The White Dream

Sometime before my third year, something happened that I remember, though out of context. That is, it happened, and I remember it too clearly to be a dream; but I have no lead-in memory and no lead-out memory.

I was in some kind of white place, about the size of my crib. Although the walls were solid, they were not rectangular; and somehow, I could see though them…and what I saw was our car, a Studebaker, from above…and I could see through the roof. I could see my father driving, my mother in the front seat, and my sister Mary Joan sleeping in the back. I started crying, because I thought they were leaving me; and I began yelling for them, but they couldn't hear me.

I might be tempted to call it an early out-of-body experience, except, then, where was I? My sleeping body should have been in the back seat, with my sister.

I have always been profoundly disturbed by this memory, even as I repeatedly dismissed it as being some kind of bizarre dream. (But how did I, as a 1½ year old, know what a car looked like from above?)