I, too, was raised Pentecostal, and was SAVED when I was about 10. I remember praying for God to save my soul, and then just repeating "thank you Jesus" over and over. Then, suddenly, I lept to my feet, and almost jumped to the ceiling. I remember the feeling of something "else" controlling my body. I guess I "got happy" as they say.
That bothered me, for awhile, after I became an atheist, but after reading many articles about Psychology, Sociology, and Neuroscience, it's pretty clear that this "Holy Ghost" is nothing but the product of your own mind, brought on by the creation of the perfect setting(church)of...

1. Hypnotic Suggestions. 2. Music. 3. Chants. 4. Total Encouragement from everyone around you.
   I was virtually in a trance state, induced by the aforementioned setting. There is no such thing as a Holy Spirit!

Mass hysteria and Disassociation are probably good Psychological places to start. If you want to research.

I know we have members who have been where you are.

Thanks for sharing. The brain is far from a perfect organ. You can trick with abstract drawings, for example. I’m sure you could find neuroscience articles about your experience if you look. Either way, congrats on escaping religion.

You should read "Hope After Faith" by Jerry DeWitt, and "Godless" by Dan Barker. Both of these men are former Pentecostal preachers who are now Atheists. Both of them had the experience you are talking about, and both can still speak in tongues.
I was raised in Pentecostal churches, but I never spoke in tongues. I never believed it was real, so I never wanted the experience, but I have known, and still know a lot of people who do. The short answer is the emotion that can carry you away and act on your brain like a drug. The people around you have a huge effect on you. I used to be a runner, and the fastest miles I ever ran were around 7:30 per mile when I was training, but on weekends, I ran in road races, and because I was in a group of people like myself, I ran as fast as a 5:30 mile once, and 6 minute miles every Saturday. It was adrenaline maybe? It's a similar effect to the emotion you feel in church.
All of what I'm saying is of course just my experience.

I feel like it is a mode similar to hysteria, and a seizure. LOL.

I don't think that it has to be qualified as supernatural, but it is worthy of some investigation.

Our brains are capable of some pretty weird stuff...

Let me illustrate the strange case of the mind going walkabout and playing tricks on you.
I have halucinated a few times but I will give you 3 examples of interest. I purchased an outdoor glass table, it was too heavy for me to lift while in its packing, so I started to " wheel it " away. I immediately heard broken glass dropping from the top inside of the package to the bottom. The broken glass sounded like broken safety glass falling and not like shattered window glass. I eventually opened the packing and found everything was in order and the glass was not broken.
Case 2.... I watched a TV program showing the funeral of David attenborough for about 20 minutes. Since then I found that he had not died yet... .3rd case. I could not find my car keys, so I thought they were probably in the trousers that I wore the day before. I found them in there, and as I removed them from my pocket theyslipped out of my hand and I heard them hit the floor. I looked down to pick them up and they were not there. I later found them in a different room. These examples were real honest to goodness reality experiences.....fascinating. !!!

The human mind is a complicated and powerful organ, fully capable of 'tricking' itself under the right circumstances. Usually this is in response to trauma that is emotionally difficult to remember (I think it's happened to me, too). I hope that you didn't experience anything traumatic, and that nobody slipped you a "holy mickey" of some sort.

I don't doubt you believe you had that experience. The thing is every branch of Christianity believes theirs is the right brand of Christianity. Most of the time I believe they would be claiming the other brand is the wrong one and theirs is the true branch. For example, Protestants believe Catholics are heretics and Catholics and Protestants believe Pentecostals are nuts, and so on.

And, if this is so, how would anyone reconcile others in all these branches of Christianity they claim are false supposedly having their own divine epiphany and miracles? I'm confused. This is just one of the reasons I am a heathen.

When I was christian, I conditioned myself to expect a desired result and since I expected it, I received it several times--maybe this is similar. Perhaps the brain playing mind tricks.

I've spoken in tongues and I've been "slain in the spirit" (for those that don't know it's when you go into temporary paralysis and collapse). I feel both were due to my brain believing it was expected of me. The one thing that I can not explain was when one of the parishioners had a demon exorsised from him. His body literally elongated before my eyes and he slithered like a snake across the floor. That was the most terrifying thing that I've ever seen and hope to never witness anything like it ever again.

The release of adrenaline is a powerful force that has been intregal in our evolution and survival to this point in time. learn to appreciate the focus in the moment and smile.

I'm also ex-Pentecostal. My explanation for it all is simple. Back when you believed it this was real to you. Now that you no longer believe it is not real to you. This does not make the experience go away. What it does raise is the question of how can "ho si con didli eyi" in any way be a language of any type that is used for edifying or spreading a gospel? It simply cannot be. It is make believe put upon you by your religion. While in the religion you were lost. Only now you are found. Of course, you are found by yourself and not found by a make believe god. All gods are imaginary. Anything coming out of holy books is imaginary.
Be happy and enjoy your life.

Never, but I never believed either. I would explore neurological explanations. I can't know yet but I bet science can find a rational explanation, if it hasn't already.

The experience was "real" in the sense that it occurred. And so you should "believe in" it ... but I think what you are saying is that you are having trouble letting go of a particular EXPLANATION for it.

The simple explanation is probably the best. By your own admission "there is a lot of screaming, crying, dancing and speaking in tongues". In other words the whole pentecostal experience is designed to whip you up into a particular ecstatic emotional state. Why wouldn't you expect to "blank out" in such a state?

The Pentecostal / charistmatic movements are attempting to embrace the miraculous and to demonstrate in some visible way that god "moves" in the present day. Since god doesn't actually do that (on account of him not existing), then experience takes primacy over belief, and in fact drives belief. Apart from a few parlor tricksl like leg-lengthening or transient placebo effects, what is left is a personal subjective experience of god. The more emotional, the more impressive. This is just another form of argument from popularity. If everyone around you is excited, you will tend to be and will certainly feel you should be. That's why the gift of tongues was so sought after by you in this period.

Apart from all that, an unexplained experience is just that. It remains unexplained until there is a GOOD explanation for it. God does not explain a mental short-circuit better than the fact that you, like all humans, are a hypersocial creature who seeks group belonging and was carried along into an emotionally intense group experience that was specifically designed to shut your brain off.

My guess is that you have a positive emotional impression of this experience even in the absence of specific memories. Is feeling good any sort of proof of anything, much less god? Taking heroin feels good, but is it something to embrace for that reason? Take away the heroin and replace it with endorphins and hormones stimulated by pentecostal practice -- does that change the question?

In my experience, pentecostals / charismatics have a particularly hard time letting go of a huge personal investment in the meaning and validating power of their personal subjective experiences. As a former non-charismatic Christian, I had to admit to myself that I willingly gave myself over to unsubstantiated (and, indeed, unsubstantiatABLE) hogwash, and it's a hit to the ego. If, additionally, I had screamed and cried and danced around in the process, and generally made a fool of myself in mixed company, and THEN found out it was for naught ... that would be even tougher to realize. It would ratchet the embarrassment factor way up for me.

But you know what, it all comes back to your very human and understandable desire to be part of a tribe, to belong to them and to god, and it's actually admirable in a sense that you were so earnest that you would do most anything in the service of that. Now you've realized that despite all the hue and cry of it, it didn't work as advertised. That also takes great courage and a great commitment to intellectual integrity. You're a stronger person for it. So just accept that you blanked out and that this had everything to do with an exteremely intense and deliberatly ginned up group experience, and nothing to do with the existence of god. What you were told in so many words is to not underestimate the power of god; what I'm telling you is not to underestimate the power of your own mind when directed to a particular end.

I find this very interesting in view of another recent conversation on this site in which someone (I can't rememer who) said she or he was certain all people who have these experiences know deep down that they're faking it. I've always assumed the same but I have no reason to doubt that you're telling the truth, which suggests that in some cases it's not deliberately faked and there is some real mechanism that produces the phenomenon.

Mass Hysteria.

How your parents or familia want you to percieve the things that they experience, and the grouping that surrounds them, all have adverse effects on how the brain opporates in its normal capacity. Speaking in tounges may have been an experience you had that was normal growing in that community, but it is not always considered to be so outside of it. There is a world and cosmos around you, that expands beyond this comprehension and I only wish you to explore it.

When I was younger my mother wanted to take me to a spiritualist church as that was her thing, we made a mistake and ended up at a pentecostal church it was amazing - 'hallelujah praise the lord' Given that I have never ever had a religious bone in my body I found it all quite eye opening in that there was something like mass hysteria going on - and didnt realise that people could work themselves up into an altered state. I'm sort of glad I went and found that because it taught me what to avoid.

Here's the Derren Brown link : [dailymotion.com]

Derren Brown (an atheist) did a programme once where he convinced another atheist that she had had a "religious experience". It's all mind games. Those manipulators in the church are very good at what they do, including mass hysteria.

I think you experienced something called ecclesiastical hysteria. You were prepped in church and then in the seclusion of camp at the service you got all worked up and acted how you were too inhibited to normally.

The problem I have with "unexplained" and "mysterious" happenings is that they are generally only unexplained because people haven't taken the time to investigate seriously and find the explanation. There is nothing actually unearthly about any of the experiences religious people have but they just don't have the scientific background or motivaton to investigate what is already known about these conditions. They then conclude that their experience was as a result of God or their faith.

When I was 12 there was a zodiac puzzle in the Kansas City Star. There were 100 numbers with words next to them. You look at your sign and match the numbers listed there with the numbered words. That's your zodiac for the day. I happened to be using a tiny pen with gold colored ink to circle the words. Imagine my surprise when the message came up, "Gold will shine in your lucky stars today."

I'll match that against any religiouis experience anyone wants to mention. Even having a pen with gold colored ink is extremely rare. I've never had another one. But I still don't think the author was psychic and knew I was going to do that. Could it have been.... Satan?

I believe neuroscience can explain and has explained 5here experiences fairly well. These experiences are found in other religions too.