Monday, August 22, 2011

Mystical Experiences

In the blog on dreams, I mentioned that sometimes people feel their loved one has communicated with them in a dream. The dream can be so real that when they awaken it is difficult to tell if the conversation took place or not. People may also see a vision of their deceased loved one, or have something take place (i.e. flower blooms in the middle of winter) and take this as a sign from their loved one to say they are okay. These are mystical experiences. Not everyone will understand these experiences so you may want to ensure that the people you share this with will not judge you.

I have had several experiences like this. The most profound for me was a dream that I had about my brother. He died in March 1989, and I had this dream in September 1990. In the dream, I was walking down the street and my brother was walking towards me. He looked well and just as I had remembered him. He was wearing blue jeans, a blue plaid short-sleeved shirt, a navy blue sleeveless vest, his brown hush puppy shoes, and a cigarette in hand. I knew he was dead. We walked passed one another and then I stopped, turned around and called to him, “Brian…” He turned and said, “What?” I replied, “Are you going to tell me what is going to happen?” He said, “No. Janelle, if I told you what was going to happen, you would have to come and sit with God and the angels too. What I can tell you is that you will be just fine.” And he walked away. When I woke up, I knew the dream was ominous. I went to see my mother and told her what happened and I said that in my heart, I knew he was preparing me for my husband’s death.

There was no reason to believe that Gerry would die. He was 5 months post-injury and by all accounts, the doctors felt he was doing okay… they didn’t think he would get any better, but they didn’t anticipate further complications. In my gut though, I knew something wasn’t right. Three weeks after I had the dream, he died of a massive heart attack at home. This was completely unexpected.

Have you had a mystical experience? Were you able to share it with someone?


1 comment:

  1. In 1996, I sustained the first of two Traumatic Brain Injuries. I clearly "experienced" the presence of my father who had died many years earlier. "I'm sorry," he communicated without words. "Me too," I answered through my eyes only. I was sorry he had died so young of his first and only unexpected heart attack when 49 years old. I was also sorry I had not yet had the courage to come out to him as a lesbian woman. He reached for me. I looked at him strangely and "said" that the "dead aren't supposed to touch the living". "I know," was the silent response and I sensed tears and sadness in him. "My play! They're doing my play tomorrow. I can't..." I sensed him fading away and felt the breath of a stagehand friend on the back of my neck. "Are you okay?" he asked. "No. No, I'm not." I couldn't explain what had just happened. I saw the light and it was NOT the theatrical lights shining from overhead, where I had just been with my Dad. It wasn't the dead touching the living that I had experienced. It was the dead touching the near dead. "Take my cue," I said, as I somehow wound off stage right from where I had previously been. I couldn't explain to anyone what had happened for years. When I finally did, the medical provider said that she there was a lot of anecdotal evidence of such experiences and that whether it were the TBI or a mystical experience didn't matter. The explanation wasn't important. What mattered most was that my Dad was with me when I needed him most. I definitely believe, "yes, he was!"

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