct, separable entities". The separation of mind and body is very much a Western philosophy concept. Go East and they are seen as simply two parts of the whole, hence holistic medicine.

psychosomatic​

1. Pertaining to the relationship between the mind and the body.

2.

 

[rvf400]

Dowsing is illogical. I cannot explain how I have managed to find lost cats for people using a map. It shouldn't work; but with 60% success I'm not going to knock it.

Dowsing is illogical. I cannot explain how I have managed to find lost cats for people using a map. It shouldn't work; but with 60% success I'm not going to knock it.

I can't find any evidence of studies on finding lost cats with dowsing so for now I'll keep open minded about it

 

[Sarah Waldock]

I can't find any evidence of studies on finding lost cats with dowsing so for now I'll keep open minded about it

I did it for a friend in Massachussets of all places, the other side of the world, using the google photos - which work better than maps - because she was desperate and I wanted to do something, and I'd read about someone in California who finds missing persons and DBs for the police on a map. and the cat was where my finger tingled. Less happy was another friend's cat I found which was by the pool I indicated but alas had drowned. It's kinda freaky, but if it's a gift I have, it's up to me to use it, right? I've used it since and it seems to be about 6+ out of 10.

 

[BobClay]

If this keeps up I'll have to get in some more popcorn ...

 

[Des Head]

You appear to be totally unaware of how recessive and dominant colours affect the brain. Much of advertising is based on it, also what colours are used to paint different types of building. The use of red and yellow in advertising is very common; Kodak has used it for well over half a century. Red, yellow and green for traffic lights and railway signals come from how the brain sees these colours. Red - being the colour of blood - has come to symbolise danger, hence to mean STOP. Green - a recessive colour and seen naturally in all manner of quiet settings such as areas of grasses, plants, trees - has come to mean CLEAR or GO, the lack of danger. Yellow - or orange or amber - also a dominant colour, has become used to mean CAUTION. Yellowness in human skin and eyes indicates unwellness, such as jaundice.
And places such as hospitals tend to have their walls painted in recessive colours, to induce calmness.

As for my feeling sick at seeing the yellow sodium street lights, it was years before I ever saw any television; we had no TV in Devon at the time. You are right that I do not know why the yellow lights made me feel sick, but equally I do not know why the blue-white lights had the reverse effect - making me feel calm. Having been involved in photography for over 60 years, I do know a little about colours, and how different colours affect the human brain differently.

Everyone's brain is different. Everyone responds to stimuli differently. As for the sick feeling being psychosomatic:, i.e., "pertaining to the apparent effect of mental and emotional factors in contributing to physical disorders. These definitions imply the possibly untenable assumptions enshrined in the long-held view (Cartesian dualism) that the mind and the body are distinct, separable entities". The separation of mind and body is very much a Western philosophy concept. Go East and they are seen as simply two parts of the whole, hence holistic medicine.

psychosomatic​

1. Pertaining to the relationship between the mind and the body.

2.

You've pretty much answered your own initial question. Why do yellow lights make you feel sick? Because you've allocated meaning and feelings to colours. The stop light is red because it's the longest wavelength of light the human eye can detect, thus making it visible over a greater distance, not because blood is red. Pulling up at the traffic lights must be an emotional rollercoaster for you, never look in a kaleidoscope.

 

[Sarah Waldock]

You've pretty much answered your own initial question. Why do yellow lights make you feel sick? Because you've allocated meaning and feelings to colours. The stop light is red because it's the longest wavelength of light the human eye can detect, thus making it visible over a greater distance, not because blood is red. Pulling up at the traffic lights must be an emotional rollercoaster for you, never look in a kaleidoscope.

Oh dear

 

[Des Head]

I can reproduce the steel rods crossing in line with an underground iron or steel pipe time and time again. No "random chance", no "pretending", no "magic". I see little difference with this and how a compass needle aligns itself with the magnetic field of the Earth. I do not know about finding leaks that way, but modern electronic leak finders also use some sort of field effect to pinpoint the leak. When a neighbour had a leak under her driveway,its position was found with such an electronic finder.

You can't compare the magnetic field of an entire planet to that of a leaky pipe, much in the same way you can't compare modern leak detection methods to dowsing. Because, just so we're clear, dowsing is not a thing.