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Alien 'abductees' show symptoms

"Most of them had pre-existing new-age beliefs - they were into bio-energetic therapies, past lives, astral projection, tarot cards, and so on," he said.

"Second, they have episodes of apparent sleep paralysis accompanied by hallucinations."

These frightening experiences usually prompted the individuals to visit therapists, who would frequently suggest alien abduction as a cause - an explanation which the abductees readily accepted, he said.
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If anyone asks you why we need critical thinking - there's your answer. :D
 
Who is more crazy: the patient or the therapist? Guess it takes a crazy one to know one.
 
Another strike against Intelligent Design and dualism - there's a lot of people out there whose brains just don't work all that well.
 
I agree that we must approach these accounts with extreme skepticism, as they're a lot of people wanting media attention and sensationalism, but still, if we're to ignore all evidence in favor of UFO abduction and concentrate only on those against, are we really making progress? Well I guess that works both ways anyway...
 
Evidence.

I vote to see the evidence, please.

Oh, there it is... right here.

... crap, anectodotal doesn't weigh in well. darn.
 
This sounds like cataplexy. It's a phenomenon seen in narcoleptics and it's essentially being aware during REM sleep just before awakening. The episodes are frightening to the dreamer because they are absolutely paralyzed while they are awake and aware. These events are often characterized by hallucinations. As you may know, in REM sleep, the body's skeletal muscles are paralyzed except for respiratory muscles. This is to protect the organism from injuring him/herself during dreaming (imagine flailing about when you dream you're falling!). Also, an interesting phenomenon in narcoleptics is that they have exceptionally vivid and pervasive dreams. Some of these occur at the edges of sleep, and can be indistinguishable from reality (hypnagogic states).

I suspect that I have some of the symptoms of narcolepsy, since I dream floridly and vividly from the time I fall asleep until I awake. I can usually recall dreams in color in the morning. If you wake me a minute or two after falling asleep, I'll recall a dream to you, sometimes vivid and significantly time-dilated. I'm also excessively sleepy during the daytime and require several hundred milligrams of caffeine in order to stay alert during the day.
 
sickstan said:
Some of these occur at the edges of sleep, and can be indistinguishable from reality (hypnagogic states).
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There are times I wake up screaming or yelling or punching--I've seen bricks flying, snakes hanging from the ceiling, a guy with a machine gun, the can being attacked by a monkey.

It's kinda cool because I knew I had to be dreaming--but it can scare the hell out of my wife.
 
Wolverine said:


To what evidence are you referring?
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Well... err... a bunch of people saying they were abducted by UFO's? Can we afford to dismiss that? They all see more or less the same thing. I like the hallucinations theory but it's weird that they all see the same thing, unless these specific hallucinations are etched in our collective subconscious or as a result of cultural influence.
 
Frostbite said:
They all see more or less the same thing. I like the hallucinations theory but it's weird that they all see the same thing, unless these specific hallucinations are etched in our collective subconscious or as a result of cultural influence.
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That, and the fact that humans all work the same way. We all have "lost time" and sleep paralysis. They just choose to use a weird-ass theory. The fact that it almost always happens when the abductee is in an altered state doesn't help either.

Hey MartinGibbs, I see snakes too. I think we're on to something!
 
Frostbite said:


Well... err... a bunch of people saying they were abducted by UFO's? Can we afford to dismiss that? They all see more or less the same thing. I like the hallucinations theory but it's weird that they all see the same thing, unless these specific hallucinations are etched in our collective subconscious or as a result of cultural influence.
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These are anecdotes, not evidence.
 
Wolverine said:
The plural of anecdote is not data.

Please read this article as well as the collection of links at the bottom of the page.
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You beat me to the punch. ;)

Frostbite: if all we have is anecdotes, why should we take them seriously? And if alien abductions (thousands of them) were real, why don't we have any real evidence?
 
RichardR said:
You beat me to the punch. ;)

Frostbite: if all we have is anecdotes, why should we take them seriously? And if alien abductions (thousands of them) were real, why don't we have any real evidence?
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Wow, you don't believe someone like Whitley Streiber!?!?! Man, you ARE a skeptic!:D

(I'm sorry! I always laugh...!)
 
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