My Deep Dark Secret

Stalactites above me, stalagmites below...cold...dark. I was floating, swimming. I could see the mouth of the cave ahead. I saw the light shining through...the light...then it was pitch black...I woke up screaming!

This was a reoccurring nightmare I had since I was a child. It is a secret I never shared until now.

Speaking of secrets, when I was a teenager I was reading a National Geographic Magazine. The cover story was about the voyage of Magellan. On the cover was an artist's rendition of Magellan's ship. When I looked at that ship, I felt chills like I never felt them before!

It was a deja vu experience. I felt connected with Magellan's ship. Perhaps in a past life I was aboard that ship. Perhaps I was Magellan! Or at least one of his crew.

Anyway, I have always had an affinity with the sea. Sometimes when I was at the beach, I would hear voices in the wind and surf, calling me, beckoning me, "Life's an ocean, sail it!" Ironically, I was as much afraid of the ocean as I was drawn to it. I felt a sense of gloom and doom as well as adventure.

For years I kept this secret to myself, too embarrassed to confess it, worried that I would be put in a straitjacket--but a blind date would change everything. My reoccurring nightmare would be explained and finally end. My affinity and dread for the ocean would also be explained.

You see, Lora (my blind date) was a hypnotherapist. I had gotten a little too comfortable on her couch one evening and she put me under. You are not going to believe the things I said under hypnosis!

I had a past life. I was there when Magellan sailed--but I was under the sea as his ship sailed overhead. When I saw the ship, I was scared, so I hid in a cave--only the cave was not really a cave.

I had swum into the mouth of a great white shark! The stalactites and stalagmites were the shark's teeth. When the shark's mouth was open, I could see the light--but then the shark closed his mouth and everything went black.

I was dinner!

Sadly, I wasn't Magellan like I hoped or even a lowly member of his crew. I was a crab, just a cowardly crab who mistook a shark's open mouth for a hiding place.

So now you know--my secret.