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Post by auntym on Oct 22, 2015 15:45:57 GMT -6
www.nytimes.com/1999/07/06/science/alien-abduction-science-calls-it-sleep-paralysis.html?pagewanted=all Alien Abduction? Science Calls It Sleep ParalysisBy NICHOLAS D. KRISTOF Published: July 6, 1999 TOKYO, July 5— About once a week, Jean-Christophe Terrillon wakes up and senses the presence of a threatening, evil being beside his bed. Terror ripples through him, and he tries to move or call out. But he is paralyzed, unable to raise an arm or make a sound. His ears ring, a weight presses down on his chest, and he has to struggle for breath. ''I feel an intense pressure in my head, as if it's going to explode,'' said Mr. Terrillon, a Canadian physicist doing research in Japan. Sometimes he finds himself transported upward and looking down on his body, or else sent hurtling through a long tunnel, and these episodes are terrifying even for a scientist like him who does not believe that evil spirits go around haunting people. Called sleep paralysis, this disorder -- the result of a disconnect between brain and body as a person is on the fringe of sleep -- is turning out to be increasingly common, affecting nearly half of all people at least once. Moreover, a growing number of scholars believe that sleep paralysis may help explain many ancient reports of attacks by witches and modern claims of abduction by space aliens. ''I think it can explain claims of witchcraft and alien abduction,'' said Kazuhiko Fukuda, a psychologist at Fukushima University in Japan and a leading expert on sleep paralysis. Research in Japan has had a headstart because sleep paralysis is well-known to most Japanese, who call it kanashibari, while it is little-known and less studied in the West. ''We have a framework for it, but in North America there's no concept for people to understand what has happened to them,'' Professor Fukuda said. ''So if Americans have the experience and if they have heard of alien abductions, then they may think, 'Aha, it's alien abduction!' '' Sleep paralysis was once thought to be very rare. But recent studies in Canada, Japan, China and the United States have suggested that it may strike at least 40 percent or 50 percent of all people at least once, and a study in Newfoundland, Canada, found that more than 60 percent had experienced it. CONTINUE READING: www.nytimes.com/1999/07/06/science/alien-abduction-science-calls-it-sleep-paralysis.html?pagewanted=all
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Post by Deleted on Oct 23, 2015 11:11:02 GMT -6
Hmmmmmm. Me thinks this is one of those places where it is fruitless to try to connect the two. After all, even the guy having recent sleep paralysis episodes does not claim to see "aliens". Does he? They listed someone seeing "blue aliens" after watching something "alien", but I think the more common visions of "intruders" stick with the "old-fashioned-kind". Shadowy figures, beings wearing hooded garments, monster-like . . . I think I occasionally have "sleep paralysis". That is, waking up with the temporary inability to move. But I can't recall ever seeing or sensing a presence (the one or two times that I physically felt something pressing down on my whole body I was not paralyzed; I could move within the confines of someone strong laying on me, and I didn't sense a "being" in the weight, or see anything). For example, I recently woke up, in the normal morning time, with my limbs all over the place, but "frozen". For example, my arms bent funny, over each other, in the most uncomfortable position you can imagine, above my head. My covers on the bed gave the appearance that I didn't move much during the night, and my two pillows were in their normal place. I layed there briefly, wondering my positioning, and then moved out of it. How long I was in that weird position must have been brief, unless sleep paralysis also takes care of blood circulation being cut off. I've never woken up in the "wrong clothes" or clothes put on backwards, etc. My "sleep paralysis experience", if it involves alien abduction, is more like "they" have to get me back in bed, appearing as "normal" as possible, bedclothes smoothed, etc. The arms akimbo? Just how they end up, with as little touching of my body as possible, as "they" see that I'm waking up. or, I was fighting "them", and "they" had to give me one more quick shot of paralyze . . anyway, it is a LOT more creepy the frequent times I wake up, flat on my back, my body stretched out perfectly, and my arms neatly crossed on my chest. Even waking up paralyzed like that, there is no sense of "other", or thinking about "the grave" (which of course this position reminds me of, later). And of course, if only my "spirit" is needed for an abduction . . . As for people in sleep studies seeing their bedrooms exactly like they are, and never opening their eyes; we probably all can do that. Shoot, I can tell you which kid opened my bedroom door, if they're just going to say something, or want to come in, and I have a pillow over my head. Sometimes I have stoopid dreams that are so real, yet so worthless. I dreamed that someone came in my room, walked across the room to my closet, and took one towel off my towel rack. No one in my family. And who uses someone elses' used towel? That same night I dreamed that I was talking to two ladies that run their own store, and they were busily dusting off a fireplace as we talked. So? I have these kind of dreams when I'm focused on "housekeeping". (I had asked my daughter for all the towels in HER room, the day before, to wash.)
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Post by Deleted on Oct 23, 2015 11:34:19 GMT -6
A couple of things to add here. My sister told me, when she first moved back here to Mo. from Ca., that she woke up (in CA.) once with her clothes on "all wrong", and another time she woke with a distinct hand print (what kind of hand?) on her body. Believe me, I'm left feeling "priviledged" that she would even briefly share this with me, and it would now be denied. But I remember the true, left over incredulity she expressed; even that she herself was telling me about these events. I have probably mentioned before, that I view my sister as a "liar". The type of "lies" to keep herself "looking good" or out of "trouble". Why? Hmmmmmm. Myself? I am a known sleep-walker (though I haven't been "caught" at it for a long time). Sleep-walking also fits in the realm of sleep paralysis subjects, and most sleep-walkers out grow this "habit" just by the brain maturing into . . . that same brain function involved with sleep paralysis. Also, in my dreams, when I am "fighting whatever", I'm either using my hands (and arms) to hold some weapon, or even when using "telepathic powers". The so-called powers come from my "being" (brain), but I direct them with my hands to a target (pure dreaming fantasy). In real, awake time, my occasional powers of "PK" happen by thought. To the ice machine on the refridge I consider directed., etc. When I'm angry, the supposed PK will find the weakest thing in the room to move . . . If I was a scientist, how much effort would I put into reassuring people with what they "could handle"??
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Post by Deleted on Oct 24, 2015 0:53:20 GMT -6
My friend and I were 16..riding horses..middle of the day. Aliens weren't popular then especially in our neck of the woods. It's hard to have sleep paralysis on a horse X two. Maybe some such could be chalked up to sleep paralysis and people later trying to put a handle on it..I guess that's entirely possible..but I wouldn't mention that to Travis Walton or Betty and Barney Hill or Whitley Strieber..just to name some of the more noted ones. Then there is the 'dream' infiltration thingy. Aliens hijacking people in their dreams..showing ships and landscapes..are they dreams? Are they alien induced? A scientist is on a mission..things MUST make sense..fall into some orderly progression..have answers..be proven. There is a very big part of me that would like that. Then there is the more dominant metaphysical self..who knows..and knows for a fact..that anything goes and that the laws of physics are only good as far as they go...that there ARE hidden realms..and things we don't and might never understand...for whatever reasons. Uncooperative aliens..impossible brain stretch..closed minded..etc. I do know that with some things the more you try to force it..the more twisty-turny-timey-wimey it goes..until it's one big gigantic snarl in your head..but to relax and let answers come is much more the sane option..but then believing it...just believing it..is not always so easy sometimes..because that bit of scientist in us all..still wants some kind of proof. I'd love to stand one up in front of me maybe kick it in the knee and demand WHY??? But right up there with me winning the lottery is that one. So..maybe some people do try to justify sleep paralysis as some alien visitation..but I just don't think so...I just don't believe that one. I'd be more inclined to believe the exact opposite. In trying to understand an abduction...telling yourself it was just sleep paralysis. I say that because I tried to turn it into just about anything...but what it was. Shrug..my nickles worth.
oddly enough I was stumbling about the net and ran into this little thing about strieber which I didn't know. Hadn't heard
Strieber asserts that he was abducted from his cabin in upstate New York on the evening of December 26, 1985 by non-human beings. He wrote about this experience and related experiences in Communion (1987), his first non-fiction book. Although the book is perceived generally as an account of alien abduction, Strieber draws no conclusions about the identity of alleged abductors. He refers to the beings as "the visitors," a name chosen to be as neutral as possible to entertain the possibility that they are not extraterrestrials and may instead exist in his mind.
I really liked seeing that because it means he was open to any other possible suggestion or idea..and to me..makes him so much more believable.
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