Sleep Paralysis and Spirits
November 25, 2008 by Ryan Hurd
Filed under Nightmares & Dream Terrors, Visitation Dreams
Are spirits real, or are they just irrational stories meant to explain things that science now explains better” This is the way the question of spirits is framed by many. According to many recent polls, belief in ghosts in the West hovers around 60%, and one British poll found that more people believe in ghosts than God. These statistics are then typically melded to reinforce the idea that “we hold irrational belief despite all the math we”ve done,” such as this statement from Live Science:
Indeed, humans are prone to believing in things they can neither see nor find logical evidence for.
What this pedantic little reduction does, of course, is ignore all those who turned towards a belief in spirits based on their own extraordinary experiences. In other words, evidence informed not by a belief in spirits (or a belief in logic) but by the senses. In the old days, this was called empiricism.
Extraordinary experiences are the key to another view: This was the topic discussed last week by American anthropologists in San Francisco. It was an inspiring collection of papers titled, “Encounters of Spirits - Towards a New Paradigm.” The anthropologists told their extraordinary stories of contact with the “more-than-human” realm, and how these encounters changed their lives.
Features of Sleep Paralysis
A 16th century wooden bracket from Cambridge depicting a Succubus, a sexual entity long associated with sleep paralysis
David Hufford’s paper on sleep paralysis is a case-in-point. (Unfortunately, Hufford himself cancelled at the last minute, so his paper was read, thus invoking an invisible, disembodied presence of expertise.) Hufford suggests that sleep paralysis is marked by features that are similar in all cultures, including:
- awakening
- hearing or seeing someone/something come into the room and approach the bed
- being pressed on the chest or strangled
- being unable to move or cry out
The uniformity of the experience from Polynesian villagers to middle class Americans suggests a biological origin of sleep paralysis, which Hufford has explored as a medical anthropologist for 30 years.
The result of this terrifying experience is that it is usually interpreted as a spiritual experience, whether or not there is a cultural narrative in place to be reinforced.
The Reality of Visionary Experiences
Hufford goes on to argue that sleep paralysis is an example of visionary spiritual experiences that cannot be explained away by irrational beliefs. Besides SP (also known as night terrors, the Old Hag, the incubus effect and scores of more culturally-specific terms), other visionary experiences that have a stable, cross-cultural phenomenology are bereavement visits, and near death experiences. I would add archetypal dreams to this list, as well as out-of-body experiences.
Hufford’s quest is to make sure that Western medical practitioners do not misdiagnose these events as psychotic hallucinations (or culturally-derived stories), but rather view them as encounters that are common to many, and compellingly real. In other words, his concern is not if the entities are ontologically real, but that they are recognized as psychologically real in that they inform personal belief systems, effect behavior, sculpt cultural narratives, and generally make the world go “round.
Back to the recent headlines (that are timed to promote the new X-Files DVD, by the way), maybe 60% of Westerners believe in ghosts and aliens because of their personal experiences, not their fool-hearty archaic beliefs.
We have to start from this understanding: we personally experience many things that we cannot rationally account for, and ignoring them (or explaining them away by focusing on their biological mechanisms) does not make them go away. We have to work with the cognitive framework we inherited - and we are rewarded when we do so.
For more on transforming sleep paralysis into its full expression as shamanic lucid dreams, check out my post on dealing with night terrors.
Ben (4 comments.) on Tue, 2nd Dec 2008 6:25 pm
Hey Ryan! Lovely post. I’ve only had 1 strong experience with sleep paralysis, and it was hellish indeed. Although I didn’t emerge from it with the feeling that it was a spiritual experience… I woke up and thought “my god, I need to write this up quickly for my blog!”
Question:
You wrote—
“In other words, his concern is not if the entities are ontologically real, but that they are recognized as psychologically real in that they inform personal belief systems, effect behavior, sculpt cultural narratives, and generally make the world go ???round.”
What is the difference between recognizing the sleep paralysis entities as ontologically real versus psychologically real? If something is recognized as ontologically real, wouldn’t it then be recognized that it has an effect on personal belief systems, behavior, etc?
Dungan on Wed, 3rd Dec 2008 3:23 pm
Hey Ben! SP is pretty unique. I should have clarified that I mean “spiritual” as “dealing with spirits” rather than the looser colloquial meaning of “we’re all one!” So a hellish experience with the perceived contact with an “Other” is a spiritual experience by this classic definition.
And great question about ontological versus psychological reality. Once you lift the curtain that hides the social aspects of science, ontological reality is granted to phenomena that experts agree exist without a subject hypothetically needing to be present to notice it. Ontologically real means “objectively” real. (although on the ground it is still a reification by a group of select humans nodding their heads, deciding social norms and determining social status by approving/rejecting a phenomena that is part of an abstract, historically-soaked cosmology).
Psychological reality, on the other hand, includes perceptions that may or may not be rooted in ontological reality, yet are taken at face value by the subject/observer.
So when scientists ask “are spirits real?” and people answer “yes - I’ve experienced them!” we have a disconnect because the scientist is asking an ontological question that is answered psychologically.
We know spirits because we enter into relationship with them (psychologically), not because they affect change in the material world (ontologically).
But most likely the question of spirits’ ontological reality will never be answered unless we were to find some hypothetical mechanism or material correlate or statistically verifiable information-artifact for spirits - which is difficult because spirits are defined by their lack of materiality…..
However, Julie Brechel’s work at the Windbridge Institute is working on this issue with her research on (alledged) mediums - windbridge.org.
I am personally agnostic to the ontological reality of spirits, but I know that tapping into - and learning to deal with - these encounters has psychological benefits, regardless of worldview.
Lucider (2 comments.) on Tue, 16th Dec 2008 1:43 am
Interesting post. Perhaps the most convincing of these stories is the Hmong Sudden Death Phenomenon back in the 1980’s.
Autopsies revealed no identifiable physical cause for the deaths of Hmong men which occurred primarily in the first 2 years of their residence in the US. Many psychologists and doctors at the time want to treat Hmong refugees according to Western models of diagnosing the individual with paranoid schizophrenia/delusions and hallucinations–perhaps even prescribing antipsychotics to combat these night terrors.
However, Vang Xiong, chose an “alternative” cure instead–calling on the services of a local shaman in Chicago who was able to negotiate with the spirits and cure him in a single night for the payment of leftover meats. Vang was considered one of the “lucky” survivors by the clinicians assigned to the case, in that he survived the “visitations.”
But was it really luck?
Dungan on Tue, 16th Dec 2008 3:26 pm
Lucider, thanks for coming by, you’ve got a fascinating blog going and I’m excited to find another eco-dreamer on the web.
I just heard about Sudden Death Phenomenon for the first time a week ago - that’s a synchronicity! In my humble opinion, luck comes to the prepared. Also, the work of Leslie Gray comes to mind for examples of how to synthesize western psychotherapy with shamanic models.
Gregory on Mon, 26th Jan 2009 4:44 pm
I just shared my recent experience on the lucid nightmares study page, but I guess it is more sleep paralysis.
Dungan on Wed, 28th Jan 2009 1:50 am
both and!
chris hamilton on Thu, 7th May 2009 9:33 am
Has anyone who is talking about sleep paraylsis ever stated that it feels much like when you put your tongue on a 9 volt battery. I’ve had it happen to me a handful of times. ALso, it is like I’M dreaming and when I can open my eyes. I see everything in front of me the way it was in my dream. before , I could open my eyes. About, the 9 volt battery thing. there seems to be some kind of energy running through my body. during this expierence.
Ryan Hurd (24 comments.) on Thu, 14th May 2009 1:45 am
I have experienced something similar - like electric shock waves. others experience a “crackle” sound with this feeling. it’s pretty common, and harmless.
Lee Adams (2 comments.) on Thu, 4th Jun 2009 3:14 pm
Ryan,
After reading through your post I remembered I had read this a while ago and though of how great the information was. At the time I was starting to get into sleep research since I was experiencing sleep paralysis myself I found a video on some of the teachings of the Egyptian book of the dead. In the video they talked about how the Egyptians believed that the devil Apapi, would have to be defeated every night and also is something that must be challenged before entering the underworld. I am not an expert on the subject of Egyptian history, but I believe that the Egyptians were very interested in lucid dreaming and maybe they somehow interpenetrated the stranger effect as this devil.
Just an idea