My space odyssey — from nightmare to fascination
My first space odyssey took place in the year 1931, my first year as a human being. I was terrified! I had never before been totally enclosed in heavy clothing and unable to cuddle with my mother and father. A number of us were strung together on a rope, and my mother’s right gloved hand was holding onto my left gloved hand. From a distance, we looked like a string of white beads in an enormous blackness. I was terrified! I screamed and cried until my human mother picked me up out of my bed and cuddled me and hummed a quiet song to me. But the “dream” kept coming back every few months, awakening me screaming and crying. As I grew older and learned to understand and speak some English, my mother would ask me what was so frightening, but, as a human, I had never seen a space ship or a space suit and all I could talk about was a string of white beads, floating in darkness.
Then one day, after about 40 years of being terrified by the recurring nightmare, I took my 10-year-old son to see the movie, 2001: A Space Odyssey and, for the first time in my life, I saw space ships and space suits depicted in outer space. I was able to understand what was depicted in my nightmare and the terror never came back. I can still remember the dream, but the fear has gone. Anyway, my life became filled with other kinds of extraordinary experiences, some of which involved exchanges of non-physical information, like attitudes, emotions and intentions, with all kinds of other living entities, from plants to insects to big, black bears. Space and time are not limiting factors.
I wonder if being a Mensan is a factor in being aware of the fantastic capabilities of human beings.
Robert Radford
Mensa Canada membership No. 28903
