Experiencers and "exploding head syndrome."

Hi all,

Some background:

Over the years, I have interviewed dozens of experiencers. Some of them have mentioned unusual events which occur on the sleep/awake interface. They will be lying in bed, and suddenly hear a tremendously loud sound; or see a flash of light in their darkened room, or occasionally feel a wave of heat pass through their bodies.

These events then become integrated into other unusual events, which happen to them, which they may interpret as being part of their UAP/alien experiences. However, there may just be a conventional explanation for these kind of events.

In the July/August 2015 (vol. 36, no.6) issue of the magazine "Australasian Science," writer Tim Hannon, on page 40, reports on  "Exploding Head Syndrome."

The article:

In part the article reads:

"In recent years the neuropsychological literature has been awash with reports of people describing strange experiences when going to sleep. Many of those have described hearing sudden inexplicable noises; such as unseen bombs exploding nearby, thunderclaps on cloud-free nights, or a gun fired in their bedroom by an invisible intruder. At times these sounds are accompanied by flashes of light, or by physical sensations such as intense heat."

"While some people are convinced that these explosions are real, most others acknowledge that, since they are not heard by others, the sounds must have occurred inside their own heads.

"Some have concluded that these noises must be the work of invisible agents such as aliens or poltergeists, or a government agency testing mind-control weapons...neurological investigation suggest that the episodes are symptoms of a condition labelled exploding head syndrome which may be more common than previously assumed...The neurological mechanisms responsible for exploding head syndrome are not well understood...The dominant theory implicates the reticular formation, a set of connected nuclei distributed through the brainstem, which is one of several neural systems regulating the body's transition between sleep and wakefulness..."

Hannon's article cites the recent work of Brian Sharpless, Department of Psychology, Washington State University as published in J. Sleep Res. (2015 - click here.)

Knowledge researchers need:

I have long maintained, that UAP researchers who work with experiencers need to have a basic knowledge of a number of areas of abnormal psychology (click here) , physiology (click here) and neurology (click here.). These include the topics of hypnagogic and hypnopompic imagery (click here); sleep paralysis (click here;) and fantasy prone personality (click here ); and false awakenings (click here.)

Pauline Wilson's blog posts:

For the background to the possible relationship between UAP experiencers and fantasy-prone personality by Adelaide based researcher, Pauline Wilson, please click here. For citations to seven published scientific studies on the topic, and further discussion click here.

For Pauline's take on hypnagogic imagery click here.

In summary:

I am not saying that these areas explain the totality of experiencer's accounts, but that parts of experiencers' stories are so similar to these areas of existing knowledge, that researchers need to take current scientific research into account, when trying to interpret the accounts of an experiencer.

"Abduction:Human Encounters With Aliens"

Hi

Long time readers of this blog will be aware of Pauline's observations on potential psychological explanations for some UFO abductions. Readers who have looked at my recent postings on abductions will know that this is also an area of interest to me. I must emphasise that neither of us are suggesting that all abductions can be explained in this way. However, if we eliminate some cases, but there remain cases which cannot be accounted for in these ways, then we learn something about the remaining cases.

In this post I want to present some data after examining some detailed abductee/experiencer case histories as presented by John Mack in his book "Abduction:Human Encounters with Aliens." Published in 1994 by Simon and Schuster. London. ISBN 0 671 85194 2. In reviewing these 13 case histories I was looking for indicators which might relate to migraines, and/or sleep paralysis.

Migraine:

Pauline's post of 28 August (click here) 2010 mentioned that Richard Grossinger's book "Migraine Auras:When the Visual World Fails" speaks of migraine prodrome. "Migraines are often augured by incipient sensations, an undefined prodrome that may occur days, hours or just minutes beforehand." These prodromes may include "...strong tingling or a sensation of vibrating wires (paresthesias) in the feet, hands, face and/or tongue area." (p69.(

Taking a look at possible migraine related occurrences in Mack's case histories I note:

Experiencer Scott (Chapter five) - Abduction experiences since age 3

"Beginning when he was eight, Scott was taken repeatedly to physicians, especially neurologists, for the evaluation and treatment of frequent throbbing headaches that had begun when he was six...the headaches were diagnosed as "atypical migraine."" (p94.)

Experiencer Jerry (Chapter six) - Abductions before age 7

"Jerry...realized she was "paralysed kind of up to the waist"...Jerry described the paralysis as being like a painful vibration. Then "a tremendous vibration" extended into her hand...The powerful vibrations seemed to shake Jerry's whole body." (p122.)

Experiencer Eva (Chapter eleven) - Abductions since early childhood

"Following this session, Eva again experienced an intense headache and was extremely thirsty for a day or two." (p255.)

Experiencer Dave (Chapter twelve) -Abductions from age 3

"He also remembers having the same feelings, "a vibration of some kind, a tingling," that he had in association with later abductions." (p268.)

"The vibration, "then went from below my naval and out through my chest, and then it was real tingly..." (p273.)

Experiencer Peter (Chapter thirteen) - Various abductions

"I remember my whole body vibrated and shook maybe for a second, two seconds, three seconds." (p295.)

"Once more he felt the vibrations in his body..." (p322.)

Sleep paralysis:

The name given to the experience of waking from sleep to find that you are unable to move is "sleep paralysis." It is a relatively common phenomenon which happens to many people at least once in their lifetime. Some people regularly experience it. It is when you awake from the "dreaming" or "rapid eye movement" phase of sleep, where your muscle tone is low - hence you feel you are paralysed and cannot move. However, almost inevitably you can move your eyes. Hypnopompic imagery (click here for more details) can accompany sleep paralysis. These hallucinations can generate images of figures, unusual noises and can appear "as real as real."

Are there any indicators of episodes of sleep paralysis in Mack's experiencer case histories? Yes there are.

Jerry

"She woke up terrified...she could not move." (p118.)

"In the years following, Jerry had a number of 'nightmares' in which she would awake paralyzed, hear 'buzzing and ringing and whirring' noises in her head and see humanoid beings in her room." (p119.)

Catherine

"She recalled a dream from age nine in which she was paralyzed and terrified as 'some kind of creature' with long fingers...grabbed her." (p143.)

Paul

"No longer at home in his cellar, Paul now was lying on his back in his bed at night and experienced 'things'...he could not move at all." (p232.)

Eva

"...she recalled waking in the night and seeing 'three midgets'...she felt helpless and could not move." (p243.)

"I was frozen again...totally frozen..." (p244.)

Peter

"It is not clear to Peter whether he fell asleep or not...Now he was paralyzed..." (p302.)

Other comments:

Two general comments which Mack makes are of interest to me:

(1) "One of the more difficult phenomena that Catherine and many other abduction experiencers have to deal with is a virtually constant flow of sensory experience, especially light flashes...intrusions of patterned color images..." (p168.)

Could these be migraine related?

(2) "During his childhood Arthur tended, like many abductees, to get significant throat and sinus infections." (p371.) I don't think I have ever come across anyone who has made this observation before.

Final comment:

I know that I am taking selective quotes from case studies, but I am looking to draw attention to the fact that there may be relationships to migraines and sleep paralysis, which were not looked into at the time.

I would urge anyone investigating a new account to take a detailed medical history as part of the data gathering.

For an article on sleep paralysis which I wrote several years ago, click here then scroll down.

For one of the best websites for information on sleep paralysis click here

I welcome comments from readers.

"Life with the aliens"

Hi readers

My rainy day Fortean Times reading continued with the segment titled "the UFO files." In this issue, Jenny Randles commences a two part article headed "Life with the Aliens."

After revealing that a United Kingdom soap opera plans to feature one of its stars in a relationship with an "alien," Jenny delves into her casebook of encounter events.

In 1978 a woman, living near Lymm, Cheshire saw a silver glowing entity looking into her window.

Next, in 1942, during the Second World War, a woman living near Halifax in the UK, saw a blue sphere appear outside her window. Three, 1.5 metre tall figures emerged, wearing silver overalls and "gold fish bowls" on their heads. An unusual absence of sound was noted. Finally, the figures left though the wall.

These cases seemed to be isolated instances in the lives of the witnesses, but in other cases, the events are lifelong. Jenny's third example involved "Georgina" from South Wales.

In her early childhood, she saw "Strange people who entered and passed through my bedroom or stood there just watching me in the night."

She also found "...herself inexplicably outside, staring into the sky with a puzzling sense of longing." There were also episodes which could be sleep paralysis. Later in life, she had several 'time lapses.' Doctors diagnosed temporal lobe epilepsy.

Jenny closes part one of the article with "...I'll develop the theme of ongoing alien contact and find intriguing links with epilepsy, migraine and out-of-body experiences that offer fascinating clues about UFO reality."

Comment:

Note Jenny's comment about migraine, and then recall my previous post (28 August 2010) where I took a look at the possible relevance of migraine auras and prodromes to the UFO abduction phenomenon. I feel this is an unexplored area of research.

If you'd like to read the entire article by Jenny, then click here.

Sleep paralysis and abductions

Hi readers

Over the last ten years there has been a great deal of discussion about the relevance of the topic of sleep paralysis to alien abductions.

What is sleep paralysis? During the night, when you are asleep, you go through various stages of sleep. One of these stages is rapid eye movement (REM) sleep, where most dreaming occurs. The healthy adult spends about 20% of their total sleep time in REM sleep. During REM sleep, your muscle tone is almost zero, otherwise if you dreamed that you were being chased you would get out of bed and run. The only thing that moves are your eyes.

J A Cheyne at the Department of Psychology at the University of Waterloo in Ontario, Canada has written a lot about sleep paralysis. Click for further details here. He notes that everyone reporting sleep paralysis has the subjective impression of wakefulness and immobility. Elements of the experience which frequently occurs are: a "fear of a presence"; "fear of death" or "fear of harm."

Other elements which occur are "a sense of presence" -usually evil; a pressure on your chest; auditory hallucinations -e.g. footsteps, breathing; visual hallucinations perhaps of a humanoid form or of a face present; feelings of floating or lifting.

Rarer features are that the whole experience has the continuity of conscious experience and totally unlike a dream. Also you might experience a tingling or vibrating sensation.

Statistically, two thirds of SP experiences have associated hallucinations; and about 5 % report all the associated elements described above.

Let's take a look at a few reported abduction accounts:

1. Woke paralysed, lying on her back. Sense of a presence in the room. Bed clothes seemed to be vibrating. Feeling of being out of her body.

2. Numbness, tingling and churning sensation crawled up his body. Paralysed except for the eyes. Became aware of 3-4 figures wearing dark robes with hoods, in the room. Next thing he "came to" in his bed.

3. Man overcome by fear and tingling sensations. Sense of a presence watching him. He became convinced there was someone in the room as he could hear their footsteps.

One of the lesser known things is that during REM sleep, males experience penile erection and females vaginal wetness. It is therefore perhaps not surprising that male abductees recall genital manipulation, sometime to climax, by their alien abductions and women recall genital examinations. So, even these unusual aspects of abductions can relate back to the physiology of sleep paralysis.

So, you can see why some people suggest that sleep paralysis might explain some abduction accounts. Paralysis with associated visual and auditory hallucinations. Many abductions start off with a person in bed and end with the person back in the same bed. Who is to say that they ever left the bed?

What of abductions from motor vehicles or multiple abductions? Surely, these can't be explained by sleep paralysis? For every vehicular and multiple abduction there are perhaps 100 bedroom based abductions. If one agrees that perhaps these bedroom based abductions were SP caused, then the "real" alien abductions would be the vehicular and multiple. But, wait a minute! Exactly the same abduction elements are reported by bedroom, vehicular and multiple abduction experiencers.

What of reported daytime, awake abductees. It can't be SP caused, can it? Another little known fact is that people in professions such as nursing and air traffic controllers have reported waking SP episodes-they are awake, but paralysed for short time during their shifts.

I am not saying here, that all abductions can be explained away as sleep paralysis. Just that many abduction components seem to fit extremely well with known sleep paralysis experiences.

Dear readers, what do you think about sleep paralysis as a possible explanation for some abduction accounts? Please feel free to comment.

Sleep paralysis

There has been quite a lot written about the relevance of sleep paralysis to the question of alien abductions. In Australia one of the best articles written in recent years is one by former UFO researcher Keith Basterfield and is to be found here.
Less has been written on the possible application of sleep paralysis research and the paranormal. However, the new book by Australian, Louis Proud, titled "Dark Intrusions" presents an interesting read. Find out more about the book
here