As you may have noticed, if you’ve been reading me long or have ever noticed the name of this blog, I’m mainly reliant on science and measurable data to guide my views on life.
But that’s not totally the case. I’ve had some pretty weird shit happen to me that keeps the door open a crack, to all kinds of mystical hoo-doo. Let me just tell you the story…
Have you ever had “dream flashes?” Maybe you call it déjà vu, but I know them as dream flashes. They are those little snippets of life that hit you all of a sudden and you know you’ve dreamed them before.
I used to get them maybe 2-3 times a year (now, maybe once every other year) and they’re usually when I’m doing something completely inconsequential, like sitting on the couch watching a game and eating a ham sandwich.
Then, POW! For a second or two, up to maybe five, I know I’ve seen this view before. For a few seconds, everything is exactly as I’ve seen it; from where I’m sitting, to where I’m looking, to the taste of the sandwich, to the announcer’s call on TV, and even what I’m thinking. I always try to go with it and see how far I can stretch it. Then real life takes over quickly and on I go as usual.
As superpowers go, it’s not exactly awe-inspiring. I’ve had zero luck in predicting which things I’ve dreamed about will come to be. And believe me, there are a few that would make me very happy to see come to pass… But so far, Tina Fey still won’t return my calls.
Déjà Bluz
OK, so I was in 9th grade back in the 70s. We were living in Columbus, OH, and had just learned that we would be moving upstate to Toledo at the end of the school year. Again, I would be leaving my friends and starting all over again in a new school.
One night, that spring, I dreamed I was at my new school. I was in some weird class that started with “P” and everyone was sitting at these black tables. There were none of the usual school desks, to which I was accustomed. And a girl was passing out M&Ms to everyone in the class.I woke up thinking, “WTF?”
When I went downstairs to breakfast, I told my mom about the dream. Neither of us knew what to make of it, and that was that. I never gave it another thought.
Half a year later, while firmly entrenched in my new school and new life, I was in Physiology class. Mary, another student, was having a birthday and for the occasion, she brought in a bag of M&Ms that she began to pass out to the class.
Next thing you know, POW! Full-barrel dream flash. Everything was exactly how it was in my dream. From my perspective in the room to the black lab tables, to the exact same girl in the same place with the M&Ms, it was just like I’d seen it. The scene played out for maybe 5 seconds while I sat there with my mouth hanging open.
I realized at the time that this was all quite impossible. When I’d had the dream, I’d never been to Toledo, let alone to that school. I’d never heard of Physiology. I’d never seen black lab tables like that. OK, I’d seen M&Ms before, but that was it. There was no way I could have been able to “see” everything I’d just seen.
Except that I did.
After class, I staggered up to tell the teacher what had just happened. I don’t really remember her reaction other than maybe a slight bemusement. She probably just marked down in her little class book that she should keep an eye on this one, who was obviously a troublemaker and not much of a scientist.
Through the next few years, I did a little research on the phenomenon but was never able to find anything that adequately explained how these dream flashes happen.
What I took out of the whole thing is that one can never say what is or isn’t possible. If I can take a peek into the future, who’s to say if someone else can see spirits, or predict what’s going to happen next? That doesn’t mean I buy into every crackpot that says they have powers… there are too many con men running around trying to separate people from their cash in exchange for mystical services rendered. A healthy skepticism is necessary to get along these days.
But right before I dismiss some whack-a-loon that claims to be able to “see”, I’m forced to think, “what if?”
Sometimes, “seeing” is believing. And I saw for myself that there are things in this world that cannot be explained.
Director's DVD Commentary: I wanted to take a break from politics. so this is a reworking of a post I did 14 years ago. And I still don't know what it all means.
5 comments:
Wow. As you know since Rick's stroke he dreamt his niece was pregnant for example. We called her and she said, oh I wish but I'm not. 2 weeks later she called to tell us she was pregnant. He dreams a ton of things these days of situations that come to fruition. This kind of stuff fascinates me. If only I could dream that we weren't headed into WWIII and a charismatic man/woman who combined Obama, Kennedy and Lincoln was our new leader.
Between Rick and your haunted house experience, I'm surprised you're not living in a tent telling fortunes from a crystal ball!
Rick's thing seems to be more "Dead Zone," where he sees things happening to others. I never had one that wasn't something I was about to experience myself. Weird variations of the same trick.
I'm not at all Surprised at your Dejavue, I have those all the time. Many Premonitions of things have even kept me Safe. I do think there are many things we can't explain and that our Brains process in ways that are a complete Mystery to our conscious Selves.
I have had a few experiences like that, though I think it's been less frequently than you have.
It's been years since I read about this and I've gotten hazy on the details, but I think what causes it is a brief brain glitch that flips the order of being aware of what's happening vs forming memories of it -- that is, your brain is creating the memory of the event you're experiencing slightly before you consciously experience it. Thus you get a very strong sensation that you've already experienced or foreseen exactly what you're now experiencing, because the memory of it happening is "already there", even though in reality it's just the normal memory of the present moment. That's why it often happens with mundane and inconsequential events -- it's completely random when these brain glitches happen, they're not triggered by important events.
With me there were a couple of cases where I felt a strong conviction that my earlier "foreseeing" of the moment had happened at a very specific time, even years ago, and that I had even talked about it with somebody afterwards. After thinking hard and trying to remember the details and how it would have fitted in to what was actually going on back then, though, I came to the conclusion that the "foreseeing" and the conversation about it had actually not happened. Memory formation is complicated and the brain tends to try to integrate new memories into a broader context.
In many cases it's probably not that esoteric. Mundane events like watching TV, eating a sandwich, etc are common enough that for most people they happen almost identically many times. People often dream about issues or people that are important in their lives, so with billions of people having dreams every night, there will be cases where a dream bears a striking resemblance to an actual later event.
So I wouldn't worry about it. There's almost certainly nothing supernatural going on here.
Bohemian,
I certainly wish mine were more helpful. Its like, they should come with an embedded message, "This one's predictive!"
Infidel,
I can buy into your theory for the mundane "ham sandwich" events, but the Physiology one has too many details correct, which I'd already discussed months before. Something else has to be in play for me to have seen all of those things months ahead of time and talk about them.
Whether they're spiritual, metaphysical, or merely a glitch in the human brain, I have no idea. Either way, it's nothing that keeps me up at night. Just one of life's oddities.
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