If so..why? If not. Why? Please do tell. As for me. I'll go first. My first of many experiences. Also for instance, like anything else in life we sometimes have a trigger. Something that sparks a memory from past trauma or even a good memory. Regardless of it being suppressed or not. A picture can cause it. A smell. A song even. So for me, this certain song does it for me. Man. This song really hits me in a crazy way too. Madonna's "Open Your Heart" (I'm an 80's kid so...) https://youtu.be/3D6YRSoLGm4 <listen ............................................ It was sometime, in late 1987. I used to stay up very late, as a nightly ritual with my father, watching Johnny Carson (yeah, that late, and I was in only in Kindergarten). One night, while he slept on the floor, TV/VCR remotes in front of him, and his pillow under him, I sat WIDE awake just to his left, in our big light brown corduroy upholstered La-Z Boy Chair, next to our double wide window with the typical white blinds, rolled all the way up, and our A/C unit right there into the wall just below. The window faced our backyard. It was BLACK OUT! PITCH BLACK! Like an abyss. Except when our backyard sensor light would come on, being if there was movement of any kind. Well...this one night was UNLIKE any other night I ever experienced, before or since. As my dad slept there, slightly snoring as he always did (whose dad didn't?), I was WIDE AWAKE! FULLY ALERT. Enjoying Carson on TV. Suddenly, I looked to my left, out into our backyard, as the bottom of the window pane sat a bit higher than my eye level, so I was looking up in other words, at an angle. When I did, I saw this LARGE figure, gliding across, as if it were on roller skates, and yet it had a slight bobbing effect to it. I can only describe it as a large woman, wearing a pink turtleneck sweater and strawberry blonde hair, done up with a pig tail on each side of her head (you know, it was a LOOK of that time. Is it still?). I was frozen in fear. What the hell am I looking at? What is this?! Who IS THAT?!! WHAT IS THAT?!! I'm NOT dreaming. I'm WIDE the hell awake! Yet, time slowed down and I was so scared, I locked up and couldn't even scream or call for my dad if I had tried, in that very moment. Just as this figure left out of view, it looked over it's shoulder, RIGHT at me and it's eyes had a sheen of that of a wild cat, in the night, when it's eyes would reflect off your headlights. But, this had a very blue hue to it. It was EERIE to say the least! I just sat there for a moment. Not sure of what to do. So then I wake up my father, and tell him someone is in our backyard. He was sure that I was imagining things and took it lightly. I was on the verge of tears, my voice trembling, I kept saying "There's a big lady outside, in our backyard!! Dad!! She wen't into our garage!" He stood up real fast, convinced. Grabbed a bat or pipe (I can't recall, but he did grab some sort of large stick like object from our coat closet, by our front door). He wen't out back. He was gone maybe a minute or two. He walks back in.. "Shawn. There's NOBODY out there. NO one. I checked. Let's go to bed. It's late, you need to get to bed." So, off to bed we went. I had described EXACTLY what I had seen. Word for word. What that figure wore, the color of it's hair and so on. The next morning, as my father had me grab the morning paper for him, I wen't through it before I gave it to him so I could fetch the Comics section, to look at it. As I thumbed through the paper, something had caught my eye. My heart stopped. My throat locked up. I was in utter shock! On the front of our Local NEWS section, a little girl, about two years older than me. Her body had been found not far from where we lived, off the side of the freeway, in a ditch. She had been murdered and her body had been dumped. Get this. Her picture. It was a little girl. Strawberry blonde hair, pig tails, wearing a pink turtleneck sweater with this big smile on her face. IT WAS HER. IT was WHAT or WHO I HAD SEEN JUST THE NIGHT BEFORE!!!! I handed the section to my dad in disbelief to tell him to look at it!! He just wanted to read the Sports Section (he loved baseball). I told him "LOOK!! JUST LOOK!!" I'll never forget the look on his face. He stared down, mouth moving as he read it to himself. He looked up at me... "Shawn. What's going on? Well..I'll be damned...oh my god..." We were both speechless. We never really spread that experience to anyone. It was kept between us and my mother pretty much. I didn't tell anyone about it until about a year later, when I couldn't contain myself. It was just too crazy to hold in forever!! I couldn't stop thinking about it!! That's when I knew. The afterlife. Was in fact...quite real. It was my first of many many occurrences, but NONE quite like that! It gives me goosebumps as I write this now. I'll never forget it. Now, Madonna's "Open Your Heart To Me", played on the radio that morning as we took in what had just happened. The song played several times that day. It was such a bizarre and eerie weekend. Cold and brisk weather. I'll never listen to this song without thinking about that very experience. Ever. My dad died over 20 years ago, at just age 42, from cancer. I miss him like hell and think about him all the time. We shared something that no one could take away from us. This song tugs at my heart strings, because of I think of that night, my dad laying there, sleeping, and me, just a 5 year old kid, living his life and living another night, taking in a usual routine. Life is bizarre and music really is a big part of it! This song. Really hits me in a crazy way. 😲 If you made it this far. Thanks for reading. 🙏