Better Than Dead

I haven’t posted to this series in a while mainly because I’ve been going through a lot of stress, both in my personal life and nationally and I haven’t had the focus to do much writing. The national situation remains dire, but things look as if they may resolve personally so I ardently hope I can get back to my creative work. I wrote up this little bit of strangeness for another project and thought it a good fit for sharing here. Hopefully, I’ll be able to add to this series more going forward.

This incident took place at least 40 years ago now. (That blows my mind.) I was house and pet sitting for my parents while they were off on a road trip. I was slewping in one of the bedrooms near the front hall of the house when something woke me up. I noticed a strong glow coming from the hall so I went to investigate. This hall has a very small window right next to the front door that I almost never look out because of its smallness but I was drawn to it because the glow was coming into the house from it. When I looked out I saw a very bright big ball of light hovering over my neighbor’s house across the street, practically sitting on the roof. It was at least ten feet across, maybe more. It made absolutely no sound at all. I felt panicky because I knew it couldn’t be a helicopter. The police did do flyovers in that neighborhood with spotlights on but they never hovered right over the roof of any of the houses and of course they weren’t silent. Right in the middle of my growing panic, a voice came into my head and said, “Don’t worry about this. Just go back to bed and go back to sleep.” And I did just that!

The really weird thing is that when I woke in the morning I had no memory of this and I only know about it now because about a year later I came out of the same bedroom into that same hall, looked out that small window at my neighbor’s house—and the entire incident came back into my consciousness with this visceral punch. I felt all the things I’d felt that night and a deep puzzlement that I was able to go back to sleep and didn’t remember the next morning.

Now, of course, I realize this could have been some weird dream or hypnogogic something or other but I don’t think it was. It was just very weird, clearly something Other. I don’t know how to categorize it other than that.

I also don’t know if it’s relevant to mention that the particular neighbor whose house this happened over is bipolar and was going through a deeply chaotic time in his life at that point. Was it a manifestation of his turmoil? Was it something Other attracted to his chaos? None of the above? Who knows?

And what about that telepathic message? Those aren’t uncommon in UFO lore, nor is the “Go back to bed and remember nothing” nature of it. Carl Jung

(Flying Saucers: A Modern Myth of Things Seen in the Sky) thought they were outward manifestations of our inner conflicts and fears. Jacques Vallee, groundbreaking ufologist (Passport to Magonia), thought they were closely related to fairylore. But he still has no explanation for what they are.

I personally think the nuts-and-bolts explanation—that they are real machines from outer space—is the least likely scenario, despite what Ancient Aliens would have us believe. No, whatever they are, in some form or another they have been with us a long, long time, perhaps for as long as our minds developed that mysterious trick of consciousness: in our dreams, in our skies, under the ground, in fields and forests, just the other side of this consensus reality we occupy. They are a part of us and a part of the earth. Whatever they are or aren’t they are not here to concur us Independence Day-style. If that was the case, their “technology” is so far superior to ours they would have done so long since. They are perfectly content, I believe, to concur our minds instead, or at least reside in that mysterious junction of consciousness and “reality.” Our minds, after all, are the best, most powerful, and most efficient paranormal machines of all.

Many people suffer from body image issues—either thinking themselves fat when they’re not or perceiving flaws in themselves that others don’t see. There are a number of ways in which we fool ourselves. But I used to have a very strange perception when I was a kid. I’m sure there’s a scientific name for it but I’ve never ferreted it out. (If anyone can help me there I’d appreciate it).

From a very young age I would occasionally find myself in the body of a giant. That is, I’d be going about my daily business usually relaxing doing things—watching TV, reading, playing with my army or my Cowboys and Indians plastic figurines—and suddenly my perception would shift radically. I would feel as if I was a tiny flame of consciousness moving around inside an impossibly large flesh machine, not only massively tall but massively dense. I thought I might burst through the roof of the house at any moment; that the chair I sat upon would collapse under my massive weight at any moment. I was frozen in shock, unable and unwilling to move. When I looked at other people and kids nearby they didn’t seem to notice that anything had changed. It was frightening, startling, but fortunately it only lasted a short while (maybe thirty seconds or so) before my perception went back to normal.

You have to understand that I was a big kid. I got my growth spurt early. By second grade I was five-foot-three and solidly built—not fat, not yet, but solid. Everyone always thought me older than my chronological age. I towered over classmates and was even taller than many of the 6th graders. This had both advantages and disadvantages. The advantage, of course, was that bullies only came after me verbally. When a kid is a foot taller than your badass self you tend not to want to risk physical altercations. But sticks and stones aren’t the only things that hurt. Words sting, no matter what the proverbs tell you. The bullies referred to me as the Jolly Red Giant (I had flaming red hair), a corruption of the frozen food product, and Babe the Red Ox, a corruption of Paul Bunyan’s blue pet. But I got really, really good at verbal takedowns (a habit I had to carefully wind back down as I aged). So the bullies didn’t taunt me too much unless they wanted my mouth to strip them of flesh in front of their hangers on. I was also able to plant myself between the bullies and some of the smaller kids. “If you want to take on Orlinda, you’ve got to come through me.” They usually declined that offer.

My growth spurt continued so that by the time I finished junior high I was just shy of five foot seven. Thankfully I stopped growing soon after and my classmates caught up with me or surpassed me. But that odd body perception persisted until I was maybe sixteen or so. Once I stopped growing, it went away never to return. I have wondered since if it might have been some subconscious acknowledgement of those growth spurts, or some weird neural spasm. My body changed so rapidly, growing faster than my self-image could process, and my brain (or whatever) would have to periodically recalibrate the new image.

If you think about it, we all of us really are tiny flames of consciousness riding around in massive flesh machines. Maybe not giants who might sink into the earth at any moment, but the ratio of brain to body is disproportionate, and the growth spurts of youth reverse as we age, making us smaller and smaller. The ghost in the machine, that indefinable spark of This-Is-Me that we carry forward through space and time, is always forced to recalibrate and reconfigure just who the heck we are.

Random quote of the day:

“I suspect that the Universe became conscious on the energetic level long before it became conscious on the physical level. We are a penetration of consciousness into a dense, thick and dark place that has really never been penetrated by light. We are that spark of light.”

—Whitley Streiber, lecture, “Angels, aliens and archetypes,” San Francisco, 1987

Disclaimer: The views expressed in this random quote of the day do not necessarily reflect the views of the poster, her immediate family, Desus and Mero, Beyoncé, or the Marine Corps Marching Band. They do, however, sometimes reflect the views of the Cottingley Fairies.