Catatonic Pipkins love duet
kitescreech reminded me of this one.

From a very early age I had decided that I wasn't going to be afraid of the dark. One night I dared them to come, out all the ghosts and goulies, witches and no face hooded monks and nuns. Nowt happened, I was right, they didn't exist (unlike santa), until one night:

As I lay sung in my Buck Rodgers 'jarmas under my Fred Basset quilt in the dark I suddenly felt a presence in the room. Opening my eyes I glimpsed through the dimness that fucking rabbit from the pipkins just an inch away from my face holding up the severed head of a monkey with splashes of yellow and blue spray paint dripping off it's cold dead features. What's more I couldn't move, couldn't cry out. Tony Arthur and Brian Cant were holding me down singing the theme tune to Play Away. Summoning up all my strength I managed to break loose and awoke in the dark and ran screaming into mum and dads bed.

Fast forward 13 years and I'm in my bedsitting room in student digs after a particularly wild party week following a particularly whirlwind exam season. It happened again.

Except this time it was that witch off the hammer house of horror - the one who was transported through time to the 1970's and flashed her norks on Channel 4. Same sensation of being held down, not able to move except my eyes, as she rode cowgirl screaming with ecstasy as she bared down on me in her coat and wizards hat.

It happens from time to time, these days I just close my eyes (it helps if there is no light on) and drift off. Even being eaten alive by giant maggots doesn't phase me. Fact is it's better than some of the crap on late night TV and it's in 3D.

I just think myself lucky that I'm not some Yankee redneck recounting my tale of alien abduction like a twat on KYTV evening news.

Funny how Angels, Ghosts and Aliens always appear at night in the dark when you are drifting off to sleep in bed. - It's called "Hypnagogia" and is quite common. Way for the interwebs: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sleep_paralysis
( buffet_the_appetite_slayer ٩(●̮̃•)۶ jacked in to the ICE on, Fri 24 Jul 2009, 10:02, 6 replies)

It's YOU....
...you're the lucky one. You get the reply. Heh.

Recently, I've seen a number of articles across the interwebs talking about the same condition you've described; Hypnagogia. Now, I accept that it exists and that there is plenty of evidence of it, and although I've never experienced it myself I know people who have and I have no reason to argue with them.

I do, however, take exception to the way that every single one of these articles signs off with 'Aliens only visit you in the dark'. They don't. This is one of the widely believed misconceptions about the so-called 'alien abduction' phenomena and more broadly about 'UFO sightings'. The statistical evidence actually shows that most sightings of UFO's occur in daylight hours and that most 'abduction' scenarios occur when people are travelling in the early evening.

Whilst 'Sleep paralysis' can certainly account for a huge number of such instances, it cannot explain *all* of them and whilst even one case remains beyond scientific explanation then we shouldn't be dimissing them *all* as 'crank stories'.

Even if (as I believe) there are no actual 'alien visitations' then the mere fact that there are so many people across the world that share the same story is a source of fascination - how does such a social meme spread and survive? What about the sociological and psychological ramifications of such a widespread 'mass hysteria'?

Only an irresponsible scientist would ignore this phenomena and treat it with disdain.

So, in summary, not an attack on your point of view, your post or the science behind the condition in question; just a fight back against the word 'all'.

Ta!

[Edit: Time.....*ticktockticktockticktock*....for Hartley Hare.]
(EffinDoubt is breaking glass on, Fri 24 Jul 2009, 11:23, closed)

My wife doesn't get it either
possibly because I'm paralyzed (but conscious and hallucinating). The first thing she knows I've shaken myself out of a particularly bad night terror and jumped out of the bed.

Scientists don't ignore this phenomena and treat it with disdain, quite the opposite. Least I don't I'm a social scientist.

Suggesting that Alien "abduction" is linked to sightings of unidentified flying objects is like suggesting that the God conscious we all have inside us created the universe - which it clearly did not. The two things are nothing to do with each other.

I saw a space ship fly across the sky this week, I quickly identified it and what it was docked too. I saw micky mouse's head in the clouds yesterday and I have on occasion been anally probed :-)

Yours in all sincerity. The truth is out there :-)
( buffet_the_appetite_slayer ٩(●̮̃•)۶ jacked in to the ICE on, Fri 24 Jul 2009, 12:47, closed)

A-ha
I knew there was a link between Disney and UFOs
(kitescreech still here, Sat 25 Jul 2009, 8:17, closed)

LOL
There are far more stranger things out there. You tell the average man in the street that Gravity is actually an artifact from the boundary between the 4th and 5th dimension and they look like you are some kind of lunatic ;-)
( buffet_the_appetite_slayer ٩(●̮̃•)۶ jacked in to the ICE on, Sat 25 Jul 2009, 9:36, closed)

Don't worry
no aliens will come for you, they will be looking for someone who knows that "that fucking rabbit from the pipkins" was called Hartley and he was a fucking hare.
(Rsoles, Sat 25 Jul 2009, 23:50, closed)

Oh God!
You mean that I've tipped them off? They know where I am? I spent hours digging out the damned implants.. ...so much blood....

They're COMING!
(EffinDoubt is breaking glass on, Tue 28 Jul 2009, 11:26, closed)