Negative vs positive 'energy'

[Deidre]

This might be an odd question, but wondering your thoughts on it. I was driving into work today and thought about people who ‘give off’ negative energy. Is there a scientific explanation for that, or is this just something people say? I know that energy can only be transferred, and there is a general school of thought that when you’re dealing with negative people, you come away from spending time with them, feeling negative. How can energy be negative and positive, as it relates to people? Isn’t energy, just simply…energy? I think weird thoughts when I’m driving to work.

 

[Treks]

Perhaps this 'energy' is actually what you feel in response to something you have perceived. So no actual energy is involved, it's just a colloquial term used to describe the intuitive feeling you can get due to your perception of a person, place or situation. I think this can sometimes be triggered due to something else we are processing internally at the time and we incorrectly attribute the feeling to the person we're talking to, place we are visiting, etc.

My thoughts, anyway. Good topic.

Another thought; Mythbusters did a test where the hypothesis was that a certain low range, inaudible (to humans) frequency of sound can cause a person to feel uneasy. The team went to some relatively identical abandoned cabins and set up a huge sound system behind one of the houses. They recruited some self-professed psychics and told them something bad had happened in one of the houses, and they would each, in turn, go through each house and see if they could detect which house it had occurred in. When each psychic got to the rigged building, they turned the equipment on, but I think only one person kind-of thought that cabin 'felt different'. So that myth was busted.

 

[Revoltingest]

Perhaps this 'energy' is actually what you feel in response to something you have perceived. So no actual energy is involved, it's just a colloquial term used to describe the intuitive feeling you can get due to your perception of a person, place or situation. I think this can sometimes be triggered due to something else we are processing internally at the time and we incorrectly attribute the feeling to the person we're talking to, place we are visiting, etc.

My thoughts, anyway. Good topic.

Another thought; Mythbusters did a test where the hypothesis was that a certain low range, inaudible (to humans) frequency of sound can cause a person to feel uneasy. The team went to some relatively identical abandoned cabins and set up a huge sound system behind one of the houses. They recruited some self-professed psychics and told them something bad had happened in one of the houses, and they would each, in turn, go through each house and see if they could detect which house it had occurred in. When each psychic got to the rigged building, they turned the equipment on, but I think only one person kind-of thought that cabin 'felt different'. So that myth was busted.

What a pleasant explanation.
Mine was going to be tedious.
You saved her & everyone else from that.

 

[Quintessence]

As my tradition understands it, yes, energy is simply energy (and we mean "energy" in a metaphysical sense here, NOT a scientific sense). That said, just as the energy of oil and water don't mix well, the energy of certain people doesn't mix well either. Energies are simply different, and labels like "negative" and "positive" are precisely that: labels we attribute to the observation.

 

[George-ananda]

This might be an odd question, but wondering your thoughts on it. I was driving into work today and thought about people who ‘give off’ negative energy. Is there a scientific explanation for that, or is this just something people say? I know that energy can only be transferred, and there is a general school of thought that when you’re dealing with negative people, you come away from spending time with them, feeling negative. How can energy be negative and positive, as it relates to people? Isn’t energy, just simply…energy? I think weird thoughts when I’m driving to work.

Well, very good question. Standard mainstream science would say there is no such thing as people giving off positive and negative energy; It is just your own psychological reaction to the person's personality type. I personally don't feel this is the whole story. I do believe there are real psychic energies beyond our three-dimensional world studied by science. And these energies have different vibrations that we experience as positive or negative. A positive thinking person creates vibrations we experience as positive (and vice versa). So be positive and send out positive loving thoughts; it does matter!

Some people have claimed to show how even plants are influenced positively or negatively by the quality of the vibrations they experience. One Japanese researcher even showed how the beauty of water crystal formation was affected by these subtle vibrations. And researchers have claimed to show a reduction in violent behavior in groups in the vicinity of where a group of seasoned meditators are meditating together.

Also I believe some people are more sensitive to these vibrations than others.

 

[Wirey]

I don't think it's 'energy', I think some people are just more observant. All humans use posture to indicate mood, and sensing 'energy' is just being able to identify that posture. My 12 year old is the champ at it.

 

[Nada]

This might be an odd question, but wondering your thoughts on it. I was driving into work today and thought about people who ‘give off’ negative energy. Is there a scientific explanation for that, or is this just something people say? I know that energy can only be transferred, and there is a general school of thought that when you’re dealing with negative people, you come away from spending time with them, feeling negative. How can energy be negative and positive, as it relates to people? Isn’t energy, just simply…energy? I think weird thoughts when I’m driving to work.

That is great that your mind thinks that way.I remember a study some people did about energy and waves.How they cause different effects.They took a loud live heavy metal band and had them play their music.There was freezing water set up near by and the waves from the music would make chaotic looking ice crystals.They did the same with a symphony and the results were beautiful looking shapes and designs made by the energy waves from the music.Humans too give off these energy vibes.Dogs can sense it.

 

[Politesse]

It certainly doesn't seem to be a consistent property. Like most forms of intuition, perception of "energy" varies a lot from person to person, and is very responsive to your emotional state and who you are with. That said, I definitely am wary around folks who give me the sort of vibe you're describing, so scientific pretension aside, some part of me must believe that energy readings are sometimes legit.

 

[Kilgore Trout]

Basically, just look at the color of the energy. If it's blue or bluish-white, then it's generally good energy. If it's red or reddish, it's generally negative energy. Also a soft nimbus surrounding the energy is generally a sign of good energy. If it crackles violently, lashing out in all directions, it is often negative energy. Learn your basic energy attributes, and you'll never wonder again about what type of energy you're dealing with.

 

[Politesse]

Not all people are visualizers; a friend of mine feels "auras" as temperature.

 

[jonathan180iq]

The "energy" that we get from negative people is directly related to our inability to filter crap out of our lives.

If you know how to resist certain environments, then you'll never get dirty.

 

[1137]

It's intuition. We unconsciously pick up all sorts of things from others that turn us on/off.

 

[Deidre]

Basically, just look at the color of the energy. If it's blue or bluish-white, then it's generally good energy. If it's red or reddish, it's generally negative energy. Also a soft nimbus surrounding the energy is generally a sign of good energy. If it crackles violently, lashing out in all directions, it is often negative energy. Learn your basic energy attributes, and you'll never wonder again about what type of energy you're dealing with.

that's interesting.

thanks for the feedback, everyone. i really find everyone's ideas interesting, and glad to see you think about this stuff too. it would seem that when we hang out with someone negative, even if that is merely our perception, WE come away feeling negative. so from a scientific standpoint, does that actually mean that their negative 'energy' transferred to us? i've read different points of view about this, so wondering what you think.

 

[Treks]

People's attitudes and moods can definitely effect the people around them. If you spend a day at the office with someone who is in a bad mood, even if they do a pretty good job of remaining professional, your own stress levels will probably increase as you perceive a threat and need to guard yourself. This may all happen subconsciously. And you find yourself having to think harder before you interact with the person because they are in a bad mood, so it leaves you feeling drained and irritated.

If one of your friends has a negative attitude about some issues, and you hang around that friend a lot, you may find yourself becoming more irritated and bad tempered.

I think this is human communication (verbal and body language) rather than an actual transfer of some kind of 'energy'.

 

[Smart_Guy]

Hey D, how's it going?

I miss you

I think this energy is a figure of speech, for one simple reason: we get it as we experience those people in a concrete way. like, we don't feel negative or positive by having them walking near us without us noticing.

But let's not allow this to bother us. We do have experiences where we have first bad impressions about people but then with more experience we find out that they are good people, or vise versa.

Just my 0.02$

 

[jonathan180iq]

it would seem that when we hang out with someone negative, even if that is merely our perception, WE come away feeling negative. so from a scientific standpoint, does that actually mean that their negative 'energy' transferred to us? i've read different points of view about this, so wondering what you think.

The first part of your question sort of answers the second part, I think.
Our perception of something doesn't scientifically mean much at all.

Just because you "feel" a certain way (or rather, just because you let a negative person drag you in) doesn't mean that there is actually anything happening other than your interpretation of a situation.
What may feel like a substantial presence or negative energy is really nothing more than your brain interpreting a set of events and then rationalizing it through your worldview.
I mean you could also, technically, "feel" positive vibes in an otherwise non-positive situation, right? Certainly you've experienced that before... You could just as easily walk away from a negative person or situation feeling happy. It entirely depends on your mental state. I would say that our perceptions of events and even our feelings are 100% subjective responses that are entirely malleable - you just have to learn how to manipulate them.

Perception is reality to the perceiver, but it's a subjective reality. And subjective realities can be changed.

 

[Politesse]

Perception is reality to the perceiver, but it's a subjective reality. And subjective realities can be changed.

True of all perception and all observations, though; how do we sort the "subjective" from the "objective"?

 

[jonathan180iq]

True of all perception and all observations, though; how do we sort the "subjective" from the "objective"?

Practice...

That and testing our conclusions against the ideas and conclusions of others.
It will always be inherently flawed, logically. But it's the best we got.

 

[Politesse]

Practice...

That and testing our conclusions against the ideas and conclusions of others.
It will always be inherently flawed, logically. But it's the best we got.

Well, okay, but pretty much every human being determines truth based on experience and conversation. We don't have to be taught to do that, we do it instinctively. That being the case, why would you be so confident that those for whom all of this is a lived reality nearly to the point of the mundane, are mistaken about what is reality and what is not? Sure, they could have misjudged, but so could you. And they have consensus in their favor if nothing else. What about "spiritual" phenomena that occur across a wide array of cultures and historical circumstances, sometimes without seeming to be in any direct contact with one another?

 

[jonathan180iq]

Well, okay, but pretty much every human being determines truth based on experience and conversation. We don't have to be taught to do that, we do it instinctively. That being the case, why would you be so confident that those for whom all of this is a lived reality nearly to the point of the mundane, are mistaken about what is reality and what is not? Sure, they could have misjudged, but so could you. And they have consensus in their favor if nothing else. What about "spiritual" phenomena that occur across a wide array of cultures and historical circumstances, sometimes without seeming to be in any direct contact with one another?

Right.
And because there are so many of us, we each have fairly unique and individual experience from which to draw, when we make our conclusions. All we have to do, in order to see if our personal conclusions have any merit, is to test them against the backdrop of all other human experiences and conclusions... at least to the best of our ability.

Like everything else - just test it.

If there is a claim; test it.
If there is a question; test it.
If there is a curiosity about anything, all we have to do is test it.

If there are very reasonable and logical explanations for things, but we choose to accept unrepeatable, illogical, and irrational explanations for any of the phenomena that we test, that would leave us with a very flawed perspective of the world in which we live, wouldn't it? It would be an extremely subjective worldview, based solely on our preferences and biases. There's nothing inherently wrong with people's biases. But there is something very wrong with subjecting other people to our biases, regardless of how sincere they are.