I think we're alone now

From the time I was a wee kid up until only a couple of years ago, I would be lying in bed and scared. Sometimes too scared to sleep. Yeah, that scared. A phobia. Something that stiffens the body and contorts the mind into a quivering wreck. Not a phobia of falling asleep, not of shadows, the boogie-man, not a phobia of ants or spiders possibly crawling up into my nose while I'm asleep. It would make me look out the window every now and again, open my eyes just one last time. It got pretty bad sometimes. Other kids were afraid of monsters under their beds. Later, other people my age were afraid of a robber breaking in. I was afraid of aliens. Extraterresterials. Little gray men.

I know a friend who has an almost morbid fear of being in high buildings and flying, not because of the long fall down, but because of being "closer" to the sky. That goes to show that phobias aren't rational at all. What do you call fear of aliens? Xenophobia is already taken. I'm college educated in the social sciences and am sceptical to organized religion. There should be no room for this.

It's just too easy to imagine what would happen. There would be no bright lights, no shaking of the room, no mystical wind blowing sheets of school work around. There would be a feeling of just somehow knowing there's something out there. Just knowing a hunk of unearthly metal is floating silently outside and little gray beings are walking toward the building. Not ET's, not the X-files aliens. Little gray lanky beings with no clothes, big black slanty eyes and warm, dry skin that feels like fine sandpaper when they run their long fingers down your body. The way I thought about it, Mulder got one thing right: you can't move. Can't do anything, really. Just sit back, relax, and enjoy the flight. If you're lucky you won't remember a thing afterwards.

Even though I don't like scary movies I can watch them. Horror, no problem. Psychological thrillers, even better. Bloody action, oh yeah. Movies about abductions, I'd rather take a shower in lemon juice and then dry myself off with a grater. I tried watching the movie "Signs" by myself at night but it didn't work. Mercifully I could rid myself of this only about two years ago by hard mental work-outs.

Only one question remains: how exactly do you treat fear of aliens otherwise? If you're afraid of spiders, you go through cognitive behavior therapy by coming into close contact with spiders so you don't lie in bed at night afraid that one is going to crawl up your nose when you're asleep.