Jacara wrote:asdf, you may be thinking of "hallucinations" as the random LSD-type, but in psychology when your senses register anything that's not there (seeing / hearing / feeling etc) that's a "positive hallucination". If you have a trance session where you're made to feel someone stroking your cheek, that's a hallucination.
A "negative hallucination" is one where you don't sense something that is there (not seeing someone, or not feeling the dentist's drill, etc).
So don't get the idea that hallucinations are bad, they can be fun ;)
As for the whole thing about modifying your reality, that doesn't make a lot of sense to me. A delusional person who thinks they can fly will still fall when they jump off a building.
Good description of hallucination in general but i have a caveat. it is true that a delusional flyer will plummet according to the laws of physics asan almost certain fact. however religious ecstatics have been reported that according to witnesses did indeed fly. before you dismiss the power of the mind WRT to physical laws completely (and no I have never flown ;) )consider that i personally have experimented with deliberately willed hallucinations as part of a study of ceremonial magick. meaning here that i practiced until i could will certain hallucinations by dint of concentration, meditation, imagery and multipathed reinforcement of various sorts. my object was to explore macro-telekinesis. i succeeded. i lost interest after it became apparent that i could not progress beyond a pathetic amount of effect and my circumstances made further exploration problematic. but there *was* effect and i controlled for every mundane explanation i could come up with. i will say that in part from willing myself to see my telekinesis target obeying my will and actually overwriting the sensory input to the contrary i was able to move a telekinesis target at will, commanding clockwise and counter clockwise rotation, change of direction of rotation at will and up and down perturbations as well as stopping the target at will. the effect though seemingly at odds with the laws of physics never the less had a consistent set of physical characteristics of it's own. for example the motion always took 1.6 seconds to sart from my willing it. i controlled for photon pressure to include heat and convection currents, breath, air displacement and aerodynamics of my target , vibrations though the floor and furniture and even had someone else check to see if they could see the target rotating without telling them what i was up to.
A practicing ritual magician friend of mine who never the less will not admit direct objectiive results are possible from magick often quotes a famous occultist who said: It's all in your head but you have no idea how big that is. he says this when ever anyone asks him about achieving direct physical effects from occult practices. I, OTOH, say if it looks like a rose and smells like a rose it is most probably is a rose.
i have seen effects that that i am positive cannot be accounted for as purely subjective phenomenon. I have obtained information no part of me no matter how mysterious and granted perfect recall could know. i have had an encounter that i am certain was an autonomous supernatural entity though on this last i have no objective proof which i could put into words.
I have every reason to believe things impossible to the laws of physics which i hold in particularly high regard ( it is a hobby of mine) are indeed real. i will say that gross violations of the laws of physics are extremely rare and often irreproducible and nearly always when they do occur they occur in such a way that people cannot be collectively sure that something in violation of basic physical laws actually occured. it occurs in such a way as to leave the possibility of mudane causation open. in the case of willed changes; whenever successful they take the path of least resistance. there is never a "vulgar display of power."