Alien Abduction Experiences

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Alien Abduction Experiences
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• Susceptibility to certain subjective and
  physiological concomitants of natural sleep or
  sleep disorders has been proposed as an
  explanation for the AAE (e.g., Baker, 1992a
  Spanos et al., 1993). The reasons for this are
  numerous. AAEs are commonly reported as having
  occurred at bedtime or during the course of
  sleep. They are frequently first remembered as
  the content of an apparent (albeit unusual)
  dream or as otherwise having a dreamlike
  subjective quality. Furthermore, they are often
  accompanied by the experience of paralysis, a
  condition that occurs during that part of the
  sleep period when motor tonus is lost.

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• AAEs do not arise in a contextual vacuum. Often
  their detail emerges during hypnosis sessions
  intended to recover presumably hidden aspects of
  a partially remembered experience. Bullard
  (1987) examined published AAE accounts prior to
  1987 and determined that hypnosis had been used
  31 of the time overall. However, for those
  reports that Bullard rated high in both
  reliability and information content, hypnosis was
  involved about 70 of the time (Bullard, 1989).
  Finally, a survey he conducted of active
  abduction investigators (Bullard, 1994) suggested
  that hypnosis is now being used in about 70 of
  all contemporary abduction investigators.