Georgia Ghost Hunters

The word wraith, marked by the Oxford English Dictionary as being of obscure origin, is first attested in 1513, with the meaning of ghost or spectre (that is, an apparition of a living or once-living being, possibly as a portent of death). In 18th century Scotland it was applied to water spirits, and in England it became used in a metaphoric sense to refer to wraith-like things, and to portents in general.

In the case of a living person being doubled it is thought that the wraith is an omen of the person’s imminent death.

The word may be of Scots origin, possibly through Old Norse vörðr, meaning guardian, and related to Irish arrach, meaning apparition. An association with the verb writhe has also been claimed; Tolkien held this view [1], and his use of the word in the naming of the creatures ringwraiths has influenced writers of fantasy literature, television shows, and games, who use it with its meaning of a shadow-thing, a spirit of another world.

In a local legend of Cornwall, Polbreen Mine is haunted by a wraith named Dorcas.

Hypnagogia (also spelled hypnogogia) are the experiences a person can go through in the hypnagogic (or hypnogogic) state, the period of falling asleep. Hypnopompia are the experiences a person may go through in the hypnopompic state, the period of waking up. The term hypnagogia often encompasses hypnopompia as well. Hypnagogic sensations collectively describe the vivid dream-like auditory, visual, or tactile sensations that can be experienced in a hypnagogic or hypnopompic state. These sensations can be accompanied by sleep paralysis, the sensation that the body is temporarily paralyzed after waking or before falling asleep.

Hypnagogic sensations-
Hypnagogic sensations are vivid dream-like experiences that occur as one is falling asleep or waking up. Accompanying sleep paralysis can cause the sensations to be more frightening. The features of these sensations generally vary by individual, but some are more common to the experience than others:

Most common

Vividness
Fear
Falling sensation
Common

Sensing a “presence” (often malevolent)
Pressure/weight on body (especially the chest or back).
A sensation of not being able to breathe
Impending sense of doom/death
Fairly common

Auditory sensations (often footsteps or indistinct voices, or pulsing noises). Auditory sensations which are described as noise instead of sensations of distinct or comprehensible sounds, are often described to be similar to auditory sensations caused by Nitrous Oxide by persons who have experienced both.
Visual sensations such as lights, people or shadows walking around the room
Less common

Floating sensations (often described as out-of-body experiences)
Seamless transition into fully immersive lucid dreaming, also associated with out-of-body experiences
Tactile sensations (such as a hand touching or grabbing)
Rare

Vibration
Involuntary movements (sometimes the feeling of sliding off the bed or even up walls).
The feeling of being pulled in different directions
During the hypnagogic state, an individual may appear to be fully awake, but has brain waves indicating that the individual is technically sleeping. Also, the individual may be completely aware of their state, which enables lucid dreamers to enter the dream state consciously directly from the waking state (see wake-initiated lucid dream technique). Many artists, musicians, architects, engineers, and others demanding creativity to be successful have benefited from hypnagogia, where the mind can be free and open to creative and new ideas.

An experience of the hypnagogic state is not an uncommon occurrence with 30 to 40 percent of people experiencing it at least once in their lives. However, it could be a sign of a sleep disorder, such as narcolepsy and insomnia, or associated with temporal lobe epilepsy.

The hypnagogic state can be accompanied by or associated with anomalous phenomena such as alien abduction, extra-sensory perception, telepathy, apparitions, or prophetic or crisis visions. This conduciveness to anomalous phenomena can be correlated with the initial increase of alpha and the later increase of theta brainwaves.