Comic: Alien Abduction
Irrational Fears Rationalized
Ever since I was a kid I've been scared of grey aliens. I can't remember exactly what started the fear, or when I adopted it. Since coming to adulthood, the fear of sleeping without a weapon under my pillow has subsided. I only get a little freaked out when it's one of those nights.
A Waking up around 2 or 3am to go piss, then slumping back to bed - kind of night. Getting right back into REM sleep is usually easy, but sometimes the brain runs a little wild.
A Weird Night Starts One of Two ways:
- Right before I drift, I hear an extremely loud crash or buzzing noise, and it jolts me awake. This is called EHS (exploding head syndrome). It's harmless, and common enough to have a medical name. I've lived with it for as long as I can remember, and it's not too big a deal. You start to get used to it. It's preventable with a good sleep schedule and white noise.
- Sleep paralysis takes hold of my body. This is another thing I am very used to. The only issue is that it ties directly into my fear of someone/something entering my bedroom at night. Then, like clockwork, I think about our extra terrestrial friends, and how they could GET me if I don't wake myself up asap.
EHS typically happens if I have a sleep paralysis episode. Getting back to sleep is a little more difficult because of EHS. A good remedy to negate EHS is putting on white noise, or a let's play; I prefer twitch vods.
I used to wake myself up by screaming - at times my dad feared that I was being brutally murdered. Eventually I really learned how these strange experiences worked, and began to use them as practice for insight. I know what sleep paralysis is, and I know it can't hurt me. It's only on a weird night that I fear the greys.
Curiosity and Fear Go Hand in Hand
I love grey lore and fun theories about them. I particularly love believable recounts from "abductees". A well known abductee and author of Fire in the Sky is Travis Walton. His story of being abducted is my favorite, just because of how he paints the picture of the aliens. He theorizes that they had mistakenly injured him, and took him aboard their craft to fix him up. I give him props for voicing strong concerns about how the movie portrayed his story, criticizing Hollywood for turning his experience into a grotesque horror show.
I had heard about that movie as a kid, and was extremely curious about it. I already had the preexisting fear of alien abduction, so the movie stuck with me forever.Years after seeing the movie, I associated it with sleep paralysis; especially the scene where they drive a needle into his eye after suffocating him with vaseline.
It was only later in life when I discovered who Travis Walton really was. There are a handful of interviews of him sharing his experience. His calmness in all of his interviews put me at ease, and the way he described his actual experience is nothing like the movie. He made the aliens seem caring and nurturing. It’s reassuring to hear that from someone who, according to Hollywood, had a giant needle shoved into his eyeball.
It's a movie I still cannot watch. I love the book, and the person behind it. Even if it is just alleged.
A much less scary, but much more bizarre film is Communion, with Christopher Walken. It's a much better watch. It turns from alien abduction horror to an avant-garde art piece. The abductee from this movie also claims their story true; Whitley Strieber. I find their recount much less believable, due to his main-character mentality. In interviews he's almost cocky in the way he retells his story, and then goes on to predict future events told to him by the aliens.
Listen to his interviews with Art Bell, and you'll see what I mean. His mentality makes Walton seem like a baseline for a lie-detector test.
Honorable no-sleep mentions:
- The Fourth Kind
- War of The Worlds (2005)
- The Thing
- E.T.
I just hope the probing will be gentle.
I haven't woken up on a slab, or with an ass-ache yet.
