#26
Posted: 3/3/12 at 12:34pm
If I was a horror movie character, I would be that guy who denies anything is happening until he ends up being the first or second victim of whatever malevolent spirit is in the plot of the film. Any "supernatural" experiences I've had, I've usually been able to come up with a logical reason behind it.
Like I think sleep paralysis is a big reason for a lot of them. If you've never had it, it can be really scary. It's basically where you regain consciousness from sleep before your body exits REM. You can hallucinate, hear loud noises and feel like someone is choking you, because your breathing muscles work differently when you're asleep than when you're awake. I'm really susceptible to it if I get up early in the morning, do something then go back to sleep, so it used to happen to me a lot in college when I had an 8 am class that I would go to then go crash back at my dorm until my next class, which was at noon. Now that I know what it is, it can still be scary when it happens, but once I truly wake up, it doesn't freak me out anymore.
But my dad, an engineer who was as much or more of a skeptic about these things as I was, swore the spirit of his mother came to him and spoke with him shortly after she died. So, that tends to melt away some of my skepticism.
Like I think sleep paralysis is a big reason for a lot of them. If you've never had it, it can be really scary. It's basically where you regain consciousness from sleep before your body exits REM. You can hallucinate, hear loud noises and feel like someone is choking you, because your breathing muscles work differently when you're asleep than when you're awake. I'm really susceptible to it if I get up early in the morning, do something then go back to sleep, so it used to happen to me a lot in college when I had an 8 am class that I would go to then go crash back at my dorm until my next class, which was at noon. Now that I know what it is, it can still be scary when it happens, but once I truly wake up, it doesn't freak me out anymore.
But my dad, an engineer who was as much or more of a skeptic about these things as I was, swore the spirit of his mother came to him and spoke with him shortly after she died. So, that tends to melt away some of my skepticism.