Old Hag Syndrome

[Cherill]

Hi folks,

I know the this thread should be in the Dream section but many people ask exactly what it is, so here is the description as I have found it. In Merriam Online dictionary:-

hag
3 entries found for hag.

Main Entry: 1hag
Pronunciation: 'hag
Function: noun
Etymology: Middle English hagge demon, old woman
1 : an ugly, slatternly, or evil-looking old woman
2 archaic a : a female demon b : an evil or frightening spirit : HOBGOBLIN
3 : WITCH
- hag·gish /'ha-gish/ adjective

In the Elements Encyclopedia of the Psychic World it describes the Hag as:-

An apparition reporte to resemble an ugly old woman with tangled hair, rotting teeth, a hooked nose, mad eyes and claw like fingers.

We generally refer to the Old Hag Syndrome when someone has the experience of waking up from sleep and being unable to move, often feeling that someone or something is sitting on them. People report being totally paralysed but can still see, hear, smell and feel. This is sometimes accompianied with the sighting of an old woman - hence the old hag!

However, scientists have proved that there are many explanations for this phenomenon, indigestion being one of them! Most commonly they say that general sleep disorders, repressed tension or sleep paralysis is the cause! Whilst I agree that these can explain the majority of cases, I do not think they can explain them all!

[Dronfieldman]

I think in a specific case, one needs to ask whether any more obviously overt paranormal phenomena have taken place when the witness was not in bed and was wide awake. I have just had a case to investigate where we were 99% sure that the lady was experiencing a hypnopompic hallucination whilst in sleep paralysis. However, I have also had a case where such an image was seen by a witness, where other assorted phenomena were taking place, totally unrelated to sleep paralysis. Hence the importance in undertaking an investigation of ascertaining all the facts. The images seen, whilst historically sometimes that of an old hag, can in fact be anyone or any animal or monster or ET alien or whatever.

[Navigator]

There are Extraterrestrial life forms that have the mental telepathic ability to project mimic a false perception of a recognisable life form into the mind of a contact person, so as to mask their own real identity and purpose. This doesn't sound very scientific and I have no proof of this, but I know on a personal level that this is true.

[Dronfieldman]

Stefan: do you have a particular test that one can apply if one sees what appears to be an ET alien whilst in bed, to determine whether it is really that or whether it is merely a hypnopompic hallucination?