Inception...

Last night I had a dream. I don't think the dream itself is important. Neither do I think the dream that I had the night before was important. But there was one element that has kept me on edge all day. Somehow, someone from my last dream made it into my other dream... and she knew it. In fact, she said to me, "Remember me? I was in your last dream." And this has NEVER happened before.

Actually, it has. But not like this. I have had dreams with recurring characters who had no idea they that they were recurring characters. I was always the only one who knew who was who and whether or not a dream was recurring or a continuation. This led me to believe that it was all a DREAM, as in, all in MY head. That the people in my dream were not real, actual living people. They were dream people. Figments of my imagination.

And now, I am not so sure. For someone in my dream to know they are a part of it to me just doesn't seem right. In fact, as a child when I came across repetitive themes and characters I was a sort of hero... an Alice or Dorothy, ushering them from dream to dream. They were always clueless. It was those experiences that led me to believe that Frank Baum, George McDonald and Lewis Carroll (to name a few) were aware of the worlds they wrote about because perhaps they had dreamed of them, not as dreams, but as alternate worlds with lost souls who were always unawares of their complete existence.

I started to write a book based on the dream world I thought these characters inhabited. And then I grew up. I moved away from haunted houses. Lost touch with friends who embraced the occult and I became a semblance of boring and normal.

And now, the people of the dreams are back. Or maybe I am just reading too much into it. The only way to know for sure is if she shows up again. What then?

Brad Steiger on BOA!!!

W/ A post show bonus interview with WHITLEY STRIEBER...

ull Preview: We kick things off by finding out what motivates Brad to keep writing about and researching the paranormal after over 50 years in the field. Having seen the rise and fall of numerous genres within the esoteric milieu, we get Brad's take on why some fields seem to emerge and take hold of the consciousness of people. Brad recounts the stunning popularity of 'table tipping' in World War II and explains why the spiritual practice became a sensation during those difficult times. This leads to Brad reflecting on how the quest for spirituality has become an individual journey for people and how this overall concept applies to paranormal research as well.

The conversation turns to how the Internet has fundamentally changed the paranormal field for authors like Brad, who have produced a myriad of written works, and for everyday people searching for answers to these esoteric mysteries. This leads to us discussing the meteoric rise of technology, especially in portable formats, in recent years and how it appears to be trending towards a merging of man and machine. Brad speaks to the importance of keeping up with the technology if paranormal researchers are to reach new audiences, but also reflects on how the ease of publishing and broadcasting has lead to a massive oversaturation of paranormal content online.

Next we examine the frenzy surrounding 2012 and Brad reflects on the cyclical nature of apocalyptic thinking, which seems to peak at the end of each century. Brad details how the discovery of America by Columbus was actually fueled by apocalysm. In keeping with the discussion on the cyclical nature of things, Brad details his 1975 book Roadmap of Time. This leads to discussion on lost civilizations that pre-date human history and Brad talks about the importance of South America in these concepts. He also shares the story of a massive ancient city discovered in a dried lake in Russia as well as a cave found underwater which contains remarkable paintings on the walls.

The talk about ancient advanced civilizations then turns to time travel and why Brad is skeptical of the concept, in general, due to the 'Grandfather Paradox.' From there, we go down a completely different path to discuss the enigmatic Bigfoot and Brad explains why he has "mixed feelings" about the creature. Brad recounts his attempts to solve the Bigfoot riddle, how the solution continues to elude him, and why it appears to be some kind of multi-dimensional entity. This leads to us talking about companion species, such as elves and faeries, sharing the Earth with humans.

*This is a GREAT, can't miss interview. I wish I could shrink Steiger and put him in my pocket...

Giants of Antiquity and beyond

Lately I've been rolling my eyes at the tales of women copulating with angels. Yeah, I know, some people actually believe that shit, but where do we draw that fine number two pencil line in the sand? Why do I have a problem with this, you may ask? It's simple, no woman has ever given birth to a giant. Now, let me clarify: Some people who've been born from average height mothers and shorter have grown to Basketball star heights and with the aid of an overactive pituitary gland, some have found their way into the guinness book.

I'm not talking about them. I'm talking about the men of reknown. The giants who were the sons of watchers, born of the daughters of man, who were Jack and The Beanstalk GIANTS. Not. Gonna. Happen. Not saying it didn't happen then, but I think that people are pretending they don't know there's an elephant in the room.

Once upon a time, everything was big. Tree, animals, lizards, insects (still animals, but you know what I mean). Things you couldn't even imagine being so huge these days, like rodents were big enough to rival trees. Yes, everything was big. They called it the Pleistocene epoch. Everything was HUGE!

So, if we push back the biblical tales a bit, is it possible that the People of that epoch were huge too? I am going out on a limb here, but honestly it all boils down to logic: Giant women will beget giant children. And giant men who fly (most likely in spaceships) can only have sex with women who are the SAME SIZE.

There is no way we can turn a blind eye to the fact that when the SONS OF GOD SAW THAT THE DAUGHTERS OF MAN WERE BEAUTIFUL... what giant see's a teeny tiny woman as beautiful? Better still, what teeny tiny woman is surviving in an age when everything else is larger than the empire state or thereabouts?

People say, "Don't take it literally" and yet that is what they do all day when they try to force feed scripture to you. So the next time someone starts quoting the bible, hit them with the something to think about: How did Arch angels, or the hierarchy of heaven manage to impregnate average sized human women and create GIANTS for offspring? Because the bible says there were giants in the earth in those days WHEN the sons of god, ---not BECAUSE--- the sons of god hooked up with the daughters of man.

Yeah, there were giants in those days. Ever last one of them.

The Vatican and Freemasons

I've just finished watching BRAD MELTZER's 'DECODED' . An episode on the death of Pope John Paul the 1st. The accusations and conspiracies abound. At the center of it all is the idea of the Freemasons taking control of the Vatican and killing the Pope to keep secrets. But the one thing that sticks out like a sore thumb (and the one thing no one is really mentioning) is the fact that John Paul the 1st died '33' days after he took to the Papacy.

The number '33' just reeks of Freemasonry and if there is one thing us common folk have come to know it's that the Freemasons adhere to strict rules and rigors of their belief system. To make John Paul the 1st's death a powerful page in Freemason history they had to make it symbolic. Why not use a symbol of importance like the number '33'?

Just stating the obvious.

Twenty-twelve

If you've never had the pleasure of walking passed a doomsayer, then you've clearly missed out and should rethink your life. In all seriousness, nothing beats having someone push the concept of 'end times' down your throat. "The end is nigh... repent...repent...repent." Truth be told, I think a few people *cough* Christians *cough* forgot that their savior died for EVERYONEs sins. SO what are we repenting for? The Kardashians?

The fact is, January 1st came and went, and yes, we are only into day two of the prophesied year of OMG!ZOMBIES!ASTEROIDS!HURRICANES!VOLCANOES!DIEHUMANSDIE! scenarios, but oddly enough the year seems to have come in pretty quiet.

For starters, no one really got out this year. Many of the people I have known to raise a few too many glasses at some of the most crowded clubs, opted to stay home this year. And yeah, maybe Times Square was crowded, but was it as crowded as in previous years?

I stayed in with family, drank a little, watched a little tv and ate ate ate. But I didn't feel a shiver in me timbers when the ball dropped. I had no resolutions to set into action. All the hoopla from all the "HFR"s of the world made 2012 out to be the year of epic badness and I am just wondering if the year will live up to our imaginations.

If you've ever read The Secret and believed that our thoughts and desires manifest, well then, you will have to consider that if something bad does go down, like... let's say, mass extinction... then every person who's ever been a strong believer in 2012 is responsible.

If anyone needs to repent, it's the people who want the world to end simply because they can't pay their bills or get along with their boss. What about the rest of us? Maybe we like it here. Maybe we want you to shut up and do something about your problems instead of hoping some massive event will wipe them away.

In fact, if anything bad does go down in 2012, I say the rest of us prepare to kick all the doomsayers asses! For the betterment of ALL HUMANKIND.

Black Peter

I don't know who came up with him first. Who saw him first, or maybe who made him up, but sometimes I just feel the need to remind kids who say, "There's no such thing..." that Santa Claus does exist. And why wouldn't he? They say if you believe in God, then you have to believe there's a devil. Well, since I've seen the opposite of Santa Claus, it's only logical to think that the story about the Jolly old elf with a sack full of toys has some basis in truth.

Fact is, I was probably one of the few teenagers who still believed in Santa Claus. I made it a habit of scaring little kids in the family by reminding them that Santa Claus was watching (like some Seasonal Big Brother) and that I knew how to reach him to let him know who was naughty and who was just plain annoying.

I even had an idea, however ridiculous it was, that Santa Claus didn't keep an actual tangible, paper list. No. The list was just some cosmic alert system. If you believed, Santa left you something. If you didn't believe, you didn't get anything. The end.

And why did I believe all this? If you've never heard of Black Peter, I'm going to let you in on a little secret: The Grinch is not entirely fictional. Somewhere, somehow there's a darker, creepier and perhaps sinister version of the Smiling, red-cheeked old man on a Coca-Cola can.

In tradition, Santa Claus (Or Sinterklaas) is loosely based on Saint Nicholas, a 4th century Bishop who was known for his generosity. In Iceland, Santa Claus is in fact no different from the God Odin. The fact that Father Christmas is associated with a God is probably what should raise a few eyebrows among Ancient Alien Theorists.

Odin road around on a sky chariot being propelled by a magical creature similar to a reindeer. The creature was eight-legged, and originally (before Rudolph was invented), Santa Claus had eight reindeer. But Odin only left gifts for the children who fed his eight-legged beast.

Now, Black Peter, although never associated with evil, was (according to the Dutch) a helper of Sinterklaas. Not much else is known about Black Peter and maybe what I know as Black Peter isn't really him at all, but everything has an opposite, and if Santa Claus has one... I've seen him.

I was twelve and honestly, to this day I don't exactly remember why I decided to sleep on the couch. But I was the sort of kid that always wanted to prove something truth or false. I vaguely remember a pact with my sister to see if Santa Claus was real, but it's vague and I can't be certain. What I do remember is falling asleep on the couch, in front of the Christmas Tree.

It took me a while to finally knock out because the pulsing lights danced behind my eyelids. When I did fall asleep I was abruptly awakened by the fact that I was in complete darkness. The lights were no longer flashing in my eyelids. I had the unnerving feeling that something was standing over me, blocking out the lights.

Growing up in a haunted house, you learn a few things. First, never open your eyes when you KNOW something is standing over you and, Second, never ever assume it's just your mom. I had run in's with that kind of stupidity. Thinking the lady in white standing by my window was my mom, or the vague outline of a dark mass standing at the foot of the bed was my mom. Not this time. I was hyper-aware that whatever was standing over me was radiating a malevolence that my mother did not possess.

I remember talking myself into breathing calmly. Into making the thing, whatever it was, believe that I was still asleep. I had succeeded because eventually the darkness was replaced with the twinkling lights of the Christmas tree. But whatever it was, it wasn't gone. Yet.

Plink! Plink! Christmas ornaments were dropping to the floor. Had it not been for the Skirt around the tree, they would have made enough noise to rouse my mother. Instead they fell with dull thuds, surviving the impact only to be crushed moments later by something making its way around the tree.

I listened to the crushing and crackling of smashed ornaments and the rustling of the tree before realizing that the dark foreboding I had felt moments ago was gone. It was safe to open my eyes. Or so I thought. When I did, I tried the 'slit-method'. A method practiced by millions of kids across the globe. It is the act of opening your eyes just enough to see but not enough to be seen.

At first I saw nothing. It wasn't until I opened my eyes wider and focused that I realized the tree was misshapen. It was bent over from the top and behind it stood a being so tall it had to crook it's head slightly to fit under the ceiling. It was as black as coal, and furry, not like an animal, but just like The Grinch. A humanoid with tufts of hair, in a dirty red suit. The kind of thing a drunken and battered Santa Claus working at a local food mart would wear.

Worst of all, it had red eyes. Not glowing red. Not evil red. But more like a crimson, or fiery red that burned as it looked at me. And what I got from the creature wasn't a feeling of absolute evil as much as a feeling that this thing was OUT-OF-PLACE. It did not belong here and it knew it. It shouldn't have been there and the fact that it was meant something else was wrong.

Even more odd was the sense that it was more afraid of me. But at the same time, it scared the hell out of me. Tall, dark beings in tattered old Santa suits do not hover over you on Christmas morning. I wish I could tell you more but the last thing I remember is blacking out.

The next morning the memory of Black Peter was vague and I didn't mention the encounter at all. We ate breakfast and we played Christmas music as we opened our gifts and I had all but forgotten about that 'weird dream' from the night before until my mother made her way to the back of the tree in search of more gifts.

"Who broke all of these ornaments and hid them behind the tree?" She said. Earlier that morning she mentioned the fact that the tree looked sparse, as if some ornaments were missing. Let's just say, I have yet to see proof of Old Saint Nick, but I have seen proof that however ridiculous a story may be to you as you come into adult hood and shun your child hood beliefs, just remember one thing: Every story begins somewhere.

The Peruvian alien is making the rounds

It has a non-human appearance because the head is triangular and big, almost the same size as the body. At first we believed it to be a child's body until Spanish and Russian doctors came and confirmed that, yes, it's an extraterrestrial being.

NAW! Really?