The Demon-Haunted World_ Science as a Candle in the Dark - Carl Sagan [54]
Abductees frequently report having seen ‘aliens’ in their childhood - coming in through the window or from under the bed or out of the closet. But everywhere in the world children report similar stories, with fairies, elves, brownies, ghosts, goblins, witches, imps and a rich variety of imaginary ‘friends’. Are we to imagine two different groups of children, one that sees imaginary earthly beings and the other that sees genuine extraterrestrials? Isn’t it more reasonable that both groups are seeing, or hallucinating, the same thing?
Most of us recall being frightened at the age of two and older by real-seeming but wholly imaginary ‘monsters’, especially at night or in the dark. I can still remember occasions when I was absolutely terrified, hiding under the bedclothes until I could stand it no longer, and then bolting for the safety of my parents’ bedroom - if only I could get there before falling into the clutches of ... The Presence. The American cartoonist Gary Larson who draws in the horror genre dedicates one of his books as follows:
When I was a boy, our house was filled with monsters. They lived in the closets, under the beds, in the attic, in the basement, and - when it was dark - just about everywhere. This book is dedicated to my father, who kept me safe from all of them.
Maybe the abduction therapists should be doing more of that.
Part of the reason that children are afraid of the dark may be that, in our entire evolutionary history up until just a moment ago, they never slept alone. Instead, they nestled safely, protected by an adult, usually Mum. In the enlightened west we stick them alone in a dark room, say goodnight, and have difficulty understanding why they’re sometimes upset. It makes good evolutionary sense for children to have fantasies of scary monsters. In a world stalked by lions and hyenas, such fantasies help prevent defenceless toddlers from wandering too far from their guardians. How can this safety machinery be effective for a vigorous, curious young animal unless it delivers industrial strength terror? Those who are not afraid of monsters tend not to leave descendants. Eventually, I imagine, over the course of human evolution, almost all children become afraid of monsters. But if we’re capable of conjuring up terrifying monsters in childhood, why shouldn’t some of us, at least on occasion, be able to fantasize something similar, something truly horrifying, a shared delusion, as adults?
It is telling that alien abductions occur mainly on falling asleep or when waking up, or on long automobile drives where there is a well-known danger of falling into some autohypnotic reverie. Abduction therapists are puzzled when their patients describe crying out in terror while their spouses sleep leadenly beside them. But isn’t this typical of dreams, our shouts for help unheard? Might these stories have something to do with sleep and, as Benjamin Simon proposed for the Hills, a kind of dream?
A common, although insufficiently well-known, psychological syndrome rather like alien abduction is called sleep paralysis. Many people experience it. It happens in that twilight world between being fully awake and fully asleep. For a few minutes, maybe longer, you’re immobile and acutely anxious. You feel a weight on your chest as if some being is sitting or lying there. Your heartbeat is quick, your breathing laboured. You may experience auditory or visual hallucinations of people, demons, ghosts, animals or birds. In the right setting, the experience can have ‘the full force and impact of reality’, according to Robert Baker, a psychologist at the University of Kentucky. Sometimes there’s a marked sexual component to the hallucination. Baker argues that these common sleep disturbances are behind many if not most of the alien abduction accounts. (He and others suggest that there are other classes of abduction