Surreal Childhood Memories - Figuring out what is real

[Shandralyn Alaia]

This is kind of a strange topic.  I decided to put it here instead of the philosophical section because of the spiritual ramifications it has for me that I'll explain later.

Do any of you have any surreal childhood memories that are outrageous but they are remarkably clear and seem very real?

For example, I've got some memories from when I was around 6 or 7 where I could stick my hand through walls, and another time right through a window.  I can clearly remember doing this as if I had some superpower that let me phase through solid objects.  Now, as much as I'd like to have the powers of Kitty Pryde (and her body too ), I know that these were just childhood fantasies.


But lets take this a step further into where the line between reality and fantasy is obscurred.  Lets take something that a person is raised to believe in, even into adulthood.  It also needs to be something that isn't readily explained by science.  For the most part this means religious or spiritual beliefs.  Try to use something you were taught growing up as an example (if you have anything applicable from your background).  Now imagine having a memory from your childhood of an experience that is very unusual but seems very real and is directly supportive of those specific beliefs.

This is my situation.  I won't bother with the details of my memory because I'm still sensitive about it being made a mockery of, and besides, you wouldn't really understand unless you grew up with an LDS perspective.  However I will explain that this experience that I remember from my childhood (around 5 or 6 yrs old) has served as major part of the foundation for my beliefs in my church all my life.  Whenever I felt my beliefs in the church wavering I would always fall back on this experience as an anchor in my faith.  I do have other experiences that are supportive of my faith, but I've found that without this one experience they are merely supportive of a divine influence in my life.

The conflict between the beliefs I was raised with and my feelings about needing to be a woman has come to a culmination.  I find myself for the first time in my life questioning my beliefs as well as the reality of that experience I recall from so long ago.  It is a frightening and painful process.  My mind shudders at the thought that for so long my life may have been guided by something that is possibly false.  I have one clue from the memory that suggests that it truly might have been an imaginary experience and it pains me.  Because if that is true and it was false than everything else is up in the air and subject to question.  I feel anchorless...

Anyway, I guess my point of this post was mostly to vent about how I feel right now.  I wouldn't mind hearing about whether anyone else faced similar struggles in their lives and if you had any thoughts or guidance to share.

[buttercup]

There is one incidence in my childhood where I can relate to it being kinda strange was when I was nine yrs old.  I was in the garden and I was jumping in the air and suddenly I began to levitate.  Probably for a couple of minutes.  I swear it was not a dream or fantasy or imagined.  I don't understand it, but I will never forget it.   

[lady amarant]

I wouldn't be too quick to dismiss this sort of thing as childhood fantasy.

When Uri Geller (Bendy-spoon man from the eighties) went on British TV live for the first time, the station switchboard was swamped by calls from concerned parents - apparently the clocks in their houses were stopping, assorted cutlery was doing bendy-bits, etc. Turns out, the young kids at home were doing it. Following up later, the ability was lost in pretty-much all of them. The theory in parapsychological circles is that, at the younger age, they had not yet been programmed with a particular model of reality, so what they saw - a man bending spoons with his mind, was easily incorporated. Later on in life though, their paradigm of reality was set much more strongly, and "impossible things" simply no longer had a place in there.

Personally, I had precognitive dreams till I was about 14 or 15 - around the time my gender issues started getting really bad and I started supressing them. I'd write them off as fantasy as well, except that I had kept a dream journal for a few years from about the age of 11 or so (my english teacher had suggested it a good way to write better poetry and stories, which I loved) so I have a record of those experiences.

Okay, so has anybody called the little white van with the two nice, friendly orderlies yet? 

[lisagurl]

I grew up around mostly adults. Instead of beliefs or fantasy I was strongly rational. I would question nursery rhymes. Ex., how do you know Humpty Dumpty was an egg? How did it get on the wall? What made it fall? How can horses put it together with out hands? You get the picture. Unless I could see it with my eyes, senses, etc. and understand it, it was not real and not to be believed.

[Pica Pica]

I have had a bunch of these. I just want to accept them all as real and pretend childhood was blessed.

[Terra]

I remember maybe around 10 swimming in a pool. I was trying to swim from one side to the other in one breath and just couldn't quite make it. Determined I tried again, and ran out of breath almost to the wall. Instead of going up I kept going, and my body reflexively breathed...air.

I clearly remember swimming one more lap breathing under water. But have been to afraid to try again.

Maybe its like the Matrix. If you believe, truly believe you can, then you can.

[offthesidewalk]

this is probably a very old topic, but ok.

when i was about 8, i remember i could make my eyes shine like a faint blue light. i remember my mom being there in the hallway, but when i asked her about it alot later, she denied it ever happening. i couldn't remember what i could do with it, or what it meant- but i dismissed it as dreaming since i always had really vivid dreams and still do. it's just something inside tells me that it happened and that i wasn't dreaming.

but oh- I'm glad I'm not the only one with memories like it.

*hugs* all