The Nightmare and the Succubine

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There's often a sexual component to sleep paralysis, says author. "The sensation of it between my legs is totally real and feels good," Heidi writes in her diary. In the Middle Ages, people reported being sexually harassed in their beds by demons or people today who claim to have been sexually molested by aliens. Succubine is often a sexual undertone or sexual element to some of those night figures,. whether they want it or not.

Shermer and Alderson-Day discuss the psychologist’s journey to understand the phenomenon of sensed-presence: the disturbing feeling that someone or something is there when we are alone. Using contemporary psychology, psychiatry, neuroscience, and philosophy, Alderson-Day attempts to understand how this experience is possible. Is it a hallucination, a change in the brain, or something else? The journey to understand takes us to meet explorers, mediums, and robots, and step through real, imagined, and virtual worlds.

Ben Alderson-Day is an Associate Professor in Psychology and a Fellow of the Wolfson Research Institute for Health and Wellbeing at Durham University. A specialist in atypical cognition and mental health, his work spans cognitive neuroscience, psychiatry, philosophy, and child development. His new book is Presence: The Strange Science and True Stories of the Unseen Other.