A study suggests that lucid dreams, where individuals become aware to a certain extent and can control their dreams while asleep, could explain stories of alien abduction.
Claims of such abductions date back to the 19th century, with the circumstances often sounding dreamlike and causing feelings of terror and paralysis. Some dream states are also known to produce such sensations, leading Russian researchers to wonder whether dream experiments could provide clues to experiences believed to be extraterrestrial.
Scientists have encouraged lucid dreamers to dream consciously about encounters with extraterrestrials or unidentified flying objects (UFOs), and have discovered that some individuals have reported dreams resembling real descriptions of alien abductions.
Alien abductions of Earthlings… in dreams. Alien abductions of Earthlings… in dreams.
In these dreams, the dreamer becomes aware that they are dreaming and can then use that awareness to control what happens in the dream. About 55% of people experience lucid dreams at least once or more in their lifetime, and 23% have lucid dreams at least once a month, according to a 2016 study.
Recently, researchers at the Phase Research Center (PRC), a private facility in Moscow, Russia, specializing in studying lucid dreams, conducted experiments with 152 adult self-identified lucid dreamers, instructing them to “encounter or summon extraterrestrials or UFOs” in a lucid dream.
The researchers found that 114 of the participants reported dreaming of some form of successful interaction with extraterrestrials. Among them, about 61% described encounters with “aliens” resembling Earthlings in science fiction novels and movies, while 19% encountered aliens “resembling normal humans.”
Little green men
One female participant in the study reported seeing “little green men” with green skin, oversized heads, “and large, bulging eyes,” the study authors reported. When the aliens invited her onto their spaceship,
“I was blinded by a very bright light, like from a spotlight. My vision disappeared, and I felt dizzy,” she recounted.
Another participant said he dreamed he was lying in bed when he felt like he was being “pulled somewhere,” ending up in a room with a figure in white reaching into his chest and beginning to “do something inside with instruments.”
Conversations with aliens in dreams occurred in 26% of encounters, and 12% of participants spoke with and physically interacted with aliens in their dreams. UFOs appeared in 28% of encounters, and 10% of dreamers saw UFOs described as being taken aboard an extraterrestrial spacecraft.
Among those who described their encounters as “real,” 24% also experienced paralysis while sleeping and intense fear. Such emotions often accompany reports of alien abductions, and while those describing being abducted by aliens may genuinely believe what they experienced was real, they may have undergone an extraterrestrial encounter while in a lucid dream, the study authors noted.
The sensation of paralysis, fear, and helplessness in vivid dreams can be so strong as to blur the line between dream and reality, so it’s not surprising that individuals might unwittingly dream that they have indeed encountered aliens who have abducted them.
