Perhaps a half-dozen times I’ve picked up the phone to call someone, and instead of a dial tone I get that person’s voice. They had just dialed my number, and I picked up the phone before it could ring. How can two minds have the same thought at the same time?
I’ve had two other especially memorable experiences that defy explanation.
One Sunday night about 50 years ago, when I was working in Virginia, I had a terrible dream: Dave, a co-worker, was strapped to an operating table and was undergoing abdominal surgery without anesthetic. He was screaming in pain and begging me to help him. As is often true in dreams, I was an observer who was unable to intercede.
I woke up in a cold sweat, wondering if I’d be able to get back to sleep. After I finally did, I had the exact same dream a second time. I’ve rarely had bad dreams as an adult and have never before or since had the same bad dream twice in one night.
The next day, soon after I arrived at work, my boss came in to say he had some bad news to share. Don, another colleague of mine, had been motor boating on a nearby lake the previous day. He had been drinking, and was sitting on the boat edge when he lost his balance and fell overboard.
The boat was turning in a way that quickly sent it right over Don. The propeller cut his abdomen so severely that he bled to death before he could be helped.
Although my dreams were about Dave, not Don, the similar body location and the massive injury in both dream and reality were more than I could dismiss as coincidence.
About 10 years later, when I was working in New Mexico, I usually left our car with my wife while I used a lightweight motorbike to go to and from work. At one point, I got a very strong feeling that I was about to die, a feeling that persisted for more than two weeks.
As I was returning from work on my motorbike one evening, I stopped behind a car waiting for a red light to change. I heard a loud screech of tires behind me. When I turned, I saw a convertible turned sideways and full of teenagers. The driver must have been inattentive and hadn’t noticed the red light; then he had to make a panic stop that caused the car to skid sideways.
A split-second difference in timing would have resulted in my being crushed between the oncoming convertible and the stopped car in front of me. After that close call, my feeling of imminent death disappeared and has never returned.
I can’t explain these events. Yet I know there are many forms of energy that we cannot directly sense, including one infrared, ultraviolet, X-rays, gamma rays, radio waves and microwaves. Moreover, we know human senses are inferior to those of many other species. Eagles, hawks and falcons have much better eyesight. Dogs hear high frequencies far above what we can hear. And dogs’ sense of smell, estimated to be at least 1,000 times more sensitive than ours, allows them to locate drugs, living and dead victims of disasters, and even detect subtle odors that reveal early cancer in people.
I’m now more likely to remain open to possibilities, and less likely to rush to judgment. Most of all, I recognize that my limited understanding is not required for something to be true.
Everybody Has a Story welcomes nonfiction contributions, 1,000 words maximum, and relevant photographs. Send to: neighbors@columbian.com or P.O. Box 180, Vancouver WA, 98666. Call “Everybody Has an Editor” Scott Hewitt, 360-735-4525, with questions.
