2. Marco teórico
2.1 Procesamiento del lenguaje natural
Game
My next paranormal experience was in puberty. I was twelve years old and the maturation process was just about to take a big step. I remem- ber playing little league baseball and having a tremendous headache. Every time I would throw a ball or swing a bat, shock waves would go through my system. The normal thing to do would have been to tell the coach to take me out of the game, but I wouldn’t do that. In fact, he said that he wanted me in the game and was looking forward to me helping the team. We were mostly a losing team, but that night we were playing the best team in the league and he wanted to win. I was in some other zone of consciousness and figured I would just go through the motions and eventually go home.
It hurt so much to swing a bat that I decided I would let every pitch go by. This decision proved to be more painful because the pitcher didn’t throw any balls over the plate and I walked to first base. I discovered it hurt even more to walk than it did to swing a bat. Much to my own surprise, I was batted around the bases and scored a run. The pain was intense. Our team was doing well, but I wanted us to lose so that I could go home.
As painful as it was to swing a bat, I realized that it was less painful than running around the bases. I resolved to swing at every pitch and
strike out. This sort of attitude on my behalf was strange because up to that time sports were my only interest in life. There was nothing else and for me to adopt such a mentality was not in keeping with my usual self.
Despite the pain, I swung at the ball and made purposeful outs the next two times up. Much to everyone’s surprise, our team stayed in the game and kept it close. By this time, most of the team knew I was act- ing funny. I was hoping the coach would take me out but he let me bat with runners on base. I went up to the plate with the express purpose of striking out. On the third strike, I accidentally hit the ball for a game winning hit. It felt absolutely horrible. As my team began to celebrate, I hoped the end of the game would bring me some sort of relief. In- stead, my stomach began to feel unsettled. It was my father’s turn to buy the cokes after the game, and I asked him to buy me two. Hope- fully, the carbonation would ease my discomfort. This trick worked just long enough to get me home.
Upon entering my bedroom, I heaved up the spaghetti dinner I had eaten before the game. I completely lost any normal functionality. My mother cleaned up the rather extensive mess and helped me get to bed.
That night was one of the most horrible experiences of my life. I don’t know if it was simply a nightmare or an abduction of some sort, but I felt that my mind was being ransacked by a very large and powerful computer. I remember seeing reel to reel tapes like the old computers of the 1960s. It seemed to be probing every possible memory fiber that could exist within my mind and the operation was accompanied by ex- treme pain and forcefulness. The process was continued repeatedly, and I began to scream louder and louder. Perhaps they were checking out my pain threshold. I have screamed in dreams before where the sound never translated to the physical plane. In other words, people 148/304
sleeping in the next room didn’t hear anything. In this case, my father heard me from down the hall and came in to see what all the fuss was about. He never showed much interest in anything metaphysical or paranormal, but he was fascinated by what I told him and wanted to hear as much information as I could tell him. It was all rather odd. The intense form of mental intrusion that I experienced lasted only one night, but I found that I could not keep any food down afterwards. After a few days, I began to throw up stomach acid and my mother be- came very concerned. A week later, she took me to the doctor. He was pretty grim and indicated I could die if I was unable to eat for much longer. The doctor had no idea what was wrong with me. He may have given me a shot of penicillin, but I don’t remember. There was no reas- surance of any kind nor any suggestion that I could be put on intravas- cular support. If I couldn’t eat after ten days, we were to call him again and expect the worst.
By the tenth day, I could no longer walk out of sheer weakness. My parents and I were waiting on pins and needles. My spirits were con- siderably raised by the fact my best friend’s father, a former neighbor, was coming to visit. I was reduced practically to skin and bones, and I don’t know if this friend’s presence did the trick, but I was able to re- tain my food for the first time in ten days. When he suggested I return with him and spend the next week in my old neighborhood, my spirits soared. I was able to eat some more and began to regain a little strength. I soon began to walk a bit. My father was concerned about my going away in such a weak condition, but he was persuaded by my enthusiasm and by his friend. I took the trip and experienced a com- plete resurgence of my emotions, inspired in no small part by visiting my old neighborhood haunts. My physical health returned quickly. Even though I fully recovered, I occasionally wondered if someone was spying on me and could watch my every move. I never linked it to the
previously mentioned experience but simply thought it was something everyone must think about from time to time. The thought of someone spying on me didn’t really disturb me too much because I considered the possibility to be very remote.
All in all, this experience at the onset of puberty had changed me. It was very unlike me to abandon my little league team and my first love which had been sports. Of course, it is not so unusual for interests to change during adolescence, but my shift in behavior and interests was accompanied by a rather forceful intrusion upon my consciousness.