The Day I Went Looking for Aliens and Found a Psychiatrist
I’m usually the guy who builds things, you know? My life is spent dealing with code, wires, and stuff that actually exists in front of me. Solid ground. But last year, I got completely derailed and pulled into the cosmos, all because of a dude named Pete. Pete is my neighbor. He’s a hardcore pragmatist—retired Marine, owns three ugly pickup trucks, and thinks yoga is a communist plot. The last person on Earth you’d expect to be obsessed with little green men.
But that’s exactly what happened. Pete wasn’t just watching documentaries; he was waking up screaming. For three solid months, he was plagued by intense, repetitive dreams about UFOs hovering right over his backyard. These weren’t fun, sci-fi dreams. He was genuinely terrified, not of the aliens themselves, but of the feeling that something massive and incomprehensible was watching him, judging his life. It was destroying his peace. I saw how much it was wrecking him, so I committed myself, right then and there, to figuring out what this common dream symbol actually means, way past the usual pop psychology garbage.
Phase 1: Shaking Off the Self-Help Books
My first move was the obvious one: Google. What do UFO dreams mean? I waded through about a hundred articles, all saying the same useless crap: “UFOs represent feelings of alienation,” or “You feel out of control in your professional life.” Total, absolute junk. Pete was retired, perfectly in control of his fishing schedule, and deeply loved by his grandkids. The simple, standard interpretations didn’t stick. I realized immediately that if I wanted the real truth, I had to stop looking at what the academics were selling and start talking to the people who were actually living the experience.
I needed raw data. I needed to understand the pattern of the experience, not the definition of the symbol.
Phase 2: Diving into the Deep End of the Conspiracy Pool
This is where the real work started. I spent the next four months digging into the forgotten, dusty corners of the internet. I avoided the big Reddit groups and the glossy podcasts. I searched out the forums where the people who call themselves “experiencers” or “abductees” actually communicated with each other—the ones who had been sharing their terrifying stories for decades without any media attention. I reached out to maybe fifteen of them, mostly through ancient email addresses, and just asked them to describe the feeling of the dream, not the visual details.
Most of them, frankly, were just sad and wanted someone to listen, but a few consistent threads began to emerge. It wasn’t about technology or fear of government; it was about feeling like an old reality had been violently superseded by a new, unknown, inevitable mandate.
The biggest breakthrough came when I tracked down a retired historian in upstate New York. He didn’t study UFOs; he studied folklore and how cultures process major societal shifts. He’d written this tiny, obscure paper back in the 90s connecting modern abduction narratives to historical accounts of demonic visitations and angel appearances. He was the expert, but he wasn’t talking about spaceships.
Phase 3: The Real Meaning Is Just Old-School Dread
Here is the truth, the hidden truth that those glossy, clickbait experts always skip because it’s too boring or too terrifying. The meaning of the UFO dream isn’t about aliens. It’s about carrying a tremendous, unstoppable change.
The historian laid it out simply. Our brains need a framework to process events that shatter our reality. Two hundred years ago, if you felt chosen, judged, or forced into a new life direction you weren’t ready for, you dreamed of:
- A divine being: An angel or prophet telling you your mission.
- A supernatural enemy: A demon or ghost dragging you toward hell.
In 2024, our dominant myth is high technology and the unknowable vastness of space. The only symbol powerful enough to represent an unstoppable, uninvited, and profoundly significant life change is now the UFO.
The “experts” are right that it symbolizes the unknown, but they don’t explain why it chooses that form. The UFO dream is the modern mind’s way of processing existential dread or a massive, forced spiritual transformation, packaged in a shiny, metallic vehicle. It’s the divine visitation narrative for the digital age.
Putting the Theory to the Test
I took this framework back to Pete. I stopped asking him what the lights looked like and I focused hard on what had recently happened in his waking life that was totally out of his control. Turns out, he had been forced into an early retirement due to a company buyout. He felt useless. His life mission—being a master machinist—was over, and he had no replacement. The UFOs weren’t trying to beam him up; they were his psyche screaming that his old identity was being annihilated and a new, undefined, terrifying one was starting.
Once we zeroed in on that feeling of being completely directionless and dealing with the fear of being “retired” in a world that requires purpose, the dreams started to fade within a week. It wasn’t magic. It was just removing the alien distraction and tackling the real, massive human problem underneath.
The experts reveal the hidden truth by accident. The UFO is a placeholder—a giant, technologically advanced signpost pointing to the one massive life shift you are trying hardest to ignore. I never thought I’d be decoding alien encounters, but hey, if I can do the grunt work and help my buddy sleep, that’s what this practice log is all about. Look inward, folks. The aliens are usually you.
