Happy Halloween!

In honor of this candylicious scaretastic ghoulfest, I've decided to share a Halloween memory. My earliest recollection of trick or treating involves a TRICK! I guess that's why it stands out so clearly. I was with my mother, trekking from house to house in a nice neighborhood with sidewalks. On a side note, I took sidewalks for granted as a youth, but now I know better, having experienced life in a town with a clear disdain for them!

So I'm walking along with my candy bag, all decked out in full Halloween attire (What costume? No clue!), and I come to the next house on the block. My mother stayed at the curb, and I walked up the path to the front door. I think I heard some sort of party going on inside. I rang the bell, fully expecting another friendly candy handout. And out jumps this guy in a skull mask, shouting his head off. My first thought: "Where's the candy?" My second thought, which quickly replaced my first thought: "AAAAHHHH!!!!" I ran back to the safety of my mother, who warmly and calmly consoled me.

What happened next? Did I continue trick or treating? Or did we call it a night? I don't remember! But I do remember how I felt about the guy in the skull mask. I think at some level I was aware that it was just a mask, but the behavior of the character in the mask was so freaky, it combined with the mask's fear factor (rather than fake factor) to give me something to remember for…the rest of my life?

The lesson I learned that night? There's just as much truth to the Trick as to the Treat in "Trick or Treat!"

In life, there can be many changes. Sometimes we move from one place to another. When school ends, we get a job and start living "in the real world." When we finally become adults, our childhood is left behind. But our minds remember it all. And from time to time, we haphazardly get to re-experience the past — in dreams.

Have you ever dreamt you were still back in school or still a kid? There's the kind of dream where you're a person you've never been, doing something you've never done, and you don't think twice about it. Then there's the dream where you are as you used to be, and you don't think twice about it. You don't remember the present. Ever had a dream like that?

What if you dreamed you were reliving college, and then as you were waking up, you realized you were in your old college room? For the first few moments, you'd still think nothing of it, as the dream blended with reality. But how long before it faded and you remembered that you're 37 and supposed to be at home? In your house?

I once wondered if someone could be tricked in such a way, even in the absence of such a dream. Sometimes when I wake up after a vivid and exotic dream, I need a moment to re-acclimate to reality. What if we all do? What if we take the cues from our environment about where and when we are? Could you fool someone into thinking they're living in the past?

Is there someone out there, not crazy, who a team of pranksters could fool? Say the team sneaks into the bedroom when the person is asleep, and changes the surroundings like those commercials where the technicians can easily change the world around a person. They make the room look the way it did between 5 and 10 years ago, when the sleeper was still there, but younger. How long will it take the person, once they get up, to realize something isn't right?

My guess is, depending on whether they are a morning or evening person, it could take up to 15 minutes. Maybe even longer!