ESP - Second Sight

My mum called it ‘second sight’. She had inherited it from her mother and grandmother. It has come down the generations to me, though mine differs from theirs. The first time I encountered it was at our hotel on Central Promenade. I was a young teenager making myself useful by helping, or possibly hindering, the receptionist.  I was sent to fetch my mum to attend to a guest, a woman who was in great distress. I ran upstairs, along the corridor to our private rooms and found my mother on the settee, waking up from a nap. Before I had chance to speak, she said,

“Her son drowned in a boating accident. I just dreamt it.”

What struck me most was the calm, matter-of-fact way that she said it as she stood up, smoothed her skirt, popped her shoes on, combed her hair and checked her lipstick, all in two seconds before she was out of the door. Sadly, that’s exactly what had happened and the poor lady had just received the terrible news.

I am told that my great-grandmother sometimes dreamt names that matched horses in forthcoming races. I don’t know how lucrative it was for her, but it hasn’t come down the line to me, though I’m not into horse racing.

From an early age I knew that my Nanna could see absolutely everything and she knew what everyone was up to. Her eyes looked like she could see right inside a person’s thoughts. With her, everything and everybody was safe. Things came to her in dreams and sometimes she would sit, deep in thought then tell you what you wanted or did not want to hear, never less than honest and nothing ever ‘wrapped up’. I adored her.

I don’t tend to dream things, I just know, usually out of the blue. My sister was in the early stages of her second pregnancy. Very randomly I told her she was having a daughter and she would be born early, a bit poorly but she would be fine. I could even pin-point the date to either 31^st October or 3^rd November, which didn’t mean anything at the time.  My niece was born by Caesarean section on 31^st October, 1988, spent a short time in the Special Care Baby Unit and has grown up into a beautiful young woman. My daughter was born on 3^rd November, 1994.

There was an avalanche in the Alps at a time when people I knew were in the area. I was sure I’d heard something on the radio news, but it wasn’t on the next bulletin, no mention of it on teletext and nothing on the TV news, until the next day when it actually happened. The same thing happened with an earthquake.

I don’t know if it’s connected to ‘second sight’ or an entirely different phenomenon, but I have had ghostly encounters. There are many, but what always makes me smile is the Most Haunted episode featuring The Old Hall in Sandbach. We lived there for a short time when my father was licencee. I hated that move to Cheshire and I’ve mentioned it, not by name, in previous blogs. Yes, it had ‘occupants’, we quickly became aware, but none of our ghosts matched any of the findings in the programme. Strange.

     I found this poem. I can really relate to it.

 

 
    Conjugal Telepathy
    Have you ever noticed when you’re talking with your spouse?
    No matter if you’re out with friends or wandering round the house,
    That when you have a thought you think is worthy to express,
    You’ve scarcely uttered half of it before your thoughts digress,
    And you have quite forgotten what it was you wished to say,
    But there is no need to panic for your spouse will save the day,
    And without the need for prompting, and indeed without a pause,
    Your partial thought’s completed, with an extra thoughtful clause.
    My friends to whom I’ve spoken, and I’ve spoken to a few,
    Have noticed this phenomenon, and so perhaps it’s true,
    That when you live together an extended length of time,
    The need for speech reduces and there's more accent on mime.
    So perhaps there is no worry when your mind begins to go,
    For even out in company, no one really needs to know.
    There is a great incentive to always keep your cool,
    When your spouse's intervention stops you looking like a fool,
    For even if the utterance is not what you would say,
    It is best to grin and bear it and pretend so anyway.

                                                                           By Ian Smith

Thanks for reading, Pam x