Author Chuck Wendig asked: “What is a weird or prominent dream or nightmare you can still remember vividly no matter how much time has passed – a real dream, from sleep, not an aspiration or metaphor?”

When I was about five years old, I used to stay up past my bed time to watch whatever television show my parents were watching. It was hard for them to stop me, because my bedroom was right off the living room. All I had to do was sit in the doorway and peek around the corner.

One night, they watched the old Twilight Zone. When I saw the introduction, it scared the shit out of me. That crazy music, weird things floating around in a dark void, a slowly-opening, disembodied floating eyeball – A DISEMBODIED FLOATING EYEBALL!

I had nightmares about eyeballs staring at me from out of a dark void for years after that. YEARS. My screams woke up everyone in the house.

Not long after that, my grandmother innocently got me one of those clocks that looks like a cat with a tail for a pendulum and eyes that wig-wag back and forth as the clock goes tick-tock. My mom hung it in my bedroom because, you know, it was a gift and she wanted to show my grandma we appreciated it. It was on the wall just one day and part of one night. Those big, round eyes constantly scanning the dark room, looking for a soul to eat were too much for me. Screamed for mom, who took it down and probably had to spend at least a few hours with her arm around me, trying to get me to stop crying.

Twilight Zone opening still gives me the shivers.