A client asks: “I honestly believed most children had “friends” living under their bed as I did, but sometimes my imaginary visitors would actually really visit. The under-the-bed people were often dreamlike. Was it an overactive imagination?”

This was not an overactive imagination. This was a reality for you. You were being visited by extraterrestrials who created the impression of being there in human form so as to not frighten you but make this seem a common, ordinary, and even loving experience to be visited in the night by others. The purpose for this was entirely sinister. They were seeking to both study and manipulate you, which they did with impunity, and use these types of screen memories to create the impression of seeing things that were benign or, in some ways, inexplicable, and then were left with doubt and confusion as to whether you really experienced something after all. This serves the interlopers to create doubt and suspicion of your story should you discuss the experiences with anyone, and this usually keeps everything secret, because once tainted with a critical interpretation that it is a misunderstanding or, even worse, an exaggeration and perhaps a tall tale, people will be shamed into not sharing further experiences, and this is quite a lost opportunity to have an opinion and some support from an objective third party. So the experiencers themselves are all too often left on their own to their own devices and risk much criticism if they speak out about what truly happened to them. This serves to keep such experiences hidden.