How I Have Accepted Premonitions As A Foundation In My Life

I rarely tell people that I have premonitions because the conversation usually leads to the subject of seeing a ghost, which is eerie (and yes I believe that I have seen a ghost). Premonition has a number of interchangeable terms such as precognition, future knowing, fore-knowledge, and 6^th sense. In the book Power of Premonition, author Larry Dossey relays a story where he dreamt about a colleague’s son on a table in a sterile exam room. Nobody else but the boy's parents knew the series of event that led to the boy being in the hospital, and the author had a similar dream a few other times after he learned that the child was in fact in the hospital. When dreams come true, most people start to think whether we can see the future.

Theory #1: Humans Can Predict The Future.

Larry Dossey mentioned a consciousness researcher named Dean Radin through studies has shown that everyone has an innate ability to sense the future. Studies have shown that people are clairvoyant or precognitive as to the future. Some may have hunches or a feeling while others have premonitions occurring in realistic images in dreams.

Theory #2: An Anomaly of Memory

One scientific theory according to Wikipedia regarding Deja Vu is that it is not an act of “precognition” or “prophecy” but rather it is an anomaly of memory, giving the false impression that an experience is “being recalled.”

My premonitions mostly came in dreams. The first dream that came true was pretty insignificant. I dreamt prior to my sophomore year in high school that a certain student was in my physics class and that came true the following semester. I also dreamt about the same student in the summer of my sophomore year that his grades dropped. When school started, I quickly learned that his grade point average dropped due to a low grade in physical education.

Although I cannot recall when I had this dream but it occurred long before the summer of my sophomore year, when I learned that I won an essay contest sponsored by the Daughters of the American Revolution, representing Washington state. The prize was a one week seminar to learn about how Congress works. I stayed at Marymount College in Virginia. On the second to the last night, I saw a girl sneak a boy into her dormitory room, while I stood there in the cross shape hallway. This was the exact scene in my dream years before. But now I was able to place all of it in context. In fact, I was so curious about the situation. How did they become so close in this one week? Most of us were so new to the program, even by the end of the week. The backstory was that these two young people were forbidden to see each other and so they convinced their families of their interest to attend this one-week program. He was snuck into his girlfriend’s room because each floor housed either boys or girls. As I learned later on, this was their last summer together, and they were going to attend different colleges.

Then, in my mid-20's, I had a déjà vue standing in the basement of a federal building where documents were filed in vertical cabinets and placed in a large room that we called the “vault.” I had an eerie feeling that I had visited this place before in a dream. This was not even the original office space because we moved from another business to this new location in the basement of a building across the street.

A few years later, I had a dream that I was sleeping but woken up suddenly. Wide-awake, I saw the silhouette of a cat jumping in the horizon near the window. This same dream occurred two nights in a row, and each time I could not exit the dream state. I felt trapped and bound even though I was in the same bed. I remembered it vividly and wondered how this didn't even feel like a dream because I was in bed in current time. A few months later, my neighbor asked me to keep her two cats because her unit was being fumigated to rid winged ants. Both her cats loved playing on the sofa in the middle of the night and jumping on the back part of the sofa that butted against the window. This was the only time that I kept someone else’s cats.

The only time I thought about a vivid dream that had not come true yet was one that I had in college. I told a dear friend about it, and she replied that there is a large building in Rochester with buttressing narrow parts of a building like a spider’s legs. I have never seen this building even to this day, and I wonder if this is something that will come true in the future. I don’t recall having to many visually vivid dreams recently. I wonder if I have not given myself the care and luxury of quality sleep.

Despite what others have believed that these premonitions have absolutely no meaning to one’s life, I have drawn a number of effects from experiencing my premonitions, especially the one where I had won the essay contest. That was the second time that I wrote for the organization, and in the prior year, I did not win. I knew in my heart that I wanted to try very hard the next time it was offered. Until I submitted the essay, I did not think about anything else. It consumed me. The fact that my dream came truth led me to think that life is not a series of random acts. I was predestined to winning the essay contest, but I had to try hard.

There have been a few other times in my life where I tried as hard, with cold sweat and determination. Not all of my efforts resulted in success. However, I am a believer that these premonitions have shaped my character, particularly my will to overcome adversities. To an extent, I am never discouraged when things do not go my way. It also had me questioning life much earlier than other young folks. Finally, I have never taken any vivid dreams for granted. Indeed, I do not disregard these premotions that have shaped my life.