Abstract:
Fantasy proneness has been viewed as an adaptive response to stress; however, the specific relationship between amnesia and fantasy proneness has not been ferreted out as a research focus. This essay examines the ways in which amnesia appears to play a functional role in fantasy proneness and post-traumatic stress disorder. Furthermore, this essay postulates that persons who report that they have been abducted by extraterrestrials and sexually abused during these abductions may he fantasy-prone individuals who have used systematized amnesia to create a mask memory for repeated instances of violent sexual abuse in early childhood.