If you go look at this site, you'll see, near the middle, a list of "symptoms" that the authors use to describe being abducted by aliens. For ease, I'll quote those here:

1. "Waking up paralyzed with a sense of a strange person or presence or something else in the room." 2. "Experiencing a period of time of an hour or more, in which you were apparently lost, but you could not remember why or where you had been." 3. "Feeling that you were actually flying through the air although you didn't know why or how." 4. "Seeing unusual lights or balls of light in a room without knowing what was causing them." 5. "Finding puzzling scars on your body and neither you nor anyone else remembering how you received them or where you got them."

When I initially started writing this, the post quickly became exceedingly long. So I've decided to break it up into five parts, for the sake of being concise.

First of all, a disclaimer: Personally, I do not believe that aliens are secretly visiting our planet, abducting our citizens, and carving out crop-circles in our fields. For any technologically advanced species, those above actions seem very contrived and, frankly, idiotic. If they were to have the technology to come here in the first place, they would quickly realize that we do not have sufficient technology to fight back. They would most likely be able to take us by force and, therefore, doing things in secret would seem exceedingly stupid. However, if they merely wanted to observe us, well... that could be possible, but until good evidence is put forth (that is not obviously photo-shopped, or some blurry picture of lights in the sky) I highly doubt it and will continue to remain skeptical.

However, this is not the only motivation for me writing my post. My first and foremost motivation is the fact that these symptoms are simply ludicrous. For this first part, I'll be dealing with the first statement: Waking up paralyzed with a sense of a strange person or presence or something else in the room.

The very first thought to come into my mind when reading this was sleep paralysis. The medical definition of sleep paralysis is strikingly close to what the very first symptom is. Most noteworthy is this:

The symptoms of sleep paralysis include sensations of noises, smells, levitation, paralysis, terror, and images of frightening intruders. Once considered very rare, about half of all people are now believed to experience sleep paralysis sometime during their life. (Emphasis mine)

Here is a first person account of someone who experienced sleep paralysis as a teenager. This post is well-written, and the author talks about how he believes others who have experienced sleep paralysis could easily be led to believe that they have been abducted by aliens.

I think he makes an exceptional point when he talks about sufferers of sleep paralysis who go to therapy frightened because they do not fully understand what is happening to them. In such a frightened state, people are more suggestible and can therefore be more likely to "remember" an event which may not have happened. I think the more important thing here (since I'm interested in personality and how people perceive themselves and the world, and how they come to be who they are) is that they dredge up this false memory of being abducted by aliens and having horrible things happen to them. This is definitely one way of coping, especially when one does not fully understand what is happening. During sleep paralysis, the person is terrified because they cannot move, and they may feel a menacing presence because they feel so vulnerable. Therefore, creating a false memory is not an entirely surprising reaction (and it may even be indicative of something else entirely going on with the person -- and not necessarily a "mental illness").

Another interesting facet is that people who wake up and are paralyzed were just about to come out of, or were about to go into, REM sleep and the brain and mind prematurely disconnect. Your body disconnects to an extent from the brain while in REM sleep, effectively becoming paralyzed, to prevent the physical enactment of dreams. Sleep paralysis is a premature disconnection of the body from the brain right before entering, or exiting, REM and the person wakes up. That can be completely scary.

There is a ton of information about sleep paralysis. Simply googling it gives some good, immediate results. The wiki on it (linked above) also has some good reference links at the bottom for those interested.

I will give the author some credit, because they do state that survey participants qualify as abductees only if they met 4 of the 5 requirements. But my job here is to show that even if someone were to meet 4 of these 5 requirements, that does not necessarily mean that they could be an abductee.* Despite that qualifier, the first symptom is not a very compelling one.

Edit: For the sake of clarification, and so my personal stance cannot be misunderstood, I thought I should add an additional statement about what I believe. The chances of there being extra-terrestrial life beyond Earth are pretty good. Outrageously good. However, the chances of extra-terrestrial life making it here to Earth? Not so good. I firmly believe there is at least one other sentient species out there. But unless they are within 20 light-years, have exceedingly long lives, a strong sense of curiosity, and flexible natures -- I doubt they'll be coming here any time soon. And I doubt they'd come all this way just to poke at us.

*I cannot say that these people have not been abducted; but, as I have already stated, I remain highly skeptical of such events and would most likely conclude that the person had not been abducted unless presented with very compelling evidence -- anecdotal evidence would not be enough.

I was asked an interesting question today while talking about Agatha Christie. I only recently became interested in her (very unfortunately, as it turns out) because of the recent Doctor Who episode "The Unicorn and the Wasp." In this episode, it is revealed that Agatha Christie's disappearance is a result of her connection with an alien who is, essentially, a giant wasp. This connection causes her amnesia when the wasp drowns, and the Doctor leaves her at the hotel a few days in the future.

Naturally, I wondered about her real disappearance and so I did some minor research into the issue, and found out that she really did disappear. Her husband had been having an affair with Nancy Neele (and her mother had recently passed away) and she disappeared and was found days later staying at the Harrogate Hotel by the name of Teresa Neele. She claimed to have suffered amnesia and could not account for the events which took place between her disappearance and her reappearance. Some have speculated whether or not this was a publicity stunt or an actual nervous break-down which induced a fugue state.

So, talking about that today, I was asked about fugue states: how do they come about?

My initial answer was that they come about when the mind suffers an overload, usually due to trauma, and the fugue state may act as a sort of protection against the raging emotions and the profound effects they elicit.

The DSM defines a fugue state as:

• Sudden, unexpected travel away from home or one's customary place of work, with inability to recall one's past,
• Confusion about personal identity, or the assumption of a new identity, or
• Significant distress or impairment.

I have some qualms with the DSM as I think it only really serves to give people labels which may impair proper treatment. That does not mean I do not think it cannot be a valuable resource, because it can. For one thing, it is a great collection of psychological terms and conditions and what may constitute various disorders. However, I think it has the potential to do a great deal of harm, and has probably helped to misdiagnose people as something which they are not. But, I digress.

I thought about fugue states some more, especially since I was prompted by further questioning such as "Why a fugue state and not something else?" I stick to my initial answer on this: a dissociative fugue state can result from the introduction of a traumatic event with which the mind has a hard time processing and resolving. However, after more thought, this seemed somewhat inadequate. Some people go into fugue states and others do not -- therefore, there must be some other factor that makes some people more prone to fugue states than others. But what are they?

That list has the potential to be very, very huge. There are a multitude of things, and no one thing can be said to be the sole identifier of someone who will have a fugue state in response to some sort of traumatic crisis. Some of these are:

• Developmental aspects: How was the person raised? What was their environment like? Their parents?
• Temperament: surely, there must be some temperamental styles which are more conducive to producing fugue states than others. I think a study in this has the potential to be fruitful, but also hard because you cannot force people into a fugue state or traumatize them. I am fairly certain the IRB would have seriously strong objections to that. For that reason, a qualitative analysis would probably be the best start. Most of the articles I searched concerned diagnosing, though my search cannot be said to be completely thorough.
• Medical history is also a factor. For instance, does the person have a history of psychiatric disorders or not? While not necessarily conclusive, I think this could help -- but any person using this would have to be extremely careful to not make stereotypical judgments.
• Cognitive and biological: Genes: genomes and epigenomes. The make up of the brain. How the person organizes the world, and how they have learned to respond to trauma.

This list is by no means conclusive. It only lists some of my more immediate thoughts on the matter. But this questioning and researching has definitely got me interested. And not only in fugue states, but in Agatha Christie as well. Fugues states are definitely an odd response, but not entirely impossible to understand. For that reason, I think Agathie Christie (and any other person who went into a fugue state) would be an interesting psychobiographical study. Perhaps I will find myself doing one on her later in my life. Right now, I'm absorbed in Isaac Asimov.

Senior theses for college can be a royal pain -- and I full on expect this one to be as well. Over these past few months, I'd compiled a list of people I thought would be interesting to like at from a psychological perspective. I had to have some sort of initial investment in the person to begin with, so my list was quickly trimmed down to about 5 people: Isaac Asimov, Robert Frost, Shell Silverstein, J.R.R Tolkien, and Agatha Christie. I think there might have been others, but I cannot remember the names, and I do not have my list readily available.

One thing I immediately noticed, though, was that I had chosen writers. I don't know why I didn't add any other type of person to my list (though I did do a psychobiographical proposal on Galileo -- but in a sense, he, too, was a writer). Putting that aside, I mulled over my list before, on impulse, I decided that I would go with Asimov. I think I was partially influenced by my recent reading of the Robot series. So, right after I impulsively decided that I wanted to write about Asimov, I purchased his three autobiographies. I got his, "I, Asimov: a memoir" first, and am already about half-way through.

I knew that I liked Asimov's style of writing -- I loved the books that I had read, and am planning on diving into the Foundation Series next. But I still thought that his autobiographies would be dry and rote. They are not. I already have an index of some of my favorite passages and little stories. I'm full on enjoying reading his autobiographies, which in turn is making me more excited to delve into the psychobiography process. This is good. Asimov was an incredibly funny man. I don't think I'll have any problems working on this project and giving a presentation about it next spring. Rather, I plan on having a lot of fun.

I think this attitude will also help me to avoid senioritis because I'm actually excited to work on my thesis. w00t!

While I enjoyed the last episode of series 4 of Doctor Who, I am somewhat saddened as next year BBC is taking a kind of hiatus and only doing specials. This is, of course, for David Tennant so he can do other acting and take a bit of a break -- but I am going to miss it next spring. However, this might also be beneficial, as next spring, I should be focusing not on Doctor Who, but on my senior thesis and my upcoming presentation.

I did thoroughly enjoy the last episode, and I felt they wrapped a lot of things up very nicely. I had a lot of those, "OMG" moments where everything just suddenly fits together and the entire series made a whole lot more sense.

SPOILER ALERT: Like, for instance, the Doctor-Donna thing. That was brilliant -- and I loved how the played the song from Episode Three as the entire crew of the Tardis and then some towed the Earth back to it's location. I love Doctor Who despite it's tendency to occasionally throw science in the wind and do something really cool instead. I really loved the Dalek Caan plot development at the end as well -- that was genius.

The ending made me both sad and happy. For one thing, I was sad to see Catherine Tate go because I thought she was brilliant. I was definitely sad about the Doctor-Rose thing, but only for the Doctor. Rose isn't alone because she gets the copy Doctor who is part human and therefore cannot regenerate. But the Doctor ends up alone, because he leaves Rose in the alternate universe with an alternate self (presumably forever) and Donna's brain begins to burn up so he has to wipe her mind. The last scene embodied that loneliness really well, and I think David Tennant does an excellent job portraying that side of the Doctor. Of course, I've always loved dark and brooding characters that have big hearts.

Overall, though I loved the last episode to series 4, there were some things that were mildly crazy. Since there were so many characters, it seemed as if they all didn't get as much air-time as they deserved. Especially Rose and Jack, and even Martha. I think Russell T. Davies is brilliant, but personally, I am excited for the change from Davies to Steven Moffat, and I think Doctor Who needs that. The last episode seemed a little cluttered, but ended very nicely (and sadly). The Doctor-Rose departure I think could have been done better as it seemed a little abrupt and I didn't think that the Doctor would want to let go of Rose again so soon after finding her again -- and with a different version of himself to boot. But I don't think that part was bad either, and I can accept it. I was expecting a little bit more in the way of protest from Rose, and more reluctance from the Doctor.

However, despite all of that, the ending to the episode was brilliant. My only question is this: despite her mind being wiped of all her experiences with the Doctor, does she still have a brilliant mind? I think it would be cool if he ran into her in the future, and she was some sort of mad genius or something. But that's just me.

Ok, I'm done spoiling a lot of things and talking fanatically about Doctor Who. I know this post really had nothing to do with psychology, but I warned people in the beginning that I wouldn't always blog about psychology. Many interests leads to a variety of blog posts on my behalf. It also has the unfortunate result of a lack of posts because I don't always have the time (or, like now, computer) to write them out so I don't know which one to pick and therefore come to a standstill. I plan to work on this and blog more regularly once I get my laptop back from HP. Hopefully, that will be this week or early next week.