Of Dreams and Demons

I was listening to the sceptical podcast by the NESS again today. They discussed something called Waking Dreams or Hypnagogia which they said was responsible for the majority of UFO abduction claims as well as historic claims of demonic presences like succubi. It's the result of certain physical changes that happen in the brain when you fall asleep - parts of it deactivate leaving you unable to distinguish between fantasy and reality, which incidentally, is why even the weirdest dreams don't seem odd at the time. They also leave you paralysed or you'd act out your dreams - which a best would be silly and at worst would probably kill you if you leap out of a window or fell downstairs. It's possible to partially wake into a strange in between state where you are conscious but still under the influence of these sleep induced changes.


So why am I commenting about this? Well, I realised that it's actually happened to me. I had a very strange experience a few months back where I woke to see a huge (several feet wide) jewelled spider dangling down in front of me. As I looked it it, it retreated up it's web towards the ceiling. I stared at it for a while not knowing what to do and eventually went back to sleep. Some time later I woke again and still saw it dangling down over my head.

Now, at the time I had no idea what was going on and I remember it very vividly. Looking back with my newly acquired knowledge I can see that I was clearly having one of these waking dream experiences. The first red flag is that upon waking and seeing a giant spider dangling in front of my face I just went back to sleep. I mean, come on I know I'm fairly laid back but that is ridiculous even for me. The second is that there was a giant spider there at all, let's face it, I live in the UK and unless I'm very much mistaken we don't have giant spiders. I hope that nowhere has spiders that big! And finally let's not forget it was covered in sparking blue jewels. Not the most common look for a spider as far as I know.

In some ways it's a bit of a shame to have an interesting and mysterious experience explained so prosaically, but I think it's always better to have a genuine explanation even if it makes life a little more mundane.