I had a religious experience the other night

[vorlon13]

I'm being completely honest, not mocking or anything. It happened Thursday night either as i was falling asleep or when I had just dozed off.

I am a very light sleeper because any noise can wake me up. I woke up suddenly because there was a demonic voice babbling two feet behind my head where the wall was. It disappeared the moment i properly woke up and concentrated on it.

I wasn't scared, just confused. My initial thought was that i was developing schizophrenia because I have recently started vaping cannabis for my MS and I know that cannabis has been linked to exacerbating initial psychiatric disorders in the past. But I have never before actually heard anything that wasn't there. I have a really good recall of sound and if I have been listening to classical music all day for example then when I go to bed my brain is still playing back parts of concertos or whatever in almost perfect recall. But that still feels like a memory. This was like actually hearing a voice.

I then wondered if it was the neighbour's TV in the next room beyond making a noise and my brain had interpreted that. But they had obviously gone to bed as everything was silent.

I asked my husband next to me if he heard it as well but he was still asleep.

I think what happened is that as you fall asleep different parts of your brain start to quieten down at different rates. This throws off the balance where one part inhibiting signals from another may allow noise to get through when it shouldn't. Because neurons are constantly firing, albeit at a slower pace, even when there is no input to them. Normally they need to meet a threshold though to have an effect over all the other active parts of the brain signalling to the same place. I think this is why you get night starts for example where as you fall asleep a shudder goes through your spine. It's like a small seizure. Brains are very dynamic systems, and like any complex system healthier when it can react faster by changing suddenly.

So I think background neuronal noise suddenly had an effect when it would normally have been inhibited, possibly because cannabis increases the gain of your sensory signals, which is why food tastes stronger and music has more clarity when you're vaping. The part of my brain which receives those signals then started pattern matching to try to make sense of it. I had just come back from a session of Dungeons & Dragons so memories of that were still fresh in my mind. Our DM does try to imitate different monstrous voices for example. And when I woke up and started listening intently, the balance of activation was once more reinstated and the voice disappeared.

If I had this happen to me 30 years ago it would have freaked me out and I am wondering how many religious experiences are basically the same phenomenon. Do most religious experiences happen around the time that people are sleeping?

At no point did I actually consider that it was a demon though. I find it really interesting having experienced it though.

I'm thinking that is a big improvement over my issue with being totally paralyzed and giant spiders are eating my face . . . .