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Alien Abduction:
A Medical Hypothesis
David V. Forrest
Abstract: In response to a new psychological study of persons who believe they have been abducted by space aliens that found that sleep paralysis, a history of being hypnotized, and preoccupation with the paranormal and extraterrestrial were predisposing experiences, I noted that many of the frequently reported particulars of the abduction experience bear more than a passing resemblance to medical-surgical procedures and propose that experience with these may also be contributory. There is the altered state of consciousness, uniformly colored gures with prominent eyes, in a high-tech room under a round bright saucerlike object; there is nakedness, pain and a loss of control while the bodys boundaries are being probed; and yet the gures are thought benevolent. No medical-surgical history was apparently taken in the above mentioned study, but psychological laboratory work evaluated false memory formation. I discuss problems in assessing intraoperative awareness and ways in which the medical hypothesis could be elaborated and tested. If physicians are causing this syndrome in a percentage of patients, we should know about it; and persons who feel they have been abducted should be encouraged to inform their surgeons and anesthesiologists without challenging their beliefs.
Psychiatrists were known as alienists in prior centuries, as those who studied the alien sensibilities of psychosis. In the past 50 years a new phenomenon has arisen for psychiatric study that may justify that term in a new way.
In the Books on Health section of The Science Times of August 9, 2005, an article appeared entitled Explaining Those Vivid Memories of Martian Kidnapping (Carey, 2005). It was a prepublication discussion of a new book, Abducted: How People Come to Believe They Were Abducted by Aliens, by Susan A. Clancy, Ph.D. (2005), a Harvard postdoctoral psychology student. The article said that Clancy had found that sleep
David V. Forrest, M.D., Clinical Professor of Psychiatry, Consultant to Neurology (Movement Disorders) and Faculty, Psychoanalytic Center, Columbia University College of Physicians & Surgeons.
Journal of The American Academy of Psychoanalysis and Dynamic Psychiatry, 36(3) 431442, 2008 2008 The American Academy of Psychoanalysis and Dynamic Psychiatry
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paralysis, a history of being hypnotized, and a preoccupation with the paranormal and the extraterrestrial may have predisposed her subjects...