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Is sleep paralysis really an explanation?

cj.23

Master Poster
cj.23
Joined
Dec 17, 2006
Messages
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I was just thinking about this. Is "sleep paralysis" actually meaningful as an explanatory hypothesis? We all know what it is I'm guessing, and most of us would classify certain experiences as it, but as we lack any actual empirically testable hypothesis as far as I know, or even probable physiological mechanism with supporting evidence does it actually mean anything? It's a hypothesis, not a theory?

Dunno. Thought I'd ask

cj x
 
It exists and has been studied extensively, but an explanation for what? Atonia?
 
I think he means as an explanation for hallucinating alien abductions.

I've had sleep paralysis, and it's pretty scary the first time. I can see why someone would think there is an outside force at work. I thought I had had a stroke. However, I called my doctor, and after he finished laughing, he explained what it was. Other people just jump to conclusions.
 
Jeff Corey said:
They generally do them at night.
Click to expand...

That was brilliant! :D Nice line Jeff.

In response to everyone else - yes I am fairly aware of sleep studies. I'm thinking specifically of ISP events, like the "night hags" of folklore etc - but do we actually have a neurological/physiological description of the process? Well yes we have a description, but do we actually understand the mechanism at this time?

cj x
 
That's real? I've had that happen to me a few times - being awake but unable to move. I always thought it had been a nightmare just before I woke.

*Skims Wikipedia page*

Wow. Learn something new every day. I never had hallucinations with it - at least not that I can remember.
 
sleep paralysis is an explanation...

...but it's a little more than what people generally think and ESP type activities is something other than what the scientific community has defined it to be. Let's take the latter and think...really think hard about the definition of ESP.

ESP is supposedly this non physical means of communication not involving our normal senses. Define non physical and I will show you nothing, for nothing is the only 'thing' to truly define what is non physical. All substances are physical and all behavior has a physiology behind it, including ESP activity.

Sleep paralysis, from what I've experienced starting 26 years ago, seems to hold a 'key' into ESP activity...explaining the hows and whys behind the perceptions and the perceptions are significant to the individual experiencing sleep paralysis or to someone they've been in close contact with.

There seems to be two important factors to ESP activity such as clairvoyance, telepathy and precognition, the scientific community has sorely overlooked and perhaps the very reason why all these experiments trying to prove ESP fail.

Factor one...physical contact. It can be direct or indirect, but physical contact is an absolute must between 'senders' and 'receivers'. Indirect would be like the passing of notes, such as money, mail and business cards. Touching something the other has also touched.

Factor two...an X degree of physical loss. The greater the physical loss, the greater the expansions of ESP activity. It's like an automatic compensation the brain does when the body is at its most vulnerable to danger...usually during sleep, illness and injury.

The importance to understanding ESP activity ties to the medical benefits this could achieve. There are numerous illnesses without known causes, many of them capable of genetic mutation. There are also long standing mysteries of how DNA copy errors occur that create these genetic mutations. Understanding the neural communication pathways behind ESP activity could reveal the neural communication pathways of those with limited or uncontrolled mobility...or the lack of such as what is seen in Stephen Hawking with MND (???) and Michael J. Fox with Parkinson's Disease. It could lead into great advancements in spine injury treatments. It could also lead into understanding the finer lines between life and death and states of suspended animation as what is known with cataplexy, catalepsy and coma. These are extended sleep states where the brain literally puts life on hold regardless how brief or how long these states of suspended animation last per experience.

The unique thing about sleep paralysis is that the brain is literally stuck between two states of consciousness...REM sleep and wakefulness. There may well be neural pathways that are opened at the same time when one or more would otherwise be closed under normal circumstances. This could allow sensory impluses access to areas in the brain they would otherwise be restricted...such as...for example...maybe commands meant for the immune system being diverted to the thalami for sensory processing...especially for sight and audio...which is very common in claims of ESP activity. Imagine visualizing a command for the immune system to send out an attack on a foreign body or substance invading cells. Maybe this accounts for alien abduction like hallucinations during sleep paralysis. Alien...same as foreign...from elsewhere. Abduction...the taking away of...in this case...taking away the function of cells. That's just one example of one type of ESP activity.

Overall...in a nutshell, I hypothesize that ESP activity is metabolic in nature, is an instinctive response and an activity shared among all organisms.

There's some of my two sense. I've gathered way too much information to post here. Ask away...let the critics rip and the questions roll, but please keep it constructive.

Thanks
 
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Interesting... but I've got a couple of questions.

First, what do you define as "ESP"? Because most other ESP-people seem to define it differently - for example, physical contact is not required. Note - this is someone who claims that they have telepathic powers, and asserts that they work without any kind of physical contact.

Second, and I re-read your post to try and answer this - what the heck does ESP have to do with sleep paralysis??? Are you claiming that people who report ESP activity are in a SP-like state when they experience it? Why then should we say that ESP (a phenomenon that occurs during SP) is real and alien abductions (a phenomenon that occurs during SP) is not? In fact, what's the difference between a dream of an alien abduction and a dream of an ESP experience?
 
The first time I experienced sleep paralysis was sleeping in a car. I can not remember where we were going or how old I was, but I do remember knowing, even then, that it was just my mind waking up before my body did. Although, I can say that I have never had a sleep paralysis experience where, as some people do, there is some foreboding, or benevolent, presence perceived. I must, however, say that sleep paralysis can be, and is, a very disturbing experience. For the most part because you are trying to wake up, or your mind is waking up, and your body is not responding to the normal mental impulses by which you are motivated.

Lucid dreaming is an exercise that everyone should undertake just like physical exercise for your body; lucid dreaming is an exercise for the mind.

Just having the chance to tell this story; one time, about 5 years ago, I was trying to wake up to get something to eat. Each time I thought that I had woken up and walked out to the kitchen, but each time I found that I was still asleep. At least four maybe five times I thought that I gotten out of bed and walked towards the kitchen. Now, each time, as I look back on those memories, I know that there were indications that should have told me that this was not real. Sometimes it was the configuration of the location. Not the house I was living in at the time but a conglomeration or different compilations of places where I have lived. The other typical indicator was the people present, relatives and other people that I might not have seen for quite some time. The main point being that none of this seemed strange to me, at the onset of each incident, but once I realized that things weren’t quite right I dreamt that I was waking up again and the cycle continued, until I woke up for real, if any of this can be considered real. Dreaming or awake your mind is just how you process sensory input, how much you consider either of those mental states to be real, or not, is entirely up to you.
 
EyeOn said:
...but it's a little more than what people generally think and ESP type activities is something other than what the scientific community has defined it to be. Let's take the latter and think...really think hard about the definition of ESP.

ESP is supposedly this non physical means of communication not involving our normal senses. Define non physical and I will show you nothing, for nothing is the only 'thing' to truly define what is non physical. All substances are physical and all behavior has a physiology behind it, including ESP activity.

Sleep paralysis, from what I've experienced starting 26 years ago, seems to hold a 'key' into ESP activity...explaining the hows and whys behind the perceptions and the perceptions are significant to the individual experiencing sleep paralysis or to someone they've been in close contact with.

There seems to be two important factors to ESP activity such as clairvoyance, telepathy and precognition, the scientific community has sorely overlooked and perhaps the very reason why all these experiments trying to prove ESP fail.

Factor one...physical contact. It can be direct or indirect, but physical contact is an absolute must between 'senders' and 'receivers'. Indirect would be like the passing of notes, such as money, mail and business cards. Touching something the other has also touched.

Factor two...an X degree of physical loss. The greater the physical loss, the greater the expansions of ESP activity. It's like an automatic compensation the brain does when the body is at its most vulnerable to danger...usually during sleep, illness and injury.

The importance to understanding ESP activity ties to the medical benefits this could achieve. There are numerous illnesses without known causes, many of them capable of genetic mutation. There are also long standing mysteries of how DNA copy errors occur that create these genetic mutations. Understanding the neural communication pathways behind ESP activity could reveal the neural communication pathways of those with limited or uncontrolled mobility...or the lack of such as what is seen in Stephen Hawking with MND (???) and Michael J. Fox with Parkinson's Disease. It could lead into great advancements in spine injury treatments. It could also lead into understanding the finer lines between life and death and states of suspended animation as what is known with cataplexy, catalepsy and coma. These are extended sleep states where the brain literally puts life on hold regardless how brief or how long these states of suspended animation last per experience.

The unique thing about sleep paralysis is that the brain is literally stuck between two states of consciousness...REM sleep and wakefulness. There may well be neural pathways that are opened at the same time when one or more would otherwise be closed under normal circumstances. This could allow sensory impluses access to areas in the brain they would otherwise be restricted...such as...for example...maybe commands meant for the immune system being diverted to the thalami for sensory processing...especially for sight and audio...which is very common in claims of ESP activity. Imagine visualizing a command for the immune system to send out an attack on a foreign body or substance invading cells. Maybe this accounts for alien abduction like hallucinations during sleep paralysis. Alien...same as foreign...from elsewhere. Abduction...the taking away of...in this case...taking away the function of cells. That's just one example of one type of ESP activity.

Overall...in a nutshell, I hypothesize that ESP activity is metabolic in nature, is an instinctive response and an activity shared among all organisms.

There's some of my two sense. I've gathered way too much information to post here. Ask away...let the critics rip and the questions roll, but please keep it constructive.

Thanks
Click to expand...

REMAIN SEATED AND YOU WILL NOT BE KILLED!

THIS IS A WOO HIJACKING!
 
LibraryLady said:
I think he means as an explanation for hallucinating alien abductions.
Click to expand...


Sleep paralysis brings out the cultural imprints you grew up with. If you were raised with the idea of demonic possession, or ghostly apparitions, a SP experience with nightmares will make you place that experience in that framework. For others, it's alien visitation.

For people like me (growing up non-religious), when I have night terrors I feel like there's a male intruder in my home coming to harm me. Seems like a pretty run of the mill female cultural imprint to me.
 
cj.23 said:
I was just thinking about this. Is "sleep paralysis" actually meaningful as an explanatory hypothesis? We all know what it is I'm guessing, and most of us would classify certain experiences as it, but as we lack any actual empirically testable hypothesis as far as I know, or even probable physiological mechanism with supporting evidence does it actually mean anything? It's a hypothesis, not a theory?

Dunno. Thought I'd ask

cj x
Click to expand...

I'm unsure what you mean about having empirical evidence? For instance I've had episodes of sleep paralysis when I've been sharing a bed with someone who was awake whilst I was having the episode and they didn't experience anything at all.
 
what do you define as "ESP"?

ESP activities, such as telepathy, precognition and clairvoyance are the results of the expansions of our regular sensory perceptions…an extension of sorts. Being able to sense smaller energy particles from further away and the brain being less discriminative in the information it takes in verses information it discards.

Because most other ESP-people seem to define it differently - for example, physical contact is not required. Note - this is someone who claims that they have telepathic powers, and asserts that they work without any kind of physical contact.

They may only think physical contact is not required, because that’s what they are led to believe, thus not even expecting it and as mentioned, physical contact can be indirect. I would think there’s something in the immediate environment with something the other person has had physical contact with.

Second, and I re-read your post to try and answer this - what the heck does ESP have to do with sleep paralysis??? Are you claiming that people who report ESP activity are in a SP-like state when they experience it?
Actually, it’s more like those who experience sleep paralysis may find themselves in a prime state for ESP activity.

Sleep paralysis can spur on ESP activity. The body is vulnerable to danger, because of the loss of physical control, however brief. At that time, the brain is in both wake and REM sleep modes and though brain waves during REM sleep are similar to those during wakefulness, there are differences, meaning there must be communication channels open that would otherwise be closed when the brain is either completely in REM sleep or completely awake. This may reveal actual diversions of neural impulses that could explain some types of ESP activity, such as alien abductions (which, just for the record, I’ve yet to experience, though I do recall a hallucination during SP showing a person walking down a street with a green arrow pointing at them with the word “alien” above the arrow…not much of an abduction there).

Why then should we say that ESP (a phenomenon that occurs during SP) is real and alien abductions (a phenomenon that occurs during SP) is not?

The expression of alien abduction seems to be a creative expression to a possible relative reality. Let me explain…

Let’s say, hypothetically, alien abductions turn out to be visuals of commands meant for the immune system as described in my previous post.

Our brains are exposed to the basic common definitions of aliens and readily associate things alien to be that of sci-fi characters from outer space…immigrant also means alien in a tense that means from elsewhere just as an alien from outer space would be from elsewhere. A foreigner is also from elsewhere. Our brains are made to chunk information for best recall ability in memory. The categories we create throughout our lives will be the categories the brain will use for metaphoric reasoning. Anything the brain senses as foreign, alien or from elsewhere being a threat to the body, it sends signals for the immune system to launch an appropriate attack. During sleep paralysis the signals may become diverted and rather than reaching its intended target, it reaches the thalami, processing this command into visual and audio outputs. The thalami do have four sets of terminals. Three sets are for sight and one set for audio.

The 'alien' is quite real in its proper definition rather than in its expression. The ‘alien’ is inside. Because our brains are clueless as to what this ‘alien’ substance actually looks like attacking cells inside the body, it’ll use metaphoric reasoning to make sense of the impulses, thus creating an alien abduction hallucination.

Did you understand that? I’ll try to elaborate if needed.

In fact, what's the difference between a dream of an alien abduction and a dream of an ESP experience?

Dreams occur during normal REM sleep, which is well-established knowledge.

ESP experiences I’m presuming occur during disrupted REM sleep and out of REM sleep especially when the body is vulnerable to danger and due to an increase of physical loss.

This physical loss can range from molecular loss, such as the loss of insulin or glucose control in diabetics to an amputee as well as those who are incapable of normal physical means of protecting themselves, such as those who are paralyzed, in a coma, ill, etc.
 
In addition to Arthwollipot's questions:

EyeOn said:
Factor one...physical contact. It can be direct or indirect, but physical contact is an absolute must between 'senders' and 'receivers'. Indirect would be like the passing of notes, such as money, mail and business cards. Touching something the other has also touched.

Factor two...an X degree of physical loss. The greater the physical loss, the greater the expansions of ESP activity. It's like an automatic compensation the brain does when the body is at its most vulnerable to danger...usually during sleep, illness and injury.
Click to expand...

What leads you to consider these two factors?

EyeOn said:
Understanding the neural communication pathways behind ESP activity could reveal the neural communication pathways of those with limited or uncontrolled mobility... snip ... It could lead into great advancements in spine injury treatments. It could also lead into understanding the finer lines between life and death and states of suspended animation ...
Click to expand...

What specifically leads you to believe that any of these may be linked?

EyeOn said:
There may well be neural pathways that are opened at the same time when one or more would otherwise be closed under normal circumstances. This could allow sensory impulses access to areas in the brain they would otherwise be restricted...such as...for example...maybe commands meant for the immune system being diverted to the thalami for sensory processing...especially for sight and audio...which is very common in claims of ESP activity. Imagine visualizing a command for the immune system to send out an attack on a foreign body or substance invading cells. Maybe this accounts for alien abduction like hallucinations during sleep paralysis.
Click to expand...

Which specific pathways would these be, and how do they account for claims of ESP activity? For that matter, how would impulses meant for tissues that are a part of the immune system manage to encode (assuming that they somehow found their way to V1) such a specific visual experience (alien) in the visual system? This sounds preposterous without evidence, I hope you realize that.

EyeOn said:
Alien...same as foreign...from elsewhere. Abduction...the taking away of...in this case...taking away the function of cells. That's just one example of one type of ESP activity.
Click to expand...

This makes no sense whatsoever. Word association doesn't work on the cellular level, I am afraid.

EyeOn said:
Overall...in a nutshell, I hypothesize that ESP activity is metabolic in nature, is an instinctive response and an activity shared among all organisms.
Click to expand...

I am looking forward to some actual evidence that supports your position. Have any?


EyeOn said:
There's some of my two sense. I've gathered way too much information to post here. Ask away...let the critics rip and the questions roll, but please keep it constructive.

Thanks
Click to expand...

I think you are quickly going to find that the motto here is: "Show me the evidence." Furthermore, stating what you believe without providing any reasons is worthless. My first two questions address that point. What led you to those conclusions? You hypothesize that ESP is metabolic in nature, but have nothing to point to back that up. Simply it ascribing to some conditions that can be much more easily and convincingly explained by other means just doesn't cut it.
 
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