An Interesting Experience

A Beast of a Cold

I've been home with one beast of a cold for the past couple of days, mostly asleep or lying in an aching mass on the couch to read or watch television, getting up only for medicine, something to drink, or a quick peek at the web. I seem to be getting better enough today that I expect I'll be able to go back in for work tomorrow. I'm not completely out of the woods yet. Normally, when I'm sick, I know I'm over the hump when I suddenly feel very energetic and excited about doing even the most ordinary things again. It may sound perverse, but that feeling is almost good enough to make being ill -- mildly anyway -- worthwhile.

Not Quite Waking Up

While I'm not completely well yet, I do feel good enough to write up an interesting experience I had last week. The correct description for the phenomenon I experienced is "hypnopompic hallucination during sleep paralysis" and while it is rare, it is not (usually) an abnormal experience. Something like a quarter of the population will experience this kind of hallucination once or twice in their lives. (Frequent instances can occur with certain sleep disorders and mental illnesses.) But while the experience may not be abnormal, this does not mean it isn't terrifying while it occurs, for reasons that will soon become apparent. Experiences like the one I am going to describe have found their way into the folklores of many cultures and, unfortunately, lend false credibility to hucksters of various types to this day. The phenomenon is both the subject of serious scientific study and fodder for peddlers of such nonsense as alien abductions, ESP, and superstitions.

In my case, as soon as I broke out of my semi-wakeful, paralytic state, I knew what had happened and got to think, "Wow! That was neat!" rather than "Who the hell is in my house?" Psychological and neurological phenomena fascinate me. I've read nearly everything on the subject by Oliver Sacks, for example, and have read other collections of clinical tales his work inspired others to do. One of these books, about hallucinations, I read about a decade ago and still possess. The book is Fire in the Brain: Clinical Tales of Hallucination, by Ronald K. Siegel. One of its chapters, "The Succubus", describes the author's own experience with a hallucination during sleep paralysis and describes the phenomenon in fair detail. Thanks to having read this account, I knew exactly the kind of phenomenon I had just gone through when I became fully awake. (Although mine was not as spectacular as his.)

The Succubus

As I said before, hypnopompic hallucinations have a prominent place in folklore. Siegel discusses this. (The next two quotes come from this book.)

Days later, after researching this phenomenon in the medical literature, I learned that I was not the first to be terrorized by such an experience. Throughout history, many people have reported attacks by the same intruder. I was right when I said she smelled old. The Babylonians called her Lilitu, demoness of the wind, who seduced men by night. The Jews called her Lilith, the hairy night creature. She was the succubus of ancient Rome, who leaped upon the sleeper and rode him to love or death. Then, in the Middle Ages, she became the witch Lamia. Finally, in Old Germany, she was known as mare, the old, ugly woman who sat on the chest of the sleeper and produced the evil dreams we now call nightmares. This nightrider also took on a male form, known in many cultures by the Latin name incubus. (87)

As an example of a richer experience than my own, I will quote Siegel's description of his own experience.

I was awakened by the sound of my bedroom door opening. ... I heard footsteps approaching my bed, then heavy breathing. There seemed to be a murky presence in the room. I tried to throw off the covers and get up, but I was pinned to the bed. The more I struggled, the more I was unable to move. My heart was pounding. I strained to breathe.

The presence got closer, and I caught a whiff of a dusty odor. The smell seemed old, like something that had been kept in an attic too long. The air itself was dry and cool, reminding me of the inside of a cave.

Suddenly, a shadow fell on the clock. Omigod! This is no joke! Something touched my neck and arm. A voice whispered in my ear. Each word expelled from a mouth foul with tobacco. it didn't make any sense. Somehow, the words gave rise to images in my mid: I saw rotting swamps full of toadstools, hideous reptiles, and other mephitic horrors. In my bedroom, I could only see a shadow looming over my bed. I was terrified.

...

I was paralyzed. ... Next to my the clock was the book I had been reading. A library card -- my card, complete with coffee stains -- marked my place. My eyes scanned the wall. I saw a spot that I had been meaning to fix because the paint had peeled. In the corner was a cactus plant I had been nurturing for years. This was definitely my bedroom and it looked normal. I was aware of my surroundings, oriented, and awake. This is no dream! This is really happening!

...

Someone climbed onto the bed! The presence shifted its weight and straddled my body, folding itself along the curve of my back. ... There was a texture of sexual intoxication and terror in the room. (83-84)

I don't know whether to feel cheated or relieved that I did not get the whole nine yards. My experience was much more abbreviated than Siegel's, involved less sensory data from fewer sensory modalities, and had no sexual component. In my case, I awakened at early dawn after having not gotten to bed until 2:00 a.m. and sleeping poorly besides. (Lack of sleep is one cause of experiences like this.) My surroundings looked normal as I woke up, but I saw a figure looming over the end of my bed. It looked gaunt and had a pair of very short, metallic horns. The overall impression was somewhere between a corpse and a space alien. The figure began approaching me , so I decided to raise my foot and at least block its progress. But my leg wouldn't move! In fact, I could not move at all. I became frightened and thought this thing might harm me. And then it disappeared and I could move. I immediately remembered reading about such experiences before and eventually remembered where.

What Really Happened

So what happened? During the phase of sleep that involves dreaming (rapid eye movement, or REM, sleep), the brain prevents motor commands from reaching everything except the eyes, which move about, some hold, in reaction to the visual imagery of the dreams. This protects us from injuring ourselves by moving about while we are unconscious. (Sleepwalking results from an abnormal lack of this motor inhibition.) Normally, as we leave REM sleep, the dreams and the paralysis end. But sometimes one or both can briefly persist into the waking state when the brain does not make the transition from REM sleep to the waking state correctly. If sleep paralysis also persists into the waking state, then one experiences hallucinations without being able to react to them. Hallucinations experienced while waking up are hypnopompic hallucinations. Hallucinations can also be experienced "in the other direction", during the transition from wakefulness to sleep. These are hypnogogic hallucinations.

The hallucinations seem real because the brain is processing them, in this unusual, half-awake state as if they came from the outside world like the sensory data, which seems to corroborate them. Siegel contends that as the brain attempts to integrate the hallucination with the sensory data, some of this data can be attributed to the phantom. In his more vivid experience, for example, Siegel thinks the scent of tobacco wafting into his apartment window from his neighbor's usually smoky abode was interpreted in this way as the smell of the night hag's breath.

Speculation and Science

I found the experience very interesting, but wouldn't care to have it again. This phenomenon and related ones are the subject of serious scientific study, wild speculation, and frequently an unfortunate mixture of both. And what kinds of wild speculation surround hallucinations experienced with sleep paralysis? As put so aptly by the Skeptic's Dictionary:

Sleep paralysis is thought by some to account for not only many alien abduction delusions, but also other delusions involving paranormal or supernatural experiences (e.g., incubus and succubus).

A mixture of science and fantasy is easy to find. Just search for "sleep paralysis" on the web and you will find all manner of articles that start out sounding good, but quickly get loony, and link to even nuttier stuff. But there appears to be some interesting scientific work on the subject. One such researcher has a rather comprehensive web page about sleep paralysis and associated hallucinations. If the subject sounds interesting to you, go there and knock yourself out. (See Note below.)

He gives some interesting advice on how to cope with a state of sleep paralysis ranging from techniques to become able to move to suggestions for ways to experience other interesting hallucinations while actually paralyzed! (I suspect he would like to study so-called "out of body experiences" in more detail and so wants to learn how to induce the hallucination.)

Making Small Movements: When you find yourself in the midst of a sleep paralysis episode you might try a traditional method for overcoming the paralysis that involves attempting to move one's fingers or toes, or even one's tongue. Although the major muscles are completely paralyzed the smaller muscles, especially of the eyes, fingers and toes are less so. A number of people have been suggesting rapidly moving one's eyes back and forth as a way of bringing a bout of SP to an end. If you are having multiple or repeated experiences at one time it may help to get up briefly and move around before trying to sleep again as it is possible to have multiple episodes in a single night.

Making Mental Movements: If you cannot move your body then perhaps you should dispense with that encumbrance and move without out it. I am not suggesting that you truly can move without your body [bold added], but you certainly can have the experience of doing so. There are some people who actually induce SP episodes in order to produce out-of-body experiences and engage in what they call "astral travels." When paralyzed they report that they can "sit up" or "roll out" of their bodies. This is sometimes called "projection." They describe this as a kind of "mental" movement rather than a physical one. In other words they appear to try to make the movement effortless rather than forcefully struggling against the paralysis. It strikes me that this might prove to be an effective strategy for overcoming the paralysis. Of course, you might just end up having an out-of-body experience but that might be preferable to simply lying in bed paralyzed. If anyone tries this, or has tried it, I would be interested to hear of your experience. [This researcher later describes successfully inducing this kind of hallucination. --ed]

For those interested in hallucinations in general, I recommend the Siegel book with some reservations. My opinion fairly closely matches that of Amazon's customer reviewer, Travis Miller, but as edited below.

This book is written for the layman - consisting mostly of personal narratives, with very little in the way of actual scientific information. That's not necessarily a bad thing; the same approach works very well for Oliver Sacks (whose glowing praise is quoted on the back of the book). Unfortunately, Ronald Siegel is no Oliver Sacks, ... in terms of storytelling ability....

Siegel recounts anecdotes of his research into hallucinatory phenomena - such as a teenage girl who still spends time with an imaginary friend, a woman whose experiences with DMT have left her with permanent auditory hallucinations, a man who lives with the ghost of his unborn daughter, and the imaginary companions of those lost alone at sea.

It's an interesting read, ... and though he assures us he doesn't believe in any of that paranormal mumbo-jumbo, he entertains said mumbo-jumbo a little too seriously - even going so far as to admit that his bookshelf includes titles on astrology and plant consciousness. He refers to his volunteer research subjects as "psychonauts", and expresses implicit sympathy with the drug culture of the 70s. ...

My main difference with Miller is that I see no basis for judging Siegel's research methodology within the book -- which is written for laymen. As for his credibility, which Miller also attacks, his explanations of assorted neurological phenomena made sense to me upon rereading several chapters. Having said that, he does exhibit the tendency all too common among modern scientists not to dismiss certain loony notions out of hand. But it is generally easy to tell when he weaves such things into the text.

-- CAV

Note: I am almost certain that the Al Cheyne web site is meant only as an overview, and is not intended to be a rigorous presentation of any of his research. If anyone happens by who is already familiar with Cheyne's work or who is familiar with related research and has looked at the web site at length, I would like to hear your opinion. For that matter, if I've managed to miss anything grossly wrong, let me know. I plan to look into this more, but it might be awhile before I get around to it.