Sometimes... even important dreams are not only disbelieved, but forgotten.

A young air cadet at Kelly Field in 1941 had for several weeks been making practice flights, taking off to the north on the north-south runway. One night he had a clear and vivid dream that the wind shifted to the northeast so they had to take off on the runway in that direction, a runway at the end of which was a huge maintenance hangar.

In the dream he saw a twin-engine aircraft take off. When about sixty feet above the runway and just in front of the big hangar, it flipped over on its back, crashed, and killed the two pilots. Although the other details were clear, he did not know who the victims were.

He did not recall the dream the next day until he and some companions in a GI truck were riding to the field from their barracks. Then he looked out of the truck at the wind tee, as they always did at that point, and saw the wind had shifted to the northeast. It brought back the dream, and he told it to the other cadets in the truck.

The afternoon flying section was divided into two parts, one taking off at 12:30, the other at 1:00 P.M. He and his companions were in the 1:00 P.M. section. While changing into flying clothes, they heard a crash, ran outside, and he saw that a plane had been wrecked in front of the hangar, as in his dream. Both pilots in it were killed. They were men he knew.

--Louisa E. Rhine

EDITOR'S PROTEST

No, no no! Rhine is wrong to claim this account illustrates how warning dreams are not only "disbelieved, but forgotten". This dreamer DID remember in time and DID warn his classmates. You can bet they'd have been on high alert during their takeoffs at 1 PM, keeping plenty of airspace between them and that hangar. Yes, as it turned out, he should have also warned the 12:30 group. Had his dreams learned to flag themselves as psychic, as mine do, he might have had the conviction to risk making a bigger fuss--and saved two lives.

But societal rigidity must share the blame; he was up against tight schedules and a command hierarchy. Not unique to military flight training! In the name of speed and progress, most of us have sold our birthright to act on our dreams--or any intuitive urges.

Yes, many vital dreams are forgotten, or recalled but dismissed as silly, or believed but not acted on. But that can change. Recall improves with practice and attention to dreams. And while most psychic dreams don't hint at their nature, this too can change! After years of dreamwork, my dreams figured out ways to announce they were psychic. Some of the signals they use are personal, but here are two screaming red flags. I bequeath these to the Creative Commons here and now, okay?

1. A dream character talks of ESP, or even claims to have it. Or (better yet!) claims you have it.
2. You wake up, write your dream, and find you suspect it's psychic for no reason at all... and wake again, to find you scrawled "psychic?" in your dreams.

--Chris Wayan

SOURCE: Hidden Channels of the Mind by Louisa E. Rhine, 1961, p. 79. Account untitled, author's name witheld; title & byline added to aid searching & indexing.

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