Hi all,
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.”
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.)
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.)
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.
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.
