The man was fast asleep, the clock on the wall gently ticking away the seconds until sunrise. As it chimed three, the witching hour, he awoke with a start. Something was horribly wrong. He tried to sit up, to orient himself, when he realized the problem—every muscle in his body was completely paralyzed.  Flooding with terror, the man desperately began to recite a prayer inside his head. But, before he reached “amen," it materialized on top of his chest from the deepest pit of hell: The Demon. The disgusting creature narrowed its flaming red eyes and licked its lips to reveal bloody, razor-sharp teeth. Then, it wrapped its talons around the man’s throat.

For thousands of years, humans have experienced frightening situations like this. Googling “demon on the chest” will produce millions of search results, many of which link to websites where “victims” recount stories of waking up in the middle of the night to discover evil spirits on top of them. These episodes are incredibly disturbing, and many even cite them to be life-changing.

However, advances in medical technology and knowledge about neurology prove that such experiences are nothing more than brain chemistry gone awry. Scientists have found that during the deep REM stage of sleep, the body actually undergoes paralysis to prevent us from acting out our dreams. Furthermore, if awakened during this period, the brain quickly attempts to make sense of its situation by blurring the line between sleep and wakefulness. A few neurochemical exchanges in the temporal-parietal junction (TPJ) result in terrifying hallucinations of demons and other fiends.

Unfortunately, this example is only one of many illogical superstitions that modern people still hold. Another one of these superstitions, and undoubtedly the greatest of all time, is religion. Currently, eighty-seven percent of all Americans subscribe to a religious creed. These individuals will often justify their beliefs with some supernatural testimony, such as seeing or hearing a spiritual entity. However, although these experiences may seem real, they actually have no scientific basis and therefore perpetuate ignorance toward the reality of the universe. But it needn’t be so.

Just as demonstrated with the demon example, the scientific method is constantly discovering that so-called “religious experiences” are actually derived from common neurological processes. Brain-imaging technology such as fMRI (functional magnetic resonance imaging), SPECT (single photon emission computed tomography,) and PET (positron emission tomography) scans have been able to demonstrate a rational basis for even the most mysterious “supernatural” events. Out-of-body experiences can be explained by damage to the TPJ; meditative states are the result of decreased parietal lobe activity. Most astoundingly, scientists have even induced “spiritual episodes” by tampering with electrical impulses in patients’ brains—strongly suggesting that many “religious” experiences are ultimately based in neurochemical impulses.

Today, scientific research has presented us with an incredible gift—the ability to replace unfounded, dangerous superstitions with meaningful neurological discoveries. No longer must we humans fall prey to our irrational convictions about demons and divinity. We can now emerge from the darkness of our ignorance into the brilliant light of scientific understanding. I only hope that we use this gift to create a smarter, healthier, and more logical world. 

By Andie Turner

Published September 23, 2015 with quotation below:

“It is the mystery and magic of religion . . . that fan the passions of overbelief, and nourish illusion and unreality.”

      --- Paul Kurtz