This Article Full Text (PDF) References Alert me when this article is cited Alert me if a correction is posted Citation Map Services Email this article to a friend Similar articles in this journal Similar articles in PubMed Alert me to new issues of the journal Add to Saved Citations Download to citation manager Add to My Marked Citations Citing Articles Citing Articles via HighWire Citing Articles via Google Scholar Google Scholar Articles by Hufford, D. J. Search for Related Content PubMed PubMed Citation Articles by Hufford, D. J. Social Bookmarking                   What's this?

Sleep Paralysis as Spiritual Experience

Penn State College of Medicine, djh5{at}psu.edu

This article presents an overview of the sleep paralysis experience from both a cultural and a historical perspective. The robust, complex phenomenological pattern that represents the subjective experience of sleep paralysis is documented and illustrated. Examples are given showing that, for a majority of subjects, sleep paralysis is taken to be a kind of spiritual experience. This is, in part, because of the very common perception of a non-physical ‘threatening presence’ that is part of the event. Examples from various cultures, including mainstream contemporary America which has no widely known tradition about sleep paralysis, are used to show that the complex pattern and spiritual interpretation are not dependent on cultural models or prior learning. This is dramatically contrary to conventional explanations of apparently ‘direct’ spiritual experiences, explanations that are summed up as the ‘Cultural Source Hypothesis.’ This aspect of sleep paralysis was not recognized through most of the twentieth century. The article examines the way that conventional modern views of spiritual experience, combined with medical ideas that labeled ‘direct’ spiritual experiences as psychopathological, and mainstream religious views of such experiences as heretical if not pathological, suppressed the report and discussion of these experiences in modern society. These views have resulted in confusion in the scientific literature on sleep paralysis with regard to its prevalence and core features. The article also places sleep paralysis in the context of other ‘direct’ spiritual experiences and offers an ‘Experiential Theory’ of cross-culturally distributed spiritual experiences.

Key Words: culture • mysticism • religion • sleep paralysis • spiritual experience

CiteULike    Connotea    Del.icio.us    Digg    Reddit    Technorati    What's this?

This article has been cited by other articles:

				J. D. Koss-Chioino Spiritual Transformation, Relation and Radical Empathy: Core Components of the Ritual Healing Process Transcultural Psychiatry, December 1, 2006; 43(4): 652 - 670. [Abstract] [PDF]

				S. Law and L. J. Kirmayer Inuit Interpretations of Sleep Paralysis Transcultural Psychiatry, March 1, 2005; 42(1): 93 - 112. [Abstract] [PDF]