Night Terrors and Flying Things in the Dark
Well, this is a cute pic ain't it?
That's by Goya, and is entitled 'El Sueño de la Razón Produce Monstruos', or, 'The Sleep of Reason Produces Monsters'. Searching Wikipedia for 'night terror' will take you to that image.
What prompts this post was the very-recent occurrence of not one, but two back-to-back 'night terrors'. (If my old psych major memory serves me right, the armchair definition of a night terror is that it's sort of a nightmare on steroids. It's rare but highly memorable, often accompanied by screaming, punching, and kicking. Also, the heart rate can go through the roof. A night terror is to a nightmare what a pneumonia is to a common cold.)
My first night terror occurred back when I was in my 20s... I was being chased by the famous, mounted headless horseman. I was so scared I awoke trying to scream, but could only grunt in a gasping sort of way.
Tonight, the first consisted of a disastrous explosion (a cross between a huge tree limb falling and a shotgun blast) followed immediately with me being in my pitch-black basement shop with my shoulder wedged against the door, and some large winged thing stomping on the stairs on the other side. To make matters worse, I'd left my pocket flashlight and knife on the workbench. I distinctly remember trying to decide whether to open the door and try to fight the creature in complete darkness, or to keep the door closed and simply try to hold the fort.
The second NT this PM consisted of a flying fairy that wanted to get in my face and not leave.
So why do we have these horrors, and why do they so often involve flying things? As for the former... who knows. 'Experts' say that the cause could be anything from excessive passivity to over aggressiveness to bad sleep habits. And the latter? There are some plausible explanations. Maybe we're born with a fear of flying things from an evolutionary standpoint... Perhaps flying is considered a super-human ability that can turn super-sinister... Then again, maybe the brain is just bored during sleep and decides to go on a bit of a tear with the psyche... Who knows? But I do know one thing -- the most terrifying movie I ever saw was 'Jeepers Creepers', and that winged thing was as bad as bad can get...
Yup... Horrific death from above in the darkness... That will do it...
Sleepless by the feeders and looking up,
CapeCodAlan
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