Seth Lind
Appearances
This American Life
361: Fear of Sleep
What I was calling about is I wanted to know if you remembered something, which was there was one night when you were staying over and I woke up in the middle of the night and you were watching The Shining. The movie? The movie The Shining. Do you remember me watching that with you?
This American Life
361: Fear of Sleep
Do you remember the elevator doors opening and blood rushing out?
This American Life
361: Fear of Sleep
Really? Because I remember that was right when I sat down and that happened, and I didn't know what was going on. And you said, do you know what that is? And I said, is it mud? And you said, no, it's blood.
This American Life
361: Fear of Sleep
Yeah, like, oh, you want to watch the movie too? Just two dudes watching a movie.
This American Life
361: Fear of Sleep
You know, I think it was just a really quick decision. Like, I'm that kid. As simple as that. It's like, oh, hey, look, I'm on the TV. And there's really, really, really terrible things happening to me and my family.
This American Life
361: Fear of Sleep
And I think that's why it got so far under my skin. Over the course of a day, I would, well, first of all, I would feel this extreme pleasure in the morning when I woke up because I had gotten through the night and it was like every day was this relief. But then as the day went on, I would start to feel this dread because I knew I was going to have to go to sleep. I knew it was going to get dark.
This American Life
361: Fear of Sleep
It was like you were doomed. Yeah, it was just, it was like I knew exactly what was going to happen.
This American Life
361: Fear of Sleep
I'd lie down, and really quickly, just one of these images would just pop in my mind. I mean, the blood coming out of the elevator was huge. Also, there are these twin girls who, in the movie— are sort of spectral characters that only Danny, the little kid, can see.
This American Life
361: Fear of Sleep
Exactly. And they're shot intercutting between them speaking and pictures of their chopped up corpses. That was the biggest one, the image that would pop into my head the most.
This American Life
361: Fear of Sleep
The protagonist is like a little boy, and I was six, and he must have been around that age or so.
This American Life
361: Fear of Sleep
Well, there were two little girls who were twin sisters who were murdered.
This American Life
361: Fear of Sleep
There was a little girl. Didn't he have a friend? He had a playmate. It's not fair for me to expect that someone would have the same relationship to it as me, feeling like I kind of lived inside of it in a really terrible way. For two years. For two years.
This American Life
361: Fear of Sleep
I just remember going to my room during the day and I would look at my bedroom and sort of prove to myself that it wasn't scary. During the day. And because I say, okay, it's light out. This is exactly what it looks like at night. It's just dark. There's nothing different about it. And then, but I get this sort of dread as the day went on.
This American Life
361: Fear of Sleep
I didn't think that anyone could help. The message of the movie is no one's going to help you, little kid. The parents in the film just aren't any help to the kid.
This American Life
361: Fear of Sleep
Right. The father in the movie is trying to kill you. The mother wants to save you but can't. You have to save yourself.
This American Life
361: Fear of Sleep
There's a certain point where the person who is trying to help you is going to go to sleep, and I would be left alone. Everyone sleeps alone. Seth Lind. He's our program's director of operations.