Ghosts appear and fade away...

Most people have at least some level of fear of the dark. This may genetic to some extent because early our human ancestors knew that predators hunted at night, and what they couldn't see could hurt them. Some people fear ghosts and children the boogeyman. Most of the time these days the most dangerous thing out there are people, because let's face it, there are a lot of people out there that are bat shit crazy. But I digress, where did this fear originate?

I've never been one to fear the dark, it never really bothered me for as long as I can remember. Even in the military stomping around the forest at night was a lot of fun. But one night about 20 years ago I had something odd happen. I woke up feeling like I was being pressed down, I couldn't move, I couldn't breath, and there was a black mass at the foot of my bed. It only lasted a few seconds, but long enough to scare the hell out of me. My first thought was what the hell was that? Is this house haunted? After calming down my reasonable mind returned and I realized it was something that I had learned about in the overpriced years of graduate education.

Sleep paralysis happens to about fifty percent of people at least once in their life. People report waking up and being unable to move, they can't breath, and feel like something is holding them down. Most people report seeing a dark figure nearby, although the description varies from person to person but almost always something that appears menacing or evil. In reality the figure is just a hallucination produced by the mind during a state of deep sleep persisting upon rapid waking. What about being unable to move? Your brain shuts down movement to your limbs as you sleep to avoid thing like sleepwalking (or driving if you take Ambien) and when awakened quickly it hasn't fully restored the nerve pathways allowing for movement.

I've subsequently had this experience more as I got older, the paralysis portion doesn't happen anymore but the dark figures persist and they are never the same. It's usually associated with a dark object in the room like a curtain or armoire. At this point they no longer frighten me, I just ignore them until they vanish after about five to ten seconds. It reminds me of a line from a song by "Men At Work" a Australian band from the eighties, "ghost appear and fade away..." Thus today's title.

As a scientist I tend to think things over analytically. I started to realize that many of the ghost stories probably started with this experience. Does that mean there aren't ghosts? I'm not saying that because I have experienced some very odd things in my days that can't be explained away by science, I'll talk about those later. But I do think that many people who have seen a demon in their bedroom may have just experienced sleep paralysis. It can happen to both children as well as adults. In the middle east there is a tradition of the Djinn, dark creatures that appear often in the bedroom, and likely come for the same phenomenon. Simply a hallucination produced by the brain during deep sleep, but it can be very terrifying when first encountered.

For those of you who haven't ever had the pleasure of this experience I hope you never do. But at least now if you do you will know what is really going on and it won't be quite so scary! I hope you found something of value in my ramblings today and thanks for taking the time to stop on by!

photo: ranker.com