Looking into the future…

…isn’t something I thought I’d ever be able to do. True, I’ve always been quite good at picking up the signals for what’s really going on, and how things might develop, but really seeing into the future? That was the stuff of fiction and idle fancy, not worth expending any brain cells on considering seriously.

But I’m beginning to think differently. Partly because I don’t have to bend my perception of reality to what my church considers acceptable any longer, and partly because the “evidence” is stacking up, in very unexpected ways…

When we first moved here, I knew that the house was built on the site of a medieval monastery. So I dismissed the tall, dark-robed figure that I occasionally saw out of the corner of my eye, whisking away round corners, as a total figment of my overheated historical imagination, or possibly some kind of visual disturbance caused by a twin pregnancy with very low blood pressure. I never quite forgot it, though, and when we had the foundations of our new conservatory dug out, I looked very carefully for any signs of medieval life – or death. Nothing… But one day not long ago, I was standing chopping vegetables in my kitchen, when the curtains that lead into the conservatory twitched aside, and a tall, dark-robed figure slithered silently into the room, then whisked away round the corner into the hallway. My heart stood still… I knew exactly  what (or rather who) it was; it was my third son, the younger of my twins, dressed up as a medieval monk to scare his sisters and their friend. But it was also exactly  what I’d seen, 16 years before, more than once; before he was even born, in fact.

A couple of weeks ago, his twin sister recounted a dream, also taking place in our kitchen, where I was facing her, talking about not being inclined to let something lie, as she reached up into the cupboard for some chocolate. One of those clear details in a jumbled, portentious dream, it seemed. But this evening, it happened, word for word and action for action as she’d described it. Not in any important context, I hasten to add; I was just saying that I needed to go & hunt for the source of the obnoxious feline pong emanating from the conservatory!

These are only two instances; there’ve been many more. I’m no psychic, and have always rather sneered at gullible people who want to believe in fortunetellers, but I am beginning to think that there may really be information from our future accessible to us somehow, if I only knew how to sense what’s genuine, despite being deprived of its context, and what’s just wishful or fearful thinking…

Perhaps I need a Python!

Random dreams…

What’s brought me here again is a series of intense and threatening dreams, and a real-life conversation which left me reeling, suddenly realising that the “Doomers” might be not be quite so over-the-top as I’d previously assumed.

Oddly, the dreams seem almost more real than the conversation. In one, I was a teacher trying to save her class from a massacre, but in vain; they would not disobey the headteacher’s orders to wait calmly for help to come & run & hide with me. But the “helpers” were actually the assassins… I got away, by the skin of my teeth, and the kindness of a stranger, but most of my pupils didn’t. In another, I was walking along a cliff path, looking at some pretty cottages on the other side of the bay, when suddenly they faded and became a pastel drawing, before vanishing altogether. Instead, we saw a furious & deadly storm racing towards us across the sea, and realised we stood no chance if we were caught without shelter. There was nowhere to hide behind us so we had to go on up the path, not knowing what lay beyond, and my companions were stumbling, questioning and faltering all the way. Attempts to hurry them up just made them slower… But we did reach shelter, in a long, low building in an unexpected quarry, just as the storm broke over the hilltop and howled down the slope.

Anxiety dreams, without a doubt. And it’s probably unwise to read anything else into them at all, but they do accurately reflect my worries that our everyday world is spinning out of control in ways we’ve barely even started to notice.

The conversation – well, the less said, the better, in some ways. Suffice to say that I now know, from the best possible sources, that the “blip” in our financial systems a week or so ago was far from that… not that I have to worry, not having any investments! But only a fool would fail to see some of the wider implications… Time to make sure my cupboards are well-stocked, methinks.