Do paranormal beliefs have an effect on sleep? Some scientists answer in the affirmative. Authors from Goldsmiths University of London, including the famous sleep paralysis researcher Brian Sharpless, conducted a survey of almost nine thousand people with the help of the BBC television company. They studied how belief in the supernatural relate to various sleep disorders.
Their conclusions state that you can spoil your sleep if you believe in:
– the soul living on after death
– ghosts
– demons
– the ability of people to communicate with the dead
– near-death experiences as proof of life after death
– alien visitations
People espousing these beliefs take a long time to fall asleep, sleep little, and have a harder time recovering. The authors also associate the last two beliefs (UFOs and near-death experiences as proof of the afterlife) with episodes of sleep paralysis, thus showing a correlation between two of the known phase states.
As the researchers add, there seems to be a link between belief in the paranormal and one’s quality of sleep. This should be taken into account by those who experience less than healthy sleep. However, the relationship between the two is complex and requires more study to understand why people sometimes report “things that go bump in the night.”
What paranormal beliefs do you hold? Do they affect your practice of phase states (lucid dreams, sleep paralysis, etc.)?
The article was published in December 2022 on the website of Goldsmiths University of London.
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