Dreaming with Your Eyes Wide Open: How Emotion, Belief, and Dream States Shape Alien-Abduction Memories

To the point

McNally and Clancy tested alien abduction claims by exposing ten self-described abductees and eight controls to neutral audio scripts while measuring physiological responses, sometimes interviewing or hypnotizing participants, and they found that abductees showed strong emotional reactions similar to trauma, suggesting memories may arise from belief and emotion rather than facts, a process they describe as dreaming with your eyes wide open caused by sleep paralysis and waking hallucinations, with hypnosis sometimes yielding false memories, and they note abductees often have rich fantasy lives and preexisting New Age beliefs with cross cultural links to hauntings or demons, yet many view the experience as spiritually transformative, showing how memory, perception, and belief can generate vivid, distressing experiences without objective evidence.