Just curious, how do you view your imagination and emotions? Have you typically been pretty grounded with them through childhood on up? Or were they very active?

I'm curious if their intensity in other aspects of life plays part in spiritual claims. My family has all expressed supernatural beliefs and experiences. I had some that I thought were supernatural, too. I've always had a very active imagination and spent much of my childhood in it. I get pretty emotional about stuff, though I don't express it well. I'm easily lost in a day dream and map out whole other lives or worlds in my head while detached from reality.

I can see more logical explanations for the experiences I had now and how conditioning and confirmation bias played part in it. I wonder how my temperament compares to others who didn't have huge experiences that they believed were supernatural.

It feels on par with Joseph Smith to have a brain and personality prone to creating stories. The church gives a framework we're left to fill in the gaps for or take outlandish ideas and give them plausibility. The more willing a mind is to pan out that narrative and embellish it the more likely they'll shape other experiences or feelings into spiritual witnesses.

I wonder if that's why believers grasp at the tiniest things to give validity to their faith since there's nothing substantial in the real world to assert it. A drop of water near the eye of a statue means decades of pilgrimages to the holy ground of devotion it's now become.