A recent study by researchers in Russia suggests that lucid dreaming, in which people are partially conscious and can control their dreams during sleep, may explain the stories of alien abductions told by many people.
Thousands of people have already claimed to have been victims of alien abduction. These claims date back to the 19th century, but increased after the 1960s. Probably one of the most famous accounts is that of Barney and Betty Hill, an American couple claiming to have been abducted by little gray men in New Hampshire in September 1961. Overall, the circumstances of these abductions often seem dreamlike and trigger feelings of terror and paralysis in those involved.
Certain dream states, primarily lucid dreams, are also known to produce such feelings. During these dreams, sleepers are aware that they are dreaming and can then use this awareness to manipulate what is happening in the dream. According to a study published five years ago in the journal Consciousness and Cognition, about 55% of people have had lucid dreams one or more times in their lifetime, and 23% have lucid dreams at least once a month .
As part of a recent study, researchers at the Phase Research Center in Russia then asked whether certain dream experiences could explain the reported experiences. Their work was published July 2 in the International Journal of Dream Research.
For this study, the researchers recruited 152 people who said they had already experienced a lucid dream. They asked each to try to "find or summon aliens or UFOs during their usual night's sleep at home. They then discovered that 114 of these volunteers (about 75%) had successfully experienced a dream involving aliens or an alien abduction.
In this sample, 61% of subjects said the characters they encountered resembled aliens from science fiction movies and novels, while 19% encountered aliens who looked like "ordinary people". About 12% of participants spoke with aliens in their dreams and interacted with them physically. Finally, 4% said they were invisible. Up to 28% of these dreams also involved a UFO, while 10% of these dreams took place inside these vessels.
"I saw an alien looking for me “, in particular reported one of the participants. “He had the proportions of a person with an elongated head and gray skin, large eyes and no nose. I then remembered that it was a dream, but I couldn't get out of the plot of the dream because of fear “.
Another participant also details "little smooth-skinned men of blue color, human size, with non-standard large heads and huge bulging eyes of black color ". She continues, “Their arms were long. Their fingers were also elongated, four fingers on each hand. I went upstairs and the phrase "Don't be scared, we're friends" popped into my head “.
Finally, of those who described their encounters as "realistic", 24% also experienced sleep paralysis and intense fear . As said above, such emotions often accompany reports of supposed alien abductions.
Also, for the authors, "although individuals who describe being kidnapped by extraterrestrials may truly believe their account, these individuals were likely experiencing an extraterrestrial encounter in a lucid dream ". The feelings of paralysis, fear, and helplessness in lucid dreams can indeed be so powerful that they blur the line between dreams and reality.
However, there are some limitations under consideration. For one thing, all of these experiences were self-reported by the participants, and the study was conducted online (not in the lab). Also, and more importantly, the fact that people may indeed dream of alien abductions does not necessarily mean that all such experiences must be the product of dreams.
