The Mind Hanger

For me this will always be one of life's experiences you can't talk about for fear people will think your insane. Being a writer only makes telling it seem less credible. But I'm going to share it just the same...1

I awoke in a cold sweat again! The dream returned to eat my sleep and this time it left me with burning my chest from fear. God, will it never end? Why can’t the dream only stay on the serene side, instead of turning so darn ugly on some occasions? I’ve asked myself that too many times. Deep down I suppose I know the answer, even if I wish I didn’t. 2

But, I think for the sake of clarity that I should really go back to the beginning. To what gave this dream in its many versions too much life and power over my soul.3

It all started with a child’s idea of space. Not all space, just a specific kind. I’m speaking of closets. I’ve always had an irrational fear of open closets, especially at night. That is because this is when “they” first started to visit me in a dream. I remained convinced of this fact by that sickening feeling in my gut, which warned me that somewhere in its eerie and foreboding blackness something evil lurked. It intentionally hid between the clutter of hangers with shirts and pants and the floor where shoes are tossed. Instinctively, I just knew that some entity of an unknown and perhaps malevolent essence, slumbered and waited to be aroused for some less than beneficial purpose.4

This dream sensation first came into my mind when I was a young child. I was too young at the time to understand the concept of extraterrestrial forms of life. Nor did I give a thought to anything other than the simple notion that there were beings known as angels who watch over people. 5

I vaguely knew there were also the evil forces that stalked people, but in my innocence of youth I thought a nightlight made me invincible. Even before my dad decided I was too old for a nightlight and took it away I had a nightmare that destroyed that illusion.6

As for angels, my young mind couldn’t truly grasp the reality of an angel being a messenger of god. All I comprehended was that they were the good guys, had wings and you normally couldn’t see them, even though they always could see you.7

And so in my innocence and youth I presumed at night when the dream would visit and I would see my shirts move by themselves that perhaps the angels were playing games in my closet. This kept me from being afraid on some nights. However, it wasn’t long before my dream changed to seeing some ghostly wisp of mist slithering through my shirts and pants, making fear my nocturnal companion.8

Fortunately, I did grow older and my mind finally expanded beyond the limits of a world based solely on my bedroom closet. The bad part was that my dream also expanded to seeing shirts on hangers floating off the rack and flying around room. Plus, I no longer had as many any countering moments of dreaming that left me feeling so peaceful or safe at night.9

I tried closing my closet door, but almost always at midnight it would open by itself and for a while my shirts would dance over my bed. They would continue until I was so paralyzed with fear that I couldn’t even manage a scream. Then somewhere in the terror the images would end and by morning the room was returned to normal.10

Even at that young tender age, my creativity searched for some way to spare myself from more midnight encounters. But nothing I tried worked. Naturally, telling my parents drew the predictable condescending remarks about children having too vivid an imagination and the effects of eating the wrong foods before dinner.11

As I grew to adulthood and slowly discovered this phenomena wasn’t that common or the result of angels, I was left feeling a void in reality and identity. It also made me feel unclear of what to do next to be delivered from this emotion or stop having that dream.12

Moving from that house didn’t help. Nor did getting married. All it did was result in me being tormented by seeing other things than shirts doing their ghostly midnight dance while my wife slept peacefully, totally undisturbed in any way.13

Then came the moment of desperate lucidity. Something inside of me urged me to speak to the clothes as they flew around room, but only in my mind. I thought this was a ludicrous idea, but the years of too many such encounters and having them be joined by the sight of phantom wisps of creatures peering in my bedroom window compelled me to try.14

However, what is the appropriate salutation for a hovering and spooky acting shirt? I didn’t have a clue. So I simply uttered a mental thought of hello.15

There was no reply. What a shock? The rational side of my brain chastised me for even giving into such an absurd impulse.16

Seconds later, I would never feel that way again. For suddenly I felt my body surrounded by a cinnamon wash of light. It felt warm and soothing. And for the first time the macabre and eerie waltz of my attire didn’t generate fear.17

Afterwards, I felt my conscious being pulled towards the closet. I had no sensation of my body leaving the bed, but I didn’t feel this was astral projection either. It was simply my mind expanding to a greater level of awareness.18

Before I knew it, I was inside the closet and incredibly felt as if I was suspended on the rod like being on a hanger, yet again I had no body. This was enough to cause totally confusion, but something kept telling me to be patient.19

The next thing I knew I saw a portal opening in the wall at the back of the closet. Beyond this vortex there were flames and also a vast blackness as if space itself lie passed the opening. I wanted to enter and to fly into that black abyss. But I couldn’t.20

All I could do was to hang helplessly on the rod and admire the breathtaking spectacle. Within my thoughts came layers of images that pierced my mind with incredible ideas. They were so intense and real, I felt hopelessly engulfed by their power. My heart, my soul, my entire being longed for just one touch of what lay beyond the portal. I just knew that this was a gateway to ancient mysteries, which waited to be discovered.21

One brief second of looking back towards the bed and I found myself back on my mattress staring at the ceiling. A sigh of regret and an effort to concentrate and restore the connection failed.22

For several more nights my dream would bring me to the same precipice of experience. But always I was just at the brink of moving beyond the portal when I was summoned back to my body and awake drenched in a cold sweat with heart pounding. Then with all the resolve I could muster by shear will, I determined the next eve that I would remind myself with dreaming to breach the portal.23

And for a second I thought I would be successful. That was until a tall, willowy being completely shrouded in a turquoise veil materialized in the portal. Sparks of gold beads of light glistened from its mysterious and terrifying form. In my mind, I sensed that it was telling me that it wasn’t yet time. This guardian, or whatever it was, had the power to decide when any mere mortal could enter its realm.24

As I was once again drawn back to my bed, the shirts had all returned to the closet. The shrouded being then floated out of the closet opening before it went through the bedroom wall. Through my window, I saw the creature transformed from a shroud of turquoise and into a silvery hovering craft shaped like a cigar. It flew off into the sky at an incredible speed.25

I heard on the news the next day about UFO sightings in my town. But who would believe me version?26

However, images still visit my night in some version of that original dream. With them comes the awareness that all of the past was an interlude of preparation. I had been chosen as a dream link between this world and the one lying behind the portal. I only wish that were just an experience producing serenity. Sometimes it does carry the price of fear when you have to embrace having the crippling awe of knowing some other power had control over your soul.27

Meanwhile, I slumber each night with distorted and bizarre flashbacks coming into my thinking as the dream continues. And with it comes the moments when it does generate a haze of amazement and others dread. The beings in my dream have made me aware that not all the shirts I saw during the years that hovered over my bed actually returned to the closet each night. Some went through the wall and became silvery objects that disappeared in the sky. Others hovered over my bed after they had returned from the sky and transformed back into shirts to replace the ones that left. By morning my closet would never look any different or generate any questions about missing shirts.28

Perhaps it was all started with lonely and shy child’s imagination along with the desperate wish for just a friend or two. But I never imagined the wish would mean that a mental mural would always stalk my night from this freakish dream. When I look at the sky on some nights and my dream memories bring images that interrupt my sleep, I can’t help wondering about where fantasy ended and truth begins.29