My Journey Into Skepticism
jewel December 13th, 2008
I haven’t always been a skeptic. Far from it, in fact. There was a time when I believed in all manor of nonsense – UFO’s, alien abductions, ghosts, homeopathy…. It’s kind of weird for me to think about now.
I was in my early- mid 20’s when I finally started to look at the world with a skeptical eye. It was quite accidental. I had been reading everything I could find on UFO’s and alien abductions and one night I had a rather interesting experience. I woke up and there was a strange glow in my bedroom. I tried to move and couldn’t. I tried to say something and couldn’t. Then I got panicky. Then I saw 4 aliens – typical looking greys – surrounding my bed; my husband was sleeping soundly. I felt myself floating upwards in a beam of light. Then I woke up for real. I was relieved because it had seemed so real. I went back to sleep and it started again. I saw the same things and felt the same panic as before. I cycled through this about four or five times until I was afraid to go back to sleep. It really freaked me out.
The good news is that was not the first time I have been struck with sleep paralysis or with hypnogogic/hypnopompic hallucinations. Far from it, actually. I’ve had them off and on starting when I was about 4 or 5 and every time they were accompanied with very vivid and often frightening hallucinations.
This particular experience, though, really got me to thinking about the whole alien abduction thing and I started reading up an sleep paralysis and it really seems like the most reasonable explanation for what I experienced. From there I started reading Carl Sagan books and the world started to make a whole lot more sense.
Ever since then, I really try to look at the world through the eyes of a skeptic. I know how easily we can be fooled by others as well as ourselves. Especially ourselves.
- personal , skepticism
- Comments(4)
I’ve been rereading Sagan’s “The Demon-Haunted World” while we’ve been “enjoying” almost three and a half days off the grid courtesy of mother nature. A marvelous book and well worth the revisit.
I certainly went a similar path regarding UFOs, although I think it predated the height of alien abductions so they were never on the table. With all the books, it seemed there must be something to the accounts. I read most of them back in the late 1960s. Somehow the real evidence kept escaping me, and I eventually concluded it simply wasn’t there. It was nice when I eventually encountered some skeptical writing.
Your account of the alien visitors was interesting. I’ve never experienced either sleep paralysis or hypnogogic/hypnopompic hallucinations, but I have had a couple of dreams that made temporary excursions into my memory of actual events. One was about owning a motorcycle when I lived in Massachusetts. I’ve never owned a motorcycle, but this dream was so real I often found myself wondering what I had done with the motorcycle when I moved back to New York. It would take a few minutes to convince myself the motorcycle had only been a dream. It made it quite easy to envision people adopting their dreams as reality.
Clear skies, Alan
“The Demon-Haunted World” is one of my very favorite books. I’ve read it many times and I’m sure I will again.
The sleep paralysis thing is a most interesting experience. Absolutely terrifying when I was a child and even into my teen years. It’s been quite a long time since I’ve had one, thankfully. They don’t make for restful nights.
It’s very interesting that you had incorporated a dream into memory. The brain is a terrible thing.
Thinking back, I believe I did “suffer” sleep paralysis at least once. I think it was when I was home from college one summer. I woke up with no idea who I was or where I was. When I had figured that out, I couldn’t sense or move my arms and legs. It seemed like a long journey back to having and moving appendages and it was quite frightening, but I suspect it happed quickly. No space aliens in view, however.
Clear skies, Alan
From what I’ve read, most people have probably experienced mild forms of it, usually with no outright hallucinations. I’ve had some pretty trippy ones, and thankfully, only the one had space aliens.
The first one I can recall, was when I was about 4 years old. My parents had just tucked me in and before I could get to sleep (or so I thought at the time) I remember hearing something in my closet. My room wasn’t completely dark, I remember moonlight or light from a street light or something coming in through the window. My closet had sliding doors and I heard something rattling in the closet. Then, the door slid open and out peered this creature … I have no idea what it was, but it looked quite menacing. I got the impression it was tall, even though it was crouched down. It felt evil and it scared the everliving hell out of me. I couldn’t move and I couldn’t scream.
At the time, and for many years, I thought something was really in my closet that night. Never mind I had no idea how it got there or where it went.