The story of my abduction by aliens

[Tobin S.]

I remember that night well. It was back in the summer of 2002. I was 29 years old and I had just bought my first home the year before. It was a nice place, too. A 3 bedroom ranch with 1.5 baths and a large addition built on the back that I used as my family room. But I did not have a family. I was single and I didn't have any children (which continues to this day, eligible ladies). ;) There was a large window overlooking my back yard from the family room. It was a good sized yard with lush, deep green grass fenced off and with a little shed back in one corner.

I smoked cigarettes at the time, but I smoked out in the garage so my house would smell nice and fresh. One night I was out there smoking. It was very late and the whole neighborhood was asleep. I worked second shift at the time and would often stay up into the wee hours of the morning. My garage door had windows in it; small windows about five feet off the ground. As I was standing there smoking and I looked to one of the windows and there was the face of a classic grey alien looking in. You know the kind with the big head and eyes and little body. Then I blinked and it was gone. I was shaken by the incident, but wrote it off as my mind playing tricks on me. I was tired after all, having worked all day and then staying up late. I figured it was time for bed and went inside.

It didn't take long for me to nod off, but some time later I was awakened by all kinds of multi-colored lights shining in my bedroom. I got out of bed and walked as if under a spell to the family room. I felt aware of what was going on but I didn't seem to be able to move my body by my own will. It was as if I was a puppet being controlled by a puppet master. I looked out of the large window in my family room and there in the backyard was what could only be an alien spacecraft. It was disk shaped with a mound on top of it that had windows. The spacecraft was hovering in a kind of wobbly way about 6 feet off of the ground. The multi-colored lights that had awakened me originated from the edge of the spacecraft where there were multi-colored strobes all around it.

The next thing I knew I was back in my bed. I looked toward my open bedroom door and caught a glimpse of one of the greys walking out of the room. I couldn't move for a few more minutes. There were strobe lights still, but they went away not long after I saw the alien. I slowly regained control of my body. I felt as if I'd been sexually molested in some way. My private parts and rear felt very strange. I walked out into my kitchen where I saw that about two hours had passed since I had originally went to bed. It would be a couple of days before I would come to grips on what had happened to me. I had been abducted by aliens.

(Ponder it a minute before continuing. I'll never forget that night as long as I live. What could have happened?)



I was 29 at the time and had been mentally ill since I was 20. I didn't know it, though. I've read that 30% of mentally ill people have no insight into their illnesses at all. I had never sought treatment. In the weeks leading up to my "abduction," I had been reading a guy named David Icke http://www.davidicke.com/index.php/ He claims to think that the world is run by alien reptilian shape-shifters. The world's leaders in politics, business, academics, religion, and just about every other person who has any kind of power are all reptilian shape-shifters from the fourth dimension. The greys (those naughty, big-eyed fellas that probed my private parts) are actually just henchmen for the reptilians. If you start "waking up" you'll get a little visit from those grey guys to keep you in line, according to Icke. The reason why I say he "claims" to think that is that I'm sure he has found a nice niche in the conspiracy theory market. It's just a scam so he won't have to work for a living. He has actually lifted a lot of his material from other conspiracy theory buffs. The only thing that's really new is his fourth dimension reptilian angle.

I was actually believing that shit. Couple that with a diseased mind that was already experiencing psychosis and you have a recipe for an alien abduction. I'm not saying this is the only explanation for alien abduction, but I bet it's a common one.

[semillama]

1. David Icke is also a notorious Holocaust denier.

So, good thing you came out of the darkness, eh?

[Tobin S.]

2. Yep

People like Icke prey on people who are like what I used to be like. Which brings up a question. Who is responsible for someone being conned? Is it the person who lacks critical thinking skills or the con man? Who is at fault? Both? I guess in a court of law you probably wouldn't get anywhere claiming you killed someone because Icke told you the victim was an alien, reptilian shape-shifter from the fourth dimension out to make a psychic puppet out of you.

[Silent3]

3. If you don't mind me asking...

...what was the diagnosis for the problems you were having? Is it something you have to keep taking medications for now?

[Tobin S.]

4. I take pleasure in the chance to talk about mental health

So ask as many questions that you want. :)

Yes, I still take medication and will for the rest of my life. It was determined after a couple of hospitalizations that I have an illness called schizoaffective disorder. I have the manic depressive cycle as well as some symptoms of schizophrenia. In my darkest hour I thought people could read my mind and see my most private thoughts. I thought that people on the TV and the radio were talking directly to me in some sort of secret code that I had to figure out. As you can imagine I was extremely paranoid. I lived in a constant state of fear. There was nowhere I could hide from the voices.

You may be wondering how a person in that state can function in society. I don't know how I did it either. I got in trouble with the law a couple of times, but only for victim-less crimes. After ten agonizing years I had had enough. Fortunately, I talked to someone who cared about me and told her that I wanted to die. She got me to the hospital immediately. If you ever suffer like that for ten years and come through it alive you will find that Heaven is real. It's a psychiatric ward. The nurses, orderlies, janitors, and doctors are all really angels. ;)

[realisticphish]

6. just as an aside

it's nice to hear first-person accounts of this kind of mental health issue. So many people claim to be experts because they took Zoloft for a while, or have self-diagnosed themselves as having Asberger's. You lived in a constant nightmare, and you came through it with professional help. I think it's an awesome example of how, with proper help, mental issues don't have to be debilitating.

Just out of curiosity, do you ever experience symptoms even on meds? Or do you pretty much suppress all the phenomena (for lack of a better term)?

[Tobin S.]

7. Now days the most important thing to me as far as my mental health goes is

Getting enough sleep. I start to become a little symptomatic if I don't get enough sleep. But it has to be a serious deprivation, like being up for 48 hours. It's only happened to me a couple of times since I started medication. Other than that I do not experience symptoms now days.

[realisticphish]

12. That's interesting

that might be an indicator of, in general, how important sleep is to mental health, even without a condition

[Odin2005]

10. Schizoaffective disorder is horrible.

I know somebody with it, not fun.

I have read an interesting book called The Imprinted Brain that describes Autism Spectrum disorders and psychotic disorders as polar opposites, caused by opposite brain development patterns caused by differing expressions of maternal and paternal genes. The author describes what he calls "mentalistic" cognition, a form of cognition that sees the world in terms of sentient agents with intentions and desires, what Autism researchers call "Theory of mind. According to the author the traits associated with psychotic disorders are the result of overly-strong mentalistic thinking, while the negative traits of autism spectrum disorders are from the opposite, poor mentalistic abillity. The positive traits of autism are from another form of cognition, called "Mechanistic", and is associated with strict notions of causality and logical correspondences.

The author had an interesting quote by autistic animal behaviorist Temple Grandin in which Grandin says that she has no Freudian repressions, she has no Freudian "unconscious". According to the author Freudian-style neuroses are Mentalistic phenomena.

[uriel1972]

5. Being on the edge

where reality and hallucination bleed into one another, I developed a strong affection for reality. I would be like 'people aren't reacting as if I was growing extra arms so in all likelihood I am not growing extra arms even if I can feel them' believe me it wasn't pretty.

I had a lot of hypnogogic states where you wake up but you're body is still physicalogically asleep, you can't move, you feel as if there is a crushing weight on your chest and there is the sensation of someone else in the room. For whatever reason it didn't develop into an abduction 'reality'. Possibly because I didn't have the trigger of reading David Icky or the US background of abduction events.

Once upon a time it was demons, the incubi and succubi, now it is aliens. I think it is people tying common cultural themes into thier experience of a hypnogogic state.

Cheers
Uriel

[Tobin S.]

9. Yep

I cherish reality now days. It's my God. :)

"Once upon a time it was demons, the incubi and succubi, now it is aliens. I think it is people tying common cultural themes into thier experience of a hypnogogic state."

Yes, and tie that in with people wanting there to be more, for something else beyond what can seem like a mundane existence- we can create "realites" I think in that way, probably without even being mentally ill.

[frogmarch]

8. "It didn't take long for me to nod off..."

Hi, Tobin. It seems to me that what you describe after you awakened to the multi-colored lights fits in well with some characteristics of sleep paralysis. I've had several occurrences of it myself, and although mine didn't involve aliens, in one episode someone I thought looked like Jesus does in Christian art attempted to remove my brain while I lay in bed frightened and unable to move, even though I knew none of it was real. In another episode, I was sleepily making morning coffee but having trouble seeing the coffeemaker while pouring water into it because translucent images of several flying dragons swooping through a dark forest full of blinking eyeballs kept getting in the way. (Edited to add: The second episode was preceded by my being unable to get out of bed after waking up that morning because I was paralyzed for a few minutes, until I fainted from terror, and then reawakened...or thought I did, even though I was seeing dragons and whatnot, as if in a dream.)

My sleep paralysis experiences also involved auditory hallucinations.

from wiki: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sleep_Paralysis

(snip)

"...the paralysis state may be accompanied by terrifying hallucinations (hypnopompic or hypnagogic) and an acute sense of danger.<12> Sleep paralysis is particularly frightening to the individual because of the vividness of such hallucinations.<13> The hallucinatory element to sleep paralysis makes it even more likely that someone will interpret the experience as a dream, since completely fanciful, or dream-like, objects may appear in the room alongside one's normal vision. Some scientists have proposed this condition as an explanation for alien abductions and ghostly encounters.<14> A study by Susan Blackmore and Marcus Cox (the Blackmore-Cox study) of the University of the West of England supports the suggestion that reports of alien abductions are related to sleep paralysis rather than to temporal lobe lability"

[Tobin S.]

11. It sounds like sleep paralysis was a component of my experience

with my brain already stressed and working overtime because of mental illness. I hope nothing like that ever happens again. I might end up in my shrink's office asking for a double dose. :)

[conscious evolution]

13. sleep paralysis was scary as fuck

the first few times it happened to me.
Luckily a friend had heard of the condition and let me know I was not totally loosing my mind.

BTW,fwiw,the 'hallucinations' are actually dreams,usually.From what I have read about SP it usually occurs during REM stage sleep.REM stage,as I recall,is when we dream.
Imagine waking up in the middle of a dream and not realizing it is a dream.I can understand why people freak out.

[LeftishBrit]

14. That must have been a frightening experience.

I am glad you got the medical help that you needed, and sad that so many quacks and con-men exploit those who are in a vulnerable state.