The Attic Thing

Last night was another night of incredibly realistic dreams.

I asked my daughter if she heard me screaming last night. She said No, why? Because I dreamed that I was at home in bed and I knew that the thing in the attack was coming again and I was screaming in fear and hoping my Dad was going to come in and chase it away - I replied. She looked puzzled. I then explained that this was a common occurrence growing up and this dream was so real that when I finally did manage to wake up, I was utterly confused by the layout of my room - as I opened my eyes I saw my bedroom in Hull back in the 1970’s and then suddenly it was all different and unrecognisable… it was my current room.

I later dreamed that I was trying to get to work but first I had to deal with one of my sons. He didn’t want to go to school and so he was undressing and throwing his clothes away. I was picking them up and trying to convince and threaten him into behaving normally. It was very strange behaviour and deeply worrying to me. Finally, he redressed, went to school and I got lost trying to get to my office…..

And ad nauseam during the night.

No wonder I woke up exhausted!

These dreams are so vivid and so real and happening with increasing frequency. They all seem to hark back to parts of my past and raise feelings and fears I have long since resolved or thought I had anyway - Actually, I am convinced I have. But these dreams are somehow bringing back these long forgotten feelings.

Sometimes I wonder if it is something to do with the times we are living in - changed energies and the weirdness that seems all around these days. Other times I wonder if it is my age and the aging process that is responsible - somehow reminding me of how I used to be in terms of fears and insecurities. Or maybe its as simple as missing my parents or my kinds when they were kids?

Possibly, it’s just this flu ,,,,

The problem is I see that everything has meaning and so there is some meaning in this dreaming. Something to pick over and learn from perhaps. I am taken back into my past and confronted with situations real and imagined. Do I respond differently than I would have in the past - yes and no. In the dream regarding my son behaving weirdly, I was patient, tolerant and yet determined. All worked out fine. Yet, in the dream of the attic thing, I felt that fear - that irrational fear of back then and my reaction was the same - scream for help.

For those who wonder what I mean by the attic thing - here is a true story from the book My Haunted Life…. it might help explain.

I would actually dread coming home from college for a weekend or the summer because of this. By the way, this only happened when I was there! Just for me, apparently. I would literally go out and get drunk in order to stay there. The best example was one night close to Christmas. I was home from college and had been out with my friend and had a few. I was sleeping on the floor in my brother’s room that night. I lay down, hoping to pass right out, but instead, I was cold stone sober and scared half to death by the sound of the front door opening. Now, the first thing I thought was that somehow I had left the door unlocked, but I knew that wasn’t the case as I had checked it on the way up the stairs. The key was in the lock, and that door was locked.

The front door opened and closed as I listened, sitting half up in bed. There was a deep sigh and a little cough. Ice-cold fear ran through my veins. The silence was so loud it was unbearable. Then, the first footstep and creak of the bottom stair. My heart was beating as if to burst. Another long sigh and another step. And another. I was now fumbling for the light, but my hands were shaking so hard I couldn’t find it. By now, the steps seemed to be at the top of the stairs and moving along the hallway. The floorboards creaked, and there was that sigh again. I was frozen to the spot, but what I actually wanted to do was run. Run anywhere. There was a moment’s silence, and then I watched in disbelief and horror as the bedroom door began to slowly swing open.

I screamed. I screamed so loudly you probably heard me in London.

A few moments passed by, and then the door flew open. There, to my utter relief, stood my dad in his pajamas holding a very large spanner in one hand and a flashlightin the other. He switched on the light, and my brother looked about him in a state of shock through two sleepy- looking eyes.

“It’s okay. I heard that, too,” said my dad. “I heard it, too.”

We sat, Dad and my brother and I, for quite a while, but all was quiet. Whatever it was, it had gone. I eventually fell asleep, and my dad went back to bed, checking the doors in the process.

We didn’t talk much about it the next day. It was simply something that happened in that house when I was home. My dad said it was poltergeist activity, and it was centered around me. I think he was right. We didn’t really know what to do about it, but we did discover one thing. If I got angry, the phenomena stopped. So, that is what I would do. I would get angry and shout at whatever it was to get lost or perhaps use even more choice phrases. If a door started to open, instead of screaming, I pulled the door open with a verbal challenge. It had the desired effect.

My Haunted Life can be purchased here….