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Lesley

Grey Matter

3.4.8

SLI-ding and Missing Time

Karyn Dolan recently wrote a post at Women of Esoterica about SLI or Street Light Interference. This brought up a memory in my mind of something that may have been SLI, an abduction experience or absolutely nothing.

There I am about 17 years old and damn cute if I do say so myself. Anyhow, it is obviously the weekend and as I recall I am driving home from my friend Trish's house, it is the witching hour, 3 am (actually slightly after). I have had a couple drinks, but I am not drunk as I recall. I am on the same road that I always take to and from her house. It isn't a major main street, but it does normally have cars on it, even at 3 am.

There is a point as I near home that I start feeling a little creepy. There is nobody on the road except me and that has never happened. Just as I start to acknowledge that feeling I am nearing a stoplight and suddenly the street lights around me go out, it wasn't all the lights on that street just the 3 or so nearest me. The light turns red. I stop. I don't want any trouble if there is a cop hiding somewhere, since I have been drinking.

I remember sitting there for what seemed like several minutes and wondering why the light didn't change.

I am not sure how to explain the next part, but it wasn't like waking up after falling asleep. It was more like when you are lost in thought and someone taps you on the shoulder, only as far as I recall my mind was totally blank and I hadn't been thinking about anything.

Anyhow, I become aware at that point and I feel panic for some reason. There is still nobody around. I look at the light and it is still red. I look at the clock and suddenly it is nearing 4 am. I don't want to let myself think about that and instead quickly tell myself that I must have misread the clock last time I looked because I can't imagine more than a minute had passed. I feel scared and I speed through the red light. I look back a few seconds later and there is nobody there but the light is now green and the lights are back on.

I was tired and it is possible I feel asleep. However, I know how waking up feels, I had done that all my life and it didn't feel like that. It felt like looking down for a brief moment and then looking back up, only to discover that over 30 minutes had passed.

There was also that feeling of panic. I don't know where that came from. I felt that I must get home and as soon as possible. I was scared and I don't know of what. I am not someone who scares easily, especially not by something like dark and lonely streets.

I did make it home and I went to sleep. Even though I tried never to think of that experience again, it has more than a few times popped up in my mind since then.

It is easy to think the obvious, I had a couple drinks, I was tired and I fell asleep at a stoplight. However, no matter how many alcoholic beverages I may have partaken of or how tired I was, I have never fallen asleep except when I meant to at any other time. I am not someone who falls asleep easily (no matter what) and when I do fall asleep it is damn hard to wake me unless I have slept enough (at least 6 hours) and am ready to wake up. I can't recall ever just sleeping for 30 minutes and then waking up on my own. Not ever.

If I were to guess and to be skeptical of anything out of the ordinary happening to me, I would say that I just misread the clock earlier before the incident. Because I have never fallen asleep like that. However, I know I had looked at the clock several times in the 10 minutes or so between Trish's house and that stoplight. I remember thinking that I didn't mean to stay out so late and kicking myself that I wasn't home in bed because there hadn't been anything exciting going on that night. Not saying that I couldn't have read the clock wrong, but it was digital and that is kind of hard to misread.

Then there were the streetlights all going out before I reached the stoplight. I had streetlights go out over me before and since then, but not two or more at one time.

Obviously I have no clue what happened and likely it was nothing more than I did actually doze off, but didn't fall into a deep sleep. Still with all of it together, the empty street, the lights going out, the light not changing, the missing time and the panic I felt I will never be fully convinced, as much as I would like to be, that it was all just coincidence.

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