The Night I Chose to Remember

I'm putting this on the internet only because I know it really happened and feel everybody needs to know. It is haunting me not to so I'm trying to get some relief, I don't care if you don't read this. Having posted it satisfies me enough that I've done my part.
When I was in elementary school, I can't specifically remember when, I somehow developed nightmares. I had dreams often where I was abducted by aliens and that was often enough to terrify me. Their simple appearance and apparent desire to take me from my family only added to my fear. Now that I'm a full grown adult however, I realize there were two very strange patterns around this that I overlooked as a child. Things only the insightful mind of an adult would have thought to notice, and the terrified whims of a restless child could easily ignore.
The first thing I noticed was strange to realize and perplexes me to this day, it was the fact that I had never known about aliens before I started having the nightmares. I hadn't even seen ET yet, which was obviously a bit strange for my age, but it was the truth; we didn't even own the movie at the time. This is the thing that worries me even now, how could I have nightmares about an idea I shouldn't have known existed?
The second thing I can remember about those early years is perhaps the more frightening of the two and is in fact the reason I am here, telling this story today. My nightmares as I mentioned were reoccurring, but as I'm sure you've guessed, I have reason to believe they were credited to real events. That dreadful night, that horrible and awful night, I want so desperately to forget.
Before I go further into that night I should probably briefly give you a background of myself. My name isn't necessary and I don't think it matters what I looked like. My family was starting to find its feet, I had both my parents around and doing the best they could for two young children. I was probably seven or eight, considering my sister was able to walk at the time and is about five years younger than me.
I slept in the top bunk and I would often stay up late at night, feeling so sly my parents never caught me just staring out the curtained window, hypnotized by the glowing effect of streetlights through a thin white curtain. It was a perfect life, as I'd grow to realize, but at the time was just a happy kid.
One night though, I had the most frightening dream. I was looking out the window of a building I vaguely recognized to be a variation of my school classroom. Now I know that dreams can work like that, using places from your memory to create something familiar. Yet even if it's an imperfect recreation you have this feeling that makes you automatically recognize where you are. For whatever strange reason it was night, and everyone was in class like normal, lights on so as to ward off the eery night vibe of it all.
That said, things escalated quickly, rather I was dropped into the dream while things were escalating. I was running to the window, as was everyone else. Almost immediately upon me arriving at the window, the power went out and an intense glow began emitting from outside that could not have been regular school lights.
In my dream a large spin-top shaped flying saucer had landed in the courtyard of our school. I turned looking slightly to my left out the window, and although it was just a dream, that sight traumatized me all the same. I watched my dad carrying my little sister, as I mentioned barely able to walk, as he had no doubt come to pick me up from my after school daycare service.
He saw the saucer and although I know I witnessed it happen, I can't remember the details of how it happened and can only recall this happening because I feel it like a sixth sense, or perhaps just a repressed memory. I only remember the overwhelming feeling of grief as I watched the doors on the alien shuttle open, and several little gray men kill my father as he desperately tried to defend my sister. I can't remember what happened to her, I've always assumed she was taken aboard the ship, but I suppose I don't want to know if that isn't true and a worse fate was bestowed upon her.
I must have screamed in my agony, because the aliens turned to look specifically at me through the window, at least I think that's why. Come to think of it, I guess not because they burst into the room and once more, specifically came for me.
I don't recall what happened. That's what I dreamed, that's what reoccurred in my nightmares every so often for about five years after. The first night I woke up crying, I didn't scream and didn't yell. I just cried as my mom came in hearing my pitiful sobs to comfort me. I fought the nightmare for a few years, but one night it broke me again sobbing in fear of something my body refused to let me remember.
Then there was a night, a night I can NOT forget, that haunts me to this day. I was thirteen and headed into High School soon, and I remember my family was packed up and moving the next morning. As a result I was sleeping on the floor, and even though it was carpet it was wholly uncomfortable to be on the ground and I wasn't having an easy time getting to sleep. I've always been one to sleep on my side, maybe my back, but never my stomach because it always felt like I was going to puke up my own intestines laying on it.
That night I woke up uncomfortable and in an odd fashion. I was in the anatomical position laying on my stomach and my head facing to my left. The two things I noticed immediately wrong, were I was not snuggling my favorite stuffed animal (don't judge) and that I was on my stomach.
Uncomfortable, I tried adjusting by lifting and twisting my body in the direction my head was laying. As I lifted my head in anticipation of this action however, I met a startling halt. Something extremely stubborn was above my head and pushed my head back down into my pillow, in what I might add was an unusually gentle but mechanically forceful fashion. I tried to scream, but nothing came out. Hell, I can't even recall if I opened my mouth, it was like I was paralyzed and unable to do anything, but perceive the room around me. Then I noticed something strange about the carpet, I could feel the carpet there, but not actually with my body. It felt as though I were in a dream, my mind recognized that the carpet was there, like my mind was being told what I experienced rather than experiencing it myself.
This same feeling applied to a light in the room; although I'd had a lamp in the general direction of the light I felt, I knew it was packed away with the rest of the things in my room for when we moved the next day.
With my face in the pillow and the strange sixth sense like feeling, my thoughts suddenly rushed to the nightmare that I've mentioned was reoccurring up to that point. Before I could make any real connections though, I suddenly was feeling relaxed and drifted to slumber in seconds, something extremely rare for me.
The next morning I didn't remember the events, almost as they weren't important so I'd let myself forget. I only suddenly remembered them a few weeks later almost without warning. I of course realized I should have told my parents, however I felt the statute of limitations to bring up a silly nightmare had long passed, and I felt it was too embarrassing to bring up anyways; honestly I was far too spooked to ever want to think about what may have really happened that night.
I mentioned there was something you needed to know in all of this though, didn't I? Well, having this experience haunt me my entire life has given me plenty of time to contemplate, and I finally think I've connected the dots. Despite the fact that you may call me crazy, I know what was wrong that night. Every night I've left this unresolved I have had to endure the trauma all over again, imagining this incident. When this story is finished, I know I can begin to rest as my responsibility to you will be fulfilled.
I went to sleep in my room, and woke up someplace else. Where for sure I cannot say, but I was not home, whoever took me, albeit unintentionally, made that clear by trying to make me believe I was still home using the simulation of a carpet floor. They attempted to make me believe that the light they were working on me with was my own lamp. It was the same trick they'd used every time they'd come for me, when they'd have me believe I was staring at a glowing picture perfect window. But my mind fought back that night, and gave me the power to see through the haze, just like it fought to protect me from the horrors of witnessing the events in my nightmare. Just like it gave me the nightmare, to tell me something was wrong.
You see, they say when you're exposed to a horrific or traumatic experience, your mind will recede into a happy place; something familiar, so as to survive the event unscathed. Theoretically I guess someone could abuse that happy place with the right technology, or even telepathic powers if you want to get supernatural, to convince someone an event never really happened. Usually our minds fight back to keep us from permanently falling into our happy place, to prevent us from becoming insane or even falling comatose. My mind fought back that night because it knew there was something out there abusing its survival technique, triggering my place of safety so I'd never know the truth of what happens when we sleep; the truth to why we have dreams.
Although I know my memories of the true events to those nights won't ever come back, I know the truth of every night I chose to forget, thanks to that one night my mind chose to remember. And although my tale is over, I'd like to note I have never had an incident since then and can feel that it won't ever happen again, probably because of that night they lost control of me. I doubt I'm a special case though, I doubt I'm the first to report this or break this hold they have on us, the strongest to resist it, or the best at it, or even more frightening to face, realistically; I doubt I'm the last.
So the next time you swear to God that the last dream you had was too familiar, or too real, you may want to prepare yourself; because the truth is out there, and every time I think about it I remember just why I don't want to know it. As I said, your mind only plays these tricks, the very tricks they abuse, to protect you from a traumatic experience.
Category:Reality
Category:Dreams/Sleep
Category:Beings
Category:Space
Category:Theory
Category:Science