Sleep Paralysis as Spiritual Experience

Abstract

This article presents an overview of the sleep paralysis experience from both a cultural and a historical perspective. The robust, complex phenomenological pattern that represents the subjective experience of sleep paralysis is documented and illustrated. Examples are given showing that, for a majority of subjects, sleep paralysis is taken to be a kind of spiritual experience. This is, in part, because of the very common perception of a non-physical 'threatening presence' that is part of the event. Examples from various cultures, including mainstream contemporary America which has no widely known tradition about sleep paralysis, are used to show that the complex pattern and spiritual interpretation are not dependent on cultural models or prior learning. This is dramatically contrary to conventional explanations of apparently 'direct' spiritual experiences, explanations that are summed up as the 'Cultural Source Hypothesis.' This aspect of sleep paralysis was not recognized through most of the twentieth century. The article examines the way that conventional modern views of spiritual experience, combined with medical ideas that labeled 'direct' spiritual experiences as psychopathological, and mainstream religious views of such experiences as heretical if not pathological, suppressed the report and discussion of these experiences in modern society. These views have resulted in confusion in the scientific literature on sleep paralysis with regard to its prevalence and core features. The article also places sleep paralysis in the context of other 'direct' spiritual experiences and offers an 'Experiential Theory' of cross-culturally distributed spiritual experiences.

Painajakogemusest rääkimine internetifoorumites

“…Ilmunud on ka mõned painajakogemuse psühhoanalüütili-sed tõlgendused, milles nähakse nähtuse põhjusena neurootiliselt allasurutud seksuaalsust (nt Jones 1931). Religiooniteadlane David Hufford (1989Hufford ( , 2005 on seisukohal, et üleloomuliku rünnaku jutud põhinevad reaalsetel kogemustel, ent need kogemused võivad edasirääkimise käigus kohaneda olemasoleva jutustamistraditsiooniga.…”

L’expression lexicale de la peur en inuktitut dans le nord de la Terre de Baffin

“…Aqtuqsinniq (ou uqumangirniq dans le sud Baffin et au Nunavik) désigne la paralysie du sommeil, une parasomnie associée à la phase paradoxale du sommeil, dont des descriptions identiques ont été rapportées de partout dans le monde (Hufford 2005): au moment de son endormissement ou de son réveil, la personne consciente de ce qui se passe autour d'elle est incapable de bouger et de parler à cause de l'absence totale de tonus musculaire typique du sommeil paradoxal. Cette parasomnie, dont la prévalence semble variable selon les sociétés, apparaît fréquente chez les Inuit.…”

Spirituality: an overlooked predictor of placebo effects?

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