Aliens On Earth.com Resources for those who are stranded here Our Bookstore is OPEN Over 5000 new & used titles, competitively priced! Topics: UFOs - Paranormal - Area 51 - Ghosts - Forteana - Conspiracy - History - Biography - Psychology - Religion - Crime - Health - Geography - Maps - Science - Money - Language - Recreation - Technology - Fiction - Other - New Search... for keyword(s)   in Page Titles in Book Title/Author in Contents of Pages ---other searches--- Metacrawler Yahoo FAST Search Google Altavista Dogpile Inference Find Northern Light IWon.com MSN Search Las Vegas Sun Location: Mothership -> UFO -> Updates -> 1997 -> Oct -> Re: Solved Abduction Cases?

UFO UpDates Mailing List

From: DevereuxP@aol.com [Paul Devereux]
Date: Tue, 28 Oct 1997 20:18:38 -0500 (EST)
Fwd Date: Wed, 29 Oct 1997 23:25:37 -0500
Subject: Re: Solved Abduction Cases?

Chris Penrose wrote:

>Date: Sat, 18 Oct 1997 18:59:23 +0900 (GMT+0900)
>From: Chris Penrose <penrose@cmlab.sfc.keio.ac.jp>
>To: updates@globalserve.net
>Subject: Solved abduction cases?

>>From: DevereuxP@aol.com [Paul Devereux]
>>Date: Fri, 17 Oct 1997 02:15:28 -0400 (EDT)
>>To: updates@globalserve.net
>>Subject: Solved abduction cases?

>>As part of this research, we are doing a deep and wide
>>literature search. This spans not only lucid dream material,
>>but ranges though various other categories, contemporary and
>>historical,even including certain archaeological and
>>ethnological material.It is clear without any shade of doubt
>>that THE UFO ABDUCTION REPORT MATERIAL IS ONLY A
>>SUB-GROUP OF A MUCH WIDER LITERATURE.

>I have had assorted lucid dreaming experiences throughout my
>life,often during daytime napping, and when I was younger at the
>end of sleep.  I am convinced this phenomenae exists.

>Furthermore, it is possible that it is a literal explanation
>for some reputed abduction experiences; however, there are
>documented abduction cases involving witnesses, where the
>experience is shared to some degree by groups of people.  Lucid
>dreaming is a very tenuous explanation for mass or group
>hallucination. In my understanding, mass hallucination as an
>explanation is folklore on to itself.

>Perhaps Paul has some insight into some experimentally
>demonstratable mechanisms that could account for groups of
>people enter lucid dreaming states simultaneously, while still
>telepathically interacting together and sharing, in essence, the
>same experience.  Perhaps Paul's explanation will be "any group
>abduction experience is a hoax".  This isn't a "straw man" Paul,
>I just want to save you the trouble of saying this if you intend
>to.  I am not being facetious, I am interested in any mechanisms
>that could potentially explain group experiences.

Christopher Penrose

Dear Christpopher,
Thanks for your enquiry. A lucid dream (or out-of-body experience or any of such closely-related categories of mental states)is not a mere dream, but a powerfully distinct altered state of consciousness.
It is a mental model (*everything* we experience, even "waking reality", is a mental model-- the sunset you saw last night was produced inside the darkness of your skull). That makes it as "real" as waking reality from an experiential
point of view. If you truly have had lucid dreams (as opposed to
mere vivid dreams), Christopher, you will know this to be true.
We ain't talking about dreams as we normally understand that
term. So "tenuous" doesn't come into it. Also, it is not a matter
of believing in lucid dreams or not: they are a measurable
phenomenon and accepted by science.

That being said, the short answers to your queries are no and
yes.

No, I wouldn't classify all "group abductions" as hoax. Indeed
not. When you read UFOS & UFOLOGY, you will see that we describe
the unravelling of a 2-witness abduction case, with  7 hours of
"missing time". The experients were quite genuine, but it wasn't
an alien abduction. However, I would question just what
percentage of reported alien abductions are multi-witness/
experient in any case. Does anyone know? I suspect it is small.
Then one *does* have to ask how many of them are genuine, ie.
non-hoaxes. *Then* one has to ask how many of the genuine reports
hold up as alien abductions after the sort of analysis and
enquiry described in our forthcoming book. I'd be intrigued to
see how many we were left with. But I think there would be
handful, maybe. That brings me onto your next point.

Yes. There are cases of shared altered states of consciousness.
The anthropological literature is scattered with such accounts. A
recently reported case involves an anthropologist who had a dream
while on fieldwork in a native village in Papua New Guinea.
Before she even went outside the following morning, the village
headwoman's sons arrived at the anthropologist's hut and started
discussing her dream. She was flabbergasted.  In a further series
of dreams, she interacted with the woman and the sons in her
dreams, and they were open about their knowledge of the
anthropologist's dreams in which they participated.  Such dream
interaction successfully led to the discovery of archaeological
ruins the anthropologist was interested in, but it profoundly
disturbed her ideas about reality. The villagers called this
phenomenon of visiting people in their dreams *griman*, and it
wasn't unusual for them. The anthropologist wrote her journal on
these matters in code (in case she was killed during fieldwork,
she didn't want her academic peers to be able to read the
accounts). It was some 14 years later that she took courage and
announced the case at an anthropological conference, and, later,
in a paper. She was surprised at how many colleagues told her
they had experienced similar happenings.

Clearly, there is a hell of a lot we still have to understand
about the phenomena of consciousness. That is one reason I
counsel against the automatic adoption of the ET literalist
position -- it is so intellectually poverty-stricken! I think we
are dealing with much greater matters than merely ETs. Whole new
cognitive models have yet to be forged. The so-called alien
abduction is but a bit player in these type of experiences. That
can be found out by anyone taking the time and trouble to
research the matter outside of the tight, narrow, and
self-serving ET ufological literature. You do not have to take my
word for it.

I will, of course,be publishing material on all this in due
course, if you find it difficult to know where to get started.
Forgive me for not expounding at length here - my writing is my
income.

Best wishes,
Paul