Do you ever have moments that you think you're psychic? I'm not talking about de ja vu (sp?), maybe serious intuition. When I was younger, I always seemed to stay home from school on days that really bad things happened. Once, I told my mom I didn't feel good & wanted to stay home, that day, there was a shooting (and this was elementary school). I stayed home the day the Challenger exploded. I called in sick to work, and an hour later got a phone call that my grandpa died. (Makes me think if I actually go to work bad things won't happen). But.. I also have this thing with guys.. sometimes there is just something that I don't like about a guy .. even if he is gorgeous, funny, perfect.. I get a feeling I don't like.. last time it turned out he was a convicted felon. So.. am I wacko? Do you have psychic (or psycho) moments?

-- Anonymous, July 16, 2000

Answers

I have this weird ability to predict what they'll play next on the radio. Can't do it deliberately, but every so often I find myself thinking about a song or something, just comes to mind unbidden, and it winds up being the next song I hear on the radio. This has gone on for a number of years that I can think of, and it occasionally freaks me out. Leads to some other moments of nice synchronicity, too; at the pharmacy where I work, last week I was filing away a pile of repeat prescriptions, and this Jesus and Mary Chain song filtered through my thick skull and into my mind (radio was off at this time, I should add) and while going through the scripts I came across one for someone called William Reid, which is also the name of one of the J&MC members. Found that damned odd

-- Anonymous, July 16, 2000

I think I have an ounce more psychic ability than the average person might have. There will be nights when I have dreams about events, people or findings that I will dream about and then it will happen within the next two days.

As James said above, I can also predict songs that come on the radio. I can predict them at will. I suspect this is because I love music and listen to the radio constantly, but others have told me differently.

Now for the kicker: around Memorial Day weekend of this year, I had a dream that my father was involved in a car accident. It bothered me a bit because most of the dreams that I have tend to come true at some point in the week. It turns out that two days later he did have a car accident. He was coming home from work and someone behind him did not stop and rear-ended him. Totaled the car but thank God he wasn't hurt.

I was asleep when it happened (12:20 AM, EST) and I woke up to a crashing sound -- like how someone would suspect a car accident to sound -- but of course my father was over an hour away from home. I "heard" the accident when it happened somehow. I don't know if people become totally connected with their loved ones or not. Perhaps I do have psychic (or psycho) abilities.

-- Anonymous, July 16, 2000

I've had several small incidences although I don't know if I could classify them as psychic or just coincidntal.

One such incident was knowing when my cat died although I was 80kms away from it at the time. I knew it was sick but I wasn't aware how sick it was when at 3:05pm I suddenly thought "he's gone". My dad picked me up from art school that day in tears and said "your cat died earlier this afternoon". When I pressed for a time I was told just after 3, which was bizarre as I hadn't told anyone of my earlier premonition.

-- Anonymous, July 16, 2000

Meg and James, I am also a winner in the 'predicting songs' stakes. This makes me suspect this says more about the complete predictability of radio playlists than about our mysterious powers ... just call me a nasty old sceptic!

-- Anonymous, July 17, 2000

My mother likes to tell the story of a time when I was about 2. I was playing on the floor with one of those plastic telephones by Fischer- Price. It had eyes that wiggled back and forth when you pulled it on a string, and it had red wheels and a red plastic receiver. I pretended to call my godmother, Auntie Frances. I invited her over for tea next day at 2 o'clock. My mom thought this was funny, because Auntie Frances lived on the other side of town. She didn't just drop by unanounced, and she really didn't like tea.

Imagine my mother's suprise when, at two the next day, Auntie Frances shows up saying "So, where's my tea?"

I stayed home the day Challenger exploded, too. I remember thinking "Was that supposed to happen?" I guess that watching science fiction as a kid, I thought the explosion was the rocket boosters kicking in to overdrive or something. I was really shocked when things started falling from the sky. Then the commentator came on and said that Challenger had exploded. Now, I don't think that I was sick that day. I think that I was skipping school. What prompted me to skip school that day?

-- Anonymous, July 17, 2000

My one and only episode of sleepwalking/talking (that I know of, anyway) happened the night before the Challenger explosion.

I was in college, a sophomore, and not particularly geared up about the launch-to-be, except that I thought it was interesting that a teacher was going. Minimal emphasis placed, is what I'm saying.

Apparently I got down from a top bunk, went down two halls, up three flights of stairs, and through two security doors requiring codes (one of which i didn't know I even knew) and before I got out the front door, I was met by a hallmate who claims she had a bizarre conversation with me where I said there was a horrible fire, that we had to get out, we were going to burn up and if we didn't get out immediately, we'd never know what hit us, it would get us in our sleep. I was very adamant about it, and yet very calm and matter-of- fact. My friend eventually figured out that my answers weren't matching her questions and because she had been told it was bad to awaken sleepwalkers, she gently suggested that I go back to bed and aimed me in that direction and so I suppose I did. I vaguely remembered what I thought was a dream the next morning.

I slept through my first class, which wasn't totally unprecedented, but hit the common room with the TV on in it as I was heading for my second class JUST AS the Challenger blew up. The timing couldn't have been more precise.

How bizarre that someone else had a related experience.

I've always put it off to a disturbing but amazing coincidence, and wouldn't have thought about it at all if you hadn't said "Challenger".

Oh, and I used to wake up when anyone but my roommate came into the room unless they were 'okay'. I had a couple of unplesant hallmates and some nice ones, and the nice ones could come in without my unconscious freaking out and waking me up. The unpleasant ones would jolt me awake the minute they stepped across the threshhold. We kept our door open and the rooms were carpeted, so there may be a natural explanation, but we were hard-pressed to find one. My roommate used to think it was bizarre. Later one of the unpleasant hallmates was institutionalized (briefly, alas) for severe mental problems.

(Note that I normally sleep like the dead, and have slept through hurricanes and serious thunderstorms, have been undisturbed in rooms located near active train tracks and, well, have been able to tune out the typical noise of college dormitories.)

-- Anonymous, July 17, 2000

My brother was also home from school when the Challenger exploded, in case anyone's keeping track (I was in math class learning how to use the computer. My psychic instincts are clearly undeveloped).

Just to play Devil's Advocate here, I took a course at Maryland ("Science and Pseudoscience") that examined ESP and paranormal phenomena in a highly skeptical way. I don't know how balanced of a look it was (the course was taught by a member of a Washington organization that goes around debunking reports of ESP, spoon- bending, haunted houses and the like), but it was tough to leave it without being pretty convinced that there's not a lot of psychic action going on.

I'm with Jackie on the "predicting songs" thing -- the Alternative and Rock stations here are pretty predictable in the songs they play (guess "Limp Bizkit" and you have about a 50% chance of being right, unfortunately).

As for the rest ... it's hard to say. I'd guess that you probably just have really good instincts about guys -- some men (and women) are good about coating psychotic personalities around a veneer of respectability. I'd credit your powers of observations more than I would any psychic powers.

The teacher would have argued that your staying home when there was the school shooting, and Challenger blew up, and when your grandfather died, could be explained as coincidences. Not sure whether I totally buy that or not (I'd be curious to see data on school absences on the day the shuttle blew up, for example), but that's the argument.

-- Anonymous, July 17, 2000

Last fall I started working at an organic grocery store, and after two weeks I had this intense feeling that I wasn't supposed to be there. It wasn't that I wanted to quit, but just that I had a very strong feeling that I *should not* be working there, that it just wasn't where I was *supposed to be*. I actually liked the job and tried to hang in there, but the longer I stayed against my instincts, the more bad luck I began to have at work increasing to the point where one day I just stopped showing up.

A few weeks later I ran into an ex-boyfriend of mine and found out that he and his girlfriend were going to have a baby. Neither one of them completed college, he's a chef and she worked at a local juice bar where she had to leave because part of her job requirements included lifting heavy boxes which she could no longer do with a baby on the way. He said they were very lucky that she'd found a new job so quickly at this organic grocery store where they would give her two months paid maternity leave and let her sit down to work. She filled the position that I had just mysteriously left.

Also, because I quit that job, I could no longer afford to move into my other ex-boyfriends apartment to sublet from him while his band went on tour. The girl that did move in there instead of me wound up becoming his fiance.

The only thing I've ever really been intensely psychic about is men whom I'm involved with romantically. The times when I've been cheated on I knew what was happening while it was happening. The last time it happened I had just started to become involved with this man and one night while sitting in my livingroom reading a book I just bolted up and at that moment *I knew*. I knew he was getting laid. So, the next morning he contacted me and let me know what had happened...I told him before he could even get the words out. I was right on about the exact time and everything. Similar experiences have happened before several times. It's really creepy.

-- Anonymous, July 17, 2000

Okay, I wasn't going to say anything but Mike just for the record I talked my mom into letting both my brother and I stay home from school the day the Challenger blew up, I will never EVER forget my sense of uneasiness all day long.

Also, My Great-Grandfather died when I was four. In the middle of the night I went to my parents room to tell them that I just saw PaPa and that he was in my room, right after I told them that the phone rang and he had just died. It had been at least 6 months since I saw him last and he lived in a different state. Ever since then I have had dreams where he is with me and they are vivid. Very comforting though.

-- Anonymous, July 17, 2000

Mike, just for the record I talked my mom into letting both my brother and I stay home from school the day the Challenger blew up, I will never EVER forget my sense of uneasiness all day long.

Also, My Great-Grandfather died when I was four. In the middle of the night I went to my parents room to tell them that I just saw PaPa and that he was in my room, right after I told them that the phone rang and he had just died. It had been at least 6 months since I saw him last and he lived in a different state. Ever since then I have had dreams where he is with me and they are vivid. Very comforting though.

-- Anonymous, July 17, 2000

I've definitely had things happen from time to time, from little things like standing in front of the correct elevator door when it arrives to having deja-vu experiences. The latest thing actually involved my husband... he was off work one day, and I got up and got ready and was headed out the door after kissing him a groggy goodbye. Suddenly he snapped awake and called to me from the bedroom to tell me to be "extra careful" on my way to work that morning. Confused, I asked him what he meant and he said "I don't know.... just be careful." 30 minutes later, about halfway to my office, I was rearended in traffic. Since I drive a huge truck, damage was minimal and I told the guy who hit me not to worry about it, since it was really just a tap. Once I got back in the car I called my husband and said "well, I think whatever was going to happen just happened." And he said that he had felt better all of a sudden, right before I called. THEN I told him what had happened. Creepy wierd. I've only been rearended one other time in my entire life.

-- Anonymous, July 17, 2000

The only hyper-weird psychic thing that ever has happened to me was this:

I was a freshman at TCU, having the time of my life. Early in the second semester I met a girl I'll call Kristy. We hit it off fairly well and all, but we were definitely not at the hanging-out stage. I had chatted with her a couple of times, but we had never shared any deep secrets or stories of our past or anything.

Anyway, one evening I had a dream about her. It was an innocuous dream, really... just Kristy and I walking around the shore of this smallish lake. We were just enjoying a lovely early summer day, and we walked to the end of this pier in front of a cabin, sat down at the end of the pier and dangled our toes in the water, soaking up the rays. It was a rather vivid dream, as I remember a big pot of red geraniums next to the glass sliding door on the cabin, the feel of the sun baked weather-worn planks underneath my feet, and a dark green canoe tied to the dock. Weirdly detailed, but nothing earthshattering.

So a day or two later I see Kris in the student union building, and in conversation I bring up the fact that I had a dream about her. And she asks about the dream in a sort of guarded fashion. So I tell her that it was nothing special, just that we were walking along the edge of a lake, talking...

"...and then we walked to the end of an old pier and dangled our toes in the water, right?" she finishes for me.

I am absolutely dumbfounded.

"Cor," she says, "I had the *exact* same dream." So then, since neither of us had a class for another couple of hours, she tells me she has to show me a picture RIGHT NOW. We take off for her dorm room, where she grabs a photo album, flips through a few pages, then hands it to me.

She shows me a picture of the cabin. Lakeside. Sliding glass door. Red geraniums. Worn dock. Green canoe. Turns out it's her grandfather's cabin just East of Fort Worth, but (obviously) I had never been there in my entire life, much less hung out there with Kris.

Swear. To. God.

See, and the bizarre thing was that we weren't best friends or had this instant soul-connection or anything. After this she did become one of my better friends from that part of my life, but *still*.

And it's never happened before or since. Hm.

-- Anonymous, July 18, 2000

Oh yes.I believe every human being has psychic ability;It's just that many people aren't open-minded enough.Also most people these days have really hectic lives and don't have much time to tune into themselves.I always know when something big is going to happen.Many times these visions come to me in dreams.Other times when Im awake I'll all of a sudden get hit with an amazing feeling of sadness or anger when something bad is going to happen.All too often I get quick flashes(like flashbacks,but of the future)they come really quick and I see visions of what's going to happen,and when these visions come I feel exactly how I'm going to feel when the incident finally occurs.This used to be mind-blowing to me;but after a while I just realized and accepted It,and now It's a great help in my everyday life.I know to you all this probably sounds really corny;but meditation really helps If you wish to develop your psychic abilities or improve them.This is because in meditation,you focus on your inner energies,and expand your mind also.It helped me out.Well,that's about It.Im not going to go into some fantastic experiences,because If you have had psychic experiences;you obviously already know what It's like.

-- Anonymous, July 13, 2001