Alien abduction stories may come from lucid dreaming
Lucid dreaming, in which people are partially aware and can control their dreams during sleep, could explain so-called alien abduction stories. Claims of such abductions date to the 19th century, and the circumstances of the kidnappings often sound dreamlike and trigger feelings of terror and paralysis.
Certain dream states are also known to produce such feelings, leading Russian researchers to wonder if dream experiments could provide clues about alleged extraterrestrial experiences. The scientists prompted lucid dreamers to dream about encounters with aliens or unidentified flying objects (UFOS), discovering that a number of sleepers reported dreams that resembled actual descriptions of alleged alien abductions.
During lucid dreams, sleepers are aware they are dreaming and can then use that awareness to manipulate what happens in the dream. About 55 per cent of people experience lucid dreaming once or more in their lifetimes, and 23 per cent have lucid dreams at least once a month.
Recently, researchers with the Phase Research Center (PRC) conducted experiments with 152 adults who selfidentified as lucid dreamers, instructing them to “find or summon aliens or UFOS” during a lucid dream. The researchers found that 114 of the participants reported dreaming about having some type of successful interaction with an extraterrestrial. Of those, about 61 per cent described meeting ‘aliens’ that resembled extraterrestrials from sciencefiction novels and films, while 19 per cent met aliens that looked like ordinary people.
One female participant spoke of seeing little men with blue skin, oversized heads and huge, bulging eyes. When the aliens invited her onto their spaceship, “I was blinded by a very bright light, like from a searchlight,” she said. “My vision was gone, and I felt dizzy and light.” Another participant said that he dreamt he was lying in his bed when he felt as though he were being “dragged somewhere,” ending up in a room with a white silhouette that reached into his chest and started “doing something inside with tools”.
Conversations with dream aliens took place in 26 per cent of the encounters, and 12 per cent of the participants spoke with aliens in their dreams and interacted with them physically. UFOS showed up in 28 per cent of the meetings, and 10 per cent of the dreamers who saw UFOS described being brought inside an extraterrestrial spacecraft.
Of those who described their encounters as realistic, 24 per cent also experienced sleep paralysis and intense fear. Such emotions often accompany reports of supposed alien abductions, and though individuals who describe being kidnapped by aliens might truly believe that they experienced was real, these people were likely experiencing a meeting while in a lucid dream.