The 3am curse occurs again..
Last night, while most of the East Coast was undoubtedly sleeping through a peaceful summer night, I found myself pacing the house around three in the morning—the witching hour I have often written about on this site. While I don’t profess to know why the curse of sleeplessness of night terrors hits at this moment in time, it seemingly does each chance it gets.
This time I was awakened by a mysterious feeling. As a matter of fact, it was one of the immediate ‘wake ups’ where you’re shaking, or at least feeling like the room is moving. However, I could not recall what dream I had just been removed from.. I felt like something plopped my body down onto the bed and I was simply propelled back into a reality that didn’t exist only seconds prior.
So I did what anyone else would do.. sneak my way through a dark hallway, attempt not to stumble over my son’s toys—along the family pet Mutley the dog—and make my way to the kitchen cabinet and grab a few chocolate chip cookies.
Once I wake up at this time, it’s ridiculously difficult for me to get back into the sleep feeling again. These are the times I find myself chasing airwaves of radio stations or firing up a computer and watching the BYTEs as they fly through the air…
This night, however, as I nibbled a bit on a few cookies—perhaps too many to admit without Katie Couric blasting me for sugar intake—I also found myself focusing on some relatives who passed away.. It began as just a thought about my grandmother, and then my aunt, and then my uncle, and then friends, and then pets… by the time my cookie was just crumbs I was talking to these former breathing beings as though they were in the room with me. At least I wished they were in the room with me..
If I had a dime for every time I yelled out to someone who has left this planet, I’d be a wealthy man. Typically, my angst over life comes out when I visit cemeteries alone. It is those moments in time when my guard is down, when I cry out, even pound on the green grass, in a show of anger over not knowing if loved ones have a life after this. I blog about the bizarre and weird, paranormal and spiritual, yet I end most days not knowing what in this planet there is to believe in. What ‘reality’ is true, and what happens when we die. Paranormal mysteries often can be explained through science eventually..
Except consciousness..
That seems to the one perplexing item very few people can explain away with any surety.
What scares me is contemplating that consciousness, in all its amazing wonder, ends when your blood stops flowing, and when your heart stops beating. That somehow, this entire life of love and laughter, tears and pain, can be over with the drop of a hat. Finished.. complete. Kaput.
So last night as I sat in a dark room staring into the infinity of space and time out my window, I once again took the moment to ask loved ones if they are still around. If they are watching me, or if they have gone onto heaven.. hell.. the abyss..
Like other times, I ended my prayer-like conversation with no answer. No feedback.. nothing. As other times before.
The silence is not proof or disproof of anything. It is simply proof of silence.
This moment of life, I realized why I even write anything on this website to begin with. I was covered by a roof, but my primal fears were the same as any other ancestor before me. Darkness around me, I was on a course for a night of deep and dark thoughts, coupled with nostalgic gut wrenching memories… and prayers to a higher power I have no clue if existent.
Night terrors don’t always occur during sleep.
There are times when they meet and greet you in conscious thought.
An empty carton of cookies—and an angry son after he discovers I ate the last remaining ones—later, I took myself back to the bedroom. Laid down. And slept for about a half hour before the alarm clock went off.. Before I woke up and got dressed for work.. a job where you have to pretend that night terrors don’t exist.. a job that does not contemplate mysterious or passion, but instead exists with a pure emptiness of emotion. Like any job.. Because jobs aren’t natural either.
The other natural things in life, the only sure bets, are these: Darkness, night terrors, mysterious, and questions.
Answers are seldom.
But minds, unsettled, should never stop asking.. And you should never let silence stop you from continuing to pound your first against the post, and still insist you see a ghost.
