The Night I Chose to Remember

When I was in elementary school, I can't specifically remember when, I somehow developed nightmares. I dreamt often that I was abducted by aliens and that was often enough to terrify me, their simple appearance and seemingly frightful desire to take me from my family.

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 look at, and the terrified whims of a restless child could easily ignore.

The first was frightening to realize and perplexes me to this day, dealing with the fact that I had in fact 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. 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 aweful 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, she in the bottom, 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 the perfect american dream, 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 simply 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 during the escalation. I was running to the window, as was everyone else, almost immediately after the power went out and an intense glow began emmitting 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 an after school daycare service. I mentioned earlier it was some dream nonsense class taking place at night, but I remember now, it was that afterschool program.

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.

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 reoccured 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.

Yet 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, literally not a sound came from me. Hell I can't even recall if I opened my mouth, it was like I was paralyzed. Then I noticed the carpet, I could feel the carpet there, but not actually with my body. More it was like in my dream, my mind recognized that the carpet was there, like a sixth sense, 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 for that had long passed and felt it was too embarassing to bring up anyways; honestly I was far too spooked to ever want to think about what may have really happened that night.

Update:

-Author's note: Now looking back I've drawn the dots, and although you may call me crazy, I know what was wrong that night and I don't care what you think. I'm putting this on the internet only because I know it really happened and I just want to forget. Every night I've left this unresolved I have had to feel the trauma all over again, just to think about this incident. When this story is finished, I know I can begin to rest.-

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, unintentionally, made that clear by trying to make me believe I was still home on the simulated carpet floor, making me believe that the light it was working on me with was my own lamp. It was the same trick they'd used every time they'd come for me. They'd have me believe I had a nightmare. They'd have me believe I was staring at a pretty picture perfect window. But my mind fought back that night, and gave me the power to see through the haze that night, just like it fought to protect me from the horrors of witnessing the events in "my" nightmare.

You see, they say when you're exposed to a horriffic or traumatic experience, your mind will recede into a happy place; something familiar. 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 and even comatose. My mind fought back that night because it knew there was something out there abusing my happy place, triggering my place of safety so I'd never know the truth.

Although I know my memories of the true events 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 get this...feeling that I don't want to remember it.