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Different Child Book Reviews
"Different Child" - © 2001
"He wondered if he were 'crazy,' he wondered if he was just making it all up, he wondered if his fascination with UFOs had influenced his thinking, and he wondered if he would ever find peace," writes Patricia McCormack Kerr, M.A., a licensed professional counselor in the Foreword for Different Child.
Pat McCormack worked with Sandy Nichols in order to help him try to make sense of the strange memories and recurring dreams he was dealing with. She states,
"Because we are still working toward his healing, and at the same time, continuing to uncover information, I am continuing to keep most thoughts to myself. What I am willing to share at this time is that his experience appears to be genuine in regard to affect and consistency."
As I read Different Child, I found Sandy Nichols to be a sensitive, sincere and apparently honest individual who deeply wants to understand what has happened to himself. And, because he also wanted to help others, Sandy started Alien Research Group (ARG) in 1998 and with a close network of friends, helps people who believe they have had abduction experiences find counseling and support groups.
One of the many interesting things about this book that I immediately noticed was its beautiful cover. The artwork and the title tie in together with the abduction phenomenon in a way that touched me deeply and I believe it will have the same effect on others.
Sandy keeps a journal and like many abductees, he states that by periodically reading his journal, he is able to remember small, but important details that he originally thought were inconsequential when he wrote the events in his journal. After reviewing his journal from time to time, some of the details now appear to hold a deeper meaning than before. He views his abductions as something that occurs against his free will and for the present, he does not feel that abductions are for the good of the abductee.
Each chapter in Different Child has a quote beneath the name that gives the reader a hint as to what the chapter will be about. There is also poetry in this book written by Sandy and other abductees like Michelle Guerin. Incidentally, Sandy has actually had several of his poems purchased by publishers, which attests to his writing abilities.
While fighting the idea that abductions were really occurring to him, he also tried to prove to himself that he was not "doing this to himself" as debunkers incorrectly believe. He wore gloves to bed at night to prevent the cuts, scrapes and scratches from occurring. He hung Christmas bells on his door to awaken himself in case he was sleepwalking. He set his alarm clock at one-hour intervals to prevent strange dreams from invading his sleep, but nothing seemed to change things. He still found himself in strange places, he still awakened with cuts and bruises and he still had the strange memories.
Sandy then asked his doctor to conduct a physical examination to determine if he had weak blood vessels in his nose to account for nosebleeds, and to examine his skin to determine if he bruised more easily than most people did. Nothing seemed to explain his memories or cuts and bruises except for the fact that unusual things were indeed happening to him and the possibility of abduction by unknown beings became a distinct possibility.
Another thing that touched me early on in this book was reading something that my mother said to me a long time ago and finding out that Sandy's mother said the same thing to him:
"'You have always been my different child,' shaking her head as [my mother] slowly turned around and waked down the hallway toward the other end of the house. I could read her thoughts as easily as I had heard her words and they sent a chill cascading through my entire body. For the first time in my life, my mother had verified the way that I had felt for a long time. With the challenge that parents face in shaping and molding their children for life's journey, I was a piece of the puzzle that did not quite fit."
Sandy shares his feelings that deal with the difficulty of low self-esteem, which many abductees experience because of their abduction encounters. There are the familiar feelings of failure and the difficulty of living in two separate, but coexisting worlds: one is the "status quo" world and the other is a "secret" world that is not supposed to exist.
One of the consistencies about all abductees, no matter how they view their experiences, is the fact that they all appear to go through an Awakening. Sandy's Awakening revolved around having three different dreams on the same exact days of the month for four-and-a-half years with all three dreams involving strange dancing lights.
Sandy navigates his way through his Awakening and finds support from his wife and two couples he met at Shoreline Park near Gulf Breeze, Florida. He finally breaks his silence and shares his "terrible secret" with the Morrisons and the Pollocks of the Gulf Breeze Research Team, four people who listened when no one else would or could.
Sandy describes meeting them, "It was like reuniting with lost family members or long forgotten friends who had my best interest at heart. The kindness they showed me was unlike anything else I had ever felt from strangers." Speaking from experience, I know that the Morison's, Pollock's and other members of GBRT have been listening to and trying to help abductees for many, many years and I commend them for their kindness and effort.
Different Child also contains a list of 58 possible "indicators" to help an individual determine if they might be an abductee. To his credit, Sandy does state that everyone has at one time or another experienced some of the indicators on his list and they do not necessarily prove you are an abductee. The indicators are really only guidelines that may indicate the "possibility" of being an abductee.
I also found Sandy's description of his interaction with the beings excellently articulated when he states "…the beings actually merge with my conscious and unconscious thoughts. With this merging it is almost as if they can read my thoughts before I even think them."
It would not be a fair and unbiased review if I did not mention the fact that this book has several editing mistakes, but Sandy is a good writer and they can be easily overlooked because of his interesting case, good descriptions, clarity and sincerity.
Different Child is packed with information including a substantial listing of helpful Web sites and a list of Sandy's favorite books. I also came across new abduction related information I had not read about before which I hope everyone will find as interesting as I found it to be. After Sandy's personal story ends, he shares with us several submissions from other abductees and these expose the reader to additional fascinating and very touching encounters with extraterrestrial and interdimensional beings. These submissions are exceptionally interesting and are left unedited so you feel the nuances from each individual personality sharing their encounter.
Sandy Nichols boldly shares his abduction experiences with us for the first time and I believe his story and the submissions from several other abductees he has faith in, are honest and sincere representations of what is occurring to many people on our planet. There are similarities to other cases, but Sandy is a unique individual and as with all abductions and abductees, each case and each person is special and has something new to teach us. Different Child will teach you something new and I believe you will find Sandy Nichols' journey a very interesting one!
Katharina Wilson is the author of The Alien Jigsaw, The Alien Jigsaw Researcher's Supplement, and a monograph, Project Open Mind.
Author explores his "awakening" into the alien abduction phenomenon
Readers will sympathize with Mr. Nichols' personal struggle with the abduction awakening that wreaked chaos in his life. Readers wanting to know how he coped with abduction trauma will find comfort in his book. The book is easy to read and flows from one chapter to the next.
Mr. Nichols writes about his "awakening" in January of 1996 in the book, Different Child. At this point in his life, the author was lost and alone. He found himself at a bookstore buying books on the alien abduction phenomena, but had no idea why. Despite wanting to read the books, he stored them in a closet for six months.
Thus began Mr. Nichols eventual quest into the alien abduction experience. With the help of a professional counselor, Mr. Nichols probed his childhood experiences through hypnosis and learned more about what had happened to him. Mr. Nichols struggled with the terrifying memories that were unleashed.
The popular notion that "The Truth will set you free" does not pertain to revelations of trauma. Instead, the truth becomes its own trauma. Knowing more truth than before heightens the trauma as Mr. Nichols discovered.
Mr. Nichols' abduction experiences began in early childhood where he became adept at providing quick, logical explanations for his bloody noses, strange scratches and marks. Mr. Nichols' adolescence was fraught with self-doubts and a belief that he was a "screw-up" because his parents had always told him so.
Mr. Nichols explores abduction areas familiar to readers: Unexplainable scalpel-type cuts on his body, sperm extraction, paralysis, strange dreams, floating, awakening to a buzzing sound, seeing strange lights, insomnia, etc.
Mr. Nichols bought a biorhythm chart and adjusted the wheel to the correct number and date for his physical, mental, and emotional indicators. In reviewing his journal over the previous seven months, he noticed his abduction experiences coincided 65% of the time within two or three days of the highest and lowest points on the chart. This seemed to be a pattern indicating when he was likely to be abducted.
With the help of the professional counselor, Mr. Nichols delved into his past experiences. He learned his recall after hypnosis was only 5% to 10% and was grateful for the counselor's notes on his sessions.
Mr. Nichols mentioned a key feature of UFOs not found in other abduction books. This was that he could feel the inside walls of the UFO as if they were "somehow alive and a living, breathing entity." This observation of a UFO structure as having biological characteristics, was corroborated in Col. Corso's book, "The Day After Roswell" which is also reviewed at this web site. Col. Corso reported the Roswell crash disk was described as a biological entity that interacted with its alien crew.
Mr. Nichols' book provides an array of interesting black and white photos. There are photos containing an explainable white fog which we call "energy photos" in the lab. One photo shows an unusual handprint with only four fingers on the car window. A house window contained an unusual diamond symbol that appeared a second time one year later on the anniversary date of the first symbol.
The book contains a listing of Mr. Nichols' favorite books and web sites, though this web site, Alien Abduction Experience and Research, is not listed among them.
Gail Seymour The AAER
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