Where do our minds travel when we sleep? Are they open to experiences from other worlds... other dimensions? Consider the story told to us by Ted who, with his friend, drifted off to sleep after watching a horror movie, only to have something more sinister invade their consciousness. Was it just a dream... or was there evidence that the nightmare they shared was quite real? This is Ted's story:
In 1986, I was living with my step-brother in Honolulu, Hawaii. He had left for a four-day trip and I was all alone in his apartment. I decided to invite my friend Vic from Kailua, on the other side of the island, to stay the night with me and go out, maybe see a movie or something. So he agreed and came to visit. After going to Waikiki to see a movie, Vic and I went back to my step-brother's place and decided that we weren't yet tired and in the mood, as it turned out, for yet another film. It was very stormy that particular night and raining heavily, so we suspected that a horror movie would be right in order for a good nightcap to top off the evening. And what what would be a better choice than Night of the Living Dead?
We decided to lie ourselves out on the floor below the TV (it being rather high up on a mantel of sorts). We both had fallen asleep well into the film, still lying side by side on the carpet. Somewhere along the line after going into slumber, I had a dream that is hazy to me to some degree as it first began.
As I focused deeper into the this dream, I saw Vic and me lying just as we really were in the same room. I heard the wind crashing against the windows and doors, and the distant banshee whispers of the leaves of the trees singing their chorus.
THE CREATURE APPEARS
In the next moment, I heard a crashing sound and appearing through the front door, which was situated behind our heads on the other side of the living room, was some sort of figure that was not like any apparition I had heard of or seen in books or films. It was partially human and yet a certain alien-like smoothness to its appearance. Yet it had the consistency of a foggy shadow of some kind.
I watched it slowly, almost cautiously approach us, coming closest to Vic. It crept with its twigged arms held up, as to protect itself perhaps. It knelt down toward Vic, who was still asleep... or was he? As it came closer to him, I saw Vic jump up to his knees and scream, "Get away! Get away!" In less than an instant, the being flew away down the hall, and in the next instant we heard a very loud slam! Then a crash! This immediately woke me and I was now on my knees completely in fear.
As I turned to look at Vic, I found that he too was awake and looking very shocked! He was looking around frantically searching intensely with his eyes for something, anything. I tried at first to get his attention, but he wouldn't respond. He finally, under his hurried breath, asked me, "Did you see it, too?" He looked totally terrified. We sat there in silence for yet another moment, not sure what had happened. He told me that he saw a creature try to attack me and he was telling it to go away.
In the next instant, we noticed that the front door was standing wide open. This to us was an impossibility simply because this door was one that locked with a latch mechanism when it was shut, so to get in from the outside would have been impossible without a key. Even more bizarre is that the door had a heavy spring that closed it automatically unless there was something heavy propped up against it.
I slowly rose and tried to shut the door. As I approached the door, it slowly closed by itself. I backed away, my face white with fear. We were both now standing and knew that we had somehow had the same dream and saw the creature -- the same creature that we were now aware was somewhere down the hall.
LOOKING FOR THE CREATURE
We walked to the kitchen and grabbed a couple of large knives from the kitchen drawer, then entered the hallway that was next to the kitchen. This was a single-bedroom apartment. We were in the living room, and next to us was the small walk-in kitchen. Next to that was the short hallway that led to the only other room in the apartment -- my brother's bedroom, which to our even greater shock now had a closed door.
Why was this so frightening to us? The door was one that swung out into the hallway and into a corner rather than swinging into the bedroom. That door was always left open into the hall, and it also had a 350-pound rowing machine standing upright against it. My stepbrother never closed it and never moved the rowing machine for over a year, from what I had later learned.
We were very scared now as we crept closer to the door. I grabbed the handle and immediately heard a very distinct groan come from the room, followed by a dragging sound. We crashed the door open, flashlights and knives ready! Vic flicked on the light switch. This was a small room, as you might imagine, with a small bathroom. We closed the door behind us and searched the room and the bathroom. We searched the closet, under the bed, even the shower.
There was nothing. The windows were the type that raise and latch at the center. Both of the windows were closed and latched. The door was closed, so anything that might have been in there after we entered had no way out.
We stood there in horror -- in shock!
THE BLACKOUT... AND THE MEMORY
In the next moment, we both suddenly felt very tired and -- inexplicably -- completely uninterested in anything that had just happened. We laid back down where we had been before and fell asleep right away.
The next day we were to have no memory of any of this. As a matter of fact, it was perhaps by chance that we were to remember at all. It happened to be about two weeks later. We had lunch with an English philosopher we knew who was well known in Hawaii. As we talked to him, he began to speak of visions he had had of spirits in the past few weeks.
Suddenly from across the table, Vic looked at me and I looked at him... we both knew, we both instantly remembered the ghastly image that had visited us that night. For the first time in two weeks we remembered everything. We spoke at length about the experience for several weeks that followed, but we had no answers, no conclusions. Nor did either one of us ever have any other unexplained encounters with anything that might be called "otherworldly."
It was an experience that changed both of us forever. I have had a lot of health problems ever since: bizarre illnesses that doctors have had no idea of what they are have plagued me for the past 18 years. Somehow I can't shake from my mind the possibility that the incident that we had been through and the illnesses that I have suffered are somehow related.
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