For sixty years, four months and 20 days I never knew. Looking back how could I have not known? I should have known but for some reason my thoughts would not take me in that direction. But the reality was I was not ready. It would take 60 years to prepare me for the shock of my life.
For most of my adult life I could never figure out why my life was stranger than fiction.
Back in the mid 70’s my wife suddenly jolted awake in the early morning hours and frantically started searching the house for our son. She was visibly shaken and screaming and it took me a moment after waking up to understand what was happening.
We searched the small house we rented and our son was not in the house. The windows were locked, the doors were locked, dead bolts were locked and his bed was empty.
We kept asking ourselves questions; like who would steal a ten year old boy, and why? How did they get into the house with all doors and windows locked from the inside?
Finally I picked up the phone and called the Austin Police Department. A few moments later I thought I heard a car outside and opened the front door only to find my son lying in the front yard wearing only his underwear half asleep and groggy. I screamed to my wife he was in the front yard and she ran out crying tears of joy that we had found him.
We never figured this out. On a regular doctor visit our son had we asked the doctor about this and the only answer the doctor gave us was that our son was a sleep walker. He gets up during the night and walks around in his sleep.
I asked; how is it possible he got out of the house with all doors and windows locked from the inside?
The simply answer of course was he took a key with him. I responded the dead bolt can only be locked from the inside.
Sleep walking said the doctor and changed the subject. We were grasping for answers and the one true answer we were looking for was not forthcoming. We dropped the subject as the story was so baffling and the answer was eluding us. It would be almost fourth years later when the answer came to me and it is so simple now, so easy to understand.
I can’t recall how much time had passed but once again in the early morning hours my wife jumped up and exclaimed Mike is not here. How do you know he is gone I asked? She said she just knew and ran into his bedroom only to find him gone again. This time I opened the front door first and found him lying in the front yard in his underwear groggy and half awake just like the time before.
At least we did not suffer the humiliation of trying to explain to the police officer who arrived on scene the first time that all was well, our son was lying in the front yard asleep, and I should have checked the yard before calling the police department.
Can you imagine what kind of thoughts race through a parents mind when something strange like this happens? We wanted answers, we wanted the truth and we never got it. There is no logical explanation for something like this.
Of course I now know that we can simply float through walls and ceilings, not by ourselves of course but with a little help from our friends. I use the word ‘friends’ very loosely, I do NOT consider these bastards my friends.
Enough about them for now, I may get to that later.
Then there were the countless times either when my wife and I were together or when I was by myself hiking that a sudden urge to sleep comes over us and we lie down and fall asleep, only to awake hours later and wonder how we could have slept so long.
It was years later when I often went into the Rocky Mountains of Colorado hiking by myself. I always went to remote areas and would drive my truck as far as I could then get out and walk all day. I never had a fear of bears or mountain lions. I just grabbed my day pack and start walking for hours. And every time I did I would find myself getting very sleepy and the next thing I knew I woke up late in the afternoon about two hours before dark and would panic and wonder how I could have possibly slept so long.
This same thing happened to me as a child when I wanted to explore the forest looking for interesting things and later realized the sun was setting and I ran as fast as my legs would carry me to get home before dark.
Later as a child we lived in Panama and the identical thing happened to me. I wanted to look around in the jungle for an iguana and I next find it late in the afternoon and I wonder how so much time went by.
I would learn more about these childhood experiences under regressive hypnosis with Deborah Lindemann. I relived some of these events and it was very traumatic finding out what really happened to me so long ago.
Some of most memorable and strange events were when our family lived in Morningside Maryland. By then there were six children in the house, three boys in one bedroom and the three girls in another bedroom.
I recall the first time it happened so clearly and it happened often and I never knew what was going on until so much later in life.
My bed was closest to the bedroom door and I seldom if ever fell asleep quickly as I would lie awake looking outside the window up at the sky since my bed was right next to the window.
I heard footsteps coming up the stairs, then down the hallway. I watched the door to see who it was and to my shock it was two very tall creatures. I can’t call them men because they did not look much like humans although they were dressed in strange clothing. They walked in the bedroom door and walked over to my bed. Of course by then I had pulled the sheet over my head and was shaking so bad I was hyperventilating. A few moments later I wondered if they had left so I peeked out of the sheet and they were still standing right next to my bed.
Article continues tomorrow – August 27, 2013.