One topic that is the most intriguing to me is sleep paralysis and the reason why I am considering using it for a class project is that I have previously experienced episodes. Sleep paralysis is the condition where one may find that they cannot physically move after waking up. This phenomenon may be accompanied by auditory, visual, or even tactile hallucinations. However, anyone can be susceptible to this condition even if they are physically and mentally healthy. I would like to specifically focus on the hallucinations part and perhaps even astral projection that can apparently be induced by sleep paralysis. My interest in sleep paralysis impelled me to do more research on it and I found a phenomenal documentary called The Entity. This documentary explored the medical and paranormal side of sleep paralysis. According to the documentary, many aspects of sleep paralysis are still quite mysterious especially the hallucinations. Many people report seeing and experiencing the same exact vivid hallucinations such as an old hag or demon sitting on their chest and suffocating them. In fact, the documentary featured the villagers from the Island of Pemba. Multiple villagers would see and be attacked by the same monster during the night and have even based a whole religion based on protecting themselves from this "evil entity". The experiences the villagers went through are similar to the effects of sleep paralysis and this made me wonder if perhaps the supernatural could play a role in some sleep paralysis episodes or if the reasons behind sleep paralysis are purely due to the brain playing tricks on us.
If sleep paralysis is too broad to be a topic, then I would like to focus on astral projection. This is the phenomenon when one experiences an out of body experience. After experiencing a sleep paralysis episode, I continued to search for more stories about who experienced it too. Eventually, I stumbled upon a very interesting forum talking about how sleep paralysis allowed them to have out of body experiences. Some people reported feeling an intense shaking or vibration within their body and then they felt as if they were completely separate from their body and floating. Some even said they could see their own body unconscious and sleeping from another point of view. Of course, there are many skeptics and some believe that this out-of-body experience is simply a hallucination induced by brain disturbances.
Because of your personal connection to the topic, I think you should definitely stick to sleep paralysis. Your description of it as an entity makes me think of the famous painting "The Nightmare" by Henry Fuseli:
ReplyDeletehttps://www.khanacademy.org/humanities/becoming-modern/romanticism/romanticism-in-england/a/henry-fuseli-the-nightmare
A simple search for "sleep paralysis" at the Rutgers Libraries turns up hundreds of academic books and articles. So there is no question that you will be able to find enough academic sources on this topic.