Reverse Speech

[KumaruRockz]

If human speech is recorded and played backwards, mixed amongst the gibberish at regular intervals can be heard very clear statements. These statements usually appear in short sentence form and are nearly always related to the forward speech. It appears constantly throughout language, so much so in fact, that it is believed to be a natural part of our speech processes.

The pioneer and 20 year veteran of this field, Australian David John Oates, describes Reverse Speech as another form of human communication. He states that language is bi-level, forward and reverse. As the human brain constructs the sounds of speech, it forms those sounds in such a way that two messages are delivered simultaneously. One forwards, which is the conscious mind speaking, and the other in reverse, which is the unconscious mind speaking.

This is seriously amazing. I never knew such a thing existed. Go on the website and look at the examples and read some of the things that they present as evidence and stuff.

[Robin Firedrake]

"CaN YOu fEeL ThE SUnshInE?"

That is all.

[KumaruRockz]

"CaN YOu fEeL ThE SUnshInE?"

That is all.

I'z no get the reference. xD

[Robin Firedrake]

Look up the Tails doll curse. Or if you don't want too, one part of it is if you run the music for one Sonic game (Can't remember which) backwards you will hear "CaN YOu fEeL ThE SUnshInE?". And then there's all the rest of the curse too but that's the only part that fit this thread.

[KumaruRockz]

Oh yeah SonicR. I remember now.

[Nate]

This reminds me of the whole "Islam is the light" thing from that DS game.

What I did was, I watched the video, and when I saw it had subtitles for the supposed "backwards talk," I closed my eyes so I couldn't see the subtitles.

When I did that, I found that I couldn't hear any recognizable words in the "backwards talk." It all just sounded like gibberish.

This guy is a fraud. If it was really so "recognizable" he wouldn't need to put subtitles on it, now would he? The only reason he put subtitles is because, when he does, people will see them and say "Oh yeah it does sound like that." Just like the "Islam is the light" deal, when people were played the sound clip and not told what to listen for, they said they didn't hear anything. But if they were told what to listen for, they heard it.

The only thing this shows is the power of suggestion to people.

[KumaruRockz]

I don't think that. Everything I see on his website, I can clearly hear without any written help.

[Whitefang]

This reminds me of a time someone I know thought his/her dog could say, "butter", and gave it a stick of butter every time it did so.

For comparison, head to this youtube clip. At 1:50, what do Peppy, Falco, and Slippy seem to say? To me, it sounds like Peppy says, "Can we meet when we meet?" and Falco says, "Can we be there?" However, the others are indiscernible. As you can tell, it is not a sound being played backwards.

I think there is something cool to take away here, though, and that is the ability of the human brain to parse sound patterns and turn them into something that we think we understand. Isn't that cool?

[soul alive]

I once visited an art display where the artist had speakers planted underneath spun-bronze bowls, and played random noises. If you held your ear to a bowl and listened long enough, you could hear a word every once in a while, or whispering.

It was more effective for some visitors than others, so the phenomena might be something based more on the individual listening...

[Midori]

Hey, Nate said something serious!

Since reversing sounds is not something our brain can accurately do, "messages" hidden in reversed speech cannot convey any meaningful information about our thoughts. This website is funny, but not useful.

On a more interesting note, there's a really cool audio effect you can do. If you say a sentence and then play it in reverse, and then try to say that sound, and then play that in reverse, you get a sentence that sounds like your original sentence, only it sounds weird and unreal. Try it!

[KumaruRockz]

Hehe our subconscious can do many things.

[Nate]

I thought that the traditional line of thinking was that reverse speech was like...a hidden message that had nothing to do with the forwards speech. Like how they used to say that rock music would have "Worship Satan!" when you played it backwards or some such nonsense.

[KumaruRockz]

That exists too. That's backmasking. This is a naturally occurring phenomena that is part of the human brain.

[Scarecrow]

Well... I thought it was cool just listening to that youtube video.... they had a bunch of samples in there. Some sounded like what it said, some did not. I didn't think this was that surprising since our brain does process stuff weird. Like how you can jumble up a paragraph... mixing up each word and as long as you keep the first and last letter the same, you're mind will still be able to read it. Like this:

...mxiing up ecah wrod and as lnog as you keep the frist and lsat lteter the smae you're mnid wlil sitll be albe to raed msot of it prtety esaily.

So I thought it was something cool like that...

Anyway... then I read what he wrote about this "phenomenon"... So here's what I did... I took a small paragraph of his, recorded myself readiing it out loud, then played it backwards and this is what it sounded like "Ai smoe keh de khra ack pipe!" Ya, it was all gibberish to me too but maybe someone can make something out of that

But I agree with whoever said if you just close your eyes, you wont hear anything other than gibberish or what you want to hear. This is a good example.... Blue... play that... then read the lyrics below...

I'm blue
Apple tree, Apple pie
If I were green I would die
I would beat up a guy
In arberdeen I will die
I will bleed and I'll die
I believe I'm a bi
I'm in need of a guy

It's just gibberish but you read the lyrics along while listening to that part, it actually starts to sound like it.

[Midori]

I notice that for every single example of reversed speech on that website, you are told what to listen for before you hear it. Or you are given subtitles. Never are you allowed to intepret things for yourself. This is a classic example of bad science. It's a little scary that they say they've been using reversed speech in criminal investigations. It's worse than lie detectors, which at least measure something, namely stress.

[Nate]

Midori basically said what I said earlier. They tell you "Listen for this!" and put subtitles, which is pretty bogus. I don't buy it at all. It's pseudo-science. And I hesitate to even call it that because it makes it sound almost credible. I put this on par with astrology and palm-reading.

[Midori]

There actually can be hidden messages when people speak, but they're in the tone of their voice, their body language and facial expressions, etc. And even those things can't always be systematized or taken literally. The mind is an extremely messy and complex thing, and this reversed speech idea is way too simple and perfect to be realistic. Spend some time reading up on psychology, it's actually quite interesting.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Psychology
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sensory_perception
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brain
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Asperger_syndrome

^ this last article is my favorite. Likely, people with Asperger Syndrome wouldn't produce or detect messages in reversed speech because they don't naturally detect things like facial expressions either.

Oh, and: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reverse_speech

Sorry to inflict my Wikipedia addiction on you.

[Nate]

I'd also like to point out that if you look on the site itself, the whole thing is really a New Age type deal. For example, on the merchandise page, one CD says,

"An audio CD that will take you on a journey to visit your soul. Designed to put you in touch with your higher wisdom and spiritual insights"

while another claims

"An audio CD that takes you on a guided visualization journey into the deep unconscious. Designed to increase manifestation ability and create money in your life."

I'm no Biblical scholar but it seems to me that as Christians this is the kind of bogus spiritual stuff we should be avoiding.

[KumaruRockz]

Woah. I never noticed that, Nate. -avoids-

[Kaligraphic]

I'm no Biblical scholar but it seems to me that as Christians this is the kind of bogus spiritual stuff we should be avoiding.

Um, it sounds like the sort of con game that anybody who thinks about this stuff logically ought to avoid wasting their money on simply out of good sense, really.

"Designed to increase manifestation ability and create money in your life"? Create money in these people's pockets, more like.

[Warrior4Christ]

evaD sdrawkcaB:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J9cKjrM7T1M