There's a lot of Aliens up in here.

“I didn't attend the funeral, but I sent a nice letter saying I approved of it. Michael N. Schrage’s, of course, but apparently he rose from the dead yet again.” – Mark Twain

            When I was younger I was abducted by aliens.

That’s always a good way to start a first date. Just let the girl know you’re somewhat insane. All joking aside, part of me wonders if aliens truly did pay me a visit.

I have an irrational phobia yet obsession with aliens and everything associated with them. Phobia more than obsession. I’ve done more research than I care to admit, have my own beliefs (I’m not a crackpot conspiracy theorist, I hope), and consider myself well informed on a subject that really doesn’t let you be well informed. After all, it’s 99% speculative.

Back to my abduction. I have no proof, no memories, none of those crazy things so many “believers” bring up. No strange gray dudes or needles or shining lights or anything even remotely similar. I consider myself a skeptic in almost all categories, but in terms of life other than humans, in an infinitely large and infinitely expanding universe, I don’t understand how you cannot believe in other life. I mean, look at the recent developments in the String Theory and all of the realities that now supposedly exist. Wherever you are—everywhere—everything that can be happening in that location, is happening. Everything. Try to wrap your mind around that.

Back to my abduction…again.

One day, out of nowhere, I developed this unexplainable terror, and that I do remember very well. Early teens. Suddenly, I would go nowhere in my own house without a baseball bat or golf club. I didn’t just open doors. I kicked them open, raised my weapon, and charged inside expecting to me mugged by aliens. I slept with my lights and television on for weeks, refusing the darkness at all times. I jumped at every noise and would sometimes break down into tears for no reason. My mother asked me what was wrong, as my behavior was quite strange and very obvious, and I told her I was afraid aliens were going to abduct me. At this, of course, she laughed. I didn’t think it was very funny.

I no longer charge around the house with weapons and sleep with my lights on, but I do have a few strange habits attributed entirely to my past.

 I cannot sleep without curtains or sheets or sleeping bags—anything—covering my windows. The thought of sleeping any other way terrifies me. Far worse, if I ever enter my room at night, or really any room, and I do mean any, I always expect an alien to be waiting for me, just standing there in the center of my room, somehow rendering me powerless. Even now I’m covered in goose bumps, my hands shaking. Flipping on light switches at night, I cannot help but believe I will be illuminating a visitor. It makes me feel crazy.

The dreams are equally bad, yet always the same, so I guess I should just call it a dream. It’s one of my few reoccurring dreams—not nearly the worst, but the worst is something I don’t tell most people, as it seems silly and almost comical yet it terrifies me to no end. In my dream I wake up and look out of my bedroom window, or the downstairs window, and there’s an almost classic UFO hovering a few hundred feet above my lawn. The sky and horizon is red. Blood. It’s doomsday, and I’m about to either die or be saved by aliens. Then I wake up, sweating.

 I study dreams and the sleeping process far more than I study aliens, and while there’s many explanations for every dream, I won’t get into that. I don’t want to seem too crazy just yet.

Despite my phobia—I’m still not entirely comfortable calling it that—I watch UFO documentaries and alien movies quite frequently. They never truly bother me, with one exception, which my best friend can attest to. We were watching Signs in theaters, and you know the birthday scene? Everyone knows the birthday scene. While it happened, I experienced deja-vu of me already watching the scene happen before it happened. It’s hard to explain, but I nevertheless started hyperventilating, my face red and covered in tears as I couldn’t stop shaking and couldn’t start breathing. Jim kept asking me what the fuck was wrong. It was rather funny, in a way, as my friend thought I was dying or something. The madness passed, and I was fine. Amazed, and frightened, but fine. I’ve watched Signs since, many times, always alone and in the dark. Such an amazing movie.

There’s more, a lot more, that I’m forgetting for some reason. I blame my exhaustion and the fact that allergies are destroying me today, for some reason. I like to place blame away from me. Rather than become frustrated from a lack of remembering, I’ll just stop it here and call this part one. That’s classy and leaves something to look forward to, as if more than two people read this. I’m beginning to think blogging is some strange sort of therapy, and that’s not a bad thing.