In this post, I'm tackling the third item in the list of UFO Abductee Symptoms:

Feeling that you were actually flying through the air although you didn't know why or how.

The first thing, and the most likely explanation, is an hallucination. Hallucinations can also account for symptom one: feeling a presence in the room that is not really there. This is called an apparitional experience. Hallucination also encompasses OBE's, so this first one really counts as an over-arching category for the next two.

A second real possibility occurs during hypnagogia. Hypnagogia is the onset of sleep, though it has been extended to include waking up as well as falling asleep. Ironically, selective amnesia can accompany hypnagogia, making this a case for symptoms 2 and 3. The most common symptom during hypnagogia is some sort of falling/floating sensation (sometimes accompanied by a hypnic jerk, though not always). The one that I sometimes have is visual-related insofar as I sometimes see a pattern of dots floating, and usually only when my eyes are closed. It is interesting, however. Hypnagogic condition is characterized by a loosening of suggestibility in people, making us more open to our unconscious minds and, therefore, more suggestible. There have been studies linking problems during the hypnagogic stage, specifically hypnic jerks, to sleep anxiety.

(Sleep paralysis can also accompany hypnagogia.)

A third is an OBE, or out-of-body experience. OBE's can be induced by stimulating the temporoparietal junction of the brain. When this part is stimulated, people will suddenly feel as if they are floating outside of their own bodies. I have never personally experienced an OBE before, but I find it really fascinating that there is a part of the brain that can be stimulated in such a way that we feel as if we are separate from our bodies.

Some people experience OBE's when they are under anesthesia, whether awake or semi-conscious. Semi-conscious people without the influence of anesthesia may also experience OBE's as a consequence of trauma. Skepdic has some good information about OBE's and how they can come about. A lot of OBE's occur between the REM stage and waking. OBE's can be induced in this manner by attempting to maintain consciousness while falling asleep.

Aside from debunking this third symptom, I find OBE's to be fascinating. I do not believe in a spiritual explanation for OBE's without sufficient evidence. But at the same time, I cannot deny that they are quite a fascinating experience. They can be induced in a variety of ways, and the wiki article about OBE's has a lot of information on the variety of ways that they can be induced, and a nice reference section.

Of course, another more vivid reason is that the guilty party is high on acid or LSD. Or magic mushrooms.

I spent the last week moving to a new job and then to college, so I've been pretty busy these past few days. I still have a lot of things that I need to unpack so I can actually move about my room. Posting should become more regular as I settle into a routine.

As a side note, while doing research, I came across this small gem: Apophenia. It reminded me of John Nash. I've never heard of this before, and it sounds pretty intriguing. I'm going to have to look into it.

In continuation of the debunking of the UFO Abductions Series symptoms list, here is part 2! This part covers the second symptom of an abductee:

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.

This one was a little harder to gather data on, since it is so broad. Here is a short list of reasons I gathered:

• Amnesia
• Lacunar Amnesia
• Fugue, which I talked about earlier

Amnesia is the simplest of all: forgetting. Amnesia is medically defined as the loss of memory, usually resulting from bilateral damage to the brain vital for memory storage, processing, or recall. People whose primary symptom is memory loss usually retain their sense of self and remain lucid. Some people whose primary symptom is memory loss may not even be aware that they have this milder form of amnesia. This is the category under which I would place Abductee Symptom 2.

The causes for amnesia are typically shock, psychological disturbances, brain injury, or illness. For this specific instance, I would rule out brain injury, as that would typically preclude greater memory problems, and the person would undoubtedly be aware that their memory did not function properly. There are a lot of really interesting cases about various types of amnesia, which I will save for future posts in the interest of not getting side-tracked. The other 3, shock, psychological disturbances, or illness, do qualify for the Abductee camp because the person may not be aware that their memory is being impaired. Illness and shock especially.

When you're ill, especially if you have a high fever, you tend to not focus so much on remembering events rather than how miserable you're feeling. All the times that I've been seriously ill (which I can count on one hand) I have fleeting memories which probably account for maybe 1/3 of the time that I was ill. I've checked this out with a lot of my friends, and the consensus has been about the same.

Shock, specifically emotional shock, not the medical kind of shock, is an acute stress symptom due to some kind of traumatizing event. In this case, the brain may not be committed to making a detailed account of events, and some people have been known to wander aimlessly when in emotional shock. Symptoms of this may include anxiety, impaired judgment, confusion, detachment and depression. The confusion and impaired judgment are the key symptoms here when talking about the UFO Abductee camp. When we return to our baseline state (that is, not in shock) after having suffered from confusion and impaired judgment, we may vaguely be aware of having done things we normally wouldn't do, or being confused about everything that happened while we were in shock, and so unable to quite remember what really happened. It seems like some sort of dream to us because we were in an altered state of being, and not a healthy one at that.

Lacunar amnesia is a more specific type of amnesia. This was popularized in the movie Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, but is nonetheless valid. Lacunar amnesia is amnesia about a specific event. The brain is designed to retain emotionally strong memories in some form or another, even if the semantic knowledge of the event was lost or destroyed. Amnesiacs, under the right circumstances, can remember their past feelings for events which they cannot recall.

This form of amnesia can also serve as an explanation for the memory loss symptom. It is a bit more radical, and suggestive of the person having done something with strong emotions which they cannot recall, but is still (IMO) tremendously more likely than being abducted by aliens.

I've already written a post on fugues, so I won't reiterate myself but will instead direct you to click on the link above in order to educate yourself.

There are other medical and psychological reasons for not remembering something. Sometimes, it's just plain forgetfulness. But, for the sake of not rambling on too much, I didn't list all of them. Instead, I listed the ones which I believed to be the most pertinent.

Of course, the simplest explanation for not remembering the previous night is getting hammered and waking up with a serious hangover and little recall as to what wild things you may have done, perhaps with a sense of dread because you woke up on the floor of your kitchen wearing someone else's clothes.

5 Psychological Experiments that Prove Humanity is Doomed

The link speaks for itself. I love how snarky the people at cracked are. It tickles me.