Tag Archives: premonition

Clairvoyance & Dream Interpretation

Nationality: American
Age: 48
Occupation: Student
Residence: Glendale, AZ
Language: English

“Clairvoyance runs in our family. I was taught about it at a very young age. My mom educated me about it at a very young age. Dream interpretation and stuff like that and astral projection and meditation. I’ve gone into trances with binaural beats and left my body.”

What does clairvoyance mean to you?

“Clairvoyance means to be empathic, feeling other people’s emotions, feeling certain types of energies in a room, sleep paralysis. My sleep paralysis is when my body is splitting when I leave my body at night, so you get stuck in between. I’ve had to learn that when in a sleep paralysis, I pray in my mind. I explained this bruja around the corner who explained that my spirit is splitting from my body. My dreams are not normal dreams. I can tell the difference. I can feel all my senses. I can smell, I can touch. Most people are unable to do that. I can feel pain. I have every emotion, fear and everything. That’s not normal.”

Has this always happened for you?

“That’s happened to me all my life. My mom had premonitions. I believe dreams are not necessarily dreams.”

Are there any rituals you do to enhance your dreams?

The informant described using tourmaline or “any stone that gives properties or elements to psychic clairvoyance or astral projection” She puts the stone under the bed, pillow or on her bedside. She described that she grounds herself before going to sleep by “creating a bubble like white light for purification and protection,” as in meditation. She says that she “imagines a safe place in the bubble like a garden or river of amethyst.” She emphasizes the importance of protecting yourself and setting intentions because people that don’t might bring something back with them from the other realm.

Analysis: While dreams themselves are not traditionally considered folklore, I would argue that the informant’s described beliefs about her dreams can be interpreted as a folk belief. Coming from her mother, the informant has been passed down this belief and continues in the practice of dream interpretation in the present day. She also described her mother’s dreams to be premonitions, or seeing the future, while her own was described to be more along the lines of astral projection. This shows some variation within her own family’s interpretation of their dreams. She also describes some ritualistic precautions before attempting to go into this dream state. Meditations, usually guided meditations, are often used to go into trance-like states, which she does herself while also dabbling in binaural beats. Using binaural beats shows the constant evolution of folkloric rituals and practices as she is incorporating modern day technologies into her practice. 

Phone Call Premonition

Age: 59

Folklore: “I remember going on a trip once where I saw a man and a woman in Chicago. They were my ex-husband’s aunt and uncle. We had talked quite a bit and spent time with the whole family. When we flew home and walked in the door the phone was ringing. I immediately knew that Mike had died and he did, that was the call alerting us that Mike had died.”

I asked to clarify if she saw them in real life and she said,

“Yes, I had been visiting them in person and then when I flew home from Chicago and arrived home opened up the door and the phone was ringing as the door opened. I knew that Mike had died and that is indeed what that phone call was telling me. There was absolutely no reason to think that Mike had died because the entire visit was perfectly normal and it was a surprise death like a heart attack or something.”

Context: This story came from my mother who said she was 25 when this happened. She had just met her ex-husband’s aunt and uncle that week, and said she “knew” just as much as I knew that I was talking to her. 

Interpretation: This is a memorate, a personal supernatural experience, that reinforces beliefs about death and intuition. This story is similar to a larger folkloric pattern where individuals have gut feelings, especially surrounding and near the death of people close to them. Experiences like these add to the belief that interpersonal bonds transcend physical space and reflect the broader idea that people are more in tune with the spiritual world. 

Grandmother’s Goodbye

Genre: Folk Narrative – Ghost Story

Text:

“My dad once told me a story about an experience he had with a ghost. My dad was really close with his grandparents; he spent a lot of time over at their house when he was younger and as a child, he had these really weird dreams where his grandmother would appear to him. In the dreams, she was just sitting on a stool beside his bed and talking to him.

“When I was around ten years old, my great-grandmother, his grandmother, passed away. But my dad told me he had one of those dreams the night she died: in his dream, he was a child again as he was looking at her, and just as she always did in the dreams, she was sitting on a stool and talking to him. But he had a feeling that this dream was different. Although he doesn’t remember the details of the conversation he had in the dream, when he woke up, he felt a visceral change and later discovered that that was the night she passed away.”

Context:

“My great-grandparents on my dad’s side, around when I was ten years old or so, were dying of Alzheimer’s and they needed a caretaker. It was a really big burden on my family, and I remember my dad talking about them a lot during that time because he had a really deep connection with his grandparents. He spent a lot of time with them growing up, and he even ended up remodeling their house and turning it into his parents’ house, which is where my grandparents live now. I think my dad’s dreaming of them was a representation of the deep emotional connection they shared. I think he really felt a change in that connection the night his grandmother died, and I like to think of that dream as her way of saying goodbye.”

Analysis:

Although I am skeptical about the idea of a truly prophetic dream, I think this is an example of how dreams can sometimes help someone process an ongoing trauma or complicated emotions. The informant explained that his great-grandparents were dying of Alzheimer’s, which is a slow end. It is possible that the informant’s father dreamed about conversations with his grandmother as a way of processing this difficult mental condition, and only after hearing news of his grandmother’s death did he feel that, at the time of the dream, he felt that he knew she had died at the time. Memories are notoriously faulty and dreams even more so, which is why I personally believe that this was not a ghost the informant’s father envisioned the night his grandmother died, but merely a way of his brain processing the difficulty of losing a loved one.

Another idea to consider is the fact that the informant’s paternal family is Mexican. Ghosts are prevalent in Mexican culture, particularly the ghosts of loved ones (as seen in holidays such as Día de los Muertos). It is possible that this cultural background influenced the informant’s father to be more inclined to believe in a supernatural explanation for his dream/ghost rather than a scientific one.

Rule of Three’s: Good vs. Bad

Nationality: Phillipino
Age: 19
Occupation: Student
Residence: USC
Performance Date: 4/20/18

Good Luck and Bad Luck comes in Threes, where action goes energy flows.

Another premonition that kind of depends on what you sent out into the universe and think about, where that energy flows. A great example of this is good luck and bad luck comes in threes. Lukas described to me that he learned this saying from his mother. While it is not 100% guaranteed, coincidences occur that correspond to this saying. People often say if they encounter any bad luck that it will happen three times in a row and the same is for good luck. There is not a specific documentation of this happening every time, however you become conscious one something bad happens and it becomes easier for you to pick Up on other negative aspects or events you encounter. Likewise, this goes for positive events if you want something good to happen and it does, usually, three other good things will happen. It’s not forced, and it’s not something that you pray about, however wherever you put your energy and focus it, it is returned back to you in some way, shape or form.