#i hallucinated it during a sleep paralysis incident)

[plaguedocboi]

Someone sent an ask about sleep paralysis so im going to share my story. When I was growing up my mother used to tell us that if we weren't asleep by midnight the fairies would come and get us! when I was a lil kid I would hear tiny footsteps approach my bed at night but they were so light and would pass right through me like a ghost, so I thought it was the faries. It wasn't until high school that I realized I had fucking sleep paralysis bcus I never even moved during those "fairy" incidents, I just layed under my blanket and waited for the footsteps to completely fade through the other side of the room.

That or it was a ghost idk

Yeah my most common hallucinations are the sensation of something walking across my bed. It feels like a cat, like I can feel the pressure of each step coming towards me in the mattress and the blankets shift and it’s not heavy enough to be a person. It’s not always scary but it’s unsettling to suddenly get that when you know your door is closed and your cat can’t get in.

You 🤝 Me

Tiny footstep demons

#asks #sleep paralysis

[apilgrimpassingby]

The Night Hag

I'm going to go off-topic and talk about a topic that's pretty darn fascinating to me - sleep paralysis and the Night Hag.

For those of you who are unaware, sleep paralysis is a phenomenon that occurs after waking up that has (as defined by David Hufford in The Terror that Comes in the Night, a seminal text on it) four core characteristics:

You're paralysed (it's in the name).

You're awake.

You accurately perceive your real surroundings. (On the side, this is why I don't accept it as an explanation for alien abductions - seeing yourself in a UFO is not accurately perceiving your real surroundings).

You're afraid.

Common non-essential traits include:

A feeling - and often, the sensory perception, frequently with multiple senses - of a malign presence (this is the Night Hag).

A feeling of pressure on the chest.

A sense of the supernatural.

Less commonly, a fear of death.

Estimates for how common sleep paralysis is range widely - for his part, Hufford estimated that 15% of the population have experienced it at least once - but even at the lowest estimates, it is likely that you have experienced it, and near-certain that, whether or not you realise it, someone you know has. (People often don't talk about their experiences with it due to fear of being seen as crazy or simply not knowing how to describe it). It's what the word "nightmare" originally referred to (from the mære, the spirit credited with causing it) and was very probably the inspiration for Fuseli's famous painting The Nightmare.

It's associated with/the source for monsters in numerous folklores and mythologies - the Hungarian Lidérc, the South Carolinan Boo Hag, the Hmong Dab Tsog, the Scandinavian Mara/Mare, the Newfoundland Old Hag that inspired Hufford to write his book and possibly the shadow people of contemporary urban legend. But, as he noted, these incidents occur even in cultures, such as the 1970s and 1980s US he researched in, with no body of belief about it. And I want to be clear, this book isn't some sketchy thing by a woo-peddler. Hufford is emeritus Professor of Humanities and Psychiatry at Penn State University and got his book published by the University of Pennsylvania Press.

And the interesting thing is that there's no known, or even particularly strong, scientific explanation. The standard one is that your brain wakes up during REM sleep (that's the dream state), but when your body is still paralysed to stop you acting out your dreams, and hallucinates to rationalise the fear you feel. But this explanation has a ton of holes.

To be clear, I'm not (or at least I wasn't for a long time; I'm not so sure about it now) the kind of person who sees demons in every corner. I effectively held a naturalist outlook until last year, and I'm pretty sceptical of most supernatural claims now. But, seeing as sleep paralysis is consistently associated with malign spirits and/or witchcraft and the cultural and scientific explanations are both seriously flawed, I really do believe it is an evil spirit behind this.

I want to close with a verbatim quote from Hufford's book I found particularly fascinating:

"Some readers may be considering whether they wish to elect to "go along with" a paralysis attack if they should have another one. I would advise strongly against it. Madge [one of the many interviewees whose accounts the book was analysing] is not the only one who has reported having regretted her "openness" to the experience. I have spoken with people who have reported years of anguish, some of it involving symptomatology much like some of the features of psychosis, after having intentionally cultivated this experience. On the other hand, I have never encountered anyone who resisted the basic Old Hag experience who seemed injured by it even if it frequently returned."

Resist the devil, and he will flee from you.

#sleep paralysis #supernatural #paranormal

[helliontherapscallion]

Recovery? (Adrenaline Junkie Part 5)

Part 1     Part 2     Part 3     Part 4     Part 6     Part 7     Part 8     Part 9     Part 10     Part 11     Part 12     Part 13     Part 14     Part 15     Part 16     Part 17

Spotify Playlist (collaborative)

Warnings: PTSD, sleep paralysis, hallucinations, swearing, mentions of death/injury, depression, anxiety, suicidal ideation (marked so you can skip if it’s a major trigger for you), self harm (also marked), phantom pain syndrome

Word count: 3,722

Disclaimer: I have not experienced PTSD, sleep paralysis, hallucinations, or phantom pain syndrome, so I’m sorry if they aren’t portrayed correctly 

When a wild bird can’t fly, it’s defenseless. It feels trapped even if it can still walk away. It feels alone even if it’s surrounded by other birds. If a bird loses the ability to fly, a piece of it is missing. A piece of itself. Something that it values as something unique to it and only it. It loses most mental stimulation and becomes numb until it can feel freedom again.

It’s been about two months since you respawned and you honestly felt so restless. You wanted to fly through the sky again, feeling the air move freely between your feathers. You wanted to weave in and out of the clouds. You wanted to feel something other than fear. When you’re not scared, you don't feel anything. You missed skydiving. You wanted, no, you craved the feeling of adrenaline flowing along every little nook and cranny in your cardiovascular system.

You found out that you get flashbacks whenever you see someone or something hulky and covered in a dark green color. You still haven’t told your family about this, you thought that it was something silly to be afraid of. You tried your hardest to avoid Philza the most; he always wore his favorite color with pride. You still haven’t apologized for screaming death threats at him when you were going through an episode.

You only had one other major hallucinogenic episode since the first one, but it wasn’t as bad as the first one.

You woke up in the middle of the night with the moonlight beaming through your window illuminating the silhouette of The Warden standing in the corner of your room. You willed yourself to open your mouth to scream for your brothers, but you couldn’t move. You could only watch it. 

The telltale glowing drool fell from the corners of its wide mouth, mixing with the blood dripping off from its long claws. Its chest rhythmically glowed as the things writhing in it managed to squeeze through the small gaps between the bony confines of its ribs. The white wisps flew around your room freely, bouncing off your walls with thuds and eventually settling to float in front of your face.

You watched with wide eyes as their permanently gaping mouths struggled to form words. Somehow, you could see desperation in their empty eye sockets. A flurry of whispers met your ears, but you couldn’t make out anything they were saying. It was too jumbled. 

You heard The Warden slowly drag its feet along your carpet over to your bed. The wisps started to thrash about and scream as it reached out and scooped them all up easily with a single swipe of a hand. It shoved them into its mouth and they reappeared behind the confines of its ribcage, the screaming getting louder and more distorted as they got swallowed. Multiple voices were shrieking with agony and anguish as The Warden turned its attention towards you. It bent over and hovered its face over yours as its drool and drops of blood started to drip onto your cheeks. You felt its rancid breath fan over you. It had hints of iron and rot.

Your mind was screaming at your body to move away, but you couldn’t. You didn’t have control anymore. Your breathing picked up as you felt your heart beat out of your chest. It just hovered over you doing nothing, like it was enjoying seeing your fearful eyes. Like it enjoyed the feeling of having complete power over you.

Your breath caught in your throat as it got closer to you, its mouth getting dangerously close to engulfing your entire head. You squeezed your eyes shut and tried with all your might to move any part of your body. After a while, your head slightly moved to the side. Gradually, you worked your way up to moving your head fully to the side. You felt all your muscles activate at once as you shot up from your bed with a strangled gasp. 

You frantically flattened your body against the wall, reaching a shaking hand between the wall and mattress to grab the iron dagger you hid there. Holding it defensively in front of you, you scanned the room. There was not a single thing out of place. Everything was just as you left it before you went to bed.

You covered your mouth as sobs threatened to burst from your chest like the wisps in The Warden’s. You brought your knees up to your chest and buried your head in them. You didn’t sleep for a few days after that.

Other than the major episodes, your imagination placed The Warden everywhere you looked. You saw The Warden whenever Philza walked past you. You saw glimpses of it whenever you looked into the woods at night. You saw it behind you in the mirror reaching for your other wing. Sometimes, you thought you could hear the screams of the wisps in the distance.

Your entire family was constantly hovering over you; you always had at least one of the boys with you at all times. They wouldn’t let you out of the house. 

Out of all of your family, Wilbur was probably the lesser of the evils. He didn’t judge you or question you, he just let you do your own thing. He would softly pluck the strings on his guitar and sing to you while you would lay on his bed. Those moments were one of the only moments where you would fully let your guard down and relax. 

Hangouts with Techno were also pleasant, but he hasn’t looked you in the eyes since he helped you during your first episode. That was the only downside to it though; he would give you some of his mythology books to read or read them to you. His voice always soothed you as a kid. Sometimes, he would give you a hug when he saw that it was a rough day for you.

Tommy’s hang outs were kept to a minimal, the family didn’t trust him much because they thought his rambunctious and extrovert personality would overwhelm you. You were alone with him only twice out of the last two months. Usually, you both would lay on his bed and just talk about his life with the jukebox running softly in the background playing the discs that you and Philza gifted him during his first birthday with the family. He tried to get you to open up to him, but you always deflected. He shouldn’t know how fucked up you were, you vowed to protect him when Philza first brought him home. You would always protect your little brother, even if it was from yourself.

Before the incident, you would’ve killed to get more alone time with your father. But now, you tried to avoid Philza at all costs. You couldn’t help but see The Warden whenever you saw his tall form, green clothes, and large wings. When you had to hang out with him however, you wouldn’t look at him. You two would usually go to chop down trees or cook dinner together. 

You felt incredibly guilty that you still haven’t apologized to him for everything you’ve put him through. Whenever you brought yourself to glance at him, he was always looking at you heartbroken. You knew that the outcomes of your first death gave the entire family some form of trauma, but you saw that it hit your dad harder than the others. You did threaten to kill him in graphic ways and you did hit him in your panicked stupor. You really needed to apologize for that. You probably should tell him about your silly little fear of green. You were going to wait until he was in his pajamas to apologize; they usually didn’t have much green.

You loved your family of course, but you were always the type of person to require some alone time to function, even before the incident. You felt incredibly drained physically, mentally, and emotionally. It took you a tremendous amount of effort to get out of bed in the mornings. You didn’t see any meaning in life anymore. Everything was gray and the only thing you actually felt was fear, so you didn’t see any point in getting up. The only reason you left your bed was because your brothers would coax you out. Everyday was monotonous. 

*************************SUICIDAL IDEATION/SELF HARM*****************************

Your mind was always coming up with intrusive thoughts about killing yourself. When you did the dishes, you always imagined yourself gliding blades vertically along your wrists and just letting the blood pool out and mix with the dishwater. When you cooked breakfast, you would imagine placing your hand inside the burning flame of the stove. When you were staring out of the window at night looking for The Warden, you would imagine yourself disappearing into the woods to look for a creeper to blow you up. When you passed the potion chest, you imagined chugging poison so you could feel something before you died. Whenever you used an ore during crafting, you always thought about going back to the cave so you could be put out of your misery again. It did a damn good job at killing you the first time. Who knows, maybe The Warden would be merciful this time. The most common thought was finding a tall cliff or mountain and jumping off to finally feel the wind between your feathers and the adrenaline running through you for the last time. You daydreamed about that last one a lot.

The little scrapes you got on the little tasks given to you by your family gave you a smidge of pain. A smidge of feeling other than numbness or suffocating fear. So, in a desparate attempt to feel something, you started to cut yourself You have a dagger hidden in your room that your family didn’t know about and you constantly wore a long sleeved cloak to hide your wing so you could easily hide the cuts. It would give you some light in the dark abyss that was your current mental state. 

Sometimes, you would make small cuts on your wrists and thighs when everything was too overwhelming, but the relief it gave you wouldn’t last throughout the day. You were scared to cut deeper. You didn’t want to deal with infection or smuggling healing potions underneath your family’s noses. You would probably get caught and they’d take away the very little freedom and control you had in your life.

**********************SUICIDAL IDEATION/SELF HARM OVER*************************

You grunted in discomfort as you chopped some wood with Philza behind your house. It was a bad day for the phantom pains in your absent wing, you felt shooting pain and itchiness along where it was supposed to be all day long. You heard him pause his actions and walk over to you. When he placed a gentle hand on your shoulder, you squeezed your eyes shut as you remembered the way he grabbed you the day you respawned.

“Are you alright hun?”

Shrugging off his hand, you continued to chop lumber. “I’m fine Dad.”

“Are you sure? You looked like you were in pain.”

You sighed, “It’s… it’s just a bad day for the pain.”

“Where does it hurt? I can go grab you a potion.” 

He sounded like he always did when he talked to you, concerned. You wanted to be treated like a normal person again. You didn’t like it when your family walked on eggshells around you constantly, it made you feel like a stranger in your own home.

“My right wing hurts. And potions don’t help, I’ve tried that. There’s nothing you can do.”

He paused for a second. You imagined him furrowing his brows and tilting his head lightly to the side as he contemplated what you said. It was the first time you opened up to him about anything. “...Your wing still feels things?”

You grunted as you swung the axe down onto the log, “Yeah, it feels things sometimes. It’s mostly a shooting pain or an itching sensation where I don’t have a wing. There’s nothing I can do about it, so I’m learning to live with it.”

“How long has this been happening?”

Your mind flashed back to the conversation you two had a year ago. “Since I lost it.”

“Why don’t we turn in for the night? The sun is starting to set and we’ve got enough wood to last us a week.”

You silently nodded and bent over to pick up the logs you chopped. Grabbing as much as your arms could hold, you put the planks into the chest next to the back door. Turning around to grab more, you jumped back when your eyes met with Philza’s chest. His hand was outstretched towards you. You hugged your body as you looked away from him. 

“(Y/n), you’re not okay. Please just let me help you.”

“...I don’t know what you’re talking about. I’m fine.”

“You haven’t spoken to anyone about your emotions, bottling it up isn’t good hun.”

“That’s because I don’t have anything to talk about.”

He sighed, “Why don’t we get your brothers to cook dinner so we can have a little chat. Meet me in your room.”

Wordlessly, you walked back into the house and straight up to your room. Sitting on the bed, you put your head in your hands as you waited for the inevitable vulnerability. After a couple of minutes, you heard a gentle knock on your door. It opened to reveal your dad smiling at you.

Glancing back at your hands, you slipped your hand under the sleeve of your cloak to pinch the skin so you could try to ignore him when he walked over to sit next to you. You turned your head away from him. 

You felt the mattress shift under his weight when he sat next to you. You felt his breath tickle the top of your head as he spoke to you, “please, talk to me.”

“I’ve already told you, there’s nothing to talk about Dad.”

“...You’ve been seeing The Warden whenever you look at me, haven’t you?” He sounded so broken. It must be hard to have your own child avoid you because you reminded them of their murderer. 

You were quiet for a few moments while you battled against the tears that threatened to leak from your eyes. Swallowing thickly, you shakily said, “I’m sorry Dad, I’m so sorry. I-I see it when I see you. I see it everywhere.”

“Hey,” he gently said, “it’s alright. Nothing’s your fault, you can’t control it. Is there anything… specific that reminds you of it?”

“...Yeah, I see it vividly when I see something tall and… and dark green. I can’t help but to see it when I see you.”

He felt his heart sink. He always wore green, no matter the day. He was basically torturing his child just by being around them. God, what kind of father was he if he didn’t realize that sooner? He felt like a failure. 

You spewed reassurances at him when you heard his breath hitch. “Dad, it’s not your fault, you didn’t know about it. It’s just a stupid fear and it’s my fault for not getting over it. I-I’ll do better. I can-”

“Stop. Nothing is your fault and it’s certainly not stupid. You’re traumatized, (y/n), you’re traumatized and it’s nobody’s fault except The Warden’s,” it sounded like he was trying to convince himself. “Would you feel more comfortable if I changed clothes?”

“You- you don’t have to. I don’t want you to change anything because of me.”

“(Y/n), I’m your father. I’ll do anything if it means you feel better, I want to help you get better. Changing what I wear isn’t a big deal. I’ll be right back.”

“You really don’t have to, Dad.”

“Nonsense, I’m going to go change. It’s really not a big deal.”

He stood up and speed walked out your door. You felt awful, he was changing because of you. Because you were scared of a fucking color. You needed to get a grip. You were weak. 

The door opened again to reveal Philza dressed in an old white t-shirt and gray sweatpants. His wardrobe was very limited when it came to colors other than green; it was strange seeing him in anything but green. You felt a little more at ease around him, but you still couldn’t look him in the eye. You still felt guilty.

Sitting next to you again, he fiddled with the hem of his shirt. “It’s been a while since I’ve worn these, I uh forgot how comfy they are.”

You two sat in an awkward silence. It was obvious that he was lying to you about liking them. He was shifting his wings around uncomfortably and shifting on the mattress. With wings, it was hard to find fabric that didn’t irritate the base of the wing. The base of the wings were more sensitive than any other body part.

“You’re lying.”

“Lying? About what hun?”

“About being comfortable. They’re irritating your wings aren’t they? This is why you shouldn’t change anything about yourself for me, I just screw things up for everyone.”

“No you don’t-”

“Yes I do, Dad. Let’s be honest here, I’m a complete fuck up. I mess up everything I’m near. I messed up the family. Everything’s different because of me.”

He moved to kneel in front of you, placing both his hands firmly on your shoulders.

“Look at me, (y/n).”

When you didn’t make any move to look up from your tightly clasped hands, he gingerly moved your chin up and put his hand back on your shoulder. His face was stern and his blue eyes were blazing. Oh god, you really fucked up didn’t you? You knew you shouldn’t have told him anything.

“You are not a fuck up. Do you hear me? You. Are. Not. A. Fuck up.”

“But-”

“Ah,” he sharply chided, “I’m not done. You aren’t a fuck up. You couldn’t control what happened to you. You didn’t know that you’d die when you went into that cave. You didn’t know that you’d lose a limb. You didn’t mess up the family, you could never, ever, do that… (Y/n), change was bound to happen sooner or later. Everything changes, that’s just how life works. Even if we didn’t want change, it’s inevitable.”

He could tell from your bloodshot eyes and wobbling chin that you were about to cry, it was always your tell as a child. In that instance, he saw you as the kid that came running to him after you scraped your knee. An innocent kid that always saw the good in the world. He pulled you into his chest and gently wrapped his wings around you, humming the song he would sing to you when you had a nightmare as a child.

“It’s alright, hun, let it out.”

You finally broke, throwing your arms around him and sobbing into his chest. Your body shook with muffled sobs as you released all the pent up emotion you’ve been deprived of in the last two months. It felt nice to talk to your dad again, to be close to him again. For the first time in two months, you felt completely safe. Your dad will always protect you. 

“It’s been so hard Dad,” you blubbered out. “I don’t know what to do. I’m broken, Dad. I can’t be fixed. I feel so empty.”

“Hun, no. You can be fixed, it just takes time. We’re here for you. Me, Technoblade, Wilbur, and Tommy. We’re always going to be here for you no matter what. We’ll help you.”

You fell silent as your body convulsed with silent sobs. You two sat there for what seemed like hours before you finally ran out of tears. You pulled back from him and wiped at your snotty nose.

“I never apologized for what I said to you two months ago. I-I shouldn’t have said any of those things. It hurt you in ways that I’ll probably never understand, and… I’m sorry Dad.”

“(Y/n), you don’t have to apologize. You were scared and you were trying to protect your brothers. That was really brave of you to do, I’m proud of you.”

You threw yourself at him again in a tight, one-winged hug. He chuckled as he hugged you back.

“…Thank you Dad, for everything.”

“Anything for you,” he glanced at the clock you made on your wall. “It’s almost dinner time, let’s go see if your brothers burnt down the kitchen.”

You genuinely smiled at that, remembering the last time your brother cooked together. It was a couple of years ago when you and Philza were coming back from visiting a nearby village. Philza thought it was a spectacular idea to give your brothers the task of cooking dinner. That day, you two came home to a fire engulfing the entire stove and your brothers arguing about whose fault it was. Since then, they weren’t allowed to cook together.

“That’s a good idea, remember the last time they cooked together?”

He chuckled. “Don’t remind me, I nearly pulled out all my feathers cuz of the stress it gave me. I think it even gave me a few gray hairs.”

You snorted. “Well, they’re quiet. Too quiet. We need to go down there before they burn down the house.”

He kissed your hair before you stood up and started to walk to the kitchen. He followed suit, throwing an arm over your shoulders and pulling you into his side. Surprisingly, they didn’t burn down the kitchen. Instead, they actually cooked dinner well. Some of it was burnt, but to their credit, they hadn’t cooked together in a while.

At the dinner table, you felt like you were part of the family again. You laughed with your brothers when Philza scolded them for something they said. You felt like there was a giant weight lifted off from your shoulders. Of course, you were still traumatized and had other issues you had to work out, but now you knew you had your family to help you through it. You wouldn’t ask for anything different.

Taglist (comment if you want to be added):

@acecarddraws  @goldenstarofthunderclan  @ravennightingaleandavatempus  @dirtydiavolo  @yeiras-world  @immadatmostthings  @hee-hee-haw  @jackalopedoodles  @m1lkmandan  @vanhakirja  @im-a-depressed-gay  @coolleviauchihadreamerlove  @questioning-sanity  @camisascam  @bongwaterflavoredgatorade  @kakamiissad  @jayistrash  @lifestylesleep  @speedymaximoff  @sun-shark-tooth  @appetiteofapeoplepleaser  @lestrangenymph  @kinismanditory  @dragons-lurk-here  @rinzyx05  @the-wandering-pan-ace  @sparkling-gayyyy  @angelic-scent  @shinipii  @dont-hug-me-im-a-fander  @izzydimensional

#sbi x reader #platonic #sibling reader #philza x reader #technoblade x reader #wilbur soot x reader #tommyinnit x reader #angst #hurt/comfort #mcyt x reader #tw: swearing #tw: ptsd #tw: hallucinations #tw: injury #tw: death #tw: anxiety #tw: depression #tw: suicidal thoughts #tw: self harm #tw: phantom pain #tw: sleep paralysis

[dialbforbethany]

Film Production Management

After our class about pitching I was really interested in trying to make a mood film and I thought it would be fun to make one for my assignment for another module. It’s not very good because I made it super quick but you can find it here.

Logline

An isolated woman struggles to keep her sanity after experiencing frequent incidents of sleep paralysis.

Synopsis

Lois, a lonely woman living far from the city who has just recently been widowed. Still not used to being alone, one night she starts to experience sleep paralysis sending her into an intense panic as she questions if it was actually sleep paralysis or if it was an intruder. This fear sends her into a spiral of anxiety and hysteria causing the paralysis to become more intense each night. She develops a fear of sleeping at nighttime, ruining her sleep schedule and resulting in the days and nights starting to mesh into one leaving her totally detached and isolated from the physical world. As the terrors become more frequent and more realistic, she seeks ways to make it stop, by using sleeping pills and eventually any drug she can find. She completely loses control as she starts to experience hallucinations even when she thinks she’s awake. She sees the interior of her house changing, walls moving, rooms appearing where she’d never seen them before and the outside world moving in. In the end she visions her house burning up in flames, turning any sense of security or comfort she may or may not have had into a red-hot blaze. After making her way through the maze that was once her home, she desperately flees from the fire landing on the grassy floor of her front garden.

Statement of Intent

I want this film to take a more creative approach to what the mind looks like and goes through when experiencing this kind of intense and recurring fear. I’ve not heard of a lot of mainstream movies that have dived into this topic and wavered from focusing on only the image of the dark figure-in-the-room. Instead, I picture this film being an experimental piece that focuses on not only the terror one experiences during sleep paralysis, but also the effect this fear has on the mind whilst awake and the impact it can have on an individual’s state of mind. I am so fascinated by the human mind, and more specifically what happens when we are asleep and what is happening to us beyond our consciousness. Much like the unknown depths of the ocean that haven’t been explored, so much so that we don’t know what even exists there, the world of dreaming and the subconscious realm is a complete mystery to us. I find it so interesting that it’s that part of ourselves that connects us to this entire plane of existence that we still don’t know anything about. This film is an exploration of the mind getting lost in the passageway that links dreams and reality.

Treatment

In the film, there are two styles of visuals that are interchanged depending on what the character is experiencing.

Firstly, whenever Lois is having sleep paralysis or can feel that her sleep paralysis demon (SPD) is around, the film is in black and white (I will call this style 1). With this we can see the contrast between light and dark much more clearly, it is also much grainier and there is some indiscernible dust or ash lightly falling from above. There are some light flares here and there but they are not in colour. Style 1 is mostly filmed with a wider lens as it helps focus on how the character has lost control of the entire space around her and lets the audience compare her position in the room to the faceless being that haunts her. Sometimes the camera will be filming from above or in the corner of the room or as if we are seeing from Lois’ point of view. The soundscape for these scenes will be a mix of plain white noise with snippets of wind, crackling records or VHS tapes hissing, the turning on of a DVD player, paper lightly burning and static.

For the scenes in which Lois is intoxicated, the world has turned into a place full of bright colours (style 2). The screen has lost all of of the grittiness and grain and has a cleaner finish to it, any light sources have a glow that feathers in and out. Style 2 is filmed with a lens with a much smaller millimeter value to get more of a fisheye effect. The actor also sometimes wears a Snorri Cam so the audience can easily see from a perspective that shows what mental state the character is in. The soundscape for style 2 will consist of ambient space music/white noise, water from a stream, a wind chime, relaxed breathing and the rumbling sound of thick stone when they layout of the house is changing.

For this film I wanted to make use of a lot of visual effects in post-production. For style 1, there are a lot of glitches. Sometimes just objects alone, the SPD or the entire screen will be affected. This will look like, for example, objects in the room glitching and disappearing from the set and coming back. The SPD will also jump around the screen like it’s teleporting, sometimes appearing in more than once place at a time.

For style 2, the world will sometimes look like its melting, different shots blur together this time instead of jumping about like style 1 and everything is very bright and saturated. The colours also do not stay the same, like mixing paint they will constantly change and fade into each other.

I also make use of an effect called posterize time in cohesion with all the previously mentioned effects around the time of the climax of the film when these two styles start to merge together to add this feeling of the character being completely detached from the world around her and losing control of her body and the physical world.

I have taken all my inspiration from music videos as in these they have more freedom to play around with a ton of effects and surreal visuals. This is a list of videos that I have watched as part of my research and inspiration stage. I have put timestamps alongside each link to specify where/what exactly I have taken inspiration from.

For style 1:

DPR IAN – No Blueberries - 1:47-2:21 2:51-3:20!!

DEAN – Instagram - 1:20-1:23 / 1:29-2:02 / 3:05-3:24

DPR IAN – So Beautiful - 0:25-1:11 / 2:11-2:50

For style 2:

BTS – Blood Sweat & Tears - whole video but especially 0:16-0:25

BTS – Singularity - 2:29-2:31 2:34-2:37 2:43-2:47 2:50- 2:54 3:16-3:24

TXT – Can't you see me? - 1:03-1:06 1:51-1:56

#filmgenre

[bondsmagii]

anonymous submitted:

Let's talk about sleep paralysis! I have some wild theories, feel free to believe them or not, but this has been my gatherings after over 15 years of experiences. So - after years of Slffering from it, I've slowly learned how to control my sleep paralysis. I can morph them into cool/interesting incidences now, and have even begun using it as a jumpoff for lucid dreaming. (Disclaimer: Not reccomended if you can't control it yet, please don't try to induce SP unleash you're TOTALLY prepared for it. I don't want anybody to get hurt. And still, I cannot guarantee my own results. This took YEARS of practice.) Anyway, I've found that if you're able to force one small body part to move or jerk your head (repeatedly til it works), you can break out of patalysis at will. It takes some high focus, and becoming conscious of your physical body vs your sleeping self. You CAN move, it's just difficult. Jerk your head, snap your eyes open, or set an alarm if this planned. You'll feel intense heaviness upon waking and a strange desire to fall right back to sleep, but you'll need to sit up straight and fully wake yourself up to end it, otherwise you'll just resume it as soon as you fall asleep again. There's probably a reason for that, actually. What I may have learned through these trials is that sleep paralysis might just be the nightly beginning of the sleep cycle that we aren't meant to be conscious for. Let me run my theory by you. There was a point in my life where sleep paralysis would occur every single time I slept. Every night, it'd start with a buzzing hum that I'd kind of "melt" into, like tinnitus slowly washing over til it's all you can hear. And suddenly, I can't move. Horrific entities bearing down on me.I don't need to go into detail, you've been there. I didn't understand why, until I slowly realized I'd been conscious of the entire business of falling asleep - and that it was a several-step process. Body falls asleep first, mind follows. That's why most people don't remember the act of falling asleep and just seem to become conscious in dreams once they've already begun without you. You're paralyzed because your body is dreaming and you aren't supposed to be conscious yet. It's perhaps a REM stage that's supposed to be painless, nothing. I tested this theory by forcing myself to be calm through my nightly episodes. They would happen regardless, so I may as well try to make them less horrific, right? I would slow my heart rate using breathing exercises. I observed what was happening rather than panicking, and noticed that crushing weight on my chest slowly shift into this peaceful, almost pleasant sinking-down feeling. Like heavy water pulling you down, like a cool blanket of static coccooning around you. And sink down I did - right through this strange buzzing dark haze and directly into dreams. Most of them starting lucid. I was completely conscious of them, sometimed even seeing the dream world "load in" and fill in textures and buildings and skyline. It was surreal. I tested this over and over, and every time got the same result. If I "survived" the paralysis and just calmed, I'd drop into dreams. Sometimes I'd litrrally feel myself sink into my bed, going "below" consciousness. Soon I mapped out the enitirety of the process. Waking, pre-sleep imaginings, those imaginings getting surreal as my brain drifted, static hum overtaking, the ordeal of paralysis, and then I'd sink into what I began calling "The Platform". It was this shifting midpoint between dream-awake where it'd allow me to choose my own dreams. Sometimes I'd see dreams floating movie-like in bubbles at the edge of a void, sometimes I'd see a hall of doors, sometimes I'd literally land on a platform and build dreams from nothing, sometimes I'd fall straight through the void and start the dream flying. Now, as an aside, I am someone who experiences chronic nightmares. Almost all of my dreams have some "horror" element to them, to the point where I've learned to forcibly wake myself up by snapping my "real" physically eyes open. Now I'm overall

able to exert control over them, and overall more conscious of the state of dreaming. I can enjoy them like first-person horror movies and nope the hell out when shit gets too Sideways. The only ones that get me bad now are ones that feel real enough to hurt (real world fears like loved oned dying) ordered ones that deal with a specific phobia that makes me lose my shit. A lot of the method seems to do with "feeling" your real body outside of the dream and understanding that your dream/metaphysical(?) self is a separate entity. I wish I could describe how to do that better - its sort of how you center your body during grounding excersises. Forcing myself awake from nightmares and yanking myself out of sleep paralysis feel extremely similar. I've given myself a sort of Eject Button. Anyhow - I began talking to my SP entities and exerting some gentle control over the whole scene. Changing the power dynamic, de-escalating scary situations by joking with the entities, standing up for myself or catching them off guard. I still get terrifying incidents where I'm attacked or forced to view esoteric horrors, but, well.. I'm a horror movie fan. Sometimes creepy imagery is cool and enjoyable, and now I can cut it off if I want to. I'll even sass them if they get rude. I think I differ in beliefs with you in that I do believe that SP has a spiritual aspect (the same way that dreams do), but I recognize the psychological element as well. I think they go hand in hand, and in finding this I've been able to turn something that was deeply traumatizing into something pretty neat. Thanks for listening, friend. I'm sure this is long and rambling, but I felt like I needed to tell someone, and you seemed like the right person to tell. Be well, I hope you have pleasant dreams, or at least that your nightmares are very cool.

this is actually very impressive, because yeah. this is exactly how and why sleep paralysis happens! I always find it interesting when people arrive at a theory through their own investigation, and it adds up with official findings -- if the time and the place had been a little different, you would have been the person to pioneer the theory! but essentially yes, this is precisely why it happens and why it can be used as a platform for lucid dreaming. when you sleep, your body enters a natural state of paralysis to ensure that you don't injure yourself while sleeping. sometimes this goes wrong, but the usual failure is seen in sleepwalking -- the paralysis stops, the body wakes, the mind does not, and the person wanders around acting out their dreams or perhaps going about their usual morning routine on autopilot.

sometimes, though, it's the other way around. your brain is still awake, but your body is asleep. your dreams translate as vivid hallucinations, you can't move because of the natural paralysis (and this feeling translates itself as a heaviness, especially on the chest, resulting in the all-too-common description sleep paralysis has become known for: the feeling of something sitting or pressing on your chest) and the feeling of dread is likely because of the realisation somewhere deep down that something is very wrong; that you're not supposed to be experiencing this. some people theorise that's why sleep paralysis is overwhelmingly a terrifying event -- rarely do you hear stories of pleasant hallucinations, and this is likely because of the fact we're terrified on some level, aware that something is very unusual. combine this with the fact that sleep paralysis happens to most people only rarely -- once or twice in their lives -- and it's clear that many people don't have the opportunity to understand what happened and become familiar with it.

you're also correct in your observation that moving a small part of the body can snap you out of it. generally it's better to focus on a small part -- moving all of you is too much, but focusing on a small part like a finger or toe is much more effective. it takes a lot of effort, but the effect on the paralysis is instantaneous. the dread and the heavy feeling may take a while to pass, though. another trick to minimise how unpleasant sleep paralysis is is to keep your eyes closed. you can still sense things, and some people might hear things, but overwhelmingly the worst hallucinations are visual. keeping your eyes closed means you at least don't have to see what's crawling up your bed!

I'm like you in the way that I enjoy horror, and I also find sleep paralysis fascinating. now that I know what it is and how to get out of it, I very often just let it run its course -- at least until things get too repetitive or spooky, and then I snap myself out of it. it's absolutely incredible to see what tricks the human mind can play. the hallucinations are so incredibly real, and it's a brilliant opportunity to observe while being in no real danger. only a couple of times have I come across something genuinely paranormal during a sleep paralysis episode -- or what I thought was one, anyway. thankfully it doesn't mimic it exactly, so I can continue to enjoy watching the wild shit my brain comes up with in relative peace.

#sleep paralysis #anon #long post #submission

[its-spooky-bitch]

Are we allowed to ask about figures in our own sleep paralysis incidents?

Sure. Although I’m not an expert and I do tend to consider anything that happens during sleep paralysis a hallucination. But I find sleep paralysis interesting and I like to read about experiences.

#replies

[bobblestheninja]

I don't always hallucinate, but when I do it's at 3am, deeply disturbing for reasons I can't explain, and makes it almost impossible to sleep afterwards.

I haven't had an incident for years. It's not sleep paralysis, have had that but again not for years.It's something different, where I have trouble convincing myself it's not real. I'm awake during it, but only just

Today's was some all-black creature, a bit like the penis-monster in Prometheus. But to move it contorted and was segmented like a millipede, and waved pseudopods that stretched out and then coiled in on itself, as it moved from right next to my hand to vanish into the shadow that turned out to be a black sock next to my bedside table.

In the brief moment I saw it I for certain that it was some sort of parasite, the kind that crawled into any waiting orifice, like I was convinced earwings did when I was a child. It was terrifyingly large (like a Costco hot dog) and also somehow I knew it would be small enough to slip into my ear canal if it wanted.

I am so uncomfortable rn, gods I hate this so much.

#ooc mobile #i don't hallucinate often but when i do #it's so fucking hard to tell the difference between it and reality #it doesn't happen often and is usually only when I'm quite tired #at least visual hallucinations... but it's always terrifying #memories

[spookyspaghettisundae]

The Closet

Natalie awoke.

Her eyes fluttered open, trying to listen to what was being whispered to her. Through the drunkenness of sleep and the haze of broken dreams, she strained to hear the words, but failed to comprehend their language.

The soup of broken thoughts coalesced into coherence. She remembered: she lived alone.

She shot up into a sitting position on her bed. The whispers felt like they reached her ears from everywhere and nowhere at once. They sliced through her mind, sharp and leaving razor-thin cuts in her thoughts. Fear bled from those invisible wounds, causing her heartbeat to wildly race.

Her closet’s door stood open. Natalie stared in disbelief as blue light poured out of it. Not the warm yellow light that could come from the small light bulb hanging inside there, but something much brighter. Colder. The light itself refused to maintain consistency, for it sparkled like a body of water was reflecting it, ever-flowing and shifting.

When she awoke again, thin slivers of light poured in through the cracks in her blinds. It was morning and time to go to work. She visited the closet and peered inside, finding what she should have expected to find—her clothing, and shoes, and boxes.

No strange lights, nothing out of the ordinary.

No whispers.

She went about her day, dismissing it as something ephemeral. She wondered if she had simply dreamt it all. During work, Natalie caught herself searching the internet on her phone. Some part of her feared that anybody could discover her strange search history.

Nothing turned up on this new house she had bought and moved into a few months ago. The move had been stressful, but nothing about it had been unusual. Not until now.

During another break, she wound up on sites and online threads regarding descriptions and discussions of sleep paralysis and night terrors. Weariness weighed her down all day—as if she had barely slept the night before.

In a moment of silence and solitude, waiting for the elevator to open in front of her, she remembered that bright light. Scintillating, dancing. Luring her.

The soft chime of the elevator broke her out of her trance as its doors opened before her. She rode it down to the parking garage and left to go home. On the drive across town, she distracted herself with music and chatter from the radio, as well as flipping through messages on her phone while she waited at red lights.

Natalie crashed into bed early that night. While brushing her teeth, her thoughts circled towards the strange—dream? Nightmare? She could not say. She expected another such event that night, and the exhaustion allowed her to drift into sleep in what felt like an instant.

She awoke one time and stumbled in the dark for a nightly bathroom visit and then awoke again the morning, feeling fully rested. The day passed and some tricky challenges on her current work project distracted her too much for her to occupy her thoughts with the strange experience.

The more days passed, the more distant it grew. The more surreal it became to imagine it, the more the memory blurred. Such thoughts shrank until over a week had passed.

The closet door opened. It took her several moments to gather her thoughts, leaving her confused and disoriented. She blinked, sitting up in her bed and realizing that over a week had passed. Nine days without such incident.

One of the whispers she heard sounded so clear that she could almost spell it out, though she found it impossible to comprehend.

Dune-Akeer.

Tendrils of forbidden knowledge snaked through her thoughts and wrapped themselves around the memories from a week ago. The whispers continued, dancing at the edge of her perception like soft white noise.

The light shone from her closet; bright blue and ominous and sparkling as brightly as ever. As alien as the whispered words, echoing in her head.

This was no sleep paralysis—she knew that much. She untangled herself from the sheets on her bed and felt everything. The soft carpet underneath her bare feet; the cold hardwood floor. The nightly air kept cool by air conditioning, sweeping over exposed skin. And the closet with its strange light—it drew nearer with each timid step that she took towards it.

Her hand, outstretched, trembled, but not with fear. It shook with anticipation.

Natalie’s destiny awaited beyond that door. The light beckoned her.

With it standing ajar, she saw something through the crack. A silhouette stood out against the blinding brightness. An eye peered back at her, pitch black like a doe’s and glistening and curious.

The door slammed shut and Natalie gasped. The light disappeared with it. Nothing shined, not even a hint of it emerging from the cracks at the seams of the closet door’s frame. The whispers had gone silent and would not return.

She swallowed and felt a pit forming in her stomach. Natalie shivered with the sensation of goosebumps forming on her arms and the back of her neck.

She had to know what this all meant. This was no dream.

No hallucination.

Every inhibition died that moment. Unyielding curiosity took root in her. A thirst for knowledge took the shape of a knife in her mind, thrusting outwards. Matching that motion, she grabbed the closet door and ripped it open.

Darkness had taken the bright light’s place and softened the outlines of everything inside the closet. There was nothing unnatural in there but clothing hanging from hangers on the bar. Several pairs of shoes and boots on the floor. Boxes up top.

She yanked the light cord and the light bulb’s soft glow flickered on into existence, illuminating the walk-in closet’s interior.

The goosebumps settled and any lingering sense of fear crumbled away. The pit in her stomach remained, because she had to know. She had to get to the bottom of this. Natalie refused to believe she was losing her mind.

Rifling through the objects in her closet, the sound of hangers clattering and boxes rattling fully shook her awake. None of this had the quality of dreams, every last bit of it felt so real. She could taste the dust on her tongue and realized that her job had not left her any time or energy to do any cleaning since she had moved in here.

With a violent motion, she spread the hanging clothes apart.

On the brink of giving up and going back to bed with the uneasy feeling stuck in her stomach, she spotted something unusual after all. What appeared to be a wooden surface in the back of the closet was, in truth, a wallpaper made to mimic the texture of polished wood.

She would never have noticed this, had it not been for the top right corner of this faux-wooden wallpaper peeling away at the edges.

Her fingers dug in and tore at it. Natalie tugged and scratched and ripped and scraped it away. Much of the wallpaper proved to be persistent, glued well to the closet’s back wall, but she managed to remove the top third of it.

The pit in her stomach grew and a bitter taste spread in Natalie’s mouth as she struggled to understand what she was looking at. It had to be the top third of an arrangement of symbols, placed in the shape of a circle. They reminded her of old Norse runes, but to her knowledge looked nothing like them.

A sharp pain spread throughout her skull, shooting from one temple to the other. She cringed at the headache overcoming her senses while she tried to study the symbols or make any sense of them. It quickly got so unbearable that she fetched her phone from the dresser nearby and used the device to take a photo of the symbols.

Time and experiences melted into rote motions as she downed some painkillers and a whole glass of water against the headache. She found herself loitering around for the next hour, aimlessly pacing through her darkened home and then browsing the internet for answers. But she found none and—when she realized with horror how few hours of sleep she would get that night before getting up to work again tomorrow—eventually returned to bed to continue sleeping.

She would experience this again and figure it all out eventually—she hoped.

When she awoke the next morning, she remembered nothing else to have transpired but felt like she had slept in an uncomfortable position, aching all over.

Work colleagues who saw her that day asked if everything was alright. A look into the mirror revealed thick dark rings underneath her eyes. She assured her colleagues that she was fine, albeit having slept poorly. “Dreamt something funny and now I feel like I was hit by a truck,” she joked. She knew deep down that she could not tell anybody about her experiences. Checking into a mental institution was just a few disturbing sentences away, she feared.

Natalie tried everything to gather evidence over the next days. She set up her phone to film videos of the closet during the night to see if she was missing anything when she slept, but to no avail. Then she repeated the same experiments by setting up the camera in the closet.

Still nothing.

Days passed and she spent every free second conducting research. She made some calls to the Realtor who had sold her the place to learn more about the house’s previous owners, but got nothing out of it. Natalie joked to her about the place possibly being haunted and giving her nightmares, which prompted a long and awkward silence on the phone call. This struck her as odd, but nothing came of it, and the Realtor’s nervous laugh preceded her saying that nobody had died on the premises of this house.

The symbols or runes or whatever they were didn’t match anything that Natalie could find in online searches or even in frantic hunts through library books.

Days turned into weeks without any results or anything else happening. One morning, she woke up having dreamt about the light shining from her closet, but that’s all it was—a dream. In the hours of footage she had been gathering and filling external hard disks with, she sifted through everything three times to ensure that the light had not returned that same night.

It must have been a full month since she had started researching the history of her home, the symbols in the closet, and eventually even scouring weird message boards filled with conspiracy theorists who shared related experiences. Not once did she find anything remotely similar outside of one account from a person obviously suffering from schizophrenia.

It was around then that Natalie realized with growing frustration that she had become obsessed. Though she feared the consequences, she started contemplating the option of seeing a therapist about this.

She began to question her sanity again, and she especially began to question if what she believed to have experienced was real at all.

Yet there it was—at the back of her closet in her bedroom—she had peeled away all the wallpaper and revealed the full circle of symbols. It was impossible for her to tell if they were occult or alien. They might as well have been both.

One morning, she had finally worked up the courage to call up a therapist. But before she could during a break at work, she got a call from her Realtor, Sally.

Natalie hesitated to take the call. She just froze, staring at the display and her Realtor’s name on it, “Sally Summers.” Natalie tapped it and took the call, likely only seconds before Sally would have given up on the call.

The pit in her stomach returned. Her innards knotted and a weird tingle danced and pirouetted down Natalie’s spine as she heard her Realtor out.

Sally admitted that she had done some digging, and found out that the owner before the last one—from nearly thirty years ago—was some sort of kook. His family had died in an accident and he was incarcerated for manslaughter, though the two were not necessarily related. The newspaper articles were somewhat vague, but she had pieced together that this was the man who had lived here before the previous owners, long before she had even picked up working in real estate.

Babbling and making excuses, Sally assured Natalie that she would have disclosed such information if she had known and promised that had not been the case until now. Natalie believed her—there was a subtle melody of desperation riding along in the Realtor’s voice.

Just as she was about to hang up, eager to conduct her own research into the matter, Sally interrupted Natalie and surprised her deeply. The fearful tone in her voice made more sense when she offered her to contact a psychic she knew.

Natalie politely declined the offer, telling Sally that she didn’t believe in such things. She assured her Realtor that there was nothing to worry about and thanked her for her candor before hanging up.

She knew now again she couldn’t share anything of what she was experiencing.

This was not knowledge that you share.

Still, the light refused to return. In that time, Natalie found out that the mysterious incarcerated owner had died in a correctional facility over twenty years ago. She stopped investigating this matter—for dead men tell no tales.

Right when she had accepted that the light would never return again, she awoke to it. The night hung deep with its darkness draping over everything, and the bright blue light created a sharp contrast in her bedroom.

Losing no time, Natalie climbed out of bed and approached it.

Her heart pounded like a giant drum, causing her whole body to thrum. The throbbing extended all the way into her digits, which she was acutely aware of as she reached out and touched the closet door.

It opened by itself before her fingertips ever reached it, but she embraced it and clutched the edge of the door with growing determination. She had to know what awaited her on the other side.

She pulled it open.

With the closet door opened wide, the whole bedroom was bathed in the bright light, as was she.

But all Natalie had eyes for was the world beyond this portal. It looked nothing like Earth. Plants with jagged leaves that looked as sharp as razors and with bright blue lights shining from their stems, casting the eerie blue glow that emanated and engulfed her. Rock formations that curved into looming stone spirals. And that silhouette of a figure again. Mere steps away.

Limbs far too long to look natural. Too freakish to be human. It turned and stared back at her through pitch-black eyes. It tilted its long and angular head and studied Natalie. She studied it back.

She stepped through the closet and into this world.

The closet door slammed shut behind her and Natalie was never seen again.

—Submitted by Wratts

#spoospasu #spookyspaghettisundae #horror #short story #writing #my writing #literature #spooky #fiction #submission #Lovecraftian #occult #alien #strange #otherworld #light #dimension #time and space #chthonian #obsession #schizophrenia #madness #insanity #drugs #closet #other world #sleep paralysis #hallucination #perception

[fuckyeahnightmares]

Todd

forest-nymph-oh submitted:

I’ve had tons of experiences, but I thought this one would be the most interesting since I was not the only one to experience it.

So, one night a couple months ago, my boyfriend and I both had some very strange dreams.

His dream was that he was sitting on our bed, I was beside him sleeping. There was an entity, who would not enter the space on the bed or around us. It just hovered near the end of our bed. He described the entity as “ambiguous”, kind of difficult to look at, like the details would disappear when you tried to focus on it. He just remembered black holes as eyes.

The thing said its name was Todd. It was nice, didn’t seem threatening. So my boyfriend talked to him for a while. Then, ‘Todd’ said, “I like you. Can I have you?” My boyfriend thought this to be humourous and said, “how about we just be friends?”

Apparently this entity did not like that idea. He became very angry. My boyfriend said at one point this entity even attempted to look like me, I guess to try and entice him. But as you can imagine that was probably even more disturbing.

Meanwhile I, beside him, was having the most awful sleep. Nightmares about people, that didn’t look quite human, chasing me. Even sleep paralysis at one point where I hallucinated (or not) a tall dark shadow standing over me.

We both woke up at 7 am (hours earlier than we normally do), exactly the same time. We both layed there in a weird silence before telling eachother what had happened. We were glad we weren’t crazy, but also incredibly unsettled.

I had troubles being in our room, or even the basement (where our room is) by myself. For almost three days I felt this awful, hateful, aggressive energy. (Exactly like how it would feel if an entity was angry that it didn’t succeed in stealing your boyfriend). I constantly felt like I was being not just watched, but GLARED at vindictively. I had sleep paralysis for two nights after the incident, which isn’t a thing I usually get. Even my boyfriend agreed it felt like there was someone just, claiming a corner of our room and refusing to leave. It sounds hilarious now but it was terrifying at the time. My boyfriend believes he was astral traveling during his “Todd” dream, and that our bed was his safe place, which is why this thing wouldn’t come near it.

James: 7/10 Todd’s wildin’. That doesn’t sounds really weird about the dreams. Thanks for sharing!

#paranormal #entity #creepy #nightmare #sleep paralysis #unexplained #todd #dream #dreams #mod james #7 #7/10 #submission

[growtiredofpublicvulnerability]

Also we have to go on call where like if a customer incident is really serious they expect us for two weeks at a time to be available 24/7 to answer questions and fix stuff. Like quite literally 24/7 no shifts or anything. And for me that is extremely anxiety inducing and I literally can't sleep during that time so it's like a week long panic attack when my name is first up to be called. And even if I do sleep a little I get awful nightmares where I can feel my body being violated and then terrible sleep paralysis like Today I had awful sleep paralysis and hallucinated someone breaking in to my apartment it was terrifying.

So basically my point to this post is that I need them to just completely remove me from the on call rotation bc it is negatively affecting my health. Like beyond lack of sleep which comes with the territory. This is not normal and it's terrifying so I spend all my time dreading the next time it's gonna happen! It's impossible to live like this I hate it. Like not that anyone here is a LAWYER but do yall think I can file an actual accomodation claim with HR.. let me ask my friends who also work there lmao.

I'm logging these symptoms though so I can have something to say when I bring it up

[ririofalltrades]

“Nightmareland” by Lex “Lonehood” Nover

Chapter 1: Sleep Paralysis

Ohhhhh ho ho, what a fun subject to write about. I've been experiencing sleep paralysis (SP) for as long as I can remember. As confirmed in this first chapter, SP is actually pretty common. I know quite a lot of people who can confirm experiencing this strange phenomenon themselves. 

This chapter went over a couple of interesting points. Despite experiencing repeat episodes of SP myself, I’m surprised (always surprised) that I never looked into it with any vigor to understand what I was going through. I’d google SP and see Fuseli’s oil painting ‘The Nightmare’ and think to myself, “That is EXACTLY what is happening to me!” and then go on about my life. I kind of figured it came with the schizo. I also learned that people with PTSD and narcolepsy are more susceptible to SP episodes than others, but that comes at no surprise to me.

It’s fascinating to learn that such a significant amount of people, all over the world, are haunted and afflicted by very, if not extremely, similar experiences with SP. People report the same inability to move regardless of being completely conscious, account a heaviness on their chest, and experience horrifying visual/auditory hallucinations. It’s intriguing to read about how SP inspires and feeds the imagination of many artists and the lore that is born in other cultures/countries telling a story to make sense of what people are experiencing.

I think the most intriguing piece of information I read about was on SUNDS: Sudden Unexplained Nocturnal Death syndrome (WHAAAT?!). The only thing that would carry me through a psychotic episode was telling myself, “It’s not real, it’s not real, it’s not real.” Even though I could see them, feel them, hear them, I could always tell myself, ‘Well, at least they aren’t real and can REALLY kill me.’ As I look more into SUNDS, sudden unexplained death (SUD) and sudden cardiac death (SCD), I am shocked to find that most studies were done on Southeast Asian [men], data collected from Japan, the Philippines, Thailand, Laos, Vietnam, China, Cambodia. These men essentially died in their nightmares.

Nover mentions that in the early 1980′s, young Southeast Asian immigrant men in the US were dying mysteriously in their sleep at a rate higher than the combined top five causes of death for other American men in their age group. At that time, medical studies led to inconclusive results and the cause of their deaths made no sense; a majority of them were healthy and reported no illness prior to falling asleep. 

Professor Shelley R. Adler, a professor in the Department of Family and Community Medicine and Director of Education at the Osher Center for Integrative Medicine at the University of California, San Francisco, revisited these incidents from a medical anthropology standpoint and perspective. She has been studying nightmares and sleep paralysis for over 25 years. She interviewed men and women, mainly from Laos, about their traditional belief systems and experiences with SP. Apparently, in their culture, there is an evil nocturnal spirit that can smother or crush men and assault women in their sleep called the dab tsog. They believed that they were more susceptible to the attacks when they did not honor their ancestors with rituals that would typically involve an animal sacrifice, something you definitely can’t do here in the US. 

Below are a few drawings of apparitions that I’ve seen, and still see, during a visual hallucination. I started drawing the dudes more consistently in 2017, but I have’t drawn any in a while. It's kind of hard. 

Also, possible trigger warning for that last photo. Or maybe, for all of them.

[unsure-writer]

Hey, I love how realistically you portray the brothers! You're my favorite DL blog. Onto the request, how would the S/M brothers react to an S/O who had sleep paralysis hallucinations? Thank you!

Hey, thanks for the compliment :D

_______

Shu: Wouldn’t be too concerned the first few times it happened, but as the amount of incidents increased and his S/O begins to regularly disturb his sleep, he attempts to do something about it, even going as far as conducting his own research.

Reiji: It was both irritating and worrying for him. He doesn’t allow it to happen more than once before he is in his lab and trying to find some potion that would solve the problem and stop his S/O from suffering sleepless nights.

Subaru: On the surface he seems pissed off but beneath he’s so worried that he’s moved them both from the coffin they usually sleep in and onto a bed so his S/O won’t feel so restricted in movement and fearful during episodes of sleep paralysis.

Laito: When his S/O begins to get less energetic during sex because of countless amounts of sleepless nights, Laito decides to take the matter into his own hands and take his S/O for a trip to the doctors. If that doesn’t work, he asks Reiji to prepare a solution or attempts to make one himself.

Kanato: Instant rage. Whilst he mostly loves that fearful expression on his S/O’s face, he absolutely detests it unless he is the cause of it. When his S/O begins to stop going to sleep and just laying there with tears in their eyes, only then does he do something since he can understand the torture of being unable to go to sleep. He probably won’t go out of his way, only asking Reiji and stopping at that.

Ayato: Hates beings unable to sleep peacefully with his S/O without them screaming in the middle of said sleep. At first he tries to come up with an antidote by himself but when that doesn’t work he goes as far as asking Reiji if anything could be done.

__________

Kou: Asks his S/O why he should go out of his way to do something for them when there will be no benefit for him. Only when his S/O convinces him that beings able to sleep peacefully again would be considered a benefit does he act. Ruki has to create a medicine for them.

Yuma: Almost shits himself when he’s woken from a deep slumber by screams as his S/O suddenly shoots up, claiming to have seen something in the corner of the room and being previously unable to move. He creates some interesting medicines using herbs and such from his garden and hopes that will solve the issue.

Azusa: Doesn’t know what to do and feels horribly helpless when he has to watch his S/O loosing more and more sleep. Eventually asks Ruki for help and is glad when it stops.

Ruki: He watches with interest the first few times, intending to conduct further studies in the future.However when it becomes clear how tired and weary his S/O is he comes up with something that will hopefully put an end to his loved one’s sleep paralysis.

#mukami #azusa mukami #laito sakamaki #sakamaki #Diabolik Lovers #sakami

[doubleshuck]

There was a house I lived in for a time that would have cycles of incredibly strange phenomena. It started in the spring and usually calmed down a little by the first week of summer, when my wife and I would joke that it got too hot even for spirits. My wife and children were thankfully mostly spared from the strange goings-on in that house, though my wife would often complain of shadowy figures in the hallway, and of hearing voices whispering in her ear as she tried to go to sleep. For whatever reason, the phenomena seemed to be highly focused on me, but this is not an unusual thing for me – it had happened before this occasion, and it has happened many times since.

Shortly after we settled in, I began experiencing what I assumed was sleep paralysis. It certainly had all the hallmarks of a classic episode of sleep paralysis: it occurred when I was falling asleep, and always began with an immense feeling of dread. I would feel a presence moving towards me, at first pressing against the window in the hall, then entering the hallway itself, and finally moving up the hall and into the bedroom. I would hear the door creak open and I would know it was in the room; I would then find myself with an overwhelming compulsion to close my eyes, something which I can still only describe as evolutionary instinct. I would close my eyes tight as the presence moved over the bed, and then I would simply know that whatever was there was laying stretched out beside me, its face inches from mine. Perhaps most disturbingly of all was that it wanted me to open my eyes, and I would battle with the urge with all my strength, knowing that if I did open my eyes then the consequences would be dire. I would be stuck in this situation for anywhere between thirty seconds to a minute, and then I would suddenly start to scream. I would scream at the top of my lungs, so loudly and hysterically that I would feel my throat tearing, and abruptly the presence would vanish and I knew it would be safe top open my eyes. Each and every time, I was convinced I had screamed so loudly that I would wake to find my wife in a full panic, but each and every time she was still next to me, undisturbed and sleeping soundly.

As I said, at first I thought it was nothing but sleep paralysis. While it doesn’t happen frequently to me it isn’t something that is overly uncommon, and my suspicions were only raised when it happened over and over again. Sometimes it would be several times a week, but frequently it began happening several times a night. I finally accepted that it was something more than sleep paralysis when I spent three hours of a single night actively fighting this presence off; every time I began to doze I would feel it there, coming towards me, and only screaming in my head as loud as I could would force it away. By the morning I was exhausted, and had no idea what was going on. Nobody else had mentioned hearing or seeing anything, and this was before my wife had started witnessing strange things herself. I feared I was having a mental breakdown – I worked a very important and very stressful job at the time, and was in a foreign country trying to do one hundred things at once, as well as trying to help my wife and small children settle in. I worried that it might have taken its toll on me more than I thought, and therefore refrained from mentioning it to my wife so as not to worry her.

One year, during the height of this phenomena, I had a friend come to stay for a while. He knew nothing about what had been going on at the house as I had mentioned it to nobody at this point, and so I was surprised to find him up early one morning when usually he was the type to stay up late and sleep in. He looked exhausted, and I asked him if everything was alright. He told me that he’d had a reoccurring nightmare all night, about some kind of malicious entity coming into his room and lying beside him in the bed. He described the same kind of thing that I had experienced: the movement of the presence from the hallway to the bedroom, the door opening, the urge to close his eyes and the way he would have to resist opening them. The only difference was that he didn’t scream to get the presence to leave – he threw out an arm in its direction, and when it should have made contact, the presence would vanish. This was how I finally knew beyond all doubt that it wasn’t sleep paralysis or a mental breakdown: it would be impossible for us to both be having the same hallucination, and if my friend was able to move an entire limb, it couldn’t be sleep paralysis. I told him that I had been experiencing the same thing, and both of us were mutually relieved to find it wasn’t just us.

Shortly after this incident, my friend and I returned home from a late night out. We were relatively tipsy but not completely drunk, and both of us are able to handle our drink. Therefore we were still in a relatively sensible state of mind when we got back into the house, and were able to be quiet enough that we didn’t wake my wife or children. We kept the lights off as we moved towards the bedrooms, and my friend was leading the way when he stopped suddenly, causing me to bump into him. I was about to say something to him about it when he spoke instead, and I could hear in his voice that something was terribly wrong.

“Do you see that?” he asked, pointing. I followed his finger and saw, illuminated slightly by the moonlight coming through the hall window, a dark figure moving slowly down the hallway. It was humanoid and hunched over, but straightened up to its full height would have probably been taller than my friend and I. As we watched, too terrified to breathe, it moved along the hall to my bedroom. It vanished inside and returned to the hallway after a few seconds; now coming towards us, it showed no signs of seeing us. It disappeared into my friend’s room, and this time did not emerge. My friend and I spent that night in the living room.

Shortly after this, the events began to die down. My friend, still staying with me, experienced the occasional encounter with the presence, usually two to three times a week. I still encountered it a lot more often, sometimes several times a night, but they grew shorter each time. Before the phenomena seemed to die down until the next year, there was one final inexplicable event.

I had experienced the presence coming into my room as it usually did, and once it was gone I got out of bed and crept silently to the hallway. Still half asleep, I didn’t know what I hoped to achieve. There was nothing in the hallway, but after a minute of standing there, listening and watching for any clue, my friend appeared in his doorway, peering up the hallway at me. I stepped out into the hall to go to him, and immediately felt that my bare feet were wet. Looking down, I could see there were several inches of water in my hallway, glittering in the moonlight. My friend had noticed, too, and we stared at one another in thorough confusion before the pair of us, without having to discuss, turned and went back to bed. I fully intended to deal with it in the morning, and as I tried to get to sleep I had almost convinced myself it was nothing more than a plumbing problem. When I woke up the next morning, the water had vanished completely, and the hall was as dry and as undamaged as though it had never happened in the first place.

#creepypasta #creepy #unnerving #haunting #unexplained #text story #mine #upload

[thestory-creator]

Alien abduction of Betty and Barney a reality or the figment of their imagination

The September night of 1961 was the life-changing night for the young couple, Betty and Barney. A couple that lived in Portsmouth, Betty and Barney were civil servants where Barney worked in a post office and had to travel 60miles every day back and forth for work. Betty was handling State child welfare cases, and the biracial couple were devoted to their church and civil rights movement activities. The overworked couple finally took a short vacation to New Hampshire’s White mountain which they said was a spur of the moment decision like a much-delayed honeymoon. They had only $70 in their pocket and spent three days in the white mountains.

However, the night of the third day became the night that changed the course of their life when they felt they were being followed by beaming light from the sky. The road to the house was empty, and the two-hour journey felt like forever as the beaming light did not stop following them. The couple got curious and stopped the car to check what the light was, and Betty saw through her binoculars. She exclaimed to Barney that he is ridiculous to think that it is a satellite or a star. Barney knew she was right as a jet or helicopter will not hover around in such a clear and silent night.

Barney, who was a world war-II veteran and an avid plane watcher with an IQ of 140, knew it was something else. When the beaming light did not stop following them, Barney came out of the car 70 miles from the diner with a gun in his pocket and went into the woods. He saw the beaming light through the binoculars and was shocked to see an object as big as a jet and flat as a pancake. All he could say himself, “My God, what is this thing?” he recalled thinking. “This can’t be real.” He could not lift his hand to shoot and could see that behind the windows of the object men in gray uniform were watching him.Hysterical and confused, he ran towards the car as he felt that they would be captured. After two hours, the couple drowsy and confused walked into the house with the clothes ripped apart, watches not working and Barney’s shoes strangely scuffed, but the two hours of the drive completely vanished from their memories. After the incident, Betty had strange dreams and Barney developed ulcer and anxiety. After months of anxiety, they contacted Benjamin Simon, a psychiatrist and neurologist who specialized in hypnosis, a mainstream technique at the time.

Simon, the psychiatrist, helped them put the pieces together with the help of hypnosis and they discovered the Aliens abducted them. They were taken into a spaceship where they were separated from each other and extensive examination was conducted on each. In fact, Betty was so excited to see the aliens; she even talked to them and said that their leader looked like Hitler.

During the examination, the aliens took hair strands, clipped nails and scraped their skin that was then placed on a transparent material, not a glass slide. They also probed their head, eyes, ear, legs and spine with 4–6inches long needles that were connected to long wires. Betty was also given a crude pregnancy test which made her twist in pain. Gray beings were excited to see that Barney’s teeth were removable and Betty laughed saying that they were dentures. She stated that gray beings did not understand the concept of human ageing. While she was alone with the leader of the beings, she asked him where they were to which he jokingly replied, “if you don’t know where you are, there wouldn’t be any point in telling you where I am.” She even drew the star map, which was shown to her in the spaceship while she was under hypnosis.

The story of Hill’s was published in the Boston Newspaper, and after that, there was nothing normal in their life. A book and movie were made on their story; debates were held whether the couple was hallucinating the whole thing, sleep-deprived, liars or were high on weed. Many theories came forward as it was the first time somebody told aliens abducted them. Before this incident, people shared stories of witnessing a spaceship or friendly encounters, but an account of the extensive examination was hard to believe. But, the imagery of gray beings with big eyes became the sci-fi character for many years.

A renowned psychologist from Harvard, Richard J. McNally said, The “alien-abduction’ phenomenon, in my opinion, shows how sincere, non-psychotic individuals can develop beliefs about, and false memories of, incredible experiences that never happened.” Some psychologists claimed it is the result of sleep paralysis or hallucination, but Simon, the psychologist who performed hypnosis on the couple, felt they were not lying. He concluded the whole experience as a dream Betty had, and Barney absorbed the entire experience, thus making it a real encounter for their mind.

There were many debates on the popular encounter of Betty and Barney, which made Betty a renowned voice in UFO research. But, nobody can neither conclusively deny or accept whether the abduction happened or not. The abduction is a significant possibility as the years went by, but there was no change in Hill’s story, and they remembered vividly how things happened. They denied false memories or sleep paralysis as the possibility of what they experienced.

Watch video- Alien abduction of Betty and Barney Hill a reality or the figment of their imagination

#tumblr #like #aliens #life #intelligent #love #instagram #story #follow #nature #earth #planet #world #photo #article #art #vintage #animals #film

[orcmansagetoseer]

Tell me something. Do you believe in ghost, spirits or something that's out of the ordinary. Souls that never truly crossover, but linger or bound to the physical realm to watch over the living. Personally, I'm a little skeptical, but I do have some belief that someone or something is with us from the other side.

There's this one incident, early morning, before the sun rises. I set my alarm to wake me to go to work. Of course it did, no problem. The difference is as soon I turn off the alarm, i noticed that I was fading back to sleep. I lay my phone right next to me. It was only for a minute, but all of the sudden, I felt my cell phone fell right on top of my chest. From that impact, i got up and said "I'm up. Thank you."

I'm not sure if I was hallucinating or suffering from sleep paralysis. It felt so real. It couldn't be a dream. Just one thing though. If they are real, i just hope they're not watch me when I masturbate during lonely nights. It'll be awkward and creepy as heck.

#talk #late night thoughts #thinking #random

[topworldhistory]

Their account, recovered with the help of hypnosis, detailed extensive medical exams, including a crude pregnancy test.

Betty and Barney Hill, who claim to have been abducted by aliens in 1961, holding a book written about their experience circa 1967.

Is it chasing us? That thought coursed through Betty and Barney Hill’s minds as they drove down the empty winding country road in New Hampshire’s White Mountains. It was a September night in 1961, they hadn’t seen a car for miles, and a strange light in the sky seemed to follow them.

When they finally got home to Portsmouth at dawn, they were far from relieved. They felt dirty. Their watches stopped working. Barney’s shoes were strangely scuffed and Betty’s dress was ripped. There were two hours of the drive that neither one of them could remember. What had happened?

Betty and Barney Hill (TV-PG; 1:29)

With the help of a psychiatrist, the quiet couple eventually revealed a startling story: Gray beings with large eyes had walked them into a metallic disc as wide, Betty said, as her house was long. Once inside, the beings examined the couple and erased their memories.

Their experience would kick off an Air Force inquiry, part of the secretive initiative Project Blue Book that investigated UFO sightings across the country. The incident would also become the first-ever widely publicized alien-abduction account and shape how stories like it were told—and understood—from then on. Debate continues as to whether the husband and wife were liars, fantasists, crackpots or simply sleep-deprived people who later recovered seriously scrambled memories.

READ MORE: Interactive Map: UFO Sightings Taken Seriously by the U.S. Government

Strange lights in pursuit

The Hills’ road trip was spontaneous, a well-earned break Barney decided the couple needed, as explained in The Interrupted Journey, a 1966 book they collaborated on with author John G. Fuller. Barney worked a grueling night shift at the post office, driving 60 miles each way. Betty’s job handling state child-welfare cases was no easier. The little free time this biracial couple had was devoted to their church and activities related to the civil-rights movement. After 16 months of marriage, Betty and Barney saw this trip through Montreal and Niagara Falls as their delayed honeymoon. They left so impulsively they had no time to go to the bank before it closed for the weekend. They got in their car with less than $70 in their pockets.

On the last night of their three-day trip, the tired couple sipped coffee in a Vermont diner to recharge before driving back. Barney figured if they pushed through, they could beat the wind and rains from an approaching hurricane. They left the diner around 10 p.m., estimating they could reach their red-framed house in Portsmouth, New Hampshire between 2 a.m. and 3 a.m. at the latest.

READ MORE: Meet J. Allen Hynek, the Astronomer Who First Classified UFO 'Close Encounters.' 

As they drove, strange light in the sky gave another reason to hurry. At first it looked like a falling star, but grew larger and brighter with each mile. Barney, an avid plane watcher and World War II vet, was sure they had nothing to worry about. It’s just a satellite, he assured Betty. It probably went off course.

The light seemed to move with the car as Barney steered down the curving mountain road. The light zigged and zagged, ducking past the moon and behind trees and mountain ridges, only to reappear moments later. Sometimes it seemed to move toward them in a game of cat-and-mouse. It had to be an illusion, they thought. Maybe the car’s movement made it seem like the light, too, was moving.

Curiosity overcame them. The couple pulled over at road stops and picnic turnouts to get a closer look. Through binoculars, Betty saw that the white light was really an object spinning in the air.

“Barney,” she told her husband, “if you think that’s a satellite or a star, you’re being completely ridiculous.”

The close encounter

He knew she was right. Barney had an IQ of 140, noted Fuller in his book. Barney was also a pragmatic man who wouldn’t give flying saucers a second thought, remembered his niece Kathleen Marden in her work, Captured: The Betty and Barney Hill Experience. The night was too quiet for a helicopter, a commercial plane or even military jet with a hotshot pilot. He didn’t want to spook Betty, but he was becoming concerned. What was this light and why was it toying with them?

About 70 miles past the diner, the object hovered just above the treetops, approximately 100 feet above them. Barney abruptly stopped the car, keeping the engine running. He shoved a handgun he’d hidden beneath the seat into his pocket and rushed into a dark field, leaving Betty in the car. What he saw was as big as a jet but as round and flat as a pancake. “My God, what is this thing?” he recalled thinking. “This can’t be real.”

READ MORE: This Scoutmaster Had a Run-in with a UFO. The Kids Saw it Too.

Behind rows of windows, gray uniformed beings seemed to look right at him, Barney recalled. He tried to lift his hand to his pistol but somehow couldn’t. A voice told him not to put down his binoculars.

He had a startling thought: We’re about to be captured. Yelling hysterically, he ran back to the car and barreled down the road as Betty tracked the craft, craning her head outside the car window. Without explanation, loud, rhythmic beeps sounded from the car’s trunk. The couple felt instantly drowsy and lost consciousness.

They came to around two hours later and 35 miles down the road.

Barney holding up a diagram explaining the alien abduction.

Recovering the memory

Back home in Portsmouth, they tried to make sense of the night. Barney felt compelled to examine his body’s lower half. Both seemed aware of a puzzling presence.

In the weeks and months after, Betty, an avid reader, checked out books from the library discovering the civilian UFO group National Investigations Committee on Aerial Phenomena (NICAP). She also reported the sighting to the Air Force, worried about radiation.

In coming years, with Betty suffering from disturbing dreams and Barney developing an ulcer and anxiety, the couple sought mental help. The two met with Benjamin Simon, a psychiatrist and neurologist who specialized in hypnosis, a mainstream technique at the time.

READ MORE: When Dozens of Korean War GIs Claimed a UFO Made Them Sick 

Through months of weekly sessions, Simon helped the couple piece together what they think had happened: A vessel had landed on the Hill’s car, putting them to sleep. Afterward, gray beings walked them up a long ramp and into the spacecraft.

Once inside, the Hills were separated, taking turns in an examination room that had curved walls and a large light hanging from the ceiling. Each was asked to climb up on a metal table. The table was so short, Barney’s legs hung over the side.

During the examinations, the beings removed Betty and Barney’s clothes, plucked strands of their hair, took clippings of their nails and scraped their skin. Each sample was placed on a clear material, not unlike a glass slide. Needles, connected to long wires, probed their heads, arms, legs and spines. One large needle, around 4 to 6 inches long, was inserted into Betty’s belly. This pregnancy test left her twisting in pain. Throughout, a being Barney and Betty called “the leader” watched from the side.

After Betty’s examination ended, the beings rushed back into her room, excited. They discovered that Barney’s teeth could be removed. Betty laughed, explaining that Barney had dentures, a fact of human aging the beings struggled to understand.

Later, alone with the leader, Betty asked where the craft had flown, admitting she knew little of the universe. The being joked with her, saying “if you don’t know where you are, there wouldn’t be any point in telling you where I am.” Later, under hypnosis, she drew a star map shown to her on the ship.

In 1965, the Hills' story was picked up by a Boston newspaper. After that, everything changed. The quiet couple’s story became the subject of a best-selling book and a movie starring James Earl Jones. The upstanding civil servants had become celebrity abductees.

READ MORE: In 1952, the Flatwoods Monster Terrified 6 Kids, a Mom, a Dog—and the Nation

The model for alien abductions

The Hills weren’t the first to spot a UFO or even to report an abduction. But their story did capture the nation’s imagination and was so widely publicized, it has helped shape how we talk about alien encounters and abductions to this day.

Before the Hill’s story, alien encounters were friendly, according to Christoper Bader, a professor of sociology at California’s Chapman University. Some aliens even lived on earth and commuted back on weekends. But once the Hills’ story became better known, abduction accounts shared certain characteristics, such as medical examinations and missing time. Aliens with large heads and big eyes—dubbed “grays” in UFO circles—became classic sci-fi staples in personal accounts and pop culture, Close Encounters of the Third Kind and shows like the X-Files.

The Hills’ story—and those that came after—helped pave the way for a new understanding of human experience. Richard J. McNally, a Harvard psychologist, puts it this way: “The ‘alien-abduction’ phenomenon, in my opinion, shows how sincere, non-psychotic individuals can develop beliefs about, and false memories of, incredible experiences that never happened.”

Experts of all stripes have tried to explain why intelligent, otherwise mentally stable people came forward with these experiences. Many psychologists say sleep paralysis and hallucinations played a role. Leading questions during hypnosis—the main way most abductees unlock their stories—could also have been a factor.

Barney and Betty Hill holding a newspaper reporting about their alleged alien abduction in a rural portion of New Hampshire in late September 1961.

A view into the human brain

Those who report abduction might also see the world a little differently. According to research, one of the strongest predictors of false recall is a vivid imagination. This group scores high in “magical ideation” and is more likely to believe in ghosts and tarot readings, according to McNally.

Some believe the Hill’s story was simply a myth in the making, with the supernatural meetings, vulnerable protagonists and otherworldly journeys that are often the hallmarks of legend. Many point to the stress of being an interracial couple living in a predominantly white state in a turbulent era. (The year of their hypnosis, 1964, was marked by Cold War tensions and civil-rights unrest, with numerous urban riots erupting that summer.) “You have a biracial couple at a time where obviously it was not easy to be a biracial couple,” says Bader. “Look what those aliens were: a mixture of black and white. I find that very meaningful.”

READ MORE: The UFO Sightings that Launched ‘Men in Black’ Mythology

Abductee stories depend on first-hand accounts—the most vulnerable form of evidence. Memories can be distorted by stress or distraction, or even manufactured. When a false memory is in place, psychologists say, the brain works to fill in the details. Psychologist Michael Shermer points to ‘patternicity,’ the tendency to see patterns even when none exist, helping us to see faces in clouds or assume that one event caused another.

Past experience also shapes human perception. Barney, a World War II vet, thought the head “gray” looked like Hitler and seemed menacing. Betty, meanwhile, who had been excited to see the aliens, bantered with the affable gray who performed her medical examination. That alien even agreed to give her a book to bring to earth with her, she said, though other crew members would later overrule that decision.

In this way alien abduction and encounter stories have helped psychologists understand the human brain, its defects—and the weaknesses inherent in memory and first-hand accounts, according to Christopher French, a psychologist specializing in human experience related to the paranormal. “What we see and hear, especially under less than ideal observational conditions, can be heavily influenced by our prior beliefs and expectations,” wrote French in the The Guardian.

NICAP’s scientific advisor cross-examined the couple and found their account credible. The Air Force’s Project Blue Book would ultimately dismiss the story, determining the unexplained craft could be explained by “natural causes”—hinting that the couple hadn’t seen a spacecraft but only the planet Jupiter.

For his part, psychiatrist Simon never felt the Hills had made up their story. He concluded Betty had dreamed the abduction and Barney had absorbed her story, especially since many of the most vivid details matched descriptions of dreams Betty had jotted down after the event. “I believe implicitly in the honesty of these people,” he said on a ‘70s radio program.

Of course, another explanation is always possible: The abduction actually occurred. The Hills stuck by their story, despite years of skeptics and detractors. Like many abductees, the couple never felt false memory or sleep paralysis explained what they experienced. Betty became a known voice in UFO research and claimed she was visited multiple times in the decades to follow.

from Stories - HISTORY https://ift.tt/34jtiyX December 14, 2019 at 12:09AM

#Worldhistory