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A letter to the editor in the Summer 1988 issue of the
Skeptical Inquirer caught my eye. It referred to an article
called "The Aliens Among Us: Hypnotic Regression Revisited," by
Dr. Robert A. Baker. In it, Baker challenged UFO abductions by
coming up with several alternatives to the ET Hypothesis,
including Fantasy-Prone Personalities and Hypnogogic/Hypnopompic
Hallucinations. These last two are special dream states
experienced upon drifting off to sleep/waking up, in which one
can feel paralyzed and/or see things in their bedroom that
aren't really there. Out of Body Experiences and Alien
Abductions have been attributed to this phenomenon by some
research psychologists.
Since I received few responses to my post on the ASTRAL echo
suggesting Hypnogogic/pompic phenomena as a POSSIBLE explanation
for OOBEs, I thought perhaps this letter would be enlightening:
----------------------
I would like to thank Robert A. Baker for his article "The
Aliens Among Us: Hypnotic Regression Revisited" (SI, Winter
1987-88). I have been plagued by hypnogogic hallucinations since
childhood, but until reading this article I didn't know what
they were called or even that other people had them.
My typical hallucination goes something like this: I am on the
verge of falling asleep. A loud ringing in my ears, sometimes
accompanied by a montage of unearthly voices, signals the onset
of another episode. Though I seem awake, my body is completely
paralyzed. I feel my "spirit" leave my body. The next thing I
know I am floating somewhere near the ceiling, looking down at
myself and my wife at my side. Once free of my body, I can often
control where my ethereal self goes. Sometimes I float all
around the house, and on one occasion I floated through the wall
and out into the yard. Occaionally I sense the presence of other
beings around me. At some point I get bored or frightened by the
whole thing and return to my body and go to sleep.
Instead of an out-of-body experience, I sometimes have an
extremely vivid auditory and/or visual hallucination. Over the
years I have seen and talked to "ghosts," been visited (though
not yet abducted) by aliens, seen three-dimensional heads
floating by my bed, heard knocks on my door (when no one else
was in the house), and was once attacked by a glowing green
Doberman. These experiences seem as real as life.
I have never thought of these experiences as anything more than
what they certainly are: my mind playing tricks on itself. The
few other people I've known who have had similar experiences
were all convinced that they were, in Baker's words,
"incontrovertible proof of some sort of objective or consensual
reality." These otherwise rational and intelligent people also
believe that Uri Geller can really bend spoons with his mind.
Take one hypnogogic hallucination and one fantasy-prone
individual and you have all the ingredients you need for a true
believer.
Based on my own experience, I believe that hypnogogic and
hypnopompic hallucinations provide a rational explanation for
most alien abductions, out-of-body and near-death experiences,
ghosts and just about any other claim of the paranormal you care
to name. Baker states that these hallucinations are a "common yet
little publicized and rarely discussed phenomenon." I recommend
that SI and CSICOP discuss and publicize them thoroughly in the
future.
James A. Stewart
Coronado, CA
---------------
COMMENT:
Mind you, I don't think "H/HH"s can fully account for the
abduction syndrome, due to the striking similarities between
reports (see SNOBS.UFO, ParaNet Alpha, Library 1). But even in
this area I'm open to further inquiry.
I'm also not the least bit impressed with this so-called
"skeptic's" remark that OOBE's are "certainly" caused by H/HHs,
"based on [his] own experience." Isn't extrapolation from
personal experience an unsound method of judging data? It
certainly is when True Believers do it, as many declared
skeptics are quick to point out. If he's that "certain," there's
no use in even arguing with him. He's no longer a skeptic, he's
become a cynic.
However, I thought this letter was important, in that it
presents an alternative, Earth-bound picture of the phenomenon
from the point of view of one who has experienced it. Rarely do
declared skeptics acknowledge having actual encounters with the
bizarre; they choose instead to take a more detached approach. I
think this mixing of subjective experience with objective
evaluation is an important element in the Rationalism movement's
efforts to gain credibility among the credulous.
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Copyright 1988 National Fringe Sciences Information Service, All Rights
Reserved.
Letter Copyright 1988 Committee for the Scientific Investigation of
Claims of the Paranormal. Used with permission.