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From Our Readers From Our Readers The letters column is a forum for views Over the years I have seen and talked to on matters raised in previous issues. "ghosts," been visited (though not yet Please try to keep letters to 300 words or abducted) by aliens, seen three-dimen­ less. They should be typed, preferably sional heads floating by my bed, heard double-spaced. Due to the volume of knocks on my door (when no one else letters, not all can be published. We was in the house), and was once attacked reserve the right to edit for space and by a glowing green Doberman. These clarity. Address them to Letters to the experiences seem as real as life. Editor, SKEPTICAL INQUIRER, 3025 Palo I have never thought of these experi­ Alto Dr. NE, Albuquerque, NM 87111. ences as anything more than what they certainly are: my mind playing tricks on itself. The few other people I've known Hypnogogic hallucinations who have had similar experiences were all convinced that they were, in Baker's I would like to thank Robert A. Baker words, "incontrovertible proof of some for his article "The Aliens Among Us: sort of objective or consensual reality." Hypnotic Regression Revisited" (SI, These otherwise rational and intelligent Winter 1987-88). I have been plagued by people also believe that Uri Geller can hypnogogic hallucinations since child­ really bend spoons with his mind. Take hood, but until reading this article I didn't one hypnogogic hallucination and one know what they were called or even that fantasy-prone individual and you have other people had them. all the ingredients you need for a true My typical hallucination goes some­ believer. thing like this: I am on the verge of falling Based on my own experience, I believe asleep. A loud ringing in my ears, some­ that hypnogogic and hypnopompic hallu­ times accompanied by a montage of un­ cinations provide a rational explanation earthly voices, signals the onset of for most alien abductions, out-of-body another episode. Though I seem awake, and near-death experiences, ghosts, and my body is completely paralyzed. I feel just about any other claim of the para­ my "spirit" leave my body. The next thing normal you care to name. Baker states I know I am floating somewhere near that these hallucinations are a "common the ceiling, looking down at myself and yet little publicized and rarely discussed my wife at my side. Once free of my phenomenon." I recommend that SI and body, I can often control where my CSICOP discuss and publicize them ethereal self goes. Sometimes I float all thoroughly in the future. around the house, and on one occasion I floated through the wall and out into the James A. Stewart yard. Occasionally I sense the presence Coronado, Calif. of other beings around me. At some point I get bored or frightened by the whole thing and return to my body and go to I was quite interested in the article by sleep. Robert A. Baker describing hypnopompic Instead of an out-of-body experience, phenomena. It brought to mind an ex­ I sometimes have an extremely vivid perience I had several years ago while auditory and/or visual hallucination. traveling in Asia. I was sleeping in a small 436 THE SKEPTICAL INQUIRER, Vol. 12 hotel in the hills of Sri Lanka and was techniques themselves served as a test. If awakened by a dark and heavy form lying they worked, it was fantasy. (My tests on top of me. I found myself pinned have always been conclusive, and I have down and unable to move. I said to the never attempted to use fantasy controls apparition, "You are a creation of my on real situations, however tempting mind," whereupon the apparition replied, some outlandish situations are.) The "No, I'm not." By making a considerable hardest to control was the hypnopompic effort I was able to begin moving my experience, because of the panic paralysis arms. The figure began to dissolve, and brings. At first, I struggled for several simultaneously movement became easier. minutes each time, attempting to wake Then, strange to say, I went back to sleep. up. When I finally learned that the ex­ In a few minutes the experience was periences usually included a personal in­ repeated, exactly as before, except this trusion of some sort—there wasn't really time at the end I remained awake. anyone in my room—and that it wasn't It still seems as real to me as any of dangerous to stay in the fantasy, I learned my experiences in the waking state. I had to control and enjoy it. never had a similar one and have not The first giveaway of fantasy experi­ since. ences is that for me they are always I now recognize this as a typical hyp- superimposed on an underlying layer of nopompic experience. I had never heard familiar and continuous events. Mentally of such a thing before reading this article, I "pick up" the layer of fantasy experience which helps to shed some light on a still and "look under" it. If the underlying mysterious and easily misinterpreted ex­ experience is lying in bed or standing in perience. Thank you. line, or something else more familiar than the fantasy, I know instantly what's going Howard Wallace on. The "picking up" is really a search Orting, Wash. for another, simultaneous experience. I can see through waking hallucinations if they are "eyes open"; if they are "eyes "The Aliens Among Us," by Robert closed," opening my eyes dispels them. Baker, was fascinating to me, especially There is always another simultaneous since I could recognize myself in Baker's experience that I can access, which is description of a fantasy-prone personal­ different from invoked memories. I apply ity. My only disagreement is with the sensory tests to the experiences I find, characterization of hypnopompic experi­ and the whole process has become so ences as being entirely convincing, since fast I now have to analyze carefully to I long ago learned to recognize and con­ see what I should do. trol all my hallucinations, dreams, hyp- Sensory tests show that in fantasy nogogic and hypnopompic experiences, experiences colors appear washed out and to enjoy them or shut them off, using compared to the "real world." Sounds reality testing. I thought it might be useful are hollow and have no locational source. to bring the mechanisms of recognition Touch is inoperative (pinching myself is and control to public attention, since I impossible, since I cannot experience have seen little (aside from current dream pain), and I find I cannot actually make research) to indicate that there is work a sound that reaches my ears. "Reading" going on in this area. is not an eyes-to-mind experience, but I think the need for control came one where meaning instantly reaches about because many of my fantasy ex­ understanding. I compared my tests with periences (under which term I will lump the experiences of another dreamer the all the above types) were frightening to other night and found she agreed with me as a child. Gradually I came to apply my characterizations of the sensory lacks a set of tests to my experiences, using of fantasy. my mind and sensorium, and applied Next I attempt to control the experi­ control techniques when I had determined ence. When this works I know I'm day­ the nature of the experience. The control dreaming or having a hypnogogic, hyp- Summer 1988 437 nopompic or hallucinatory experience. three million. Five million? Hey, maybe I've never been completely successful I am fantasy-prone. controlling any of these experiences. Sometimes I simply have to shut them Bonnie Tomikel off. Corry, Pa. I think the "fantasy-prone" or FP personality is valuable, because how else could one have compassion except by Alien tales not SF vividly imagining oneself in another's "shoes," how else plan for the future if This is a protest in good humor. Robert not by imagining the consequences of A. Baker wrote an excellent piece on the one's actions? Writing stories, plays, alien-abduction phenomenon (5/, Winter poems is child's play, a continuous activ­ 1987-88). I found only one objectionable ity that one has to learn to shut off rather bit—he suggested moving the latest batch than turn on. A vivid imagination is of abduction books from the nonfiction extremely useful—as long as one learns racks and sticking them in science fiction to recognize its activity and control it. "where they belong." Please—they don't belong to us, A.L. in San Jose either. In your list of CSICOP Fellows I (Name withheld by request.) see both Isaac Asimov and L. Sprague de Camp. Ask either of them and you will discover that most science-fiction In Robert Baker's otherwise interesting writers are on your side of the issues. We article, I was dismayed to note the fol­ don't like or agree with Strieber or lowing statement: "On the national scene Hopkins. today too many lives have been negatively While I understand that it is common affected and even ruined by well-meaning practice to burden science fiction with but tragically misdirected reformers who partial responsibility (or blame, as you believe the fantasies of children, the ali­ will) for spurring a lot of pseudoscience, enated, and the fantasy-prone personality that doesn't make it a correct assignation. types and have charged innocent people Most SF writers are rationalists to the with rape, child molestation, assault, and core and work very hard to pass this on other sorts of abusive crime." in their stories—which are, first and fore­ Even while admitting that such cases most, stories, clearly labeled and mark­ do occasionally come along, the implica­ eted as such.
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