The Paranormal

I was reading Big Heavy’s blog the other day and he was writing about the paranormal. This got me thinking about my own experiences with the paranormal. Something that not many people know about me is that I have always had a slight sense of ESP. Ever since I can remember I have had dreams that “predict” future events. These dreams usually involve someone that I am close to or love getting hurt, injured, or potentially dying. I know it sounds bizarre but believe me, it is not something I would lie about nor something I ever wanted.

When I was 9 years old we went to Zimbabwe (my dad grew up there) to visit family and be there for my Grandma Joan's surgery. Sadly she passed away in the last few moments of the procedure. After we had her funeral I began to have a very unique experience. Each time I would go up the stairs to my bedroom at my uncle’s house my grandmother would meet me on the second landing and walk up the final flight of stairs with me, then her image would just disappear. At 9 years old you can imagine I was horrified. I knew my grandma would never hurt me and just wanted to be with me but I was still scared to death. I would cry every night when my parents would tell me to go up to bed, I only saw her when I was alone. But I never told my parents what was going on until several years later. In hindsight I wish I could see her again to talk to her and get to know her, apparently I am a great deal like her.

Shortly after my experience in Zimbabwe I began having dreams. These were not like normal dreams, they were very detailed and felt very real. I would awake sick to my stomach and barely able to get out of bed for the entire day.

Incident #1:
The first big premonition came when I was in 6th grade. My mom is a photographer and was set to go to Australia with my grandfather for a photo shoot for some magazine. Well a couple nights before she was scheduled to go I had a dream that she and my grandfather were going to die on their flight, that something was going to happen to their plane. When I awoke I ran downstairs crying and told her she couldn’t go. She tried to calm me down telling me that I had just had a bad dream and there was nothing to worry about, that we had traveled all over the world. But nothing she could do could ease the dread I was feeling. Something ended up happening with their Visas or something and they postponed their flight. Do you guys remember hearing about the flight where the roof of the plane pealed back and sucked half of the business class section out including 2 stewardesses? They even made a TV movie about it. Well that was the flight and the seats my mom and grandpa were scheduled to be on!

Incident #2:
One evening in when I was in middle school my dad was in my room and we were just hanging out talking about my Grandma Joan, the one from Zimbabwe. All of a sudden one of my music boxes on my shelf wound up and started playing. I was paralyzed with fear and my dad told me a phrase I have since heard many times, “the dead will never hurt you, only the living.” I think Grandma Joan was letting us know she was there.


Incident #3:
One morning in high school my dad came into my room to make sure I was awake for school and I told him that I was sorry his Uncle Willie had died. Uncle Willie lived in Scotland. My dad said, “Honey, Uncle Willie didn’t die.” I told my dad that he had and I was really sorry because I knew how much he had cared for him. No more than 10 minutes later the phone rang, it was a call from Scotland, Uncle Willie had passed away.

Incident #4:
In college I was dating a guy and had a dream that he was going to be hurt. In my dream I was trying to pull him into a tent, which represented safety. His back was to my chest and he was too heavy to get all the way in before some sort of explosion went off and his legs got hurt. I called him that morning and warned him that he was going to be in a car accident and to pay extra attention and wear this seat belt at all times. A few days later he was rear ended and nearly pushed into oncoming traffic on the highway. Instead of being thrown forward he was strangely thrust backward into the back seat. He drove a Jeep Wrangler, they have those bucket type seats that don’t recline, well the seat snapped and his head ended up in the back seat. Same motion as my dream!

Incident #5:
I had a detailed dream about another guy I had just started dating in college. I dreamt that he was welding something and there was a lot of sparks and then an accident where something flew up and burned his face. The strange thing was we had just started dating and I didn’t know what exactly he did, only that he worked for an aggregate company. I had never seen his uniform or his job site either. I couldn’t even remember the name of the company he worked for to call him and warn him. I was sick all day. When he came over that evening I told him about my dream in detail and he turned ghostly pale. What I had dreamed about, down to the type of uniform and gear he was wearing, had happened. He had been welding something and a hot shard had managed to fly up under his safety face guard and burned his eyelid.

Incident #6:
My friend George, passed away last year from cancer. Several months after his death he came to me in a dream, it was by far the most troubling dream I’ve had yet. He was trying to talk to me, just as he had in the few days before his death. He was so sick that last week and was struggling to even keep his eyes open let alone communicate with us. In this dream it was like he was trapped between worlds and didn’t know what to do. I woke up crying, I miss him every day. Since that dream there have been a couple of occations when I felt a prescence in my room and my cats have stared in that same direction. I believe it was George and am no longer as afraid as I used to be.

Incident #7:
This is the most recent occurrence. A month ago I was lying in bed sleeping, it was 3:00 a.m. and I woke up to my bed shaking. I thought my roommate had come home drunk and wanted to tell me something because it felt like someone was shaking the bed from the foot of it. And when I say it was shaking I mean it was a rockin! It only lasted about 30 seconds but it was scary, the cats even hissed and jumped off the bed. At first I thought it may have been George so I calmly told him I loved him but that was scaring me.

Incident #8:
About 45 minutes after incident #7 I managed to fall back to sleep when I once again woke up to a weird phenomenon in my room. There was a huge gust of wind that came through my room. Now I know the AC wasn't on because the unit is right outside of my bedroom window and is very loud. I half way sat up in bed and my hair was blowing back and the blinds were blowing around, it was crazy. Then I was pushed back down like someone was pressing on my chest with a lot of pressure. This incident lasted for about 2 minutes and I couldn't move. I then knew it wasn't my friend George, the feeling of pressure on my chest is an aggressive gesture and generally isn't viewed as being friendly. So who know's who my late night visitor was!

Well now that I have everyone thinking I am a freak I’ll end my post by saying, this is something that I never wanted and have always been scared of. But apparently runs in my family through my dad’s side and my Grandma Joan who came to visit me all those years ago.