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I have experienced on vivid dream that I can recall. Mostly because it was not that long ago.

Anyway. My dream was so real that I actually physically responded to it. I saw and heard my mom come in my room (that was the dream). It was only a few minutes later when fully awake that I became sure that it was a dream. I even asked my mom the next day to make sure she hadn't actually come in my room.

My question is, do you think that vivid dreaming could explain some people's experiences with god, angels and extra-terrestrials?

just me wrote:I have experienced on vivid dream that I can recall. Mostly because it was not that long ago.

Anyway. My dream was so real that I actually physically responded to it. I saw and heard my mom come in my room (that was the dream). It was only a few minutes later when fully awake that I became sure that it was a dream. I even asked my mom the next day to make sure she hadn't actually come in my room.

My question is, do you think that vivid dreaming could explain some people's experiences with god, angels and extra-terrestrials?

A lot of the early church members' experiences with demons and evil spirits sound just like Night Terrors.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Night_terror

Night terrors usually occur when sleep has not reached REM level. Here, for example, is an account from Wilford Woodruff.

We [Wilford Woodruff and George A. Smith] retired to rest in good
season and I felt well in my mind and slept until 12 at night. I awoke and
meditated upon the things of God until near 3 o’clock and while forming 
a determination to warn the people in London and overcome the powers
of Darkness by the assistance of God; A person appeared unto me which I
considered was the Prince of Darkness or the Devil. He made war with me
and attempted to take my life. He caught me by the throat and choked me
nearly to death. He wounded me in my forehead. I also wounded him in a
number of places in the head. As he was about to overcome me I prayed
to the father in the name of Jesus for help. I then had power over him and
he left me though much wounded.

Three personage dressed in white came to me and prayed with
me and I was immediately healed and [they] delivered me from all my
troubles.

just me wrote:
My question is, do you think that vivid dreaming could explain some people's experiences with god, angels and extra-terrestrials?

Sure. There is a lot the body and mind can do that gets ignored in preference for a desired belief.

As someone who periodically experiences Sleep Paralysis when I was younger I did mistake some experiences for reality.
I've heard others describe waking up with the devil choking them unable to move and they're convinced it's real. When realistically it is much more easily explained by sleep paralysis.

just me wrote:My question is, do you think that vivid dreaming could explain some people's experiences with god, angels and extra-terrestrials?

Absolutely! Stormy Waters has already made reference to "sleep paralyis", and Carl Sagan wrote about this phenomenon in The Demon Haunted World. Sagan quotes The Harvard Mental Health Letter (September 1994):

Sleep paralysis may last for several minutes, and is sometimes accompanied by vivid dreamlike hallucinations that give rise to stories about visitations from gods, spirits, and extraterrestrial creatures.

Sagan's discussion regarding 'sleep paralysis' begin on page 104: http://snurl.com/24x736e

Oh, yes, I've experienced sleep paralysis a few times. It is very terrifying.

Thanks for the references, guys!

From the page Tribute to Karinthy Frigyes:

"In my dream, I was two cats and I was playing with each other."

(+ "In humour, I know no joke.")

just me wrote:Oh, yes, I've experienced sleep paralysis a few times. It is very terrifying.

Hell yeah, I have had that, your mind is fully awake but you cannot move a muscle, like the locked in syndrome.

I had a dream when my nan died, I found myself in the spirit world and my dads mum, was there to meet me.
She looked about 35 years old, and yet I recognised who she was, she had died a member of the church in her old age, not to long before I had the dream. I remember a flood of emotion came over me and as we embraced and I cried.

I also had a dream the night of my own endowment.

It started out as a recall from going through the temple for my first time.

I went through every step of the washing and anointing, then the endowment. Recalling every little detail, at the moment I was permitted to pass through the veil.
I saw myself ascend in a conduit of light up through the single spire of the London temple, then up and up faster and faster until I found myself in the spirit world.
I found myself walking through a very bright world made completely of lights, with no distinguishable colours, there was grass, trees, rocks, a stream and people dressed in white robes, as I continued walking, I stopped and asked someone where Jesus was, they replied, he is not in this world, he is some where else, I asked where and they said they didn't know, no one knew, I then continued walking and although it looked like heaven, people were solemn and silent like I had entered a world without emotions and feeling, it was a sickly sanitised world, there was no happiness but also no sadness.

It was weird, it was like it was heaven, but no one knew each other either.

But the best dreams are the sexy ones...
I've not had many since being married, but remember the embarrassment of sharing a room with about 3 other sexually starved Mormon men on my mission and seeing another full grown male dry humping the hell out of their duvet...

The worst 2 years of my life, mainly because I got to see how the church really gets converts, through high pressured sales techniques.

I don't believe dreams are anything other than your over active imagination... They certainly don't come from God.