Monsters Under Our Beds

...there's a reason they hide there.

I awoke in the middle of the night with this question: What if the children have been right all these years? What if there really are monsters under our beds?

It’s such a common thing that it’s become something of a cultural trope. It was an ongoing theme, for example, in the long-running Calvin and Hobbes comic strip. Calvin senses a monstrous entity or entities, of indeterminate shape but palpably hostile intent… under his bed.

Eventually Calvin’s parents may show up, and when they do, the monster or monsters vanish. Readers can relate to this because many of us experienced this in one way or another. And many of our own parents did what Calvin’s parents do and told us that the monsters whose presence we sensed were not real. Some parents will go so far as to demonstrate to their children with perfect confidence, “Look! See? There’s nothing there! No monster!”

Never mind that they weren’t looking in the right place. But we’ll return to that shortly. As children we were reassured… and we craved reassurance. 

Sound familiar? It should. 

It’s 2:37am as I write these words. Electric service here is out. I believe this is helpful at times. And what I’m realizing is that the monsters that many of us feared as children do in fact exist. True, shining a flashlight under my bed will reveal nothing but a few empty boxes. But shining the light of consciousness on the entire world scenario reveals: Yep, there are in fact malevolent beings upon the planet — probably not the ones we’ve been trained to fear — and I am guessing that these are the same whose existence many children sense at night despite the denials and contradictions of their elders. 

Furthermore, these monsters do reside beneath, behind, or within — take your pick — the structures that support us and keep us more or less comfortable in our sleep. So the kids nailed that one, too. True, these entities may not be under our physical beds, but for sure they exist beneath, behind and/or within the structures that support us in the places where we habitually lose consciousness.

This is part of the process of “growing up” —  we fall asleep like our grownup caregivers, seduced by the false sense of security that this sleep provides. We make up our own bedtime stories. 

Most of us make it: In various ways and to various degrees, we grow up. We fall asleep. We don’t think about these things anymore. We have a comfortable set of beliefs that we maintain, and when these fail, well, there’s booze, and if that doesn’t work, the distractions of electronic storytellers are made available at a price, and prescriptions are obtainable from people in uniform. 

But these grown-up sleep rituals don’t work equally well for all. As adults, we tend to find labels for anyone who argues in favor of the feeling that there are, if not literal monsters under literal beds, then at least actual monstrous entities who rely upon and reside within the structures that support us in our unconsciousness. People do not want to hear that the monsters we once feared to be lurking under our beds or compartmentalized in our mental bedroom closets are real. And heaven help anyone who starts assembling evidence and logical proofs of the existence of these monsters. Polite society reserves the strongest labels for them. 

For their part, the monsters know how important our sleep-inducing structures, rituals, incantations, pills and potions are to us, biologically. The monsters know we cannot live in a state of perpetual panic, which their presence would otherwise induce. It would break us down. Consequently the monsters also know that they can to a large extent rely on us to help maintain the very structures that keep them hidden. And that’s what they do best, these monsters: They like to lurk. Often in the dark and out of sight, but also they will lurk right out in the open while we do our very best to squeeze our eyes so very tightly shut.

Children may lack the wherewithal to articulate, but overall they are wired to feel what’s real. And for our part, we grownups mostly don’t know how to help them interpret and validate their experience because it seems we are mostly hellbent on getting asleep and staying asleep ourselves. And I’m not saying we should live in fear, but we are the grownups after all, and at times we are called upon to do the brave thing, take the courageous stand, and maybe even lose a little sleep. That’s just how life works. And the children are counting on us.