Another Look at Precognition: Can a Dream Save a Life?

I wrote on the subject of precognitive dreams in an earlier blog titled Understanding Precognitive Dreams: Can They Really Tell the Future? Included in that blog was an account of psychic dreaming relating to my father's death, which is relevant to the current topic. During a family get-together following my father's wake, the subject of after-death communication dreams arose and then progressed into discussing predictive dreams. I shared dreams which foretold of my father's passing and my uncle's heart attack. My self-proclaimed atheist cousin exclaimed, “if you ever have a dream about me I want to know about it!” He was specifically referring to dreams I may have about his health and well-being. Three months later I had an intense dream about him that ended in a hypnopompic vision and auditory message. The dream is titled Heart in Hand:

I see L's face — he looks strange, not well, distressed — pale and wide-eyed. The dream pans out like I am seeing it from a witnessing perspective, and now I see his whole body. I see a hand reach into his chest and grip his heart (palm turned to face me with the heart). I see an extreme close-up of a heart beating slower and slower as the hand slowly squeezes tighter and tighter. As I am awakening and in a hypnopompic state I hear “STROKE” while still seeing the gripped heart.

I woke up hearing a beeping sound coming from our home office; it was the surge protector/battery backup system for the computer due to a power outage. In the morning I called L's sister and told her the dream, saying, “I wouldn't normally tell someone a dream like this, but he said if I ever dreamed about him he wanted to know.” She told me he had torn his right pectoral muscle and was severely bruised, bleeding internally, and that the muscle was just hanging. I considered this injury maybe what the dream was illustrating or connecting with, but his sister urged me to tell him anyway because he has had to get stents for artery blockages in the past, and she thought he did not look well despite his cardiologist telling him he was fine and to stop his obsessive concerns about dying and leaving his children behind.

I called L to tell him and his wife about the heart/stroke dream, and while he seemed a little concerned, he also had a somewhat dismissive attitude, particularly since he does not believe in psychics, paranormal events and the like. Another three months passed and I was at L's house giving tarot readings to his daughters. His wife happened to come home early and asked if I could read for her, as she had a few questions on her mind. Immediately I knew the last question was about L's health, and it did not look good. I said, “his cardiologist is missing something. I know he's recently had a stress test, but if he doesn't get a second opinion I am afraid he will drop dead like F” (F was his best friend who had recently died from a combination heart attack/stroke — and so had my dad).

Yet another three months passed and, just days before Easter weekend, L's heart went into atrial fibrillation; his heart was seriously out of rhythm and he was having a hard time breathing. His cardiologist was out of town (kismet!), and it was suggested that he see one of the other associates in the practice. L's family nagged him in an attempt to get him to see another cardiologist outside the medical group he usually went to; he seemed resolute on staying with the doctor and practice with whom he was familiar, however he ultimately decided to get a second opinion because of my dream and tarot reading. This was huge for L, since he disregards topics of a mystical nature in favor of logic.

The new doctor found two big blockages in his arteries and surgically implanted two stents: one very long stent and another shorter one. L's wife sent a text message from the hospital stating that they both felt I had saved his life, because he would not have gone for the second opinion if I had not had the dream. Equally important was that I shared the dream despite knowing it might be met with criticism, or might potentially fill him with such dread as to cause a “self-fulfilling prophecy.”

As dreamers we must discern which of our dreams may be helpful to others, and which of our dreams function solely as inner messages from and to ourselves. In this particular case it was pretty straightforward. My cousin said with conviction, “if you ever have a dream about me I want to know about it!” Can a dream save a life? A resounding “yes,” if you ask my cousin and his wife.