Communion Dreams

Sorry I haven’t posted much lately. I’m gearing up for final classes and final exams, and haven’t been feeling very well on top of that. My last class is Wednesday, December 5th, but I’ll still put in close to 40 hours in the next three days because I have late meetings each day. Then I’ll have a break before final exams that I give on December 11, 12, 13.

A bizarre dream I had night before last might be informative of my current mindset. I was in bed in the dream but a hornet had gotten under the covers and was stinging me. I was fighting to kill it and finally got the sheets off and caught the insect between my fingers and squished it. I stood up, looked down to see the stings, and realized a horrible fact. It hadn’t been stinging. It had been laying eggs inside me.

In writing, over the past three days I got six of my unsubmitted stories out of my computer and into the world for consideration. A short essay that I wrote is also off to market. Tonight I plan to get some poetry ready to go out.

Finally, I’m reading Whitley Streiber’s Communion. This is his supposedly nonfiction tale of some bizarre experiences he’s had, which at this point in the book (page 133) appear to be due to alien abduction. Frankly, I’m having a hard time buying much of it. Many of the experiences he relates are classic examples of hypnogogic and hypnopompic experiences, a few of which I’ve had myself.

I’m a skeptic. I wouldn’t be surprised if alien intelligences exist in the universe. It’s a big place. But it seems highly unlikely that any alien intelligence would be humanoid. I’m also doubtful that such an intelligence has ever visited earth and am even more doubtful that they periodically abduct humans for experiments.

What explains the abduction phenomenon then? In some cases, of course, people are lying. Don’t kid yourself, there is money to be made in pretending to close encounters. In many other cases, however, I’m convinced that people are having experiences primarily related to dream states or to other brain phenomena such as epilepsy. Some abduction experience may be related to actual mental illness but I doubt that most do. The causes are more likely natural, if uncommon.

I rather wish aliens were visiting earth. That would be the most incredible discovery in human history. And if they were humanoid it would be even more incredible because it would mean a complete rethinking of currently believed scientific principles. Personally, I’ve always wanted to see a UFO. Perhaps tonight I will. In my dreams.