Alien Abductions - A Critical Reader-pages

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Alien Abductions - A Critical Reader-pages

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297). In all, eleven of Mack’s thirteen featured subjects exhibited paraidentity. 3. Psychic experiences. Another strong characteristic of fantasy proneness according to Wilson and Barber (1983, pp. 359-360) is that of having telepathic, precognitive, or other types of psychic experience. One hundred percent of Mack’s thirteen subjects claimed to have experi- enced one or more types of alleged psychical phenomena, most reporting telepathic contact with extraterrestrials. “Catherine” (No. 5) also claimed she can “feel people’s auras’; “Eva” (No. 9) said she is able to perceive beyond the range of the five senses; and “Carlos” (No. 12) said he has had “‘a history of what he calls ‘visionary’ experiences” (Mack 1994, pp. 157, 245, 332). 4. “Floating” or out-of-body experiences. Wilson and Barber (1983, p. 360) stated: “The overwhelming majority of subjects (88 percent) in the fantasy-prone group, as contrasted to few (8 percent) in the comparison group, report realistic out-of- the-body experiences” (which one subject described as ‘“a_ weightless, floating sensation” and another called “astral travel’). Only one of Mack’s thirteen subjects (No. 2) failed to report this; of the other twelve, most described, under hypnosis, being “floated” from their beds to an awaiting spaceship. Some said they were even able to drift through a solid door or wall, that being a further indication of the fantasy nature of the experience (more on this later). Also, “Eva’’ (No. 9) stated that she had once put her head down to nap at her desk and then “saw myself floating from the ceiling . My consciousness was up there. My physical body was down there” (Mack 1994, p. 237). Also, in the case of “Carlos” (No. 12), “Flying is a recurring motif in some of his more vivid dreams” (Mack 1994, p. 338). most 5. Vivid or “waking” dreams, visions, or hallucinations. A majority of Wilson and Barber’s subjects (64 percent) reported they frequently experienced a type of dream that is particularly vivid and realistic (Wilson and Barber 1983, p. 364). Technically termed hypnogogic or hypnopompic hallucinations (depending on whether they occur, respectively, while the person is going to sleep or waking), they are more popularly known as “waking dreams” or, in earlier times as “night terrors” (Nickell 1995, p. 41). Wilson and Barber (1983, p. 364) reported that several of their subjects “were especially grateful to learn that the ‘monsters’ they saw nightly when they were children could be discussed in terms of ‘what the mind does when it is nearly, but not quite, asleep.”” Some of Wilson and Barber’s subjects (six in the fantasy- prone group of twenty-seven, contrasted with none in the comparison group of twenty-five) also had religious visions, and some had outright hallucinations (Wilson and Barber 1983, pp. 362-363, 364- 365, 367-371). Of Mack’s thirteen selected cases, all but one (No. 13) reported either some type of especially vivid dream, or vision, or hallucination. For example, “Scott” (No. 3) said he had “visual hallucinations” from age twelve; “Jerry” (No. 4) recorded in her journal “vivid dreams of UFOs” as well as “visions”; and “Carlos” (No. 12) had the previously mentioned ‘“vision- ary” experiences and dreams of flying (Mack 1994, pp. 82, 112). Almost all of Mack’s subjects (Nos. 1-11), like “Sheila” (No. 2), had vivid dreams with strong indications of hypnogogic/hypnopompic hallucination (Mack 1994, pp. 38, 56, 80, 106, 132, 168-169, 196, 213, 235, 265-267, and 289). or to 6. Hypnotically — generated apparitions. Encountering apparitions (which Wilson and Barber define rather narrowly as “ghosts” or “spirits’?) is another Wilson- Barber characteristic (contrasted with only 73