When I was five or six, I used to have nightmares about murderers with chainsaws. And lying in bed, I could see them approaching, starting their saws and leaning over me.
Imaginations are powerful. Psychology is powerful, and being five years old I didn't have the experience to convince myself of the truth--that nobody was there. In the darkness, I'd see little spots of light that float around the room: nothing more than relics of the retina and nerve signals--neurotransmitter being sent around my brain.
But those little spots, glowing and flashing, they'd move and coalesce into a silhouette, and I'd see this shadowy figure enter my room. Then I'd panic, fingers clutched around the top of my blanket, pulled up to my chin, shaking. The figure would move closer, acting exactly as I would imagine my worst fear--as I was imagining-- and proceed to cut me in half with an invisible ghost chainsaw.
But somewhere in my little head, I knew that this midnight assassin only existed in the dark. If I could make it to the light, past him, around him, through his legs, and flick the switch-- I'd win. So I'd wait, until he got closer. He'd pause, trying to start his silent shadow-saw, pulling an invisible ignition cord. At the last second, I'd roll out of the way, to the other side of the bed and scramble, rolling and diving, to that light switch. I remember hitting it one night and screaming: "I GOT YOU!" into an empty room.
The next morning my sister asked me what I was yelling at in the room next to hers: why she had been woken up to me yelling at some imaginary demon and then doing a happy-dance to gloat about my victory. When I told her, she made fun of me for days.
