Repressed Memories

Having studied the arts of health and taking psychology, I know that we repress memories, and sometimes those memories surface when either we are old enough to understand, or maybe it isn't so scary anymore, or simply they just pop up.

Recently, I was lying with my son, trying to get him to sleep, and as I did, I was trying to remember as far back as I could. What can I say? I was bored! Well, one of these long lost memories came to mind.

I lay in bed with my eyes closed, re-living each childhood memory, from most recent, on back, and further back I go, just relaxing, and replaying those thoughts in my mind as if they were real. My body lay loose and relaxed, almost in a state of sleep when...

I was lying in my crib sleeping and it began to shake. Not violent, but like someone would do to your shoulder to rouse you. Intermittent and quick, urgent in a sense. I remember crying, and standing up. I could see my parents sleeping in their bed, and remember the thunderous sound of my father snoring. I looked down the hallway, lit palely by the bathroom light, and saw a shadowy figure coming my way. It was a big fuzzy person, but pitch black shadowy. And this thing was huge! It stood from floor to ceiling, and I even remember it ducking under the threshold of the doorway! I cried a little louder. My parents slept soundly.

This figure came to the edge of my crib, the end closest to the hall, and it disappeared. I looked back to my sleeping parents, and I saw flames in a waste basket next to my parents' bed! I screamed bloody murder! Crying as hard as I could! My mother jumped up out of bed, picked me up, and tried to soothe me. I cried louder. As her consciousness rose, I remember her screaming to my father, "Glenn! Wake up! Fire! Wake up!" He jumped out of bed, and raced to the hall.

And that is where my memory ends.

I told this to my mother, and she confirmed there was a fire in our apartment when I was about 18 months old. The sleeping arrangements I described to her in more detail were the same. The only variance is that the fire was not in the bedroom as I remembered, but was in the kitchen where she forgot to turn off a pot of stew, filling the house with smoke. The funny thing is, she said she doesn't remember there being any smoke upstairs, just that awful smell of good food burning.

I wonder if that black figure was one of the reputed shadow people, or an angel. Maybe they are one in the same? Regardless, nothing was damaged. Just some smoke stains around the stove. We were awoken in the nick of time!

She doesn't recall any other odd incidence in that place of residence. But they didn't live there very long either; it was only a six-month lease. She said she was glad something must have been there to wake us up!