[snarks_when_bored]

You left a few details out of your account that I would be interested in knowing:

1. For how many hours had you been awake before lying down to rest or sleep?
2. Had you ingested any intoxicants or medications before the episode began?
3. Did you know that the kids were playing video games before your experience began? Were the games audible from upstairs?
4. Had you had an 'out of body' experience before? Or had you read a lot about them? Or did you have a long-standing interest in hearing and talking about them?

Those are for starters (grin).

[SalukiLawyer]

For how many hours had you been awake before lying down to rest or sleep?

I don't remember, but it was unusual for me to take a nap in the daytime.

Had you ingested any intoxicants or medications before the episode began?

No.

Did you know that the kids were playing video games before your experience began? Were the games audible from upstairs?

I didn't know, but it is not impossible that I might have heard some general hilarity or excitement... but, like I said, it would not have been a bad guess in any event.

Had you had an 'out of body' experience before? Or had you read a lot about them? Or did you have a long-standing interest in hearing and talking about them?

No, I hadn't had one before (nor since) but I think it is important that I had read quite a bit about them and thought it was interesting. That's kind of what I meant about not using the "mental furniture" of alien abduction. I just wasn't interested in aliens, really, but was interested in out of body experiences. That's why I supposed that, if it was a sort of lucid dream, my unconscious would supply me with images consistent with an OOBE, and a robed figure leading me back, rather than an alien.

Even admitting this, however, it is difficult for me to really accept the rational explanation that is at odds with the vividly experienced "paranormal" event, simply because the immediate impression was so profound, compared to my later rational dissection of it.

Just as, I imagine, many abductees really, truly believe they have been abducted. So, did I have an OOBE or not? I dunno :-) The rational explanation might perfectly satisfy you, or anyone else. All I know that it was as "real" as anything else that ever happened to me. So, although it is ironic, I doubt that I am the best judge of what happened to me :-) Which is also why I am both sympathetic and skeptical when it comes to abductions.