Premonitions are Real

I have to document what happened last night because the prior time I had a real, fear-inducing dream, it foreshadowed an inescapable, debilitating event in my life. So here is the account to the best of my memory.

I woke roughly around 1 a.m. I am not one hundred percent sure, because as the usual case, I drift out into the kitchen and get a drink and look at the clock. If it is earlier than 1 a.m. then I’m like, okay, I have plenty of time to fall back to sleep. I don’t need a sleep aid, just yet. But it is hard to remember things when you are blurry with waking. I was pretty confident though.

In this case, when I woke, a helicopter was flying over my house, shaking the entire structure. The commotion was so terrible, I fully expected to see a spotlight gleaming through my curtains or see flashlight beams creeping through my yard from sneaking snipers looking for a fugitive.

It was possible. We’ve had helicopters do this before, looking for people. I prayed that my house and my family would be safe from whatever the crazy heck was going on outside and rolled out of bed. I’m not sure at what point the ruckus from the helicopter stopped. (Maybe while I was praying?)

After drinking my water, I walked to the patio door as was the typical habit when I woke (’cause often hubby forgets to lock the doors or flick on the motion detector lights). All was well in this respect. As I turned, I distinctly thought I heard something rustle in the corner of the family room. I didn’t turn on the lights. I assumed it was my imagination or the computer doing its regular scan. So I passed by the front door to check its locks and lights, peaked into my sleeping daughters rooms, and slipped back under my covers.

All was well. But did I imagine the helicopter? Why didn’t my husband wake up? He’d be insane not to.

Now if the helicopter was a dream, then how do I know that for sure? And if it was, at what point did I wake up from visions of men in black suits, slinking through my yard, to the reality that the house was actually shaking, and transition to me walking into the kitchen? I couldn’t distinguish the line because I thought it was really going on. I didn’t think part of it could be a dream.

Even so, that little scenario didn’t faze me.

Here comes the terrifying fantasy. I think this next dream was spurred by the noise in my living room and the recent Elizabeth Smart story that came out. I’m not going to go into the specifics, but in a nutshell, my children were “kidnapped” but it was by someone we knew, who was trying to do something as a surprise, and they “borrowed” my children without asking. But in my dream, I went into their bedrooms and found their beds empty and their windows wide open. A panic gripped me, and I thought for sure they were really gone.

I woke, absolutely horrified. I checked their rooms to find them still asleep. When I was certain the house was secure, I crawled back into bed, now thinking I need to read Elizabeth’s Smart’s story and reprimand the person who took my children (in my dream) for being so stupid. But I also laid down with the sure feeling that I loved my daughter’s more than I could possibly comprehend, and this dream filled me with a knowledge that I would do anything to get them back, if such a horrible thing were to happen. (Think Taken) I also felt really bad for not paying enough attention to them lately. So I thought this dream was a reprimand. I vowed to give them more hugs every day and pay more attention to them. I asked Heavenly Father to forgive me, and I fell uneasily back to sleep.

Sometime around 3 a.m. (and I only know the time, because I checked afterward) I woke when someone in the hallway said, “Hello?” It was an unfamiliar voice and I jolted awake. I was so petrified that someone could be in my house. My husband next to me stirred, and I thought he would get up and investigate and grab his police baton shoved under the mattress on his bedside. He only rolled over and resumed sleep. I tried to say that I heard someone say hello and elbow him in the ribs, but my mouth couldn’t move. I couldn’t move, so I laid in bed as still as a rock and waited. If someone had broken in, they would eventually come into the room. But nothing happened. When my powers of mobility returned, I stumbled out of bed and grabbed a baby blanket, as if that would help, (maybe I could snap them like a wet towel. IDK. I was out of my mind.) But the blanket was a comfort as I clutched it to my chest. I checked the whole house over, now thoroughly terror-stricken. Everything was in order, the kids were asleep. A fleeting thought was that one of the kids had spoken in their sleep. But I know I distinctly heard the voice in the hallway. I also thought this could have been a case of sleep paralysis, which two of my friends both recently confessed to me that they have experienced.

I prayed for a long time until I felt peace and drifted into my final slumber before the morning rush of school lunch packing and whiny kid hair brushing.

This morning I am wondering, what was all this trying to show me? I don’t take these things lightly, not anymore.

I had a dream back on 2010 that was a premonition, showing me I was going to slip into my last and worst depression cycle. I didn’t know the meaning of the dream at the time, but after I recovered from my depression, I came upon it scrawled in a notebook, and knew it exactly for what it was. So needless to say, I write all these things down now.

So what could this one mean?

I shudder when I think of the movie Sandra Bullock stars in. Premonition. She was unable to change the course of her fate. Her husband still died. I was unable to keep my depression cycle from coming on. Why the warnings? So we can be more prepared? So these events don’t slam us in the face?

I'm not blind to the truth that the other side guides us and protects us and gives us warnings. I have had many impressions from the Holy Spirit. Sometimes the impressions come as dreams. Sometimes they are warnings. They can also come to us in the whisper of a still small voice or a warm, comforting feeling. But they always come as truth.

I am still walking around the house in unease, hoping the meaning will manifest. I don’t have dreams like this without purpose. The best thing I can do is be vigilant and open my scriptures and pray. Especially pray for peace and understanding.

Scared yet. I keep hearing helicopters.