Open Thread Update: Brush with the Unknown
Last time we asked for your brushes with the unknown and got some really spooky responses.
Visitor from Beyond
I was told a close friend was having a heart attack. We ran to his small office to find him slumped in his chair. There was young man standing behind him, but my co-worker and I jumped into action . I sent for an aspirin, and directed another to call 911, and moved him to the floor. Long story short, my friend survived and after a time, I asked who was behind him. He said no one. After further description , he said it was his Godson who died two years earlier.
-Melinda
Uncanny Premonitions
I was driving down a street, when something told me to slow down. I did so, then stopped. I looked up a driveway on a hill to my right, and saw a stroller rolling towards me. I turned my car across the street to block cars that were coming in the opposite direction, and the stroller shot down and across the street, bumped into the curb and stopped, surprisingly upright. The Mom came running down behind the child in the stroller and just headed back up to the house. I took a beat, and drove on..
-Lucille R
Approximately 40 years ago I had a dream that my father was sitting in a car parked in my driveway. As I was walking toward it he looked at me and then started to drive away. I remember running toward to the car crying and screaming “don’t take him away from me”. My brother called me the next day from where they lived in upper Michigan to say that dad had a massive heart attack that night and had died. My father was not had any kind of medical condition that this was expected.
-Janice S.
A co-worker friend of mine whom I worked with for 20 years and retired only 2 before her accident. At 9pm i went to bed and in my dream my friend was standing in clouds all dressed up and asked me why i didn’t visit her last week. I told her I was sorry but it was hard. She then smiled and told me thanks for all the laughs and I was a good friend. The next day I turned on my cell and computer and they were blowing up with messages. She had passed away that night at 8:45pm.
-Deb
YOUR TURN
There’s probably many more mysterious occurrences out there, similar to Ruth T‘s mysterious visitation, Redginny‘s life saving warning from a mysterious stranger and the comments from Sharon K., Lily, and CB. Check them all out and add your own…and Happy belated Halloween!
Original Column
Sometimes the world seems less… reliably real. It’s sometimes scary, and sometimes wonderful – and it makes the best stories. What is it about stories that are thrillers, or sci-fi or the supernatural that makes them so compelling… especially when they happen to you?
Here’s mine.
A short time after my husband died, I absolutely knew he was calling my name from the next room. I heard it as clear as day. I was so convinced it was him I raced into the room – which was, of course, empty.
You will never convince me I didn’t hear it.
A short time afterward, I had a vivid dream that he was standing by my bed. I was so happy to see him. In my dream I stood up. He took my face in his hands, looked me in the eyes, and said, “It’s better than you could ever imagine.”
I will always believe he came back the only way he could to tell me he was all right. I woke up right away – and I was so happy. I’ve had other very vivid dreams about him and with him over the years. (There was a really neat one that I was visiting him in his new house and everything was white!)
Your Turn
I think, like Hamlet, that are are more things in heaven and earth that are dreamt of in our philosophy – especially at Halloween. How about you? What’s your strange but true experience? What brushes have you had with the supernatural, or with strange coincidences? Share your story in the comments!
Virge Randall is Senior Planet’s Managing Editor who was once ‘levitated” by Penn and Teller. She is also a freelance culture reporter who seeks out hidden gems and unsung (or undersung) treasures for Straus Newspapers; her blog “Don’t Get Me Started” puts a quirky new spin on Old School New York City. Send Open Thread suggestions to editor@seniorplanet.org.
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Comments
A couple of months after my dad passed my ex & I went to visit my mom. That evening I saw “Casper” walking thru the hallway. His height & gate reflected my dad but I couldn’t be certain. When he passed by a hanging picture he appeared opaque. It took me 3 weeks, & remembering that my dad, a man of very few words, had shared on many occasions, the difference between transluscent, transparent & opaque, to KNOW that was him. Later, after getting Reiki, the practitioner told me that Casper flew by..
On my cousins death bed, she said she wanted me to go dancing for my Birthday. So, after she passed, my husband and I found a church dance for our age group and went. Upon arriving, we were gob smacked to hear “Like a Virgin” by Madonna, because, it was my cousin’s “theme song”. So, we smiled at one another, felt surrounded by her presence and danced like nobody was watching. My cousin Joan an extraordinary Catholic Nun with a good sense of humor. And, we will never forget that night.
CB — I just went back and found your
priceless comment, Judy
When in our 30s, my partner and I rented a haunted house. Not knowingly! We sometimes felt someone was watching us have sex, and once when I was alone at home I heard heavy footsteps on the stairs. I brushed away the thoughts until one day I was outside and a neighbor came by. She asked how we liked living there, and I said fine. She helpfully told me a previous occupant had fatally shot himself there. We didn’t feel particularly afraid but moved away soon after for a new job.
When I was a child, maybe six or seven years old, my dog came running into my bedroom and we played together. The dog was not really allowed in the bedrooms, so we made sure to be extra quiet.
Eventually, my Mother came upstairs and the dog ran out. My Mother asked who I was talking to and I told her it was my dog. She said I must have had a dream because our dog had died several months ago. It happened again several times, but I never told anyone, and, I was not asleep.
2 wks ago at church, I noticed the new keyboard player on the platform sitting at the keyboard. I could see her lips moving but could not hear her. I did hear her music tho, it was a bit choppy.
Later at lunch with my Granddaughter, who usually plays the keyboard, who she was. She said no one was playing that day but herself. I told her the lady I saw had on different clothing than she did that Sunday, a white shirt/blouse w/red/blue ribbon dwn one side. God had given us a vision.