All over the world, people report their contact with beings that are not of this planet. Some say they have only seen aliens, others describe experiences rich in detail about how they were abducted by these beings - sometimes even being guinea pigs in strange procedures.
There are those who believe these reports, but many are not convinced and claim that there must be another explanation for such experiences. The fact is that this is a subject that involves human curiosity for a long time, and it seems to be far from being unraveled. Therefore, Russian scientists published a study whose results bring a new perspective to the question: according to them, alien abductions are nothing more than experiences in lucid dreams. Got confused? That's okay, because from now on, we'll explain everything you need to know to understand the subject. Come on!
Extraterrestrial life
The first big question is whether there is, in fact, extraterrestrial life. Aliens have permeated the imagination of humanity for a long time. No wonder they are so successful in fiction. But… what about reality?
Now, we need to ask ourselves what we mean when we talk about life, because certain bacteria have been found on other planets — which, technically, can already be considered as a type of extraterrestrial life. However, what so intrigues humanity is whether there is intelligent extraterrestrial life somewhere else in the universe. In that case, they would be thinking beings like us humans. Until then, this question remains unanswered, but the famous abduction reports continue.
What is alien abduction?
In different parts of the planet, people claim to have been abducted by aliens. This phenomenon would be a kind of abduction that aliens carry out with human beings, for purposes such as studies of our species.
Very vivid and detailed experiences are reported, with common characteristics between them, even with people who have never seen or spoken to each other. Until today, it has not been possible to prove that these abductions actually occur, however, it is a subject that arouses the interest even of scientists who propose to study extraterrestrial phenomena, as was the case of the research carried out in Russia, on the which we will talk about next.
The research: extraterrestrial contact or just lucid dreams?
In 2021, intriguing research was published in the International Journal of Dream Research in Moscow. The research was carried out by Michael Raduga, Andrey Shashkov and Zhanna Zhunusova, with the aim of trying to understand the relationship between alien abductions and what we call lucid dreams.
A group of 152 volunteers was suggested to dream about abductions. However, these people were not selected at random: they already had a history of experiencing lucid dreams. What the researchers wanted was precisely to investigate whether this suggestion could generate dreams so lucid that they looked like real abductions. And the results were interesting.
After the experiment, of those 152 subjects, 114 actually claimed to have dreamed about extraterrestrials. Another curious fact was the fact that 61% of these individuals dreamed of aliens similar to those described in fiction, while 19% encountered aliens in human form. Regarding the exchanges made with the extraterrestrials, 12% spoke with them in the dream. And for 28% of those people, the famous UFOs appeared in their dream, even though most of them didn't walk into one.
Perhaps the most striking thing about the results, and what led the researchers to certain considerations, is the fact that 24% of the volunteers experienced paralysis and fear. This is an important finding because it is common, both in lucid dream experiences and in reports of contact with aliens. For the researchers, then, the study is an indication that such abductions, in fact, are nothing more than lucid dreams that, being so vivid, are capable of confusing those who experience them.
And what is lucid dreaming?
In summary, lucid dreaming is a state of consciousness in which the individual is able to know that he is dreaming and can even control his dream. Thus, lucid dreams are usually very vivid and can cause confusion to those who are unaware of the phenomenon. This would even be the hypothesis of the researchers.
The doubt, however, remains. The study provided strong evidence for a rational explanation for extraterrestrial contacts, but did not confirm it as a fact. Certainly, many will continue to believe in the existence of intelligent extraterrestrial life, and that these beings may be much closer than we imagine. Meanwhile, others now have a new perspective to continue denying such an existence.
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The only thing that remains concrete in this story is that aliens and their abductions are still of great interest to humanity. Is that you? Believe it or not?
