In ASP: Characteristics and Responses I discussed some of the core characteristics associated with Awareness during Sleep Paralysis. In this document, I want to draw attention to the signs of ASP in the reports of Alien Abduction Experiencers or abductees, as they are usually known.
The Bedroom Abduction Scenario
Alien Abduction Experiencers very often report paralysis and fear before the aliens appear. Usually, the experiencer awakens in the night unable to move or cry out, alien beings approach the bed and float the helpless, paralyzed abductee up to a spaceship for a frightening medical examination.
Sometimes the victim will explicitly report sensations of separating from his/her body. Othertimes the abductee will report the sensations of Out-of-Body Experience without himself or herself naming the experience as such.
The Relationship Between AAEs and ASP/OBEs
Several researchers have commented on the relationship between Alien Abduction Experiences and Out-of-Body Experiences. While there seems to be no consensus as to the nature of that relationship, it is clear that the existence of the relationship must be acknowledged and its nature investigated.
David M. Jacobs, Ph. D., Associate Professor of History, Temple University:
Dr. Jacobs has acknowledged on at least two occasions that there is an intimate connection between the Alien Abduction Experience and the Out-of-Body Experience.
Part of these anomalous memories and dreams might be the unaware abductees’ knowledge that they have had Out of Body Experiences. It is common for abductees to feel that they in some way left their body, usually during the night in bed. When they floated out of bed they wer often accompanied by someone who they interpret as being a deceased relative or an angel. A few unaware abductees claim that they have not only had Out of Body Experiences but that they have experienced Astral Travel as well. They know that they have in some mysterious way experienced a strange displacement in location. … The only way that they can reconcile what has happened to them is through the only available explanation — astral travel, no matter how ill-defined that might be. [Jacobs, David M. (1988). Post-Abduction Syndrome. MUFON 1988 International UFO Symposium Proceedings. Seguin,TX: MUFON Inc., p. 91-2. emphasis supplied]
A few years later Dr. Jacobs is more explicit about the connection between OBEs and AAEs:
It is common for abductees to refer to out-of-body experiences that they had or, more commonly, that they succeeded in ‘preventing’ at what was the beginning of an abduction. They sometimes remember that they felt themselves floating out of bed but then ‘fought it’ and were able to lower themselves back onto the bed and abort the experience. When these memories have been examined, they have turned out to be a combination of the first few seconds and the last few seconds of an abduction. [Jacobs, David M. (1992). Secret Life: Firsthand Documented Accounts of UFO Abductions. New York: Simon & Schuster (Fireside). p. 50. emphasis supplied]
In other words, the typical abduction experience occurs in between the start and finish of a typical OBE. It would seem, then, that the alien abduction theme would be the content that is framed by the OBE process. However, Dr. Jacobs claims that abductees usually abandon such beliefs (ie the awareness that they experienced Out-of-Body Travel) when they become aware of what really happened to them. Thus:
Knowledge of the abductions finally gives them the answers they were seeking and the majority of them let go of previously held belief structures that were never fully satisfactory. [Jacobs, David M. (1988). Post-Abduction Syndrome. MUFON 1988 International UFO Symposium Proceedings. Seguin,TX: MUFON Inc., p. 99.]
It is unclear how Dr. Jacobs has decided that the rejection of one’s own memories of Out-of-Body Experiencing represents progress when his research technique consists of the use of hypnosis to recover buried memories.
Albert Budden
“Another super-real dream experience which sometimes occurs during, or in association with, ‘alien abductions’, and confirms their internal nature, is the Out-of-Body Experience. I investigated a case involving this overlap which involved showbiz sports coach, GM. He ‘awoke’ one night to find two silver-suited ‘spacemen’ standing by the bedroom window, one of which was holding a small box-like device over a pile of medical books. They had their backs to him, and startled by their presence, he began to step out of bed to cross the room towards them. He suddenly found that he was floating above them, somewhere near the ceiling. Glancing down at his bed, he could see his own body.” [Budden, Albert. (1995). UFOs, Psychic Close Encounters: the electromagnetic indictment. London: Blandford. 32.]
Budden focuses his attention on the relation between encounter experiences and exposure to electromagnetic radiation which is known to be associated with subjective feelings of bodily immobility and with the sensing of a presence.
John E. Mack, M.D., Professor of Psychiatry, Harvard Medical School
In Abductions, Dr. Mack acknowledges that in some cases a …
… ‘complete’ abduction does not appear to occur. The individual may have an out-of-body experience while others see that he or she has not left the house.
[Mack, John E. (1994). Abduction. New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons. p. 394-5]
In contrast, Dr Mack assumes that any case without a corroborating eye witnesses must involve a ‘complete’ and genuine kidnapping of the physical body of the experiencer.
Testimony of Experiencers
Unfortunately, Dr. Mack makes no attempt to compare/contrast the content of the experiencer reports given by:
those whose physical bodies were observed not to move during the ‘abduction’; and,
those whose physical bodies were not observed during the time of the ‘abduction’.
I’m thinking that the more similarities there are in these two sets of experiencer reports, the less need there is to postulate a mechanism beyond the one for which we have eye witnesses. Consequently, I would greatly appreciate any references to published reports where the experiencer’s physical body was observed (either by the experiencer or by others) during the time of the experience.
And I would very much like to hear from experiencers who:
came back to find that they had been observed not to leave; or,
understood from the beginning (or came to understand later) that their body had stayed behind,
as well as any eyewitnesses to this sort of event.
Please contact Joseph Polanik at jpolanik@mindspring.com. Thanks in Advance.
A high percentage of Mack’s patients report Out-of-Body Experience, although not always in connection with a UFO encounter. ‘Arthur’ reported “the sensation that he was being lifted up above the car” … ‘It was like all the cells in my body were moving up, but my body was staying where it was, and it was separating.'” [Mack, John E. (1994). Abduction. New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons. p. 378.]
Dr. Mack is a counselor to abductees contains a great deal of information from his therapy sessions with his patients that suggests that the Alien Abduction Experience [AAE] is a disguised form of Out-of-Body Experience.
Common Phenomena
Passage thru Walls, Ceilings or Windows
In the typical abduction scenario, the abductee often passes or is passed thru a wall, a ceiling or a closed window.
Although abductees frequently report going directly through walls and ceilings, the Beings appear to seek out a window. Sometimes the aliens will take abductees out of their bedrooms and into another room and then out through a window there. Windows that are blocked, for example with boxes after a move, are avoided in fovor of unblocked windows. One woman was visiting friends with her son. They slept in two different rooms in the basement. An abduction sequence began, and the aliens took her out of her bed and walked her into her son’s room. then they took her son and walked both of them into the bathroom. She wondered why they were crowding into the bathroom and then she realized that the bathroom was the only room in the basement with a window. Soon a bright light entered and they flew out the window. [Jacobs, David M. (1992). Secret Life: Firsthand Documented Accounts of UFO Abductions. New York: Simon & Schuster (Fireside). p. 51.]
Passing thru walls, ceilings and windows is a feature of many LDE and OBE reports.
Significantly, some OBErs report passing up the opportunity to try to do this, possibly due to fears about consequences or doubts that it was possible. One of Green’s respondents said:
After a few seconds I moved higher, always somehow seeing the ceiling and getting nearer to it. This was rather exciting, and I suppose a little frightening. I never dared to go through the ceiling — I always stopped a foot or so below it. I very much regret this now. [Green, Celia. Out-of-the-Body Experiences. New York: Ballantine. (1968). 41-2.]
It’s possible that the same psychological resistance that causes OBErs to hesitate to go thru walls causes the Bedroom Abduction Scenario to favor passage thru windows instead of walls or ceilings.