I remember having many nightmares as a kid...none of which I can recall now except for the worst one….
I would be awake, trying to fall asleep, and all of a sudden the Robot from Lost in Space would appear out of thin air and start moving towards me.
I do not think, or at least remember, it ever catching up to me but just the fact of him being in the same room with me, arms flailing to and fro, scared the poop out of me.
Even at the ages of 5 or 6, when the nightmares began, I think I knew on some level that the Robot was a “good guy” unlike he first seemed to be (In the above clip) but I still freaked out.
As a psychologist now, I have tried to determine why I had these nightmares. First I offer, /snark, the Freudian view… (If you know me I think Freud was as good a therapist as tRump a president.)
I think I was traumatized because he got to be, in the end close to Bill Mumy who even before my first sexual experience at the age of 9, I knew even then I was attracted too...so maybe it was my subconscious being jealous. :P So...it was my, at the time, latent homosexual tendencies coming out in my subconscious.
Ok, ok….the real, more likely explanation?
I was a shy 5 year old scared by loud noises and bigger things, all of which, the few times that I saw the show, were epitomized by Robot.
Which reminds me of my favorite joke:
Joe has been seeing a psychoanalyst for four years for treatment of the fear that he had monsters under his bed. It had been years since he had gotten a good night's sleep. Furthermore, his progress was very poor, and he knew it. So, one day he stops seeing the psychoanalyst and decides to try something different.
A few weeks later, Joe's former psychoanalyst meets his old client in the supermarket, and is surprised to find him looking well-rested, energetic, and cheerful. "Doc!" Joe says, "It's amazing! I'm cured!"
"That's great news!" the psychoanalyst says. "you seem to be doing much better. How?"
"I went to see another doctor," Joe says enthusiastically, "and he cured me in just ONE session!"
"One?!" the psychoanalyst asks incredulously.
"Yeah," continues Joe, "my new doctor is a behaviorist."
"A behaviorist?" the psychoanalyst asks. "How did he cure you in one session?"
"Oh, easy," says Joe. "He told me to cut the legs off of my bed." |
See.. a scary topic, but a good joke to make you laugh and feel better at the end. <grin>
So...what recurring nightmare did you have as a child?