Topic: Aliens, Demons and Insomnia
Hello,
I experienced something strange a number of years ago and had a similar though in some ways very different experience this summer and have never really felt comfortable sharing these things with people as most people will either think:
A) I'm loca
B) I have an overactive imagination
Anyway, being the awesome people you all are, I thought I'd share these experiences with you and see if any of you have experienced anything similar or have any insight into the topic.
When I was about 16, I went through a period, an entire summer, where I was absolutely terrified of the night. This fear of darkness may sound common enough but I'd like to advise you that previous to this I had never had any such issues. For week after week I would not/could not sleep while it was dark. I'd sit in my room for hours, reading, writing, etc. tense with a sense of unspecific fear and anxiety and as soon as the sun would begin to rise, my fears would completely dissipate and I'd almost immediately fall asleep. It was like the night brought something bad, something fearful. I felt completely isolated like no one would be able to understand the intensity of this pervasive fear. I had no idea what was causing it but I felt, I knew, that something was watching me. I lived in the Middle East at this time in a third story apartment and I was obsessive about making sure my curtains were never open during the night by even a centimeter. I felt like I was the only person left on the planet and I'll never forget this omnipresent negativity I felt. It was like my subconscious knew to fear it even if my conscious self did not. Now, what could possibly manage to hover outside my window night after night, I wondered. I never felt that the source of this thing was coming from inside my home, no, it was from without, specifically outside my bedroom window.
Looking back, I wonder if there was maybe some sort of alien activity going on? I've always believed in the existence of other life forms, including aliens, but at the time this did not occur to me. A year or two before this episode, I had read Streiber's Witness which scared me on a deep, inner level I've seldom been scared on. I'm not talking the kind of scared you get when watching your random horror movie. No, this was more intense, a whole different level of fear. The part that scared me the most out of the entire book? The scene where he was on a train as a child and remembers vomiting bile and seeing an insect like alien. Streiber made the comment that it somewhat resembled the Planter's Peanut Man. This sounds silly, I know, but since then I dislike looking at the Planter's mascot. It feels me with unease and a creepy, very unpleasant feeling. However, I can honestly say that nothing instills a level of absolute mind numbing terror in me like looking at a praying mantis does. To me it's like they're not just insects but some sort of intrinsically evil thing that I loathe with all my being. I know they're bugs, I'm not that ridiculous, but honestly I can't stand to look at them. If I'm watching a movie, say, and all of a sudden a praying mantis comes on screen it's like I go into these mental/emotional convulsions and look away as quickly as humanly possible. I can't even describe with words the sheer intensity of the terror that seizes me when I see one of these things. If I was ever somehow physically forced to look at one of these things for an extended period of time, I seriously think I'd either go stark raving mad or go completely comotose. Is there a connection between praying mantis' and the summer of insomnia? I have no idea. I read hsh's thread here on alien insects and was relieved to hear that someone else has heard of them. Ever since this experience, I've completely changed my viewpoint on aliens. Previously I thought there were probably some 'bad' and some 'good' aliens, like humans, but now I'm convinced that the ones that come to earth, and in particular the ones that abduct humans, in no way, shape or form mean us well. I'm not saying it's as simple and blatant as War of the Worlds, of course not, and maybe I'm wrong (I hope so!) but something inside of me knows that these aliens are in absolutely no way good news. Anything that would abduct people against their wills, cause them fear and pain is, in my humble opinion, bad, evil, negative, completely lacking in any altruistic intentions, whatever you want to call it.
Moving on, I moved into my own apartment this past summer and during the late summer, went through a period of about a month to a month and a half when I felt this evil presence around me, always at night, only this time I was certain it was supernatural. The thing that comes to my mind to best describe it would be a demon, or something along those lines. I tend to be a pretty skeptical person. In college I lived in a dorm that everyone was convinced was haunted and I never heard or saw anything out of the ordinary and always poo poohd the stories. Anyway, this summer was like hell on earth for me. I couldn't sleep for nights in a row. I'd lie in bed and all of a sudden would feel this palpable evil presence and would become absolutely rigid with terror. One night after going so many nights under such stress and without sleep I was so emotionally distraught that I called a nun I am friends with and almost broke down in tears, telling her everything. She didn't think I was crazy at all (say what you will about Catholics, that's one thing I love about them, their willingness to accept that there's more out there than we see, both good and bad). I felt so high-strung, like a live wire. Anyway, I spent the night in her spare bedroom and that was the first time in a month I was able to sleep, though I still had these horrible mental visions that would pop into my head at any given time.
The catalyst that brought on this horror? Perhaps some of you will laugh, and if so I can't say I really blame you. It was seeing the movie The Exorcist of Emily Rose. I've seen scores of horror movies throughout my life, including The Exorcist, and none of them, not a single one ever brought on anything like this. It was like seeing the movie unhinged something in my mind and brought on all these terror filled nights. When I'd be laying in bed trying to fall asleep, certain scenes from the film, three or four in particular would pop into my head and they were amazingly vivid, more vivid than when I actually saw them in the theatre. It was like I was in the movie, not just seeing these horrors but experiencing them directly. For a while I thought I was going to have an emotional breakdown or something. The human psyche can only take so much fear before it's damaged. By seeing that movie, I experienced a whole layer of fear I wasn't even aware existed. One could never sufficiently describe this level of terror, it's something one must experience to fully comprehend. It made the previous summer I related seem like a tropical cruise. All I can say is that never in my entire life was I ever so affected by a movie. It's like some evil entity followed me home from the theatre that day. Ever since then I've been particularly sensitive to matters of evil spirit beings. My Aunt saw The Exorcist when she was a child or a teenager and she too reacted in a very over the top sort of way. To this day, you cannot even say the word "possession" in her presence without her seriously getting a very scared look on her face and ordering you to stop immediately. I wonder, is it something in my genetic makeup that makes me more sensitive to such things? I rather doubt it as my Aunt is the only other relative I have with such a similar experience. Eventually my terror subsided and then eventually went away. I just think it's beyond a little peculiar that I had two such similar episodes in my life and both in the summer time.
Have any of you guys had similar experiences? Did you ever figure out what was causing them? How did you cope? Anyone done any reading on such matters? I'd really like to get some insight into this matter. I hope someone can help.
-Percy Bysshe Shelley