Overload
Shock from static electricity
Category: Events
Type
Involuntary
Introduction and description
I have made a distinction between a mild electric shock and a very severe electric shock, because the mechanisms by which they provide an experience are different.
A really severe electric shock basically causes brain damage, but a mild electric shock may serve to temporarily resonate certain functions in our organs and give us a spiritual experience that way.
No domestic electricity supply produces mild electric shock. If you get a shock from an electricity supply it counts as being severe shock, because no domestic supply produces low frequency low intensity charge. The frequency of the electrical system varies by country; most electric power is generated at either 50 or 60 Hertz. Some countries have a mixture of 50 Hz and 60 Hz supplies, notably Japan, but it is all high intensity.
But there is one form of electricity which can be classified as ‘mild’ meaning low frequency and low intensity and that is static electricity.
Background
Before the year 1832, when Michael Faraday published the results of his experiment on the identity of electricities, physicists thought "static electricity" was somehow different from other electrical charges. Michael Faraday proved that the electricity induced from the magnet, voltaic electricity produced by a battery, and static electricity are all the same.
Static electricity is usually caused when certain materials are rubbed against each other, like wool on plastic or the soles of shoes on carpet. The process causes electrons to be pulled from the surface of one material and relocated on the surface of the other material.
A static shock occurs when the surface of the second material, negatively charged with electrons, touches a positively-charged conductor, or vice-versa.
‘Static electricity’ thus refers to the build up of electric charge on the surface of objects. The static charges remain on an object until they either bleed off to ground or are quickly neutralised by the discharge.
Although charge exchange can happen whenever any two surfaces come into contact and separate, a static charge only remains when at least one of the surfaces has a high resistance to electrical flow in other words it is an electrical insulator.
The effects of static electricity are familiar - we get an electric shock! Sometimes it can be a bit more of a mild electric shock, but either way it does not cause brain damage although the effects can be quite startling as you feel, hear, and even see the spark as the excess charge is neutralised. It can sometimes really hurt. But if the intensity is very low we feel nothing.
The mild shock that you receive when touching a grounded object after walking on carpet is an example of excess electrical charge accumulating in your body from frictional charging between your shoes and the carpet. The resulting charge build-up upon your body can generate a strong electrical discharge
Low relative humidity increases the charge – see Static electricity, energy and voltages.
So a dry centrally heated room is ideal for producing lots of static!
This link shows what can happen in very dry conditions - in this case Antarctica
Static electricity should be, if we look at it simply, direct current. If it is direct current its effects would be to simply stimulate in a very random way whatever organs of the body it affected by travelling along the nerves. But I found a very interesting paper that implies that static electricity can actually be discharged in a variable manner .
The Mosaic of Surface Charge in Contact Electrification
- Baytekin HT, Patashinski AZ, Branicki M, Baytekin B, Soh S, Grzybowski BA; Department of Chemistry and Department of Chemical and Biological Engineering, Northwestern University, Evanston, IL, USA.
When dielectric materials are brought into contact and then separated, they develop static electricity. For centuries, it has been assumed that such contact charging derives from the spatially homogeneous material properties (along the material's surface) and that within a given pair of materials, one charges uniformly positively and the other negatively. We demonstrate that this picture of contact charging is incorrect. While each contact-electrified piece develops a net charge of either positive or negative polarity, each surface supports a random "mosaic" of oppositely charged regions of nanoscopic dimensions. These mosaics of surface charge have the same topological characteristics for different types of electrified dielectrics and accommodate significantly more charge per unit area than previously
So it will have a frequency, it is pulsed charge.
How it works
The functions of the body are being stimulated as such all sorts of effects may occur, but if we get an hallucination, or out of body experience for example, the electrical systems of the brain are being stimulated by the static electricity to produce a sort of ‘false signal’ along the nerve cell of varying frequency.
Thus where a spiritual experience occurs it is via the build up of electric charge in the house or building and its transference to the person.
It is worth adding that even low intensity low frequency stimulation can in the long term lead to cell death, so if you find that you are getting experiences of this kind, you should immediately take yourself away from any long term exposure to the equipment and ensure all sources of static are removed as you could suffer brain damage of a permanent sort or severe illness.
References and further reading
A youtube video on static electricity - not too bad - meant for children.
Another youtube Static electricity demonstration quite fun.
Static electricity attraction by water - this is really fun, one you could do at home.
Static electricity science fun with Bob - See what 500,000 volts of static can do. This experiment uses a van De Graaff electrostatic generator.
Observations
Practically all the examples I found of static causing hallucinations [other experiences other than a sense of wonder were rarely recorded] caused what the people who experienced them called ‘sparklers’.
Sparkles are small, brilliant flashes of light that fade within a second, some distance from the observer. They resemble the lingering, falling remnants of fireworks as the display fades from sight or shards of metal, suspended in the air for a few seconds. Another person who experienced them said:
“Sparkles are definitely not pollen or insects, as one detractor tried to assert. Individual sparkles appear to be 1mmm to 4mm in height, and perhaps 1mm wide. They are distinct, single flashes of light. Most sparkles are white, but some are pale pink, a light golden yellow, or icy blue. There may be a dozen of them, or what appear to be hundreds”
I came across quite a number of people who had experiences of these, all of whom found them beautiful.
Because they are ‘caused’ by [in the sense of being the result of] static electricity, cameras can be affected by the static electricity – particularly digital cameras of course. People who attempt to photograph them are often so entranced they take photo after photo, only to find that the photos simply contain the usual anomalies that static causes, such as translucent, milky spheres or blobs on the film or photo. Since the sparkles can be hallucinations they never appear in the photographs.
Nevertheless, those who appear to think the sparkles are ‘real’ tend to call the photos of the static effects “orbs.”
It is clear that the frequency of the static electricity, has an effect on a surprisingly large number of people.
“So far, approximately 80% of those who go on ghost investigations, see them. The ability to see the sparkles does not seem to relate to how well the person can perceive other paranormal manifestations. Also, skeptics, non-believers, and believers see them–or don’t–and that seems to have no relationship to their belief in ghosts”.
This rather implies that the organ concerned has a relatively constant resonant frequency between people.
Related observations
Hallucination
- Little spots and sparkles 003190
- Oral surgery friend 003189
- Smoke and fireflies 003192
- Smoke sparkles and yelling 003191
- Sparkles and sounds 003188
- Stress stress stress 002252
- The Vortex bursts 003193