So. The purpose of this is that now, as an adult 10 years later, I have nightmares occasionally about this basement. They are haunted in my nightmares. Only they are not mildly haunted with little strange things happening, but are severely, deeply and profoundly haunted by extremely powerful, malevolent demons. This is the part where you start to wonder about my sanity.

My aunt used to give me books about unexplained mysteries when I was 8. These books always had large sections on demonic possession. So of course, being 8 or so, I believed pretty wholeheartedly in demons. So when I saw the Exorcist at 10, you can imagine that I had trouble sleeping for a year or so. Well, ok a week. That movie still remains the only horror film that ever REALLY scared me. Back to the basement.

I always dream that these demons want me. They want to mess with me BAD. Not sexually, you perverts. I mean hurt me, kill me or my family. Destroy my life. The last one I had, there were several people in the house with me including Chris's mother, who is a Psychologist. A couple of men went down into the basement against our better judgement. I can't remember why. One man ran up 15 minutes later screaming and crying and hysterical, hollering that one of their party was trying to cut himself in half with a saw. He was crazed and he needed help so Shirley (Chris's mother) went down to talk him out of it, and she tried for hours but she couldn't, he was too distraught and under control of the demon, and he ended up cutting himself in half, and dying. Shirley was in shock because she couldn't help and the demon was laughing so hard the house shook.

I learned something interesting the other day that relates to my nightmares. In my nightmares, the lights are always out in the house, and I can't turn them on. I try, I flip all the switches, and they never turn on. Anna, who is a lucid dreamer, mentioned to me in passing that in dreams, we cannot change the lighting. So if it's light in a room, we can't switch the light off, and vice versa. This, to me, was true because I had experienced that SO MUCH in my nightmares. So a trick to lucid dreaming is whenever you pass a lightswitch, in life or in dreams, flick it. If the lighting changes, you are obviously in reality. If it doesn't, it should alert you to the fact that you are dreaming, and you can then take control of your dream.

I find lucid dreaming a dangerous concept for me. I already enjoy my dreamlife more than I do my real life. If I were able to control my dream life, I just might not ever wake up again. Is that possible? To will yourself to sleep forever? Or at least until you die from lack of nutrition etc. Well, I suppose they would know you were dreaming from the REM and the alpha waves. They could feed me intravenously. I better not explore this idea too much, I might like it.

The word of the day was one I already knew. Precipice. I know that word.