Dreams of UFOs

Like many who are associated with the UFO experience, I have had my share of the usual UFO dreams. The merit of these dreams can be debated. The proponents of the typical abduction hypothesis (Hopkins, Jacobs, etc.) argue that dream encounters of UFOs are actually repressed abduction memories. I used to hold this belief. Even now, with the research of the "mainstream" abduction researchers very much in question, I'm not quite ready to discard this possibility, for one simple reason: While we now can be sure what the abduction experience probably isn't (a forced hybrid program conducted by ETs in mechanical craft), we are no closer to knowing what the experience *is*.

I suspect that some, if not most, of my UFO-related dreams might contain some cultural contamination. Years before Budd Hopkins published "Missing Time," I was having abduction nightmares... but I suspect that these *might* have been inspired by the television broadcast of a dramatization of the Betty and Barney Hill case in 1976. Several years ago, I actually did some research on this, and I might still have the results. During a long stretch of unemployment, I visited the Nashville public library and searched the microfiche for UFO-related news stories from 1976. I don't remember finding any, but I did find something that I had forgotten: That the television movie "The UFO Incident" about the Betty and Barney Hill case was broadcast in 1975 (according to Wikipedia) or 1976 (according to my memory). And I wondered... did the movie inspire the dreams? Or did the movie trigger repressed memories of experiences?

Alas, I have few conscious memories of UFO-related encounters upon which to weave an abduction narrative, so I can't argue that my UFO dreams are repressed abduction memories. At the same time, I can't say that they are simple nightmares inspired by scary abduction stories. The dreams are too strange, and as a careful dream journalist, I have learned to recognize dreams that are significant and meaningful. And the UFO dreams fall into the "significant" category.

So, with these caveats, I present a couple of what I consider interesting UFO-related dreams.

From 1987:

This morning, around 3:30 a.m., I dreamed that I was outside at night. A storm was coming. I was near an old cabin. The scene was surreal. I saw vivid and eerie-looking faces popping up around me, staring at me. I was then apparently under a car. I crawled out and felt presences around me. I moaned to wake up, and I was left with the impression that I was the subject of an experiment. The experiment involved minute adjustments in how we perceive reality. I continued to feel the presence while awake and stayed awake for 30 minutes.

I consider this noteworthy (aside from the fact that UFOs aren't even mentioned) in that I felt a palpable "presence" in the bedroom after waking up. The material-based psychologist would argue that this is a normal consequence of a hypnagogic state, but I would beg to differ. I have felt "presences" many times in my life, sometimes while wide awake, and I consider such experiences meaningful. But most importantly, the dream argues something that I still believe (and has been echoed by Whitley Strieber), that the close-encounter experience is closely involved with a gradual evolution in consciousness, specifically in how we perceive "reality."

The second dream comes from 1993, after I had been exposed to contemporary abduction research:

I dreamed that I was outside, looking up into an overcast daytime sky. I saw a bell-shaped UFO at tree-top level, bobbing back and forth. I became very frightened at the UFO and tried to say something to make it go away; finally I physically called out "Jesus Christ" and woke myself up.

This dream, admittedly, is a "typical" UFO dream that's been had by many. But what makes it interesting to me is the impression that I was left with after waking up:

Upon awakening I got the impression that I have come as close as I possibly can to understanding what UFOs exactly are: I got the impression that they are some sort of monitoring and control devices in the sense that Earth is a sort of controlled artificial environment and these devises represent intrusions into the physical world by the controllers from outside it.

This is also something that I still believe, though I will admit that it would be impossible to prove this hypothesis one way or the other. Perhaps the "memories" that have been recovered via the abduction-related style of hypnosis have some basis in reality, but that reality does not involve creating hybrids for the purpose of creating a master alien race. As Whitley Strieber has speculated, perhaps our civilization is embedded in a larger, more advanced one. We, being the embedees, would never know, or have any way of knowing, that this is the case... except from occasional intrusions from those who are tasked with controlling. (Presupposing that the "who" is, in fact, a biological construct like we are.)