Hypnapompic Hallucinations
Wired link of the day: Arise, Mickey, and walk!
Speaking of paralysis, I was reading about sleep paralysis somewhere lately and when I mentioned it, people seemed to think that my hypnapompic hallucinations were weird - and this is the blog category for weird. Sleep paralysis is what keeps those of us who don’t thrash around when we’re asleep immobile. If you happen to become or remain partly conscious while you’re paralyzed, things can get weird. For one thing, you’re paralyzed, and any attempt to move may result in a sense of astral projection - but real problem is that people tend to sense a presence in the room. Hence you get succubi, incubi, old hags sitting on your chest, aliens experimenting on you and the like. Because you’re conscious, it all seems very, very real, though technically it’s classed as a hypnagogic (when falling asleep) or hypnapompic (when waking up) hallucination.
Here are some sleep paralysis links:
- A brief description of SP from wikipedia
- The scientific explanation, complete with big words and a survey for fellow paralytics
- The Sceptical Inquirer investigates the alien abduction angle
- An anonymous account of SP
- A non-anonymous account, with a quote from Moby Dick
I don’t usually hallucinate anything - I just can’t move. It tends to happen when I take a nap in the middle of the day…which I may be doing now, since this entry is spam in a can.