You Need to Find Her
Dreamed 2010/4/27 by B. Bigham
feedback: bbigham1924 at yahoo dot com
INTRODUCTION
Almost two years ago I had a dream about something that happened before I was born. It was not a major historical event that everyone learns in school--not even big enough to make the news when it happened. It did happen in my home state, but far away, and no one I knew ever mentioned it. It was in a small Mississippi ghost town with only 5-10 residents. There is ABSOLUTELY NO WAY I have ever heard of this or seen this ANYWHERE!
The only reason I know it happened at all is sheer dumb luck. Yesterday while playing on YouTube I found a video on ghost towns in the South, and saw an old photo of the house from my dream. I almost started crying. Not because I knew it was from my dream but because I felt a sadness and pain from something associated with that house or my dream. The photo had the plantation name, Laurel Hill, at the bottom, and through more research I found that events in my dream really DID occur before my birth. Actually, quite eerily, the main event happened within the week that I was conceived. What could this mean? I'm dumbfounded!
I've had vivid dreams for a long time and I have trained myself to remember them and pay attention to the details and their meanings. I thought I was getting pretty good at it, but this just threw me a curve.
THE DREAM
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I was riding down a narrow dirt road. I'm not sure if I was in a horse and buggy, on a horse, on a bike, or in a car with the windows down, but I could feel the outdoors. I was NOT closed up in a car with the windows up, radio blaring. It was just nature and me. It was a chilly night. I never saw the moon but it had to be full or nearly so, because things were bright and glowing with moonlight. Most of the way, thick woods grew on both sides. The trees were nearly bare. I know it was near the holiday season, since I was imagining how a small town was going to look adorned with Christmas decorations. (Is it weird that in my dreams I can see what's going on inside "dream me's" head?) I came to an old wooden bridge. There was a small wooden sign just before it and I went over to examine it. I tried brushing it off but I could not make out the words. Then I walked to the bridge and looked around. The side rails were railroad ties or 4 by 4s, set very low, 2 feet or less from the ground. A stream ran below the bridge and in the moonlight it was stunning! But I felt afraid to lean over the low rail or even get too close. After looking for a few minutes I walked on, not even thinking of going back to my previous mode of transport. Soon I came to a stop sign. I was puzzled... everything up to this point had been old and run down but the sign looked as if it had just been added a few minutes ago. It was a four-way stop, but I couldn't see down the roads to the left and right. |
I went on. Soon the woods ended and I saw an old two-story home. I KNEW this was my destination. I felt as if I'd come to see a relative. But once I got to the house, nothing looked familiar. As I walked up the path to the house, it led me between a tree and the right side of the house (as you face the front). It was bare, but one limb dipped down over the path so that I could have touched it with ease. Something about this tree and that limb sticks out to me like a sore thumb... not sure why. I went up the four front steps (yes, I counted). They had concrete rails on both sides. The front porch had a wooden floor; it spanned the entire front of the home and ran along one side. Rails surrounded it; the only gap was at the front steps. The door was open. I never knocked, just went in through the parlor and living room. I poked my head into the kitchen. I saw no one yet. Finally I came to a bathroom, but I saw no toilet. There was a clawfoot tub, a beautiful oak vanity, and at the far end of the room were two tall windows. A girl/woman in her teens or twenties was bathing in the tub. I didn't know who she was, but we did seem to have some connection; neither of us minded that I was there while she was bathing. I walked past the tub on my left, heading for the windows. There was a table below the windows cluttered with knick-knacks and lots of lit candles, the only lighting in the room, except an oil lamp on the vanity (remember, it was night). Most of the candles were red but a few were off-white. |
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A photo on the table caught my eye even more than the candle light and the reflection of the light in the wavy paned windows. It was a black and white photo of a woman in her thirties or forties, with dark hair pulled up in a bun. She was very plain but beautiful. I turned the photo over and on the back in script was a name. I could not read the first or middle name but her last name was "Logan". I turned and looked at the girl in the tub and for the first time she spoke to me. Her words were very calm, like she was just having an everyday conversation. She didn't look at me when she spoke, just kept washing her arms. She said "You need to find her." I went to a small set of shelves in the corner and looked at more odds and ends as she got out of the tub and wrapped herself in a robe. When she was covered I turned around to face her again, and I noticed we looked alike. She was far prettier than I, but our features were strikingly similar. I still didn't know who she was, but I knew we must be related. We didn't speak aloud but our eyes said something. Then a man entered. He looked to be in his forties or fifties, with gray in his hair. I knew him, but I'm not sure of our relationship. The girl looked at him and acted very calm, but I felt what she felt--angry and afraid of him. He went up to her and started shouting. I cannot recall all he said but one thing I remember him screaming was "I can't believe YOU'RE the one that lived!" She started crying, but never shouted back at him, never tried to defend herself. He became violent, pushing her into the corner shelves. They broke, and they and everything on them crashed to the floor with her. He left the room while she was still on the floor, half sitting, half lying. |
She did not speak out loud, but we talked in our minds. She warned me he was coming back soon and I needed to leave. I insisted I would not leave until she was safely out of that house forever. Then I noticed a fire-glow reflecting in the windows beside her. I turned around and the house was burning. I turned back to the girl, but she had vanished. So had most of the furniture. The long beautiful drapes that had hung beside the large windows were now dusty, faded, tattered and torn. It was as if the house had aged fifty years in just a matter of seconds. I left the bathroom. I could feel heat from the flames, but no matter how close I got, I wasn't burned. Yes, it got very hot, but it never hurt. I went out one of the second-floor doors onto the balcony (much like the railed porch below it, only narrower). I was on the left end of the house as seen from the front. There was a large tree limb that still had leaves on it coming over the railing. In the yard, people were watching, but no one seemed to notice me. I didn't feel afraid of dying or even getting hurt. I was scared to death of uncertainty. Was everyone out of the house? I went back in and checked every room, always making sure I had an exit unblocked by flames. It looked safe, but when I actually tried to leave the house, a force would push me back inside. The best way I can describe this feeling is the pushing of two magnets when you put the same poles close together. It wasn't a violent shove; nothing solid touched me. Yet I could not get out. The flames got bigger and bigger. Finally I just sat in an old wingback chair, as if I were waiting. I watched the fire burn around me, and closed my eyes as if I were taking a nap. Then I woke up. |
Now, here are the weird facts I learned about the Laurel Hill plantation. Not only does it look just like the house in my dream but there is a bridge just like the one in the dream less than a mile away (as well as a four-way stop). The trees from my dream are the same ones that were in front of the home I found; the path between the tree and the house was the same.
In 1893 a doctor living in the house lost his wife, daughter and son to yellow fever, all within 48 hours. He DID have one daughter that survived the fever. He was never the same after his losses; he spent almost every penny he had on ornate tombstones and a fantastic iron fence to surround their plots.
In 1981 the house was put on the National Historic Register and was vacated for renovations to become a tourist attraction. As plans for renovation were underway in November 1982, the house burned; arson was suspected. As the house burned, many people watched, but by the time the fire department arrived from over 30 miles away there wasn't much left. The remains of the house were demolished in 1983, less than one year before I was born.
The last owner of the home (for 60-odd years) was named Mrs. Logan.
Now that's just downright eerie!
MY FIRE DREAMS
Dreams of fire have frequented my nights for as far back as I can remember. I can always feel the heat but never any pain.
My dreams lately have not been nearly as traumatic. I'm not sure if it's because I have gotten used to it or if I just haven't had anything that "felt" the same. I know at one point I was convinced that the really traumatic ones just came in spurts. But then at another point I was CERTAIN they were warnings because whenever I dreamed of fires it turned out my husband (now ex) had been cheating on me.
I don't know. I'm just finding it difficult to put two and two together with so many variables.
--B. Bigham
EDITOR'S NOTES
Your dream echoes one a century ago: Factory Fire by J.W. Dunne. The feel of his dream warned him it was a real event, though he too saw no personal connection to the victims.
Your close resemblance to the girl in the tub and the abusive man (her dad the doctor?) does suggest you're related, if not a direct descendant. Are you certain there's no genealogical connection? Maybe you're dreaming family history?
Besides the apparent ESP, your dream has a second fairly rare element: explicit advice! "You need to find her" [Logan]. Have you tried? Any luck tracing her? She or her descendants might have geneological info connecting you to the plantation's family. Or your dream may have urged you to contact them for some quite different reason. You won't know unless you meet them. You may find true love. Or at least a good used car. Some of these dreams are kind of mundane! But her advice was so direct I think there's something worth exploring there.
I'm not surprised that your dreams later used fire imagery to warn that your husband was cheating on you. Dreams adapt their symbols to fit the dreamer, and they'd already trained you to see these fire dreams as unusually important. What better red flag could they use? Some guys torch houses, some torch marriages.
Besides, the pun is perfect. "You're getting burned again!"
--Chris Wayan
FOLLOW-UP
Since my last email I have been compelled to do a little more digging. This coming spring I plan to visit the plantation and the ghost town (Rodney, Mississippi). I have been in touch with someone who has researched the area for years. Though I have not yet told her that I am looking for information because I had a dream. As you might guess, southerners here in the Bible Belt sometimes take such notions the way the Puritans took witchcraft. Sad to say but most people in my neck of the woods are pretty closed-minded...
I have also been toying with the idea that maybe the name Logan means something different to my subconscious. In the small town I am originally from, there were essentially 2 families. Everyone in this little place was either related to the Masons (my family) or the Logans (no, this does not mean incest... LOL). So, could it be that may be the name came from my childhood? On the other hand, the dream was clearly set in Laurel Hill and a Mrs. Logan did live there.
It doesn't really matter. I'm just going to keep looking. I think if I find the right connection it will just hit me like it did when I saw the plantation from my dream. I just KNEW.
--B. Bigham
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