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Yvain comments on The Sacred Mundane - Less Wrong
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Another example: in sleep paralysis, many people report seeing demonic type figures. Although I haven't been able to find any explicit evidence, I've seen suggestions that the exact variety of demon depends on the sleeper's expectation. For example, Chinese see something like a classic transparent ghost, Hmong see a tiny child-like figure, and Americans see stuff like typical horns-and-tail demons or typical pointy-hat type witches.
The mental "stimulus" in sleep paralysis doesn't have any features - it's just a general feeling of fear, unreality, and oppression. But the sufferer does see a demon or monster with the culturally appropriate features.
So it's not contradictory to say both that dhyana itself is an "unconditioned" experience, and that individual experiences of dhyana can be detailed - although there may be many different types of emotionally powerful hallucination and "unconditioned" may be too vague to be a useful word.
I'm a little skeptical of this claim. When I've experienced sleep paralysis I've imagined seeing a non-supernatural human intruder but all I actually saw was a vaguely human shaped shadow which for some reason in the confused half-asleep state of sleep paralysis seems highly likely to be an ill-intentioned intruder rather than a shadow. People with a different cultural expectation might claim to have 'seen' a demon but I don't think that should necessarily be interpreted as them having had a detailed hallucination, just that an ambiguous and threatening presence is assumed to be whatever strikes them as the most likely thing to be hanging around threateningly if indistinctly.
Just to add to the pot - I've experienced it only twice, but both times I experienced no hallucinations at all. The first time, the room was dark and I knew there was "something out there" waiting to get me and I had to switch on the light to see it, but couldn't move. The second time there was nothing, but I was terrified anyway. Both times I managed to wake myself up (eventually).
I can quite imagine, however, that our dreaming mind might try to put a face on the stalking horror. Given you're already asleep and just out of REM state, there's no surprise in extra visual hallucinations here - and of course they'd be relevant to your own cultural experiences.
Me neither, except for the digital clock reading absurd times. (No, I hadn't read this when that happened.)
I experienced this as well as a small child. Incidentally, my alarm clock at the time looked a lot like the one in the XKCD comic.
I agree. When I've experienced sleep paralysis, I've rarely seen anything much at all other than distortions of the appearance of the room. What I get instead is a buzzing noise and a sense of vibration through my body, and then my body feels as if it's being tossed around the bed in impossibly rapid circles by some kind of evil force. I've never culturally heard of any experience like it. It certainly has the sense of oppression and evil, but there's nothing about it that sounds like any kind of mythology I've ever heard in my culture or another.
According to this article a sense of vibration and rapid acceleration of the body are fairly commonly reported (I don't recall experiencing these symptoms myself). That article and the Wikipedia entry both mention some of the mythology and folklore surrounding the experience from different cultures.
Never having had sleep paralysis, I bow to your superior expertise on the subject.
I used to have occasional sleep paralysis, starting very young. I remember seeing shadows and hearing noises, then having them quickly gain resolution until I was actually hearing whispering and walking, and seeing something between a traditional western demon and an oni mask. Years later, before I learned not to sleep on my back but after I had a more materialist outlook, I would notice the process of forming images and usually be able to mentally halt the pareidolia.
I can easily believe that a more powerful such process would leave the formative steps imperceptible, especially to someone who had no experience.
I've never seen anything when I have sleep paralysis, but I have had the feeling of malevolent presence and, once, a voice that made me very afraid.