How Many Beliefs Are Due to Sleep Deprivation? | Hacker News Reader

How Many Beliefs Are Due to Sleep Deprivation?

theatlantic.com

86 pointslermontov20 comments

I experienced something like this during a brief period in my teens when I experimented with lucid dreaming techniques. I would lie completely still on my bed in the evening, meditating until I started to drift off. First I'd feel my body go numb. Then I'd hear either a round of explosions or a roaring rush of wind. If I managed not to get too excited, I'd cross over into dream, fully cognizant of what had happened. I had one experience with sleep paralysis under similar circumstances: during one of these sessions, I was sure I had pulled myself out of the dream, but I couldn't open my eyes or move my legs. This lasted for about thirty seconds before control abruptly snapped back. I'm still not entirely sure whether this happened mid- or post-dream, but it certainly felt real in a way dreams never did for me.

All in all, it was fun to experiment with for a while. I'd done a fair bit of reading on lucid dreaming, so the loud noises and sleep paralysis were expected and not concerning. Very interesting sensory experiences, among the few you can reach without recreational chemicals.

I had a similar experience of sleep paralysis that you mention. It happened when I was between 10-12 years old. Around this time I was diagnosed with Epilepsy and had experienced a handful of seizures already.

During the sleep paralysis episode I woke up with a racing sensation in my head. I couldn't open my eyes at first or speak. Eventually I got my eyes open and I tried getting up but failed. Needless to say I was terrified. Eventually I was able to get to the side of my bed, but when I tried to stand my legs just buckled and I collapsed. Finally I was able to speak and cry for my parents to help me.

Luckily I haven't had a similar experience since and also have gone years without a seizure. My doctors thought it was related to puberty, which seems to add up.

Though I do have experiences similar to what's described in this article as exploding head syndrome. Every few months, almost immediately after falling asleep, I will just be jolted awake. A few times its been because of a loud noise that isn't real, others I just jolt awake and have my heart racing. The first time it happened I thought I was having a heart attack or something. Now I am able to calm my self down almost immediately.

My whole life, I've been able to reliably cause myself sleep paralysis. I just have to wake up facing a bright point light - like leaving the light on in a room before attempting a nap. (Diffuse bright light like sunlight doesn't generally do it.) No idea why.

My first response to the emergence of any new syndrome/disorder is, "Who benefits?" Drumming up public consciousness of things that are supposedly wrong with them (rather than being seen as natural variations) seems like great marketing for anyone selling newly-minted treatments.

> "How much extreme distrust of the government is just a manifestation of a sleep disorder?"

Is everyone suffering from "exploding head" really paranoidly antigovernment as the article hints? Maybe I'm reading too much into it, but the author seems to somewhat invalidate people's distrust of government, suggesting it's often only a sideeffect of some sleep disorder.

I've heard that near-death-type experiences can be induced by stimulating the brain. I guess that calls into question a lot of the religious experiences people report.

If we knew how, we could stimulate the brain in such a way that you would think you were eating a banana. That is not evidence either for or against the actual existence of bananas.

That seems to be missing the point. The only "witness evidence" we have of an afterlife is the reports of those who have had near-death experiences. If that evidence is called into question, then no other evidence remains. This does not apply to evidence for bananas, as much evidence already exists and can't be invalidated in that way.

Y'all should go get some books on epistemology...

http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brain_in_a_vat

When in doubt, go with the explanation that requires the least amount of new information.

Consider instead: computer hardware glitches being caused undervoltage or overclocking vs gremlins; and the cat picture on your screen being caused by opening /r/cats in your browser vs the NSA hacking your video card.

What about cases where young children recount experiences from what seems to be a previous life? Even though the only evidence are memories, yet in the cases they are recorded there have been some confirmed as true.

Or what about children who talk of ghosts and deceased relatives: are they fabricated?

There are things we have no clue about, mainly pertaining to whatever this consciousness and mind is. And our science is too early to be able to adequately describe them, so we dismiss it as "unscientific".

Just as with adults when billions of children with vivid imaginations keep making things up, a few of them are bound to stumble upon the truth by coincidence.

Perhaps, with someone who is trying to forecast the future, some people are going to get it right.

But what about 3-5 year olds who accurately say they are a person from a previous life, and go into details that only the person would remember? Are they just making "lucky guesses"? How many correct guesses does it take before its something more?

How many correct guesses does it take before its something more?

No amount of lucky guesses can result in a proof, due to things like confirmation bias. The plural of anecdote is not data, as they say.

People underestimate the intelligence, imagination, and most importantly memory of 3-5 year olds. The presumption that these things must be true because children are too young to have made them up or heard them elsewhere is unsupportable. It's entirely possible that the child overheard others talking about all of the things they are describing, and/or that those who want to believe will mentally fill in the gaps[0].

One would have to rule out all potential contamination from people, media, etc., provide a testable, repeatable experiment, and provide a real mechanism behind the effect, before any scientific credibility could be given to ideas of supernatural revelations to children.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cold_reading

I'm completely in agreement with you. There are very real experiences that people go through, that have similar outcomes including permanent changes in perception but we lack the common scientific concepts and language to discuss them seriously within that particular domain of knowledge.

The brain is at the center of all experience - I see nothing new here.

I had a period in my life where I suffered from so called Exploding Head Syndrome as well as sleep paralysis. I'd definitely attribute it to stress/anxiety and insomnia or the medication used to treat those problems. Exploding Head Syndrome seems like the auditory equivalent of a hypnic jerk and never bothered me too much. Sleep Paralysis is extremely unpleasant though.

>Sleep Paralysis is extremely unpleasant though.

Perhaps an understatement. It's increased by stress and it increases your stress levels while falling asleep creating a nice cycle of stress, fear and panic. I'm so glad it happens rarely now.

Reminds of the cycle of insomnia - where you are tired because you didn't sleep, so you stress out more about getting to sleep, so you have more trouble sleeping, in a loop. There's a term for it, though I've forgotten it.

It's supposed to be self-limiting (Because the tiredness is supposed to win out and make you sleep), but it doesn't always seem that way.

I'm so glad that I'm hardly ever in that space any more, myself. Never had sleep paralysis, but sleep difficulty of any type is not fun.

Once that happened to me I told a friend in the morning advised me to go for a run. I ran till I was exhausted and came home to collapse in sleep. I couldn't fall into sleep from mid night to 7am in the morning.

This is the sort of problem sleep medicine doctors deal with. Normally, there's a clean transition between sleeping and waking, but when there isn't, lots of annoying things happen.

There are diagnostic tests for this, which involve sleeping connected to an EEG. Portable devices for that are available, although, like much medical instrumentation, overly expensive.

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