My strange experiences started in early childhood, with white figures that would appear beside my bed. These figures were shaped like people, but were featureless, kind of like brightly lit globs of white mist.
When I would wake and see them I'd be so terrified I'd scream for my parents with all my might. One of them would come running in and turn on the lights, and of course by that time nothing would be there.
This happened night after night.
I took to sleeping with my bedcovers over my head, but it didn't help. I'd still wake late at night feeling something slowly pulling the covers down to my feet. When I opened my eyes, there would be the white shiny thing again. So I just had to suck it up and get used to it, or else be in trouble with my folks all the time.
Sometimes after these beings would visit me I would fall back asleep and have vivid dreams of flying around the neighborhood with them. I didn't look at them, as that tended to freak me out, but I did check out the streets below.
During these nocturnal flights, I accurately saw features of homes and yards I had never visited in neighborhoods I'd never been. When on occasion my parents would drive past these places in the car I'd point them out and explain that I'd seen them on these night trips.
They told me I had "an overactive imagination," which was what parents said back then when their kids said crazy stuff they didn't believe. It didn't feel like my imagination but what did I know?
In some ways, being a kid is the worst. It really is.