Night Sanctuary

A few weeks ago I was walking my daughters to school.  My younger 9 year old daughter suddenly started to describe an unusual memory from when she used to sleep in our bedroom.  She moved out to her own bedroom when she was 3 years old so this was a very early memory for her.  She said that every night she would leave her body and sit in a tiny tunnel that was less that a centimetre in diameter.  The tunnel was in the wall near the ceiling.  I asked what it was like and whether it felt safe or threatening.  She said she would sit just inside and that she did it because it felt very safe.  I asked her if the tunnel was completely dark and her answer was that it had a small bright light at the end.  At the end of the night she would slide out of the tunnel and not feel any breeze as she slid into the bed and back into her body.  She said she had this dream until she moved out of our bedroom.  I asked her why she had never told me about this before, to which she answered that she did not have the words to describe it.  Make of it as you want, some people would say it is very reminiscent of the near death experiences some people say they have with the light at the end of the tunnel, but maybe it was a dream, although one might say a very repetitive recurring dream.  Whatever it was, it was a strange dream/experience for a small child to continually have.

I have tried to visualise this with this art work.  I haven't shown them to my daughter yet though it will be interesting to see if I captured what she remembers of her dream.

Night Sanctuary, pen drawing, A4 (2017)