By  Ed Kellogg, Ph.D. © 2015

Throughout recorded history, people have recounted experiences of encountering non-human beings, or even of finding themselves abducted by them. For most of this time people identified such beings as supernatural, for example, in Celtic countries specifically as the Sidhe (fairies), and more generically as spirits, demons, or gods. In modern times, accounts have appeared from people who have reported encounters or abductions by similar entities – but now identified as extraterrestrial beings, often akin to those portrayed in classic movies such as Invaders from Mars, Close Encounters of the Third Kind, Communion, etc.

 

Do “alien encounters’ and “alien abductions” actually happen? Certainly, at least in the same sense in which “out of the bodies” happen, as psychological realities and as lived experiences. I myself have had lucid dreams and OBEs in which I‘ve encountered non-human beings in environments that seemed very real, and which less experienced observers might well have mistaken for physical reality.

 

However, before getting into the topic of ‘alien encounters’ as usually understood, let‘s consider the possibility of extraterrestrials existing at all, and whether they might visit us physically, in WPR, or ‘metaphysically’, by which I mean in our dreams or OBEs. Let‘s begin with some facts.

 

Fact 1. The Hubble telescope has revealed an estimated 100 billion+ galaxies in the observable universe, with the likelihood that this number will increase to about 200 billion as telescope technology evolves.

 

Fact 2. Scientists have estimated that our Milky Way galaxy alone has around a half million Gaia like planets – habitable planets like our Earth where life can emerge and a full biosphere develop. (As calculated by Franck, S., von Bloh, W., Bounama, C ( Steffen, M., Schönberner, D., Schellnhuber, H.- J.: 2002, ‘Habitable zones and the number of Gaia’s sisters’ in B. Montesinos, A. Gimenez, E.F. Guinan(eds.): The Evolving Sun and its Influence on Planetary Environments, ASP Conference Series, Vol. 269, p. 261)

 

Fact 3. If one assumes that our galaxy seems typical with respect to the number of Gaia like planets, one can roughly estimate that the observable universe has over 50 million billion Earth like planets. Given that number, the probability of other intelligent lifeforms of some kind existing on some of those planets somewhere, becomes in theory at least, almost a virtual certainty.

 

Fact 4. Finally, experimental evidence has repeatedly indicated that distance does not limit the effectiveness of psi. Many physicists, in attempting to explain psi, have proposed that psi operates nonlocally, which means that distance in space, whether a foot, a mile, a light-year, or a billion-trillion lightyears, literally makes no difference. Furthermore, in the 1960‘s in a series of controlled scientific studies researchers at Maimonides Dream Laboratory demonstrated that subjects could repeatedly tune into randomly selected external targets through psi in their dreams. (Ullman, M., Krippner, S., and Vaughn, A., (1973), Dream Telepathy: Experiments in Nocturnal ESP (Penguin Books, Baltimore.) A meta-analysis of post-Maimonides studies of psi-dreaming by other researchers confirmed this finding (Sherwood, S. J., & Roe, C. A. (2003). ‘A review of dream ESP studies conducted since the Maimonides dream ESP program,’ Journal of Consciousness Studies, 10, 85-109.) And just as we can have psi-mediated mutual dreams with other humans here on Earth, it follows that we can, and most likely have, had psi-mediated mutual dreams with sentient life-forms physically based elsewhere, no matter how far the distance between here and there.

 

So, bearing this in mind, let‘s consider five possible kinds of alien encounters, ranging from encounters in dreams to physical encounters.

 

First, dreams of alien encounters inspired by, or derived from the media, such as books, games, movies or television.

 

Second, encounters with aliens that take place through a kind of mutual dreaming, or even lucid mutual dreaming, with alien intelligences. I‘ll give two possible examples of lucid dreams of this type later on.

 

Third, alien encounters that take place with aliens during OBEs. In this respect it seems worthwhile noting that accounts of both Alien Abduction Experiences (AAEs) and OBEs often include reports of both paralysis and levitation. I‘ll discuss this in more detail later.

 

Fourth, actual physical reality abductions or encounters with aliens, which often serves as the default explanation for many experiencers.

 

Fifth, dreams of alien encounters derived from actual experiences of any of the previous types, and also, for example, OBEs or WPR experiences falsely remembered as dreams.

 

Of these five kinds, for the purposes of this LDE article I‘ll primarily focus here on possible alien encounters of the second and third types. Let‘s begin with an alien abduction dream in which I became lucid:

 

 

A Close Encounter of the Dreaming Kind

 

39 97 ‘My sister and I go into an alien saucer. They do some sort of experiment on me, and I find myself floating through the ship, escorted, my brain and body buzzing with consciousness. I now realize that I dream, but accept and remember the prologue, of my getting onto the alien ship as something that happened in WPR. I see my escorts as the dream equivalents of aliens. As I know that I dream, I use P.K. to move objects about.

 

I feel very lucid, very aware – certain aspects of my consciousness buzzing or activating – I think as a result of the alien technology. At one point I volunteer to try healing someone using a LDH technique. And they ask me, ‘Don‘t you need to love them first?’ To which I responded, ‘I can love anyone if I look at a deep enough level.’ But I then correct myself, truthfully adding, ‘Well, almost anyone.’ I then leave the craft and fly around it. It has a ramp leading into it and I notice it has a beautiful sculptured metal shape, and does not really look like a saucer.

 

An alien (?) woman floats after me, followed by some sort of a guard being, that I partially inactivate mentally. I return to the ship voluntarily though when asked, as I see the aliens as benign. Inside, the aliens feel pleased by my response to their experiment, and by my cooperative attitude. However, I see my brother S., who they also took on board, having his memory erased, also having what looks like his stomach pumped.

 

A man tells me ‘S. knew their destination.’ and also tells me that they plan to erase my memory as well, but that they will do so gently, to avoid giving me a morning hangover. This does not seem so benign, and I wonder if they have ever dealt with experienced lucid dreamers before. I mentally review all that has happened, and mentally imprint and intend that I will remember everything, renewing my memories to resist any attempt at their erasure. RWPR ‘

 

Comments: The ship itself did not really look like a saucer, but more like one of the attack craft in a movie I‘d seen earlier that month, Independence Day, so my perception of it may derive at least in part from day-residue, although I did not identify it as such while dreaming. On the other hand, I saw no weaponry, and the ship I saw in the dream looked quite a bit larger, having a far more beautiful appearance than the ID4 craft, more like an art nouveau sculpture than a spacecraft.

 

 

As far as I can tell my memory of the dream remained clear, but obviously it would seem hard to tell if I failed to remember something, or did so in an incomplete or distorted way. I did contact both my sister and my brother the morning after the dream, and neither had any recall of having had any dreams similar to this one. After awakening from this dream I did not experience any significant mental or physical effects – ostensibly just as promised, no morning hangover. However, I‘ve had other alien encounter dreams that apparently did have after effects. For example, this one:

 

Alien Experimentation

40 30 “. . . In a large empty space – I realize that I dream . . . I repeatedly chant the Hebrew letter Resh (raysh) . . . I keep getting pulled along upwards. I finally stop in a cloud space – afraid I’ll wake up, but strong, hard hands grab mine. I find myself in a laboratory – a severe looking woman (alien?) with two assistants.

 

She wants to do a procedure on me, and tries to rush me into it – at first she wants to do etheric surgery on my brain, but when I ask “What will the operation do? How will it change my consciousness?” she looks annoyed, seeing my questions as irrelevant. It seems clear she sees me only as an object to do something to, not as a subject to work with. She seems annoyed  that she has to get my permission.

 

She describes another procedure — it affects the “adrenal area” of the brain, changing the pattern of breathing, which will change consciousness – but she won’t tell me how. She tells me “if this doesn’t work, they can always do the operation, and snip out the adrenal lobes”. Not wanting to miss an opportunity for possible enhancement I agree. She immediately straps an apparatus to my head with two cylinders on a sort of headband, oriented into the temporal lobes.

 

She turns it on. The cylinders light up. At first, the cylinders glow a bright yellow-blue, then a bright yellow-green, the apparatus buzzes and puts painful pressure inside my head – I question whether I should go through with the procedure. I begin to lose my sight and my patience, and realize what alien abductees might go through — and with no guaranteed, or even indicated, positive results. I take/tear the headband off. I hear the “woman scientist’s” voice telling me I’ve spoiled the procedure by not going through to the end – now I’ll have to do over again. I refuse to do so, ask about the effects – a cold silence ensues, fragments of expression on the woman’s face. I realize this does not seem a known therapeutic procedure at all – just an experiment to see what would happen. They do not care what happens to me at all!

 

I lose sight, and again a hand grabs mine, softer this time. I find myself in a different room, with some red color. I see a woman/angel?/secretary there. The lab seems a few doors away. The woman smiles at me, and tells me that the experimenters meant no harm to my soul, or that the experiments would not have harmed my soul. “They just wanted to try out their terrestrial invention apparatus to see what it would do,” the woman says with a smile, as if that excused the experimenter‘s behavior.

 

I tell her I don’t think so. It seems clear to me, from what she didn’t say, that although the experiment might not have harmed my soul, that it could have damaged me physically, or even killed me. They did not care if the procedures helped or harmed their subjects — they just had a curious, cold, scientific curiosity about the outcome.

 

I decide to leave, and chant Resh – again I feel a pull up — I emerge out of a huge white swirling energy ball like the sun and travel strongly upwards . . . RWPR “

 

Comment: I had a mild headache on awakening, which continued all day. It improved after exercise, but remained present at 8 p.m. This seemed quite unusual, as I usually don’t get headaches, just about never wake up with one, and even when I do have headaches, they don’t last long.

 

Optimistically, I wondered if the procedure had a positive effect on my psi capacities, and decided to test for this by seeing how well I can do guessing playing cards. Out of 19 randomly chosen cards, I guessed the correct suit for 16, whereas I‘d only expect to get 5 or so from chance. I guess the correct number and color for three, and the exact card twice. By chance alone, one would expect to average one out of four suits correct, one out of 26 number and color correct, one out of 52 cards exactly correct (number and suit), so my psi-score goes way above expectations.

 

As far as I can tell, using current terminology, the brain does not have an “adrenal system” as such, though it does have an “adrenergic system” which can affect breathing. A couple of notes about the dream as to why I included it in the alien encounter category, although it does not include the usual stereotypes – grey aliens, flying saucers, etc.

 

1. In it, I felt I traveled into the dream reality equivalent of outer space.

 

2. Although the “woman/alien/scientist” looked more or less human – thin, large head, severe features, this felt like an illusion. She did not “feel” human to me, not emotionally, nor mentally, not even on a tactile level. She had unusually strong hard hands that felt almost like wood. In dreams “we see what we expect to see,” and her appearance may have seemed in large part my projection based on my expectations.

 

3. Overall though, I would say that it mostly seemed her projected Beingness – the “curious, cold, scientific curiosity”, without the slightest hint of empathy, that marked her as something other than human.

 

4. This dream made a large impression on me, on several levels, not only because I had full lucidity during the experience, but because of a number of realizations that had a strong emotional impact following the dream. Chief among these, that for those who have their center of gravity of consciousness above a certain level (even for the friendly ‘angel/secretary’), at the level of the Soul/ Spirit, that the physical body, or physical existence etc., seems a pretty trivial and unimportant issue, something on the order of disposable paper shoes. If one pair fails, or wears out, one simply throws them away and puts on a new pair.

 

Just as one might have an alien encounter in a kind of mutual dream, one could also have an alien encounter in the OBE state. If so, how might an OBE-AAE differ from an alien encounter dream?

 

Well, for one thing, just as for those who have OBEs, those who‘ve experienced AAEs often flatly deny that they had a dream, because it felt so real they conclude that it must have happened to them physically. However, as far as I know in all but a very few cases no physical traces, or other evidence for an actual physical abduction exist. On occasion, marks may show up on an abductee‘s body, but this may have occurred in a psychosomatic fashion, just as people have reported effects on the physical body through hypnosis or after lucid dream healings.

 

Of course, those who have never had OBEs themselves, which can also feel intensely real, might not consider this alternative explanation for a purportedly WPR abduction. Because of this it seems possible to me that many AAEs might not take place physically but in an OBE, which would account for many of the common features often reported: 1.The vividness and realness of the event. 2. The substantiality of the environment, which can feel solid and physical. 3. A feeling of paralysis. 4. The experience of floating. 5. The feeling of unusual energies or vibrations.

 

I have experienced all of the above mentioned phenomena in OBEs and could list other similarities. Although I‘ve never had an OBE-AAE myself, I would speculate that many accounts of AAEs describe a subtype of OBEs with one major difference, that the locus of control changes from inside the experiencer to outside the experiencer. People who experience OBEs (including Near Death Experiences) usually report feelings of freedom, well-being, and increased power and control over their phenomenal bodies (now able to fly, etc.).

 

Those who experience AAEs often report feeling helpless, fearful, and of having little or no control over their bodies. Perhaps those who experience AAEs might learn to gain control over their experiences by practicing OBE techniques, just as nightmare sufferers can learn to transform nightmares into positive dreams by learning the techniques of how to become lucid while dreaming.

 

As far as physical encounters with aliens on Earth goes, I find it hard to come to any conclusions, not having any personal experiences in this area – at least any I can recall. It doesn‘t help that many of the accounts I‘ve read, even those validated to a certain extent by physical evidence, such as radar records, usually seem bizarre and dreamlike in a number of ways, reading more like bad B movie science fiction scripts instead of what one might expect if extraterrestrials from an advanced civilization visited Earth and contacted us.

 

In this many AAE accounts fall in line with a wide range of other validated but anomalous phenomena that simply don‘t make much sense when we try to understand them within our cultural biases. (See Kripal, J, (2010), Authors of the Impossible: The Paranormal and the Sacred, University of Chicago Press, Chicago for more examples) I suspect that our difficulty in making sense out of events like these seems analogous to the difficulty a Flatlander would have in making sense out of a four-dimensional object passing through its two dimensional space.

 

And if our so called ‘physical reality’ does seem a kind of dream or illusion, as many religious traditions assert, I suspect that anomalous events like AAEs in fact serve as lucidity cues, to help us wake up to the realization that no matter what we like to believe, or think we know, that we still hardly have a clue to how ‘reality’ really works.