Parálisis del Sueño Occidental

Dr. Jorge Conesa is a neurocognitive and biosemiotic researcher who has experienced sleep paralysis since 1969. He has published his research on sleep paralysis since 1995 and recently reported the findings of a ten-year longitudinal study about this sleep syndrome, the longest study tracking sleep paralysis to date. Dr. Conesa approaches this fascinating sleep experience and resulting lucid dreams from personal-developmental and scientific perspectives. Prior to his research, Dr. Conesa, like many other sufferers of sleep paralysis, did not know the name or cause of these uncanny and surreal dreamscapes he experienced.

As part of the present book and ten-year longitudinal study, Dr. Conesa has included the experiences of many other sleep paralysis sufferers as well--their narratives and answers to questionnaires. He has summarized the scientific work about this mysterious sleep disorder, for example, looking at the commonality between the sleep paralysis and lucid dreaming experience on one hand and the so-called extraterrestrial alien abduction phenomenon on the other. While trying to explain the link between these seemingly diverse experiences, Dr. Conesa employs Freudian and Jungian dream descriptions and hypotheses, the philosophy of aesthetics and the juxtaposition of the former explanations with respect to shamanic practices and interpretations of dreaming.

Part of the data presented in this book includes a proposal about psycho-geographical and psycho-geomagnetic distributions of "ghost" stories, dream attacks, and other SP related phenomena. Dr. Conesa has argued that these psycho-geographical zones seem to correlate with geodynamic areas such as the Pacific "Ring of Fire" region where an increased number of cultural names for SP and its frequencies are reported (his "ring of fire" hypothesis).

Finally, the book provides sleep paralysis sufferers with practical suggestions for coping with their disorder in positive ways that induce the creative aspect of lucid dreaming by introducing the method of Sleep Paralysis Signaling (SPS).