Waking up in a cold sweat after an all-too-real dream is not the best way to start a day, but was it a dream? Was it a nightmare? Was it a vision or premonition? Hard to say at the time, only the passage of days would confirm or debunk what was seen. I have had many such instances over my lifetime.
The farthest back I can remember them starting was many years ago, when I was a teen and would go to visit my Aunt and Uncle in Moravian Falls, North Carolina. They had a very old house, up on the side of the mountain with views that stretched for miles along the Blue Ridge Mountains. What I saw wasn't so much things that might or would happen in the future, but in the past.
I was walking amongst the apple orchard trees on the property and stopped at just the crest of the hill where it started down toward the other part of the road that wound around the mountainside. I sat down and just enjoyed the view as the sun started to set. A light breeze kicked up and rustled the leaves of the trees and something caught my eye, a slight movement in the treeline.
I slowly looked over, not making a sound and what I saw was a man dressed in a confederate uniform. He was standing there staring at me, then started moving towards me as I closed my eyes, rubbed them, then opened them. He was still there. Why I didn't run, I don't really know, I suppose it was because I felt no malice from him. It seems he just wanted someone to see him, to remember him, to look up his life history, or at least that's what I interpreted from his gestures.
He was about six feet away from me and I looked up at him as he showed me the name on the inside corner of his uniform jacket. I said his surname outloud and he nodded then pointed toward the house and the area around it, then pointed up the mountain. He came within three feet, leaned over, pointed to his heart, then to mine, it almost felt as if he touched me right over my heart as I suddenly had a chill. I nodded, got up and ran inside to get the Encyclopedia from my Aunt's bookshelf. It turns out he was Captain George Allen Gilreath, born on the brushy mountain on which I stood, but much further up the mountain.
Whatever he did that evening, by touching my heart, opened up a whole new world for me. The next morning, I woke up with a start after seeing one of my Aunt's beloved German Shepherds becoming very frightened of the thunderstorm and trying to leap over the fence, to his demise, as he was on a cable and so hung himself. I told my Aunt about it, and she just dismissed it as a nightmare. But a week later, we did indeed have a severe thunderstorm, and being up high enough that we were actually in the clouds, made it worse, and, just as I had seen, Rex, the German Shepherd was found hung. My Aunt understood that I had a gift, my Uncle was not so kind, trying to blame me for what happened to Rex, calling me a witch.
The premonitions continued, but as a teenager, it was a daunting thing to have, not that I would have called it a gift at the time. I saw that my cousin and his wife would have a baby girl, I didn't tell them though, but I did tell my Aunt, as she was the only one who would talk to me after my first revelation. I also saw the motorcycle accident my Uncle would have, the domestic abuse another of my cousins would endure and the fact that my guardian would push my mother down the stairs. My Aunt and I kept a secret calendar of my premonitions, in a locked drawer, away from the prying eyes of my Uncle, to keep the peace, we were the only two who had the keys to the drawer. As my premonitions proved true, my Aunt would put a checkmark on the calendar next to the items. If they were prevented or debunked, she would put an x, at the end of six months, there were many more check marks than xs.
My Aunt asked me if I ever saw any having to do with myself, to which I answered no, because I hadn't had any, it seems I can only see events that were to or might happen to others. One night, while my Uncle was out, my Aunt and I watched the news and during certain parts of the segments, she would ask me questions. I thought they were strange at the time, but looking back, I know now that it was to see if I could see what had happened to cause the accidents or disappearances. Sometimes I could and sometimes I could not, it mostly depended on how tired I was. Towards the end of the night, I was less accurate than I was at the beginning.
Over the years, I have learned to heed the premonitions, visions, nightmares and dreams. Nightmares don't always foretell something bad, they are usually a wake-up call to slow down and focus on something I am working on. Visions, for me, are pretty much the same as premonitions, an outcome that could happen if certain actions are made or not made, but I am watching them from a short distance away. Dreams are simply a way for my muse to give me ideas for my different projects. The premonitions, I have learned, feel different from the rest, they feel like I'm right there with or that I am the person that the incident is happening to.
I have found others through social media that have this same gift. I am learning to be able to summon premonitions/visions, instead of having them come at will. And I have been keeping a journal of them, the journals used to be in notebooks and now I keep them on an external drive. They have become a help and I still do the checkmark and x as my Aunt did on that calendar. So the ability to have premonitions and visions is not useless, in fact, it has saved my husband's and son's lives more than once, when they actually listened.