Mental Purring?

[blagaagalb]

One of my best friends identifies as a Were-cat, but if I stay over at his house for a night, when I'm drifting off to sleep (I'm usually in the same room) I swear I can hear him purring.

Now I know he's not purring out loud, because if I stir and become fully conscious, then I can't hear it.

I was thinking maybe due to being semi-conscious, I could be detecting stray frequencies my brain wouldn't normall detect or something. Either that or a mad imagination. I'm not sure if he believes me or not when I say I can hear him purring, but the idea seems to please him anyway.

Has anyone else had this sort of experience? If so does anyone have any techniques as to be in touch with this in any way whilst not having to fall half-asleep to do so?

Or is this just my imagination playing with me? (I'd usually go with this, but it's everytime I'm with him, never on my own, and I don't usually have a regular thought when I'm falling asleep.)

Thank you for any information you might have.

[---Arawn---]

When I'm semi-conscious, sometimes I can hear "voices". I looked in the internet about this, and found that in some people, when they are in this "semi-conscious" state, can hear things that are purely imaginative. I don't know how to explain it exactly, but what happens, is something like your brain "confunding" your thoughts as sounds. So what you actually hears, is what you're thinking. I don't know if that's what you're experiencing, but it can be...

[stinky_hyena]

Next time your with your friend set up a tape recorder. You can use it to check if the purr noises where generally audible upon fully waking. :)

If you can't hear the purring recorded, the purr could in some metaphysical/other way still be legit as occurring I theorize, (being open to possibilities), but I don't know how this would be so. Maybe a telepathic purr your friend is sending that you are mentally registering in your state of semiconciousness where your brain is more relaxed and receptive than when you are fully awake.
Or it could just be your imagination, a suggested occurance of your mind being that you view your friend as a werecat on a concious level.

I've heard voices, (and at times other crazy things) in a semiconcious state also. The voices are the electronic gurgling hum of my fish tank air bubbler I've discovered, and my brain's interpritation of the noise when I'm almost asleep.

[___Neko___]

well.. I've never heard that happen while someone is sleeping. I know I started purring a few weeks ago, when I was playing with some mates running around.. I was havin alot of fun trying to hit my chrush with a football and I started purring....

[Saint Harry]

sumtimes when im almost asleep, i can hear voices of my friends. i dont know if im reading their minds but im problies just imagining it.

[Dog of Heaven]

There is a basic rule that applies to this sort of thing:

If you can't do it in your concious mind, then you can't do it in you semi-concios mind.

I guess that your friend also like to purr in the daytime as well, if he does it when he's asleep. Either that, or you are hearing things.

[Xenon Greyfire]

Yeah, I hear voices and things as I'm drifting off to sleep as well, but only if there are absolutely no other sounds.
I've got this theory that when you are drifting into sleep, before dreaming, you hit a 'twilight' zone. You only stay there a short amount of time, but that's where you start hearing voices, thoughts, music and then slip into a dream.
Before you find the twilight zone however, if you're like me you'll hear faint voices as you mentally relax. As your brain relaxes and stops creating its own conscious thoughts, it starts receiving the thoughts of others via telepathy. (I won't go into it, as it's the wrong section).

This is just what I've found about my own pre-sleep patterns.

[ThrasherCub]

If you can't do it in your concious mind, then you can't do it in you semi-concios mind.
Untrue, as some of the things we cannot do with the concious mind come froms self-imposed limites that the semi- and un-concious minds are not cognizant of.

[Dog of Heaven]

I got that from an old college textbook my dad had. now that you say that, I'm not really sure if that is true anymore.

[Xenon Greyfire]

In my opinion the subconscious is potentially much more powerful then the conscious mind. It's also a huge amount harder to control for obvious reasons

[Kale Sohma]

As I remember from people telling me and the discovery channel, we only use 10% of our brains, Einstein used around 12%. Now if we could use 100% or even just 50%, imagine what we could do. :eek:

[Xenon Greyfire]

Indeed, but were they referring to mental thought capacity, or memory?

[Morgrim]

As I remember from people telling me and the discovery channel, we only use 10% of our brains, Einstein used around 12%. Now if we could use 100% or even just 50%, imagine what we could do. :eek:
This is a myth, we use all of our brains. We just don't use it all at once- if we did, we would end up with an information overload. Using only 10% on a particular class is a sign of efficency.

And I'd like to know how they decided Einstein used 12% of his brain without sticking him in an MRI, which I have never seen a report of anyone doing.

[DarkWolf]

This is a myth, we use all of our brains. We just don't use it all at once- if we did, we would end up with an information overload. Using only 10% on a particular class is a sign of efficency.

And I'd like to know how they decided Einstein used 12% of his brain without sticking him in an MRI, which I have never seen a report of anyone doing.
True. MRI (Magnetic Resonance Imaging) and CAT (Computerised Axial Tomography) scans have revealed that we use all of our brains throughout the day, on average. We use a smaller amount at any one time. The brain has different sections for different things - one part for audio, one for visual, one for STM store, one for LTM store, one for "bridging" the two memory sections for processing, one for certain emotions, another for different emotions, etc, etc. So how much brain gets used depends on: the task, the complexity of the task and your proficiency at that task while also factoring in any genetic predispositions you may have in regard to that particular brain function. So: brain use varies on, pretty much, a minute-by-minute basis. However, because in a general day you'll have likely had to use many varying parts of the brain; most to all of the brain may get used. However, you don't undertake everything at the exact same time so your brain should never be used to full 100% at any given moment. The brain would not be able to handle that. If it did a large portion (around 70-80% at one time) it will induce potentially fatal grand-mal seizures. 90% is the same but likely to cause severe brain-damage. 100% is a brain blow-out, basically; it's fatal.

[Necro Mortis]

I have a friend that purrs in his sleep. No, I don't think he's a cat-therian. I just think he snores strangely and has certain traits that are cat-like. Such as his attitude. His tendancy to hate dogs. The way he licks himself clean. His fur-ball vomitting. And the way his mother had him nutered.



*DISCLAIMER*

If you are an idiot and don't understand when someone is joking please disregard the last few comments.

[Kale Sohma]

But isn't there a certain percentage of the brain that scientists still don't know what it does? And what would happen if the human brain uses say 20% at a time and for that certain being, that was normal brain use levels. It could handle a higher percentage than normal people, that would be cool. And I strongly remember that we use our right side of the brain being our conscious part and the left which we dont use much is the sub-conscious part. And that even today we still dont know much about the left part of the brain. At least, thats what I rememberd, maybye times have change and I didn't notice. And that Enstien thing, thats just something I heared from alot of people and I beleive it some what.

[Blue Eyes One]

Kale, that's a large number of theoritical assumptions for a single arguement.

Percentage of brain use at once is not a stable value - it is depends on the individual and how much they are thinking at the time. While doing higher cognitive functions, some parts become active that weren't before : the person's brain becomes more active, but does not get 'smarter' all at once. In fact, more intelligent people tend to require less of their brain to be active at one time to figure out a given problem.

100% activity would require every motor skill to be active at once. Not a good thing.

The original values came early on, when MRIs were only measuring motor and stimuli response, which represents a fairly small sector of the human brain, as opposed to critical reasoning or higher thought, which takes a greater portion.

It's also left brain for language and numbers, right brain for music and art, although some individuals break these trends (and brain damage can actually require them to). Emotions, intuition, and other functions are controlled by both aspects of the brain (which is why they tend to suffer in individuals with little connectivity).

Ah, and for those interested, only housecats can purr as one note (tigers can purr on the out breath, but not while inhaling). Purring is also not really a sign of being 'content', so much as it is an unaware response action. Many liken it to the human attribute of 'smiling'. You smile as a greeting, but may also do it to show that you are not worth hurting.

[DarkWolf]

Kale: No. Every area of the brain has been shown to have a function. Stop trying to use pathetic disproven ignorant theories (that was made up to explain psychic powers out of ignorance of people's scientific understand and also the same guy who was later discredited from any scholastic community as a FRAUD who FAKED every single result he ever had).

And I strongly remember that we use our right side of the brain being our conscious part and the left which we dont use much is the sub-conscious part.
Wrong. For two reasons: parts controlling concious and subconious functions are on either side of the brain. Secondly; we use our subconcious functions MORE than our concious ones. We use subconcious functions constantly - for example interpreting sensory input like a smell or something you can see is done automatically on a subconcious level. Think about it: do you have to conciously command every breath? Do you conciously command each and every necessary muscle to smile or reach for something? No, you don't. When you reach for something you only conciously command to reach and grab something but subconciously you are issuing multiple commands to every single piece of muscle tissue that will be used for the reaching and grabbing.

You are issuing subconcious commands for every single tiniest thing. It takes commands to interpret every sense, to process every memory, to breathe, for your heart to beat, etc. When you sleep you still do all these things - but you also dream and process memory and data far more effectively. You use subconcious functions constantly - for most if you stop these subconcious functions you're dead - they control breathing and heartrate and also your immune system. Every automatic thing in your body is controlled subconciously. You only use concious thought when awake and even then it's less than subconcious thought.

And that Enstien thing, thats just something I heared from alot of people and I beleive it some what.
Exactly how the "percentage" theories got so popular. One ignorant person believes it and passes it on to another ignorant person who also believes it. Reason for emboldening the word ignorant? It's the reason WHY any false theory gets passed around. Many people are ignorant of the brain - they don't know anything about it. In that lack of knowledge a theory, while false, seems to make sense to them so they believe it and pass it on.

Try some current research on the brain and its functions.

Blue Eyes One has accurately described the feline purring thing.