Sleep parlysis Forum
http://www.quicktopic.com/25/H/mpkzeqyyLTH
LUCID DREAMING
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lucid_dream#Scientific_history
The first book on lucid dreams to recognize their scientific potential was Celia Green's 1968 study Lucid Dreams.[4] Reviewing the past literature, as well as new data from subjects of her own, Green analyzed the main characteristics of such dreams and concluded that they were a category of experience quite distinct from ordinary dreams. She predicted that they would turn out to be associated with rapid eye movement sleep (REM sleep). Green was also the first to link lucid dreams to the phenomenon of false awakenings.
During the 1980s, further scientific evidence to confirm the existence of lucid dreaming was produced as lucid dreamers were able to demonstrate to researchers that they were consciously aware of being in a dream state (again, primarily using eye movement signals).
LaBerge performed a pilot study where lucid dreamers counted out ten seconds while dreaming, signaling the end of counting with a pre-arranged eye signal measured with electrooculogram recording. LaBerge's results were confirmed by German researchers in 2004. The German study, by D. Erlacher and M. Schredl, also studied motor activity and found that deep knee bends took 44% longer to perform while lucid dreaming
OVERLAP with Near-death and out-of-body experiences
In a study of fourteen lucid dreamers performed in 1991, people who perform wake-initiated lucid dreams (WILD) reported experiences consistent with aspects of out-of-body experiences such as floating above their beds and the feeling of leaving their bodies. Due to the phenomenological overlap between lucid dreams, near death experiences, and out-of-body experiences, researchers say they believe a protocol could be developed to induce a lucid dream similar to a near-death experience in the laboratory.
Other associated phenomena
When a person is dreaming, the eyes move rapidly. Scientific research has found that these eye movements correspond to the direction in which the dreamer is "looking" in his/her dreamscape; this has enabled trained lucid dreamers to communicate whilst dreaming to researchers by using eye movement signals
Popular interest in near-death experiences was initially sparked by Raymond Moody, Jr's 1975 book "Life After Life" and the founding of the International Association for Near-Death Studies (IANDS) in 1978 Popular interest in near-death experiences was initially sparked by Raymond Moody, Jr's 1975 book "Life After Life" and the founding of the International Association for Near-Death Studies (IANDS) in 1978
In a new theory devised by Kinseher in 2006, the knowledge of the Sensory Autonomic System is applied in the NDE phenomenon. His theory states that the experience of looming death is an extremely strange paradox to a living organism - and therefore it will start the NDE: during the NDE, the individual becomes capable of "seeing" the brain performing a scan of the whole episodic memory (even prenatal experiences), in order to find a stored experience which is comparable to the input information of death. All these scanned and retrieved bits of information are permanently evaluated by the actual mind, as it is searching for a coping mechanism out of the potentially fatal situation. Kinseher feels this is the reason why a near-death experience is so unusual.