Chapter 6: Hallucinations

"As children tremble and fear everything in the blind darkness, so we in the light sometimes fear what is no more to be feared than the things children in the dark hold in terror..."~ Lucretius on the nature of things

     What is a common thread that binds headlines from an issue of UFO Universe Together? Not UFOs. Surely it's the expectation of unlimited audience gullibility. That's why they are placed in UFO magazines because by and large the very at of buying such a magazine so categorizes the reader.
     Carl believes there may very well be more than on source of alien abduction accounts, just as there are UFO sightings. /let's run through some of the possibilities:
     In 1894 the international Census of Waking hallucinations was published in London. From that time to this, repeated surveys have shown that 10-25% of ordinary, functioning people have experienced, at least once in their lifetimes, a vivid hallucination- hearing a voice, usually, or seeing a form when there is no one there. More rarely, people sense a haunting aroma, or hear music, or receive a revelation that arrives independent of the senses. Some hallucinations may occur to perfectly normal people under perfectly ordinary circumstances. Hallucinations can also be elicited: by a campfire at night, or under emotional stress, or during epileptic seizures or migraine headaches or high fever. There are also substances that the human body generates that causes hallucinations. Whatever their neurological and molecular antecedents, hallucinations feel real. It appears that all human behaviour and experience is well attended by illusory and hallucinatory phenomena. While the relationship of these phenomena to mental illness has been well documented their role in everyday life has perhaps not been considered enough. Greater understanding of illusions and hallucinations among normal people may provide explanations for experiences otherwise relegated to the uncanny, "extrasensory", or supernatural.
     A common 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.
     There is no doubt that humans commonly hallucinate. There is considerable doubt about whether extraterrestrials exist. We might argue about details, but the one category of explanation is surely much better supported than the other. The main doubt you might have is: Why do so many people today report this particular set of hallucinations?