Some science behind the scenes
Atonia
Atonia is the paralyzed or extremely relaxed state of skeletal muscles in both rapid eye movement sleep (REM sleep), during coma, certain types of illness and disability and during certain kinds of spiritual experience. It is also a state that can be brought on by hypnosis.
If one is paralysed with stiff muscles this is known as catalepsy or catatonia [there is a medical difference but this need not bother us in this context]. In the out of body state this appears to be the norm, this table shows all the symptoms one researcher found and their frequency [see also Humming and buzzing].
Symptoms evident |
Per cent of total |
Air hiss sound |
45.2% |
Physical catalepsy |
11.4% |
Vibrating effect |
30.2% |
Feeling of warmth |
66.9% |
Miscellaneous |
33.8% |
Symptoms must be examined from the evolutionary view. Physical catalepsy was observed only in the early stages. This is also true of the vibratory effect, which noticeably evolved into the feeling of warmth and only occasionally was perceived during the middle and late stages. The air hiss sound appeared early in the experimentation and continued intermittently.
Observations
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- A bird flying round the room and a wasp trying to sting her
- A Lucid dream using Casimiroa edulis
- A presence (I always thought of as a witch) trying to enter the kitchen
- A Psycho-Spiritual Experience Ibogaine by KBF
- A spider like a large lobster with a lot of legs chewing at the top of her shoulder
- A very detailed account of a hypnagogic hallucination
- African nurse meets her dead grandmother
- Aimée and Juliette see the past lives of Louis Gastin
- An experiment in catatonia
- Braid, James – Hypnotism, a definition, a method and its effects
- Braid, James – Inducing catalepsy as a consequence of suggestion only
- Brendan
- Brunton, Dr Paul - A Search in Secret Egypt - A night inside the Great Pyramid 3
- Brunton, Dr Paul - A Search in Secret Egypt - A night inside the Great Pyramid 4
- Crowley, Aleister - Yoga for Yahoos
- Curly strands of color just sitting in my doorway
- Dislocated clavicle from hallucination
- Dr Robert Crookall - More Astral projections – A housewife has an OBE
- Dr Robert Crookall - More Astral projections – Alan M Bain has an OBE
- Dr Robert Crookall - More Astral projections – F. Yeats-Brown’s accounts of yogis
- Dr Robert Crookall - More Astral projections – Mr F.E. G. Lewis from Burnham-on-sea has multiple OBEs
- Dr Robert Crookall - More Astral projections – Mr J. A. Dennis, a tinsmith, of Brockley, London
- Dr Robert Crookall - More Astral projections – Mrs B. Titterton, of St Ives has a number of OBEs
- Dr Robert Crookall - More Astral projections – Mrs E. Sheppard has an OBE
- Dr Robert Crookall - More Astral projections – Mrs Olive Mytton-Hill of Edinburgh has multiple OBEs
- Dr Robert Crookall - More Astral projections – Mrs Winifred Burles, of Bath has several OBEs
- Dr Stephen Black - The trances of the babalawos, or witch doctors, of the Yoruba people
- Eighty three Irish students go out of body
- Eleanor C Merry - The Flaming Door - The Ecstasy of Love making
- Entities twitching at the bedclothes
- Ernesto Bozzano, Professor - The parapsychological manifestations of animals – 36 Terrified by the ghost of a small white dog, of the Pomeranian breed, which appeared to her at the bedside
- Eva Vidal - Tidal waves, heavy gravity and false awakenings
- Extreme hallucinations and paralysis each night
- Fancher, Mollie - For a period of about nine years, day and night, she was subject to trances, spasms and catalepsy
- Fancher, Mollie - The multiple personalities - Sunbeam, Idol and Pearl
- Fell about in a catatonic state
- Found the 'On' Switch in My Soul Ibogaine by allotrope
- Fox, Oliver - Catalepsy and headaches as side effects
- Fox, Oliver - False awakening 02
- Fox, Oliver - Revelling in the beauty of an OBE
- Fox, Oliver - Skyrising
- Fox, Oliver - Visits Mrs X in Lumsden Avenue
- Gerhardie, William - Resurrection 05
- Gerhardie, William - Resurrection 07 - 2nd OBE
- Gerhardie, William - Resurrection 12 - 2nd OBE
- Harary, Blue - Achieving the ‘cool down’ state
- Harner, Michael - The ayahuasca experience
- Hearing and seeing people so vivid, it's as if they're real - sometimes very abusive
- I dream I'm being raped, by people I know or by aliens
- Is your body trying to send you a message?
- J goes as rigid as a plank of wood
- Joan Baez - Dream Song
- Keeping calm during paralysis
- Ketamine abuse and emergency admissions
- Laubscher, B J F – The amaxhwele herbalists, the amagqira healers and the isanuses
- Lhermitte, Professor Jean - Diabolical Possession, True and False – Ten year old girl sees hell
- Louise and Mr Romer’s daughter go out of body to the moon
- Madame Turban's dying sister goes to hear her fiance preach
- Messing, Wolf - Self induced trance - The psychiatrist announced she couldn't feel his pulse
- Metamorphosis San Pedro by Anopseudonym
- Monroe, Robert - Hearing the hiss
- Mr S H Beard wills a series of OBEs to his fiancée Miss Verity and her sister, and he is ‘seen’ by both!
- Mrs Thomas Doan of Long Beach, California and her son have an OBE visitor and an OBE
- MS sufferer and TMS
- Muldoon, Sylvan - First OBE
- Muldoon, Sylvan - Loneliness allayed
- Muldoon, Sylvan - Stages in separation OOB
- My mind is falling down through the pillow
- Night terrors
- Night terrors
- Night terrors
- No Boundaries Ibogaine by TPTB
- OBE from meditating in his holiday static caravan, practising deep breathing
- Oliver Sacks - Christina sees a wild eyed man
- Oliver Sacks - L-DOPA, Parkinson's, Tourette's and mania
- Ostoja, Count Roman - Levitating a table
- Out of body and atonia
- People sitting on my chest mumbling random stuff
- Physical and mental exhaustion
- Playing WOW
- Powerful But Gentle Ibogaine by C.S.
- Practising atheist physics student nearly has out of body
- Primidone induced catatonic schizophrenia
- Professor Arthur Ellison - Goes out of Body
- Professor Carmagnola witnesses the little girl who could hear with her shoulders and see with her hands
- Professor David H Hufford and the Sitting ghost
- Punched my low-table-thingy over because I saw a face in it
- Ralph Shirley - The Mystery of the Human Double – Atonia and Going out of body by lying on your back
- Ralph Shirley - The Mystery of the Human Double – Death, Trance and being Buried alive
- Rare effects of stroke – Stroke Association November 2012
- Religious Revivals, visions, hallucinations and other side-effects
- Rogo, D Scott - Leaving the Body - Scott’s own OBEs - 01 The first time
- Rogo, D Scott - Leaving the Body - Scott’s own OBEs - 03 Getting used to the OBE, after one aborted experience
- Rogo, D Scott - Leaving the Body – Heat, atonia and the fear of not getting back into the body
- Rogo, D Scott - Leaving the Body – Sinking, floating and humming or buzzing from OBEs
- Saint Teresa of Avila - Rapture 1
- Seeing spiders -- hundreds of them -- coming down from my roof and on my walls
- Shaunna is sexually assaulted by a spirit and wants it to stop
- She felt his body parts against her
- Sleep paralysis, hallucinations and terror from Paxil
- Something got into bed with her
- Spiders
- Spiders
- Spiders, always spiders!!
- Tahra Bey - With knife in chest
- Tahra Bey - An account by Raymond Bayless of his stage act
- Tahra Bey - Breaking stones on his stomach
- Tahra Bey - Buried in a coffin
- TED Talk - Filmmaker Albert Nerenberg, runs a series of standard hypnotic inductions on the audience at TEDXQueens
- The other night, I dreamed of a weasel with one eye biting my arms
- The Tiger pulled down her pants
- The voice that said it wanted to come in
- Thinking of elevators
- Tholey, Paul and LaBerge, Stephen - Perspectives of the Dream Figures
- Trapped in his mattress
- Vignoli, Tito - On atonia
- Vitamin B12 deficiency and psychosis
- Wallace, Alfred Russel - Personal spiritual experiences [Mesmerism]
- Xam bushmen - Goes underwater
- Yram - First stages of out of body