Do you ever think something’s going to happen and then it does? I think something’s going to happen and then it does all.the.time.
It’s not like every time I think something’s going to happen it does. For example, every time I get on an airplane I think it’s either going to crash or get taken over by terrorists. This has yet to happen. Yet being the operative word.
There are some things I think are going to happen that actually do, though, and those are the things I’m talking about here. Things like dreaming the right ear thingy on my glasses is going to break off before I go on vacation, leaving me stuck without glasses to see with, and then the right ear thingy on my glasses actually breaking after vacation, leaving me stuck without glasses to see with.
I dreamt that. And then it happened. With only one minor discrepancy: the break occurred after vacation as opposed to before.
Weird, right?
This isn’t the only experience with this I’ve had. Sometimes I have a vivid dream about what’s going to happen, as was the case with the glasses. Other times, however, I just have a feeling that something’s going to happen.
When I was in high school, I was on the phone with my then-boyfriend way later into the night than I should have been (this was when we all had dial-up and our parents would get a separate phone line for the internet, leaving us kids with a phone of our own to use when nobody was on the computer). I had a feeling something bad was going to happen that night, and I told my boyfriend about it. He told me I was crazy.
Next day, I found out my dad had awoken to screaming, had gone next door to the field beside our house, and had found a car parked with a bloodied woman in the passenger seat and an angry man in the driver seat. When my dad asked the woman if she was OK, the man sped off. Two days later police found the body of a young woman in another field in the county.
Was it the same woman? I have no idea. But I do know that I felt something bad was going to happen, and then it did.
Sometimes my predictions that something’s going to happen come in a hybrid of dream and feeling. The morning my grandfather died, I had a dream that he was gone. I didn’t dream about the specifics of his death, but I did dream about sunshine and fields overshadowed by the feeling that he was no longer with us. I awoke when my mom and grandmother came in my bedroom to tell me my grandfather had died early that morning. All I could say was, “I know.”
Even stranger are the feelings I get about people or circumstances that don’t always wind up confirmed but remain 100% accurate in my mind nevertheless. Many times I have experienced a sudden need to be cautious of someone or something. For example, certain people in line at the grocery store or in the parking lot at the mall have caused the hair on my arms and neck to stand on end, my heart rate to increase dramatically, and my senses to sharpen. Walking into certain parties or driving on particular roads have also resulted in a sudden fight or flight feeling I can’t seem to shake.
This may not seem so odd, except I don’t always feel this way about certain types of people or situations. I could be standing near the scariest, grisliest looking potential serial killer and feel absolutely nothing, or stranger still, completely comfortable in his presence. But I could also be standing next to the Howdy-Doodiest lump of sugar personified and feel as though I’m about to be stuffed into the trunk of a car and cut into a million tiny pieces.
The same applies to places. I could be sitting in the darkest, seediest bar in the scummiest part of town and feel at home, but the next day upon entering a harmless children’s play place I could feel my stomach turn with the heebies.
Most often, I have no way to confirm my predictions about people or places, but I attribute that to being right about them. Were I not careful in or around their presence, I might have solid evidence to back up my suspicions. But then I’d likely be dead in a trunk or sprinkled in a million pieces on a pizza someplace, and I’d really rather not end up in a trunk or eaten by unsuspecting pizza lovers.
So there it is. Sometimes I predict things are going to happen and then they do. Other times I predict people or places are bad and they probably are. And all the time it’s weird.
Is it a gift? I don’t know. But I’d say anything that keeps me from winding up stuffed in a freezer or in somebody’s spice rack definitely qualifies.
What’s your strange ability?