“It was the most surreal, exciting, and scary thing he had ever witnessed.”

I ran into the house trying to get out of the torrential rain that was about to destroy my umbrella.  It was one of those nasty storms we get here in the Northwest.

After checking my voice mail, I turned on the computer and was taken aback by an email address I hadn’t seen in years.  It was from Susan, an old, old girlfriend of mine from back in my University of Washington days.

Susan was one of those people whom you never really knew how she ticked, and I’m not so sure she ever knew herself.

We had dated for a little over two years, and although she was a joy to be around – and I don’t want to tell you about some of the crazy things we did together – she could be quite trying at times because she would vacillate from happy to sad to happy again, in a wink.

Anyway, Susan said she was going to be in Seattle in a couple of weeks and wanted to get together.  Funny thing is she didn’t bother to ask if I were married; frankly, I don’t think she cared.  She was a free spirit, and that was always part of her appeal.

As it was, I am married, but my wife, Edie, is not the jealous type and she didn’t hesitate to give her blessings.

The evening Susan and I had our mini-reunion, I had to admit it was wonderful seeing her again.  After twenty-two years, she hadn’t really changed much.  She was still trim and energetic, and I thought she was sparkling.

Now I remembered why I had put up with so much of her flakiness for so long in college.

The surprising thing, however, was a story she related to me.  She had come to Seattle to interview a doctor for a book she is writing.

The man is a well-known name in the medical industry and had just returned from a safari in Africa in which he saw a dead man come to life.  And he swears it’s true.  After checking out his sources, Susan believed him.

A local fisherman had been accidentally knocked unconscious and had fallen out of his small boat and drowned.  When his body was recovered a full three hours later, the doctor’s party happened to be there and he confirmed there were absolutely no signs of life in the man.

In fact, he said the man had been dead for quite a while.

However, a witch doctor put the dead man on a slab, began chanting, and dancing.  To the doctor’s amazement, the dead man started to regain color and started breathing.  He said it was the most surreal, exciting, and scary thing he had ever witnessed.

I had heard stories about these things because my hobby is paranormal activities, but I was always skeptical.  Not any more.

As for Susan, we renewed our friendship and the next time she’s in town, we’ll have her over for dinner.

B. Towne
Seattle, WA

“He started thinking about me a week or so ago and couldn’t get me out of his mind.”

I come from a working class family.  Everything I’ve ever earned was due to hard work and dedication.

However, I want to tell you about an experience that brought me happiness and joy that I never dreamed of.  And it was all due to luck, or what some might call – psychic intuition.

It occurred several days ago and I had to write you and tell you about it.  That’s how excited I am.

A good friend of mine, Mel, called and said he had something urgent to show me.  At the time I was busy with work and a personal problem I was having with one of the kids, and I tried to postpone getting together.  But I could tell by the tone of Mel’s voice, and his insistence that we meet immediately, that I had to concur with his wishes.

The moment I saw Mel, I knew something was up.  He took me by the arm and led me into his small office, which was located in the rear of his home.  He unwrapped a package and showed it to me.

It was beautiful sculpture of a horse.  It was made of bronze and was stunning.  He said his uncle Josh with whom he had been out of touch with for some time had sent it to him out of the blue.  It was a very touching gift from someone he hadn’t seen in over a year.

Obviously, his uncle cared a great deal for Mel, and it was reflected in the quality of this gorgeous gift.

Then Mel handed me another package.  This one was smaller, and to my surprise, it had my name on it.  I didn’t understand and was a bit shocked because I had only met Mel’s Uncle on one occasion.  Although I do remember we really clicked, and had spent a good part of the day together.

You see, I have been divorced for many years, and Josh had never married.

I opened the package to find a beautiful bracelet. It was stunning, in fact.  I didn’t know what to say.  What was puzzling to me was that Josh had popped into my mind recently and I simply couldn’t stop thinking about him.  Yet, we hadn’t seen each other for at least a year, and that was the only time we had been with each other.

In fact, we hadn’t even communicated by letter or email since that time.

Well, there was a note included in the package, and Josh wrote this beautiful little poem that essentially said he started thinking about me a week or so ago (the same time I started thinking about him), and couldn’t get me out of his mind.  And he wanted to send me something.

Needless to say, I wrote him a nice note and said I’d look forward to seeing him again.  He’ll be in town next month and I can’t wait to see how things develop.

W. Sturgeous
London, England

“My son had “felt” the crash and had actually toppled over in the kitchen.”

It was seven o’clock in the evening and I was stuck in traffic.

I had worked a long day and I was beside myself because it was my son’s birthday, and I had told him I’d be home early and we’d all go out for dinner to celebrate.

Worse yet, my cell phone’s battery was running low, and I couldn’t call home to alert everyone I was stuck in traffic.

Then this motorcycle, seemingly out of the blue, crashes into me.  Fortunately, I had my seatbelt on, but the other guy goes flying over the top of my hood, crashing to the ground.

I rushed out of my car to help him, but I could see he wasn’t moving.  He was unconscious and blood was streaming from his head.  Pretty soon the ambulance arrived.  I don’t know how they got through the traffic, but somehow they did.  They took the poor fellow away.  I heard later on that he survived but did suffer a serious injury.

My car was damaged but fit enough to drive.  When I finally pulled up to the driveway at my home, my wife could see I had been in an accident and she rushed into my arms.  When I told her what had happened, she said she knew.

I didn’t understand, but she explained that my son had “felt” the crash and had actually toppled over in the kitchen.  When I asked if she remembered what time it was, she said ten minutes after seven, which happened to be the exact time the motorcycle had hit me.

M. Parstran
Arlington, VA

“Dysfunctional Family Can’t Hold Her Back”

I was told it could not be done.

This is what my father told me time and time again, especially when I wanted to try something I had never done before.

You see, my father was not a daring man.  Well, that wasn’t the problem; the problem was he couldn’t bear to see me succeed.  Somehow my success would amplify his failure in life, and his purpose in life was to hold me back.

I was fifteen at the time and I wanted to try out for the cheerleading team.  He told me I was too heavy, he told me I was clumsy, he told me I wasn’t bright enough to learn the various steps, the complicated cheers.  And worst of all, he told me the other girls wouldn’t accept me because I wasn’t pretty enough.

What a father.

So, I tried out, anyway.  And to his utter dismay, I made it.  Well, kind of.  I was an alternative.  But, hey, when you come from a family like mine – a totally unsupportive, dysfunctional group – well, this was a grand success.

So, you might ask, how did I make it?  I’ll tell you.

I’ve always been the type of person who isn’t afraid of failure.  And it doesn’t hurt that I have kind of a sixth sense that tells me exactly where to go and how to do it.  I’ve always been able to read minds.  And as for new ideas, I swear they’re floating in the air.

I believe I am psychic.  I certainly have had psychic experiences since I was a small child.  And I have survived because of this inner voice I hear inside my head that leads me to the right place at the right time.  Some may call it luck.  I call it intuition.

And I’m married now; I can honestly say, happily.  And when my kids try to pull the wool over my eyes, they know by now it’s impossible because I know what they’re thinking.  And, incidentally, my oldest, Sara, turned out exactly like me.  As a result, we often communicate silently.  She has even more psychic ability than me.

S. Aimes
Boulder, CO

“It happened suddenly, and I wasn’t sure I was going to get out alive.”

I am one lucky woman.

I was driving along the freeway on the outskirts of Los Angeles when my tire blew out.  In my panic to get across the lanes to safety, I lost control of my SUV and found myself rolling over and over down a steep hill into a ditch.

I think I lost consciousness and I’m not sure for how long, but when I awoke I realized my SUV was hidden from view, and I didn’t see anyone rushing down to help me.  It was surreal. My head hurt quite a bit, and I was trapped inside the car.

What had happened, I surmised, was that because it was late at night and not too many other cars were on the road, no one saw what had happened.  And here I was trapped in my car about forty feet below the level of the other cars speeding by at sixty-five miles an hour.

And no one knew I was there.

Worse yet, when I managed to pull my cell phone out of my purse, I realized it was a dead area.  I couldn’t dial a number.  Then panic set in.  I thought I might lie here for days and starve to death or die of thirst, and nobody was going to come save me.

I thought about my husband and my kids, and I started to cry.  It was a terrible moment, and I felt my situation was hopeless.

I tried kicking the door but it wouldn’t budge.  And even if it had opened, I was helplessly stuck inside.  My right foot was stuck between an unmovable seat and the crushed dashboard.  I was bleeding a bit, very tired and very weak.

I must have fallen asleep because when I awoke, I was surrounded by firemen, all in uniform, and they were prying my door open with a huge metal bar.  I gasped when I realized I was going to be saved and would see my family again.

When I asked how they found me, one of the men said that I owed my life to their mascot Dalmatian, Hattie, who started barking madly as they drove by on the freeway.  He kept barking and kept looking back; so on a hunch they pulled off the freeway, hiked back to the spot where Hattie led them.

They said they still couldn’t see anything from the Freeway but Hattie raced down the hill and then one of the men caught a glimpse of my overturned SUV.

There’s no way the dog could have seen me as the fire truck raced by, but somehow he sensed I was there and that I was in trouble.

It is said that animals have psychic powers far beyond what us humans have, and I believe it.

P. Strausser
Reseda, CA

She replied,  “I don’t know how I know, but I know.”

I don’t know if any of you out there believe in ESP, but I do.

Let me relay something that happened to me a few weeks ago, and see if you are a believer as well.

I was strolling through the mall with my twelve-year-old niece who I had promised to take shopping that day.  Her birthday was approaching and she was very excited because she knew she could pick out her present.

We went into a few stores and I was starting to grow impatient because she didn’t like anything.  She can be a little picky and I didn’t want to spend hours searching for a gift.  So, I gently urged her to make a selection, but being a bit stubborn she wasn’t inclined to “just buy anything.”

Then it happened!

A man ran out of one of the stores and down the escalator just as we were going up.  He seemed panicked and then we saw why.  He was being pursued by two men from the store who were hollering that the man was a thief.

Once the man got to the bottom of the escalator he quickly ran into the garage.  It’s a huge indoor garage with many levels.  And the two men followed him in there.

After a moment, we decided to continue shopping, and we were hoping no one would get hurt.  About half an hour later, we happened to pass the two men who were coming out of the garage and it was evident they hadn’t captured the man.

As they walked by, my niece said she knew where the man was hiding.  One of the men heard her and said, what?  She said did you look on the roof?  When they pointed out that the man had run downstairs after they saw him in the garage, my niece said, “I’m sorry, but he’s up there.”

When they inquired how she knew, she replied,  “I don’t know how I know but I know.”  The two men looked at one another, said what the heck, and went back in the garage.  This time with a couple security guards.

Within ten minutes I felt a tap on my shoulder.  It was one of the men and he told us they captured the guy, and he was, indeed, up on the roof.

Well, my niece got a one hundred dollar gift certificate to use in any store of her choosing.  When I asked her how she knew, she said sometimes she gets a vision in her head; and this time she saw that man hiding behind one of the parked cars, and she could see the roof line behind him.

M. Synkowski
Toronto, Canada