There's No Place Like Home. (Part 1)
To unravel the mysteries surrounding ones own purpose in life
or the meaning of life itself is a fantastic voyage leading to yet many
more questions.
I distinctly remember a time when I feared the world of dreams.
Each night before bed I'd lay and wonder just who or what I'd have
to witness in my slumber, what horror and terror lie behind the curtain of black.
Many nights I was rewarded with scenes that will forever remain etched in my memory. Dreams from as far back as
2 and 3 years old still haunt me daily. How do I remember these dreams? Why do they reoccur? What do they mean?
I used to ask myself that quite a lot actually, and still do.
In the beginning it was very colorful and the location was very similar to where I lived as a
kid at that time and age. I remember the sound of The Fuzzy Slippers Truck and the color
of purple it was painted with the white horizontal stripe and some blurred logo on the side.
I remember the song yet have never heard it anywhere but that particular dream.. it does not exist.
The Fuzzy Slippers Truck would roll up once a day and children from the apartment complex
would all go running for the truck.
Day after day I avoided that Fuzzy Slippers Truck always hearing that song as it approached.
Many dreams were invaded by The Fuzzy Slippers Truck until one day I decided to go and check out some slippers.
I walked nervously up to The Fuzzy Slippers Truck while other children and their parents scurried like rats
in and out of The Fuzzy Slippers Truck with much excitement. Quite feverish actually.
Slowly I made my way to the step into The Fuzzy Slippers Truck and hesitated but for only a moment
and it seemed of course like years. I had seen the driver of The Fuzzy Slippers Truck before but never
up close and personal like that day. I recognized him quite well yet had no idea how or from where I knew him.
His face familiar and he looked at me as if he knew me just as well. It was as if he knew some dark secret and
wanted me to know he knew. The sarcastic smile on his face and the slicked back dark black hair, his eyes black
in their sockets, his voice so familiar yet unknown.
The sound of the children rushing in and out like the buzzing of bees broke my daze.
Then with a deep breath I entered The Fuzzy Slippers Truck and was greeted with a quite horrific sight.
Inside The Fuzzy Slippers Truck the children were removing their feet and swapping them for pink, powder blue
and assorted girly colored fuzzy slippers, their parents proudly behind them as they set their feet in the boxes
and placed on their slippers. I remember the fear as if it were fresh as I ran from The Fuzzy Slippers Truck never looking back.
It was about two years The Fuzzy Slippers Truck followed me around in my dreams after that and by age 5
it was gone never to be heard again yet the song I still whistle from time to time.
Perhaps someday someone will recognize it.
As life went on and the visits weren't such a problem for a time I paid no heed to my dreams
as I was still merely a child and had no teacher who could explain these things to me
or give me the answers. So I tried The Church.
I began going to church with my stepmother and my father for a time.
I sat quietly and watched the rhetoric and dogma and listened to the preachings
of the Bible and history of the Christians. Nowhere in any of this were my answers,
so eventually I got up some courage to ask 1 day in Sunday school.
I was quite elaborate in my descriptions and my story of what I had experienced
in my dreams and life at the time and felt I had made no insult to "God" what so ever,
but alas I was wrong? Our Sunday school teacher was a middle aged woman
usually in a vibrant flower patterned dress, melancholy heels and wore those
1970's thick black framed diving mask glasses. She wasn't a very pleasant sort more than
someone there to make sure we were attended to and didn't run off and get into
trouble. I wish I'd have understood that role was not to include answering questions
or having a kind heart.
When I asked why I was having these dreams and felt afraid of the monsters that
followed me in both my sleep and my awake time, those feelings of being chased
or sought after in very uncomfortable ways by beings hostile, dark and quite damn
creepy I became the focus of her ill attention. I remember may things so clearly
from my childhood that even now the pain is still there like it's happening all over again,
the feelings I had when she forced me into a corner in the Sunday school room while
shouting to the whole class that I was a cursed and demented child and that my imagination
was only serving to get me in trouble and that I should be an example to the other kids
of what not to be. Not who... but What. As I stood there crying in that corner hearing the laughter
of the other children and her subsequent ranting on how having thoughts as I'd had were
a sin and a violation against "God" and would not be tolerated. Any child expressing such thoughts
would be punished and sent to the corner as I had been and that was final.
I think it was the only time I ever ran into my fathers arms that moment when I heard her go off on him
about how his son was disrupting "God's Work" and how I should not be allowed to ever set foot
in her classroom again. My father took me in his arms and in some moment of I don't know what
he actually made me feel protected and loved.. that feeling never happened again.
When we got home I was sat down by my father and told I would never have to go to a church again
if I didn't want to. Needless to say the thought of EVER going to a church again wasn't about
to cross my mind. Hence for my life I do not enter churches of my own free will.
Instead I read a book my grandmother had given me for "Christmas" called "The Way"
someones translated personal perspective written version of the Bible. I read it over and over
looking for answers to my questions yet could find nothing. So I switched to the actual King
James version of the Bible and tried there... dead end after dead end.
I began expanding my search for the answers for the rest of my life. I went as far as delving
into the Black arts as well as many modern religions always searching for some untapped resource
of answers. There had to be answers somewhere and I will always be looking for them.
While my delving into the history of creation, looking for answers I felt I needed to find to explain my
own purpose and existence as we all do the dreams started again. He was back.
Many nights I was visited again by this "being" formerly known as "The Fuzzy Slippers Guy" in my dreams,
and as always he came with sounds, an audible warning of his arrival. When he was making a visit
there was this black kitten with a small silver bell ringing so gently in those same 4 tones from
The Fuzzy Slippers Truck and the kitten was surely his harbinger. The dream would always begin and
end the same as I now figure I wasn't able at the time to really do much as I was ignorant to who and what I
truly am. The scene would always be in mostly black and white, a desaturated place of greys and mushy tones.
The schoolyard playground had this large cyclone slide that faced away from the 5 story burned out black remains
of the school. The sand was grey and made no noise and often other children would be present playing, which
of course normally would sound normal except i wasn't a "child" anymore I was 18 yet in this dream I was back to
the age when the dreams had stopped for a time, roughly 7 or 8 years old.
The school bell would ring and the children would run in the opposite direction of the burned out old school building,
and then it would be silent. Myself the rebellious type I'd stay and play on the cyclone slide as I now
had it all to myself. It wasn't ever long after I'd hear the kitten and his bell, that song those notes.
I'd watch the kitten cross my path across the grey sand and look around for "Him" and always he would
be walking out of the burned out school house dressed in his grey trench coat and grey hat that did not
hide the black and faceless void it sat upon. In his left hand he carried a grey briefcase that I knew
contained something important and feared it. The sight of "Him" would cause me great loathing and fear
as I desperately climbed up the cyclone slide and would try and escape by sliding down like that was some
key or way out. As he would draw closer I could feel myself paralyzed in my sleep, knowing this was a
dream yet quite more serious than "just" a dream. Was I paralyzed in fear? Or was it something else?
As I'd try so desperately to escape from him he would simply walk past me and I could feel his dark
intentions as his faceless void looked deeply within my soul and knew me. He knew more about me than
even I did at that point and it was all too obvious he had plans or a want of something from me.
The dreams continued on and on and I felt afraid, scared and alone as I thought this was something
maybe only I was experiencing so I decided to experiment. I invited friends.
Mike was the first person I trusted with this secret I was taught to fear and bury. Mike and I were
very close friends and were room ates at the time. So one night Mike and I and his girlfriend of the time Allison
were sitting about and chatting about "weird stuff" and what we thought was "weird". I started talking
about the dreams I'd had and the things I'd seen in them, among the dreams of course I started discussing
"Him" and that's when things got "weird". At this time I was able to summon "Him" with only a mere thought
as I feared "Him" so dreadfully it gave "Him" power, he would come. It was almost like ghost stories
around the campfire we were all feeling chills and as if life had become rather surreal so to amplify the
setting I lit a few candles and turned down the lights. I felt since there were others present that "He"
wouldn't be very inclined to making an appearance of any kind, but alas I was wrong. It was Allison who
saw it first, as she pointed to the ceiling and my shadow and the shadow standing behind me.
I moved positions just to see what was making the shadow and that was a very horrific and rewarding moment
as the shadow seemed to watch then moved over to where my shadow now resided on a wall and stand behind
me once again. Mike in a state of awe just sat there with a half smile on his face and a half look of dread as
the room got very "full" fast. There is a deafening the occurs when "He" is around as your head blocks out all
sound but the sound of your own silence, the slight ringing in your ears and the sound of your heartbeat yet
so loud it makes your head feel as if it were about to explode from the pressure.
Allison was the first to give as she ran for the light switch and then to the next and next turning on any light
she could find. Mike dropped back and passed out on the floor as I sat there feeling some power I'd never felt before.
It was amazing and fulfilling yet so dark and wrong. I sat there for a few minutes while Allison got mike back
to a sitting position and got him back among the living so to speak. Something changed in Mike that night, his road
traveled went south after and I watched him destroy the friend I once knew. I haven't seen him in years now and
last I'd heard he was hopping on counter tops clucking like a chicken seeing things behind the paint in the walls.
Rest in peace Mike you are missed.
The second experiment involved my friend Chris who was a bit more in tune with me and the subject matter
as like myself he is an imaginative and intelligent kindred of my own and an artist. I told Chris the stories
and what had been happening and occurring and about the test with Mike and Allison. I warned him about
what had happened during that episode and that I had a way to bring this being or entity out of me.
I had been working on escape from my dreams of "Him" and had found a working way to escape
with my simple alarm clock and its digital LED display. When I would feel that darkness coming I would
stare into the alarm clock focusing on the light and it would help keep me from falling into the darkness.
So I told him to keep his concentration on the alarm clock and if nothing else I'd see him in the morning.
We fell asleep.
It was at 3:14 am the kitten arrived, but this time I was aware of him in my room and not the typical
playground, he was there with me in my world. I felt terror as i let myself slip into the darkness
prepared to face "Him" once again. The digital numbers faded and the school house appeared.
I will never forget the look on Chris' face when I awoke. He half laid there half sitting up and had
the look of bafflement on his face one gets when completely stumped. I asked him if he was ok and
it took him a second to reply that what he saw he would never forget.
We sat there both in an almost disbelief while he went on to describe what he saw.
It began with the darkness, he'd felt it and stared at the alarm clocks display he kept focused but
became distracted by a large black almost smoke like figure emanating from my body. The form
took it's cloudy shape and then turned and stared him eye to eye it's red eyes glowing then
turning back to my body as the second appeared, it's eyes were green and it seemed to speak with the first
as the third arose forth and it's eyes of yellow, this became too much to handle and Chris acted as anyone and
spoke. He tried to awaken me and in the process all 3 forms returned hastily into my body.
3:32am was when Chris managed to awaken me I can still see the clock.
As I started getting used to this happening when I'd sleep I felt more and more in some sort of delusional
control over the dreams, I could do my regular escape and be done with it right?
Wrong.
It was the night of a lifetime and a memory I will never forget.
That night I changed forever.
The night "He" came to take me.
It was around 3 am that I laid there in my bed looking at all the posters and pictures of my latest
guitar heroes. One after one I inventoried each picture and remembered the magazine from which I got it.
My eyes stopped on one in particular, one that hadn't been looking back before and now stared directly
at me. Rather taken by surprise I looked elsewhere for comfort but found none. The eyes burned at me from
the picture then seemed to move closer one picture at a time until directly over head as the face of Randy
seemed to literally bend over the top of me and smile. Something was definitely wrong yet I felt this voice
from nowhere telling me it was ok and he was Jesus. This just wasn't happening I thought to myself in
a desperate attempt to clear my mind. I'd had a couple of conversations just previous to this episode with
my stepfather at the time and good friend John. He was a very intelligent and well spoken individual that
had wisdom I could all but wish I'd had at the time. He was a role model of sorts and when I had informed him
of my delvings into the black arts and the things going on in my sleep and dreams he took me aside and had
a long talk about what he saw going on. He was very wise and I'd always taken him for the kind of
"Christian" most commonly found, but he wasn't.. he was the real thing. He shared his wisdom and
experience with me and the one thing that I remember most was he had said: "If it happens again focus on
something positive.. perhaps say over and over Jesus please be with me.." and I started chanting just that
in my head over and over and over as whatever it was seemed to weigh heavily on my chest and felt as if
the jaws of life were attempting to tear me apart. "Jesus please be with me...." and it stopped.. it was silent
and that loud silence pounding in my head I had to scream, but couldn't utter a sound. I laid there I don't know
just how long before my voice started squeaking back, then into a cry, then screams and by the time my
mother and stepfather found me I was as they said "not there". My chest ached and I felt hollow inside
I had never felt this before and I did not understand it at all.
A few days later I decided to try something new and I went and got my soul saved at a pentecostal church.
Yes I know that may not sound like me but it took more than just my will to create who and what I have become.
But I entered that church to be saved, and I was going to do just that. I needed protection somehow, somewhere
and this was offered to me so I took the offer. Now I never discount things I have not personally witnessed
as when I spoke in tongues and cried and felt "The Power of Jesus" I have to say it was quite a religious experience
however it happened cause and effect. I felt relieved..safe.. for the moment as I looked at the doors leading out
feeling them swirling out beyond the safety of this sacred place..waiting for me to step out and be reclaimed.
It was the only time I ever felt safe in a church I must admit I didn't want to leave.
Eventually after some coaxing I grew a pair and decided ok let's go.
No sooner than I walked out those doors it went black and I remember nothing between that moment and
waking up back at home, for those moments I am left unaccounted for.
Had I been reclaimed?
To Be Continued...
