Real or distorted memory, that is the question.
When I was about four years old my dad was watching a movie called “The Brain that Wouldn’t Die”. He told me I was too young to watch and that I had to leave the room. I did leave – but came back and hid behind the couch. I watched that movie and it helped shape most of my nightmare scenarios for years to come.
Up until I was married (ok, give me a little break because I married at 19), I would have nightmares about either something under my bed, disembodied heads that could control my mind, or monsters that hung out in closets. Going to bed was something I dreaded and there was many a night I would crawl into bed with one of my younger brothers. This was the “reality” I lived in. The images from that movie became the characters that lived with me for a long time. Disembodied heads – monsters in the closet – mad scientists who smoked in the hospital (gasp!).
Now, a little over forty years later, I was surfing through TV channels and came across that movie. It was made in 1958 and debuted in 1961. Though a bit nervous because I knew how scary it was going to be, I decided to watch it. I got a comfy blanket, a cup of tea and told my trusty dog Duke he had to sit with me and I was ready to be thoroughly terrorized.
Some of you know where I’m going with this (those of my generation who have gone back and watched old horror movies). It wasn’t scary at all – it was quite stupid actually. Over acted, over dramatized, that stupid music that always ended on a crescendo, smoking inside a hospital (again, gasp). This is what had caused my night terrors for so many years? “The brain that wouldn’t die” was just an angry head who looked like she was reading her lines.
For a child, it was all so real. But now that I’m older it made me think about what is “real” or reality. Is it based on our perspective (where we are looking from) and our perception (understanding of the situation) at the moment we are cataloguing something in our minds? Yes, probably. But how long does it stay “real”. For me, that movie remained scary in my mind for close to 40 years. That’s a long time to hang on to a reality that is stupid!
How many other things have we allowed to be stored inside of us that have caused fear, anger, sadness? Maybe something we believe in feels real only because we’ve held it within us for most of our life and now is the time to take it out, look at it and decide if it belongs to our current reality. I can tell you this, I believed for a very long time that a head with tubing and wires out of it could enter my mind and make me crazy. Now that I’ve tossed out this old belief, I can actually hang my leg over the side of the bed and know that my foot will still be attached in the morning.
Brenda,
I loved the story. I can still remember watching Creature Feature every Friday night with my dad, and making popcorn waiting for Night of the Living Dead to come on. I loved those movies back then, but as I got older and technology took hold of Hollywood, I stopped watching all those scary movies. Ours weren’t scary compared to today’s movies. Thanks for sharing and good job on the blog!
What a terrific example of how the drama of our “reality” is rarely what we think it is. We can only really come to understand it when we take it out and really take a close look. Thank you for sharing this wonderful lesson. I think it is something we can all relate to!