[insulin]

i know this is awkwardly titled.

when i was 5 years old, i was staying in my mother's childhood home for christmas with her family. i was staying in my uncle's childhood room, sleeping there with my sister.

in the middle of the night, i awoke, with some sort of sleep paralysis, i suppose -- though it didn't feel malignant, and i wasn't actively trying to move (i didn't feel any pressure, either). the closet at the foot of my bed opened, and a young boy appeared. he looked about 10-12 years old. he just stood at the end of my bed. he didn't look mad, or necessarily upset -- he looked slightly confused. like something was wrong, something had changed. he just stared, confused. i eventually fell back into peaceful sleep. i have vague memories of telling my family about it, but they brushed it off as a weird dream.

a little less than a year later, my uncle took his own life. around the time he had done so i had a horrible nightmare & woke up with a horrible nosebleed. this would be hours before my family got the call. my mother calmed me down and told me it was just a bad dream and everything would be fine in the morning -- but it wasn't. i awoke to her shaking me, sobbing, and telling me that he had passed.

i made no connection to these dreams and my uncle at the time -- i was only 5 & 6 years old when these occurred. then, a few years later, i saw a childhood photo of my uncle for the first time. i'd never seen a picture of him at that age before. and it was the boy who was at the end of my bed, in his old room. the same face, the same haircut, he was dressed more casually -- but it was unmistakably him.

this has made me wonder for awhile if ghosts can travel back in time, and appear as their younger selves, voluntarily or involuntarily -- and back to their old homes, at that.

has this happened to anyone else? seeing the ghost of a loved one before they passed? especially seeing their child self? i can't make sense of it. it's been gnawing at me for years, this event that occurred. how could i have simply imagined a boy that looked exactly like my uncle when he was younger? why did he look confused -- but not outright upset? and the closet door being open -- it was always closed at night when i was there. when i told my mother about this, she said it was interesting that the closet door was open -- when my uncle was a young teenager he had saved up his money to buy a small tv and put it in his closet and would leave his closet door open every night, staying up all night watching tv. she said that closet was important to him.

again, i'd like to know if anyone has had a similar experience or has some theory as to what this all means...