During the Korean War, a mother and son had "joint" experiences, both of which were hallucinatory, the mother's occurring just as she awoke, the son's when he was wide awake. The mother tells how at the time she thought her son was en route to Korea. In reality, it turned out, he was in Manila. She explained that earlier, when still in training, he would occasionally drive home unannounced for the weekend. He would arrive late at night, stand in the doorway of his parents' bedroom and whisper, "I'm home, Mom." She continues,

"On the night of which I write we were sleeping, when suddenly I awoke and saw him standing there, looking at me. I arose quickly and said, 'Dick, how wonderful! We thought you were on the other side of the world.' As I said this, he turned and walked before me into the living room, where he just faded away! My husband followed me and said, 'What's the matter? There is no one here. It was only a dream.'

"I just couldn't believe it. I felt a great sense of depression and heaviness. I scarcely slept the rest of the night."

When her son returned a few months later and they compared details, he said,

"I was almost killed on shore patrol in Manila." He then went on to tell how his buddy had been knifed and how he himself barely escaped. He said, "Just as it happened I saw you and heard you say, 'Dick, how wonderful.'"

--Louisa E. Rhine

EDITOR'S NOTE

I love the irony here. This ESP story hinges on the depth of their bond. Yet look how the whole thing misfires! Mom assumes Dick is just visiting, rather than fighting for his life. And Dick, under attack, his buddy knifed, suddenly runs into his mom, who says "How wonderful!" Mom loves knife attacks? Rather unnerving on more than one level. All in all, you'd be better off with a phone.

And yet, though ESP here is a pretty shoddy conference tool, the fact these two achieved even a momentary, misleading international two-way videolink decades before the technology existed implies the world is not what we think.

Even if people are. No matter what the medium, we miscommunicate.

--Chris Wayan

SOURCE: Hidden Channels of the Mind by Louisa E. Rhine, 1961, p. 40. Account untitled and author's name witheld; I added 'Dick, How Wonderful!' and 'Dick and his mom' to aid searching and indexing.

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