Personal experiences of website visitors:

A Positive Waking Dream
By Ruth Catherine Semple, Medieval Historian, Glasgow, 1 June 2005

An unusual 'waking dream' in that Ruth not only experienced positive feelings, but also apparently overcame the sleep paralysis

As an undergraduate in my honours years, I was quite often afflicted by the experience known as waking dreams (at the time, when these were happening, I wasn’t aware that there was such a phenomenon.  I just put them down to vivid nightmares).  Indeed, I use the word afflicted, because when they occurred, it was always a terrible event. They tended to happen when I took an afternoon nap, after being up until 3-4am the night before, and then up again at 8-9am in order to go to classes.  I don’t recall, ever having one at nighttime.  When these did occur, I would suddenly be aware of trying to move but not being able to. Next I would be aware of a presence in the corner of the room (it was always the corner), and I would feel anxious and scared because I knew whatever was in the corner was evil.  During the dream I never identified this ‘presence.’  I just knew that I had to get away from it but could never move.  Being a medieval historian, this reminded me of accounts written in the Middle Ages about dreams where the dreamer experiences fear and anxiety but actually presents the nightmare as a physical entity such as an incubus.  It also made me think of people today who say they are visited by a ghost or something else.  I am happy to say that I have no inclination whatsoever to these sorts of explanations!  

I haven’t had one of these dreams for years, until very recently when two weeks ago, I had one, at nighttime.  I had been having a hard time due to health problems and the stresses of my research degree, and had been quite upset, as well as feeling very tired and anxious.  I was also missing my long distance boyfriend terribly, though he had been giving me tremendous support over the phone.  I had had a great conversation with him that night before I went to bed.  Prior to having spoken with him I had been feeling very weepy and sad, but he had made me feel much better and a lot less anxious.  I went to bed and don’t remember falling asleep.  The next thing I knew, I couldn’t move but was aware that there was someone standing beside me in my room.  I looked up and saw a shadowy figure standing next to my bed, however, this time I was not scared.  I then identified this presence as my boyfriend.  Even in the darkness, I could make out his profile.  I wanted to reach out and touch him so badly, and I tried very hard to lift my arm, and after a lot of exertion, I managed to touch his leg and I could feel his jeans.  I felt so happy and secure, and I remember saying his name.  Then I slowly realised that it was only a dream and turned around and went to sleep, but I went to sleep happy.  The next morning, I remembered this waking dream and realised that the jeans I had touched, were the ones on the chair next to my bed!  My first thought was, imagine if he had been dead, and I had had this dream.  Would I have believed that he had visited me?  I would like to think that my answer would be no, as I am very sceptical, but maybe if I was grieving and had had such a positive dream I might actually want to believe it was him!  This incident also made me think of another common medieval dream motif where two lovers have been separated and one of them has a dream that the other visited them in their sleep.  It is usually a positive dream but then the dreamer usually wakes up believing that his/her lover is dead.  Thank goodness that I am rational, or else I might have rushed out to buy a black suit and matching hat!

I’d like to take a few moments of your time to narrate an actual event that took place last night (Tuesday 4th Feb 2003) as I left work (Glasgow Science Centre). The following is entirely true, and changed my worldview in a big way. I hope you read the whole thing, and don’t dismiss any of it until you’ve read it all.

I worked late last night, leaving about 8pm. It was cold and crisp outside, and the sky was crystal clear. As I walked along the riverside to Bell’s Bridge I was busy looking up at the stars (Orion was up, and both Jupiter and Saturn we clearly visible). I passed a man with a dog and was temporarily distracted. When I looked back up I caught something moving in the sky, near Orion. I’ll explain my observations and thoughts in the order that they happened.

In the first split second that I saw something moving I realised that it was moving at the same speed a satellite would move; that was my first thought, that it was an artificial satellite. That was an initial reaction based on a split second observation, and was due entirely to the speed at which it was moving.

After I focussed on it, I realised that it was orange/red in colour, and figured that it wasn’t a satellite. The next thing I noticed, just moments later, was that it had size. My reaction to that was that it was a trail from a shooting star, a puff of colour as a bit of space rock was vaporised in the upper atmosphere.

I continued to watch though, and it kept moving, at too slow a rate to be a shooting star – it was still moving at satellite-speed. In addition, there was no trail, ruling out shooting stars altogether.

All these observations and thoughts happened within the first second. As I stood craning my neck to watch it, it passed overhead, and I realised that I could make out a shape. It was almost too small to see, but I saw something like this:

It was still travelling at the same speed, roughly east to west, and I turned to watch it pass over the Science Centre. As I watched it I realised that it wasn’t quite travelling in a straight line, it was zigzagging erratically, very fast, back and forth, as it kept moving westward.

Eventually it faded from view, and I was left staring after it, my mouth hanging open. It was totally inexplicable. As an astronomer I’ve spent a lot of time watching the sky and I had never seen anything like this. I was at a total loss to explain it. At that instant I’d seen a UFO. It was totally Unidentified.

However, this lasted for only five seconds. As I stood watching the sky, dumbfounded, I saw another one, following the same path. It was the same colour, the same shape, was moving at the same speed, and zigzagging like before. But this one was bigger. It was bigger because it was lower; low enough in fact that I could see it clearly. It was a bird.

I laughed out loud (attracting a funny look from a passer-by) at how easily fooled I was. Here was me, someone who is used to looking at the night sky, and I saw something I couldn’t explain. I’m about as sceptical as they come, but in those few seconds I was in the same group as the multitude of UFOlogists who claim to have seen just such wing-shaped craft zigging and zagging through the sky in fantastic ways.

But it was just a bird! If I hadn’t seen the second bird, who knows what I’d be writing now. As it is I feel totally privileged. It was as if the Universe looked at me and said; “I’m going to show you something amazing, something that thousands of other people have seen, but that is totally inexplicable… and then, just for you, I’m going to explain.”

Ultimately it has given me a better understanding of people who claim to have seen UFOs. They might quite innocently report just such an observation and be told rudely: “It was just the planet Venus.”

“No,” they’d reply. “I know where Venus is; it wasn’t that.”

“Well, in that case, it was just a bird reflecting light from streetlights below.”

To which the upset reply would be something like: “I think I’d recognise a bird when I see one.”

I didn’t.

© Steve Owens, 5th Feb 2003