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What lies behind ghosts, demons and aliens – according to sleep researchers

Captblack76/Shutterstock.com Alice M Gregory, Goldsmiths, University of London If you believe in the paranormal you might not be surprised if you hear stories of deceased loved ones appearing during the night, huge explosions heard just as someone is drifting off with no obvious cause, and other peculiar occurrences. But what if you don’t? My interest in the paranormal started with an impromptu coffee with a colleague, Chris French, who researches reports of #paranormal experiences. He told me stories of countless people who had recounted such events. These experiences tended to start while lying in bed. Then something unusual would happen – perhaps a demon would appear or the environment would seem strange or there would be a sensed presence. The person having this experience might also report being glued to their mattress, tarmacked into the bed, totally unable to move. It’s unsurprising that people who experience such things might interpret them as paranormal. But certain phenomena such as sleep paralysis provide an alternative to paranormal explanations for such occurrences. Hence my interest in the subject, as a sleep researcher. Sleep paralysis When we sleep, we cycle through different stages. We start the night in non-rapid eye movement (NREM) sleep – which gets progressively deeper. We then cycle back until we hit rapid eye movement (REM) sleep. During REM sleep we are most likely to have vivid dreams. At this stage, we are also paralyzed, perhaps as a safety mechanism to stop us acting out our dreams so that we don’t end up attempting to fly. But during #sleep paralysis, features of REM sleep continue into waking life. Those who experience it will feel awake yet might experience dream-like hallucinations and struggle to move. This experience is pretty common, occurring in around 8% of people (although estimates vary dramatically depending on who we are asking). It’s even possible to induce sleep paralysis in some people, by disrupting their sleep in specific ways. Certain researchers, French among them, believe that this explains a huge number of paranormal accounts. Information about sleep paralysis is finally seeping into public awareness, but we now need to understand more about this common complaint. Our preliminary work, which I recount in my new book Nodding Off: The science of sleep from cradle to grave, hints at possible genetic and environmental explanations for why some people are more likely than others to experience sleep paralysis. This now needs to be replicated using much larger samples. Reviewing the literature, we have also highlighted a host of other variables associated with this common experience, including stress, trauma, psychiatric difficulties and physical illnesses. The worst dreams.Creativa Images/Shutterstock.com Exploding head syndrome Sleep paralysis aside, how else are sleep researchers helping to explain paranormal experiences? People sometimes describe experiencing huge explosions during the night which simply can’t be explained. There is no sign that a shelf has fallen down or a car has backfired. There is no one playing the electric guitar next to their head. Again, this can be linked to our sleep – this time explained by “exploding head syndrome”, a term coined relatively recently by the neurologist JMS Pearce. When we fall asleep, the reticular formation of the brainstem (a part of our brain involved in consciousness) typically starts to inhibit our ability to move, see and hear things. When we experience a “bang” in our sleep this might be because of a delay in this process. Instead of the reticular formation shutting down the auditory neurons, they might fire at once. As with sleep paralysis, this phenomenon is also under-researched. For this very reason, in 2017 my colleagues and I joined forces with BBC Focus and Brian Sharpless, a leading expert on this phenomenon, to collect data on this topic. Imps and ghouls Finally, what might scientists make of precognitive dreams? We might dream of a friend we haven’t seen for years only to have them call us the very next day. French thinks science can provide an explanation for this too. Referencing work by John Allen Paulos that focuses on probabilities, he explains how such an occurrence may be surprising on any single day, but over time, quite likely to occur. Researching my book, I spoke to Mrs Sinclair, who is 70, and lives alone. She told me about what she had thought was a #ghost living in her house, an #imp throttling her during the night and other things that had left her petrified. Having scientific explanations provided her with immense comfort and she no longer believes in paranormal explanations for the things that she experienced. Our hope is that scientific explanations of paranormal experiences might help others by lowering anxiety. Decreasing anxiety has also been hypothesised as a potential method by which to reduce sleep paralysis. So, perhaps providing more information about these unusual experiences might even mean that things are less likely to go bump in the night. Alice M Gregory, Professor of Psychology, Goldsmiths, University of London This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

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Historical

The Haunting of the White House

#Ghosts have been a part of myth and #history for an inordinate amount of time. Nobody can pinpoint when the first #ghost was spotted or felt. They are here to stay as far as people are concerned. Many people describe ghost as entities or the spirits of those who have died but have remained on earth whether by choice or force. Unbeknown to many citizens of the USA, especially those who reside on the West Coast. Most don’t pay much attention to the ongoings of the East Coast, the greatest house in the country is also known for being a #haunted house. That’s right, ladies and gentlemen, we are talking about #the White House in Washington D. C. There have been countless accounts spanning the course of history of ghost sightings that have been tied to the White House. Not just sightings either, but the eerie presence of not being alone in that big house and someone from the past looking over your shoulder. From presidents to wives and servants, there is a lot of history in that house and some of it has stayed through the passage of time. At Your Service, Mr. President Seven score and fourteen years ago, a tragedy befell the great nation of the #United States when John Wilkes Booth snuck up behind the 16th President and ended his life as well as any further good he could have done the country with a single bullet. Although #Abraham Lincoln may be gone physically there have been rumors and sightings of Honest Abe wandering the White House. Abraham Lincoln died in 1865 and if rumors of his ghost remaining in the White House are true, he has #haunted the place for over 150 years. People have reported seeing Lincoln standing by windows overlooking the White House grounds and if he was watching or waiting for something, while others have been awoken to a knock on their door from the esteemed President himself. #Eleanor Roosevelt never saw Abraham Lincoln herself, but she told stories about how she was able to feel a presence in the room with her and she believed it to be Lincoln due to the melancholic air that the President was rumored to be constantly surrounded by since the life he lived was a tragic one. At Ease, Mr. President One of the #theories behind the presence of ghosts is that they have unfinished business to attend to and only after that is complete can they move on and rest in peace. So what would be the unfinished business President Lincoln has hanging over his head making it impossible for him to find peace in the afterlife? One of the reasons people believe Lincoln is not ready to move on is that he is still watching over the country that he loved so much. The timing of Lincoln making himself known to the guest of the White House is when the United States seems to be nearing a disaster of some sort. It brings a little comfort knowing that he is still watching over us even in death. Another possibility for the continuing presence of #Abe Lincoln in the White House is the death of his son Willie. Lincoln’s son died when he was 11, inside in the White House, Mr. and Mrs. Lincoln never recovered from losing him. His parents have recorded sightings of him when they lived there. Abe Lincoln may not want to lose his son again and chose to remain there with him

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