It would be saying the obvious to observe that efforts to avert a foreseen event fail because the measures taken are not adequate. One must find the reason why they are inadequate. The most frequent reason of all is simply that the ESP impression was incomplete; the information received was insufficient to guide the person to the proper action... The lack of knowledge where often makes all the difference between a successful and an unsuccessful interventionary act.

One morning the ten-year-old son of a woman in Utah said, as she was getting him and her two other children ready for school, "Oh, Mom, I had a terrible dream last night. A car ran me down. It was so awful."

As she says, "My first thought was to keep him home. I realized I had to be calm, although my heart was racing with fear. I said that we could not live by dreams or we live a life of horror.

"When they left I uttered a silent prayer and said to stay on the sidewalk, which they did, as they were very obedient children. Some three minutes later someone came running to me. A truck had run up on the sidewalk and struck him down. He died seventy minutes later, never regaining consciousness."

EDITOR'S NOTES

This mom tried to strike a balance between realistic caution and superstitious fear. "Go to school, but stay on the sidewalk." She turned out to be wrong, but she's not to blame. I agree with Rhine: the real culprit here was a sketchy warning. Her son's dream turned out to be predictive, but simply wasn't specific or accurate enough to save him. He dreamed a car ran him down, it turned out to be a truck. Nor did he report getting run down on the sidewalk.

Yet it's revealing that she says "we could not live by dreams or we live a life of horror." Really? I certainly live by mine. When I have nightmares, I assume they're practical warnings and act on them. As a direct consequence, I rarely have nightmares. Once they know you're listening, why should dreams shout? Taken seriously, my dreams have been reliable guides to health, love, money, creativity... No horror in sight.

She feared to "live by dreams", and so lost her son.

--Chris Wayan

SOURCE: Hidden Channels of the Mind by Louisa E. Rhine, 1961, p. 179-80. Account untitled, author's name witheld; title & byline added to aid searching & indexing.

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