As early as the sixth grade, I've had deja vus. Sometimes, I'd find myself remembering dreams I had in the past of events that are just happening right then. It's totally useless of course, since I can't sense when something's about to happen, just know for myself that I've seen it before in a dream. Sometimes, my dreams would be so lucid that my dream-self would realize that he's inside my dream, and snap me back to consciousness, as if forbidding me to see the dream's proceedings. It's these last fleeting glimpses that get emblazoned in the deep recesses of my memory, and the scenes which I remember when the deja vu kicks in in real life. Sometimes the memory would be in black and white, sometimes in full color. But either way, I'd remember things the way I saw it in my dream. The distance between myself and my surroundings, the position and placement of various things and people, the colors, the smells, the sounds, it's really a visceral experience. Sometimes I'd even remember how I woke up from the dream. It's actually why I get bothered about some dreams. When I can't find a means of symbolism to it, it usually turns out to be a deja vu dream. And when it happens in real life, and I remember that I've dreamt about it in the past, that's the only time it makes sense. Like this dream I had back in the sixth grade. I was standing relatively in the middle of this huge place, with ornate walls from floor to ceiling. There were flickering lights and echoing sounds everywhere. It looked to me like a golden theatre or something, a place I know for a fact that I've never been to. It wasn't until we went to visit this church in Ilocos back in college, that it just came to me and finally made sense.
I don't know if this could be considered a gift, but I do know that it's nothing major, and that everybody has them every once in a while. And I certainly don't claim to have "the sight". It's not a "third eye". I don't see ghosts, I can't read people's minds, or move things telekinetically. But sometimes you can't help but wonder if there's a divine connection between these things and the Cosmos or whatever. One thing is for sure, though. Like life, the dream is always more spectacular.
Dream vs. Nightmare
For an entire week in February of this year, I dreamt about dead people. It was the week after I felt like I was surrounded by a lot of deaths. Well, just three actually. But I'm not particularly fond of deaths, so to find out that people were dropping dead every other day was a little disturbing. First there was my college classmate's friend who died of an aneurysm. Then there was my colleague's mother who died of a heart illness. Finally, there was my mom's colleague's mother who just died.
Anyway, in the dreams, I would find myself in an unknown land, where people hail from different races, and are speaking foreign tongues. Surprisingly enough, I had xenoglassy (the paranormal phenomena of being able to speak, write, and understand different languages fluently, without ever studying them). In the dreams, it would be as if I was normally carrying on with a normal life like the foreign people. But all of a sudden I would get this dark sense of foreboding, and my instincts would single out a person from the crowd. I'd stare at him long and hard. Then without even telling myself to do it, I'd find myself telling the person, "You're already dead. You just don't know it yet." The person would then erupt in a fit of rage, as he denies this simple fact which only I, or at least my dream-self, seem able to know. And that's it. I'd wake up. It's very Ghost Whisperer, don't you think? But the weird thing is, I'd always wake up with a jerking start, gasping for air, and always at three in the morning. When it happened a second time, I started keeping a diary. For one week I would dream of a different encounter with a different person. And of course, it bothered me. It bothered me a lot. What did it all mean? Why was I the one telling these random people they're dead? And more importantly, what was the significance of waking up at three in the morning?
The day it started, I never told anyone. I mean, what would I possibly say? They'd just think I'm crazy... But I guess I couldn't help myself, and after a week, I told two people about it. One merely agreed with me that it was really freaky, then told me to check out this Robert De Niro movie, Hide and Seek. I never did. The other one simply got scared, and told me to pray profusely. I think maybe she thought I was dealing with the devil or something. I also decided to post my situation in this psychic forum I found online. I got a total of one reply, from this lady who apparently had similar experiences in the past. She told me that my psychic eye was opening or something, and that those spirits were somehow drawn to me. I asked for her to elaborate, but never got a reply afterwards. I assumed she was just looking for a chance to talk about herself and brag about her self-proclaimed abilities. Regardless of the lack of resolution I got, I slept peacefully that night. It would seem that after I've talked about it, "it" stopped haunting me. I brushed it off for nothing, and I haven't had a Ghost Whisperer episode since. I no longer see dead people, in my dreams or otherwise.
Then one day, while standing in line at an SSS office with my friend, the topic came about. The minute I mentioned "3:00 AM", she interrupted me and told me that in the movie The Exorcism of Emily Rose, they said that 3:00 AM is when the devil is at his most powerful...
:/
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Quotable quote, not necessarily related to this post, but noteworthy nonetheless:
"If it makes you feel any better, I can assure you. Over time, it gets worse." - Val Tyler (What I Like About You)
