I survived the killer wallpaper
Sep. 25th, 2006 11:43 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
mysidI'm sitting up late with my laptop yet again, and a show about UFO abductees is on TV. I'm only vaguely listening to it (more interested in the slashy goodness on lj) but something caught my ear.
The narrator just pointed out some of the common elements of most abduction stories: paralysis, feeling of floating out of bed, fear, nonverbal communication, etc. It reminds me of some experiences I had as a child.
Between the ages of 8 and 12, I had about four such experiences. In each one, it was nighttime, and I woke from a deep sleep. I found myself fixated on something in my line of sight (a bright star, a red flower on my wallpaper, etc.) and felt it was coming closer to me. I sensed that it was a "presence," knew it meant me harm, and believed that it was saying something directly in mind. I felt terrified of it, but was unable to do anything about it. I couldn't move or speak. One time, I was in bed with my parents (had joined them after an earlier nightmare) and wasn't even able to wake my mother beside me.
I know that I was never abducted; I know it was just some weird trick that my brain was playing on me. And so, the similarities between my experiences and the ones reported by abductees intrigue me. Are abductee experiences just more fully fleshed out versions of the some brain hiccups I had?
The show is over now, but before it ended they pointed out that all the experiences commonly reported by abductees can be artificially triggered by stimulating a particular portion of the brain. They theorized that perhaps random electical or magnetic fields are the triggering factors for abduction experiences. So, a magma current in the center of the earth shifts, and I imagine that my wallpaper wants to kill me. Makes sense to me.
The narrator just pointed out some of the common elements of most abduction stories: paralysis, feeling of floating out of bed, fear, nonverbal communication, etc. It reminds me of some experiences I had as a child.
Between the ages of 8 and 12, I had about four such experiences. In each one, it was nighttime, and I woke from a deep sleep. I found myself fixated on something in my line of sight (a bright star, a red flower on my wallpaper, etc.) and felt it was coming closer to me. I sensed that it was a "presence," knew it meant me harm, and believed that it was saying something directly in mind. I felt terrified of it, but was unable to do anything about it. I couldn't move or speak. One time, I was in bed with my parents (had joined them after an earlier nightmare) and wasn't even able to wake my mother beside me.
I know that I was never abducted; I know it was just some weird trick that my brain was playing on me. And so, the similarities between my experiences and the ones reported by abductees intrigue me. Are abductee experiences just more fully fleshed out versions of the some brain hiccups I had?
The show is over now, but before it ended they pointed out that all the experiences commonly reported by abductees can be artificially triggered by stimulating a particular portion of the brain. They theorized that perhaps random electical or magnetic fields are the triggering factors for abduction experiences. So, a magma current in the center of the earth shifts, and I imagine that my wallpaper wants to kill me. Makes sense to me.