Monday, April 24, 2006

Crossing over

My young daughter’s crying awakened me out of a vivid and disturbing dream. I bounced out of bed and rushed into her bedroom to see what was the matter. “Mommy, mommy …”

Jenn sat up and I hugged her while she proceeded to tell me what she had been dreaming. It was the same dream I was having! I listened and could not believe what I was hearing. Yes, she was watching a crowd of people and there was a large body of water and some kind of odd plane ... she described a triangular sort of object {which, at the time, did not resonate}. I saw it too, just minutes before, in my own dreamscape. Then there was an explosion and tongues of fire were raining down as the people watched.

The shared nightmare left me jittery. After calming Jenn and getting her back to sleep, I climbed back into my own bed but it was hard to relax. Something very unusual had just happened to both of us. What did it mean? I had a strange sense of foreboding.

The phone call came the next morning as I was settling the kids down for lunch. First, it was my mom’s voice, crying and somewhat incoherent, and then a stranger’s voice, a policeman. “Your father’s dead. Can you come to the house?” My dad had died of a heart attack, my mom at his side. He died sitting in his car in the garage, rubbing his chest and just thinking he had overexerted himself. My mom went running down the driveway and into the store next door looking for help. The police were called and tried to revive him when they came but, by then, he had passed. It was a sad and sudden ending to a wonderful life. The past night’s dream seemed to be the bad omen I had feared. It had foreshadowed this personal catastrophe.

My dad’s unexpected demise came at summer’s end, 1975. Jenn was five years old. As she grew, we would speak of our strange dream and poppy’s death and how the dream was warning us of what was to come. Yet, we still felt confused about just what “it” was that we saw in the sky – it looked like no airplane or rocket that we had ever seen. Until …

Flash forward to the beginning of a new year, January 1986. A gallant crew of explorers mount a rocket and blast off into space. Hundreds are watching below as the Challenger climbs the bright blue sky. The triangular-shaped shuttle suddenly explodes in mid-air, showering bits of fiery debris into the ocean below. A national catastrophe propels itself onto television screens around the globe. I take one look and know that this was the scene, the vision that Jenn and I had shared. There were no space shuttles in 1975 - nothing for us to anchor our image to. But now we had a tragic confirmation of what we had experienced, on the night before my father’s death, so many years before.

This whole intuitive pre-cognitive phenomenon has made me believe even more in multiple dimensions of reality. I think we are surrounded by mystery every day and need to humbly accept that as part of the fabric of life.

“A faith that cannot survive collision with the truth is not worth many regrets.” Arthur C. Clarke

12 comments:

sarah doow said...

It is amazing what dreams can tell some people. My Dad had a dream when he was a child, which later came true. Fortunately it was not as disturbing as your shared dream. He's written an account of his dream at his site if you're interested.

Anonymous said...

Wow, what an incredible story. That is amazing.

sc@vp said...

OMGSH OMGSH OMGSH

I have goosebumps and I'm trying not to cry.

(sorry, I might have some sort of hormonal imbalance.)

Jbeeky said...

Had any other instances of that type of premonition?

Great post.

The Mater said...

Thanks for the great comments.

doow, my daughter and I spent a week in a lovely cottage in Tonbridge a couple years ago. I read your dad's story ... seems like he was crossing over into some other dimension too.

jbeeky, yes, I did have another premonition that woke me in the middle of the night. In fact, I sat bolt upright, feeling like I couldn't breathe and heavy weight on my chest. I "knew" that the phone was going to ring and who would be calling. It did, within minutes, and it was my brother-in-law, who was going into heart failure. He whispered to me to send my husband over to his apartment. They were the last words he ever spoke. He was admitted to ER/cardiac care and on a ventilator for four days and died at age 39. He had been ill for awhile but there was still no reason for me to wake up with such a sense of dread and the physical symptoms.

I also was awakened by "knocks" on my closet door the night my uncle died in a room on another floor of our large house. His room was not close enough for us to hear him. We found him dead the next morning. I was only 16-17 at the time and he was my favorite uncle. In hindsight, I think he was trying to reach me or my mom while he was succumbing to a stroke.

sc@vp said...

FREAKY!!!

ack.

Anonymous said...

Slightly off subject here but your post has me in tears because I remember the Challanger tradgey so well. I was watching the thing live in my 8th grade science class to be exact. It will always stick with me because it was the Kennedy assasination of my generation. The first real national tradgey that I had experianced. I always get tears in my eyes whenever anyone mentions it.

now, back on topic. Please, please don't ever dream about me!!

Anonymous said...

I have many dreams like that that come true- most rae very insignificant- like today I had the dream de ja vu of me sitting at the computer and my son walking in and talking to me and feeling the emotions that I felt in my dream. Tiny detail, but still, I saw it happen before.

I think the shared dream is very interesting.

Anonymous said...

Dreams are funny,
Did you ever dream you were eating a huge marshmallow , wake up and find your pillow gone?

Anonymous said...

Well, now I have a first class case of the goosebumps.

Anonymous said...

Goosebumps. All over. And it's more confirmation of the many, many layers.

Anonymous said...

Hey - that's our living room!!!