Have you ever had an experience in which you
couldn’t be sure whether things were real or not? I am not referring
to ordinary dreams. These seem real at the time and then you wake up
and realise that they weren’t. I mean experiences which are more
deeply confusing than this.
You might, at some time in your life, have
enjoyed playing around with your own dreams, like this man who learned
how to control his dreams as a child.
I was 10 years old and my mother had taken me away
from my father (pending a later divorce). I was staying in my grandparents’
house and had nightly dreams of falling off a cliff. I always woke
half way through (I don’t think it needs a psychoanalyst to see
the significance of this one!). I became determined to complete the
dream and find out what happened if I hit ground. I eventually managed
it. It was followed by a ‘sensation’ of nothingness - I
know this sounds like a contradiction but I can’t think of few
other ways to describe it. I stopped having that particular dream
but have been able to control dreams ever since. For example, I quite
often wake in the middle of an enjoyable dream in the morning and
deliberately drop back into sleep to finish it off in the way I want.
If have learned to control your dreams you
may also have had the experience of realising during the dream
that it is a dream. It feels as though you are becoming conscious during
your dream and can give an exhilarating sense of being in charge of
the dream. This is called "lucid dreaming", and experiments
show that people are genuinely asleep and dreaming when it happens.
Something like 40% of people claim to have had this experience (though
surveys vary considerably) and it is associated with flying and falling
dreams.
Or you might be one of the 15% or so of people
who have had an out-of-body experience. You might have felt that you
left your body and were able to travel about, flying over the countryside
or visiting a long lost friend. But you wonder all the time - is this
real? The grass and fields below look and seem absolutely realistic
- even more real than in ordinary life, but isn’t there something
wrong about it all? You probably find you cannot read or see small objects
clearly, and you certainly cannot open the door or turn on the light.
Or you might have had an accident or terrible shock, or even come close
to death, and felt dragged or propelled along a dark tunnel towards
a beautiful light and another world.
Much research has been done to try to understand
how such experiences can come about and what is happening in the brain
to set them off. However, there are some simpler and subtler experiences
which are available to nearly all of us and yet which have barely been
researched at all. For many years now I have been collecting accounts
that people send me. The results have surprised me. Far from being the
oddities you might think, these strange states are extremely common.
Most of us talk as though we are absolutely sure we know reality from
imagination - we’re not going mad - we have our feet firmly planted
on the ground. But dig just a little deeper and most people will admit
that, just sometimes, they have not been so sure.
I am going to talk today about just two of
these strange experiences. Many of you may have had them yourself. If
you haven’t you will probably think I am as peculiar as the people
I am talking about, but if you have I expect you will recognise them
immediately and think "Oh yes, that’s just what happened to
me".
A false awakening is when you dream
that you have woken up - though in fact you are still asleep. It can
be really confusing, and even distressing. You may be convinced that
you have done all sorts of things when really you have not, like a student
of mine who dreamed she had got up, cleaned her teeth, eaten breakfast,
cycled all the way up the steep hill to the University, only to realise
she was still in bed and had to do it all over again - for real.
This could be amusing, but some false awakenings
are not so funny - like this one
I had one where I felt a presence in my room. I thought
I was awake at the time and it was very scary. I could feel something
trying to turn me around on my bed. I opened my eyes and it was very
dark but I noticed that my bed was on the opposite side of the room
and I suddenly realised that I could wake up.
In a recent survey of children’s experiences,
I asked 126 school children aged 8-13 "Have you ever thought you
had woken up and then realised that you were only dreaming you
had woken up?" To my surprise 57% answered "Yes". Of
course it is difficult to know how well they understood the question
and how good their memory was for their experiences, However, this is
an enormous number, and several of them provided descriptions that fitted
the definition absolutely.
Sometimes people spontaneously wake up from
this kind of dream. Sometimes they notice something odd about the room,
like a light switch that doesn’t work properly, a familiar object
being the wrong colour, or an eerie kind of lighting or glowing to things.
This can jog them into wondering "Is this a dream?" and that
is the way either to go into a lucid ream (knowing you are dreaming
instead of being convinced its real) or to waking up.
In a parallel survey of 224 first year university
students, I found that 83% claimed to have had a false awakening. In
both the children and adults, the people who reported false awakenings
were also more likely to have had sleep paralysis. Adults more often
reported both of these experiences while the children more often reported
seeing ghosts, seeing strange lights in their bedrooms or elsewhere,
and seeing UFOs.
I am sometimes sent accounts of what people
claim are psychic or paranormal experiences but that sound more like
a false awakening to me. Here is one example.
In 1983 my Vicar rang and asked me if I would attend
Holy Communion at 8 am next morning in honour of St. Teresa of Avila’s
Feast Day. I agreed happily as she is one of my favourite Saints.
Well, I set my alarm for 7.30 am but as I had gone
to bed late I was still very sleepy when the Alarm went off and decided
to have a few minutes more ... this was fatal as I went into a deep
sleep.
During this time I had a Dream in two parts (of course
I didn’t know it was a Dream) In the 2nd part I heard our phone
ringing on the window cill downstairs. I got out of bed to answer
it and was annoyed when I heard the Receiver being taken off the hook.
(who was in our house so early in the morning?). I looked over the
Bannister and saw a middle-aged lady in grey with grey hair scraped
back. She was talking into the phone ... ‘Oh its you Father!
Yes! Mmm!’ - then still holding the phone and cricking her neck
to look up at me she said in a very stern, plummy voice, ‘Are
you going to Church this morning?’
My eyes flew open - my clock said 7.52 (fortunately
it was 2 minutes fast) so I jumped out of bed, washed, dressed and
ran up to Church (3 minutes away) just in time for the Service ...
this was delayed for a few minutes anyway because a Builder followed
me into Church wanting the Parish Hall Key from the Vicar as he was
doing some repairs starting at 8 am. (This confirmed part of my Dream)
Relating the above to a spiritually-aware friend she
said she was sure the lady had been St. Teresa herself. That was when
I remembered that as she spoke to me I noticed a black decay spot
on a front tooth. Biographers state that in her latter days Teresa’s
teeth were decayed down to the roots yet her breath was never unpleasant
- a lovely fragrance was known to issue from her mouth.
But who had been speaking to her on the other end
of the line? As I thought about this I remembered a Vicar (Fr. Totterdell).
who was only with us for 2 years when he died - used to ring me up
every morning at 7.15 to make sure I was there for 7.30 am Holy Communion
(as I had missed one morning), Alarm did not go off. I used to let
the phone ring three times but not answer it, of course. So I’m
sure it was he.
This lady clearly wanted to find an explanation
of her strange experience. She concluded that she was visited by the
spirits of a saint and a vicar. As we learn more about borderline states
of consciousness I think other explanations become more likely.
During normal dreaming sleep your brain is
very active, your eyes move rapidly about (this stage of sleep is called
REM or rapid eye movement sleep) and all your main bodily muscles are
paralysed. They are not stuff and rigid but rather very relaxed. They
are paralysed because the signals coming from the brain are unable to
stimulate them into action. This paralysis is necessary because otherwise
you would act out your dreams.
Normally you, consciously, know nothing about
the paralysis. However, occasionally something goes wrong with the mechanism,
for example if you are very tired, over-worked, excited, or worried.
You may then find yourself slipping into the paralysis before you are
properly asleep, or waking up and finding yourself still paralysed from
dreaming. This is called "sleep paralysis".
Here is a simple, but typical, account from
someone who frequently experiences this weird sensation.
I am suddenly aware that I am partially awake, can
hear noises outside, can even try to call out, but cannot move at
all. Unfortunately, I know that if I could allow myself to drift back
into a deep sleep again, all would be well, but there is a complete
panicky feeling that if I do this I will die and it is only by sheer
mental willpower that I make myself wake up - feeling almost exhausted
with the effort.
Although sleep paralysis has been recognised
for many years there is very little research on it. For example there
is some evidence that people who suffer from sleep paralysis are psychologically
well adjusted, and there is no evidence of pathology or illness associated
with it. A Japanese survey found that about 40% of people claimed to
have experienced it and the researchers developed a way of inducing
the paralysis in the laboratory. In my own surveys I found that 34%
of the children and 46% of the adults reported having experienced it,
which is reassuringly close to their figure. However, there are very
few surveys and we do not know for sure how many people have the experience,
who has it, under what conditions or what can be done to encourage or
prevent it.
Many cultures have what are called sleep paralysis
myths. For example the people of Newfoundland in Canada describe an
"old hag" who comes in the night and sits on their chests,
stopping them from moving, and the Vietnamese have a "Grey ghost".
The medieval incubus and succubus were demons which came in the night
and seduced innocent people. They are now thought to have been sleep
paralysis as are the stories of fairy abductions and changelings. Nowadays
people are more likely to report that a four foot high alien with big
slanty black eyes came and took them from their room at night and whisked
them off to a space ship where they were operated on, or sexually manipulated
and returned to bed with an hour or two of missing time. Could alien
abductions be our modern equivalent of the sleep paralysis myth?
I suggested as much in a recent UFO magazine
and have since been inundated with fascinating letters from people who
have experienced sleep paralysis and did not previously know what it
was. Many seem to be greatly relieved that at last they know what has
been happening to them. Several even tried asking doctors for help but
could find no one who knew what sleep paralysis was.
We have so far collected about a hundred descriptions
of this experience and some remarkable findings are beginning to emerge.
There are certain features which come up again and again. For example,
there there are the strange whining noises, or the machine-like sounds
or humming. One described "loud screaming and high pitch laughter"
and another said "I experienced a roaring noise in my head:- as
of high blood pressure.".
Then there are the vibrations. People describe
these in many different ways but are obviously trying to get at the
same idea when they talk about shaking or juddering. One recounts "
it felt as if my whole body was vibrating at a high frequency and I
could even feel my teeth vibrating together." Another says "a
strange deep vibration took hold of my being and literally turned me
inside out."
Other common features include strange lights
seen in the room. These can be flashing lights, little stars, or glowing
objects. In our survey we asked the question "Have you ever seen
unusual lights or balls of light in a room without knowing what was
causing them, or where they came from?". This question was based
on a famous 1992 Roper opinion poll, which concluded that nearly 4 million
Americans had been abducted by aliens. 8% of the adults questioned in
that poll had seen lights and this was taken to suggest they had been
abducted. In my own survey even more reported such lights; 17% of the
adults and 28% of the children. However, this seems less surprising
now that we know how common strange lights are during sleep paralysis.
Sleep paralysis is also often accompanied by
the strong sense that there is someone there - even if you cannot see
her, him or it. One explains "After a few minutes I seemed to wake
once more ... only to be aware of something or someone sat on my chest,
pinning me down, while a second entity ran around my bedroom, mocking
me." One 28 year old woman explained that she has suffered with
sleep paralysis since childhood and even now it still frightens her.
Once she felt as though she was being grabbed around the waist from
behind and thrown 50 feet up in the air. She could even feel the fingers
squeezing her. On another occasion something grabbed her around the
chest and forced her back down on the bed. We have had many descriptions
from people who feel pressing, squashing or pulling sensations, feel
an invisible person sitting on the bed, or even see the bedclothes being
moved or pressed down.
Another woman described the worst of her many
sleep paralysis experiences like this.
I awoke to see a tall black shape at the foot of my
bed pulling at my feet through the covers. I could feel "it"
pulling me out of the bottom of the bed and I managed to scream through
my clenched teeth, sounding more like the neigh of a terrified horse
than a human. This time my husband did hear and leaned over and thumped
my shoulder saying "shut up". I did wake up properly then.
It is known that the sense of presence can
be created by stimulating the temporal lobes of the brain. These are
above the ears on either side of the brain and are concerned with the
integration of memory and experience, and with the body image, and many
other functions. Epileptics often have the focus of their seizures in
this area of the brain. Stimulating the temporal lobe (for example with
electrodes or with magnetic fields) can give rise to out-of-body experiences,
mystical experiences, sensations of floating and flying and also the
feeling that there is someone there - even if you cannot see anything.
The temporal lobe is especially active during some phases of sleep and
so there may be a connection here with sleep paralysis.
Also some people have much more unstable temporal
lobes than others. What is called "temporal lobe lability"
can be measured, and people who are high on this scale (with unstable
or highly active temporal lobes) tend to be more artistic. They more
often report deja-vu, mystical, psychic, and out-of-body experiences,
and more often have imaginary playmates as a child. It is not yet clear
what connection there is to sleep paralysis or whether temporal lobe
phenomena might be responsible for the sense of presence and the strange
creatures.
A fascinating question arises here. Is the
person really awake, with their eyes open, looking at their real room
and hallucinating the invading creature? Or it could it be that they
are actually dreaming the whole thing? The fact that people seem to
see their room as normal and can hear noises in the street or on the
radio suggests that they are awake, but they still might be lying with
closed eyes and hallucinating the entire scene - their familiar room
included.
Here is a case to illustrate the problem. A
woman from Middlesex recounted her first experience of 53 years ago
when she was 17 years old and a probationer nurse on her first stint
of night duty.
This particular night I went along to our staff rest
room at 2 a.m. and settled into a comfortable chair for my two hours.
I always found it difficult to relax enough to sleep but usually managed
"cat naps". However. on this occasion I fell asleep. I was
woken by the light being switched on and night Sister coming into
the room with the senior consultant. To my horror I was unable to
move or speak as the two of them crossed the room to discuss a patient.
In those days nursing staff always rose if sitting whenever doctors
or senior staff entered the room. So I was really panic stricken but
they didn’t seem to notice me and soon left the room. The next
I knew was that I was being shaken awake by my colleague saying it
was time to go back on duty. When I reached the duty-room I was trembling
and apologised to the Sister and explained about the paralysis. There
was an astonished silence and suddenly she smiled and told me that
no-one had been to the room while I was asleep and that what I had
experienced was probably Night Nurses Paralysis.
Clearly this nurse had hallucinated the sister
and the consultant but was she sitting there paralysed with her eyes
staring open, as it seemed to her, or was the whole scene dreamed up?
The only way to find out would be to observe sleep paralysis in the
laboratory or to put recording apparatus on people who have it frequently
at home. This is to be the next step in our research.
We are also interested in helping people who
are frightened by their experiences. Of all the people who have told
us about how they stopped being afraid, the majority have said that
it helps to relax, forget about it and wait until it has gone away.
Fighting the paralysis just makes it seem worse, trying to breathe deeper
only makes you feel as if you are being suffocated (your automatic breathing
control is best left to itself in this state!) and trying to scream
can just give you a sore throat. If you do manage to relax the paralysis
will just wear off of its own accord in a few seconds or minutes.
However, for many people, this advice is totally
unrealistic. They are so afraid that relaxing is quite out of the question.
And indeed for some people it just does not seem to work. For these
people the best way seems to be to try, very carefully, to move just
one thing. Some children say they learned to wriggle their little finger,
or a toe. Others have tried twitching their nose or blinking hard. So,
if you cannot relax, try to keep everything else still and just concentrate
on one tiny movement.
Finally, some people absolutely love the experience
and try to induce it on purpose. This can lead to out-of-body sensations,
floating, flying and other pleasurable experiences. So if you want to
explore your own inner worlds this is a drug-free, painless and fascinating
way to do it - as long as the ogres and goblins don't get you!
