This
Weeks Story
October
2, 2000
"Still
Waters"
An unusual life-dream
from the journal of
Terri
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by Terri
Hailing From: Monongahela, PA
Where it Happened: Southwestern PA
I'm not sure this actually qualifies as a "ghost" story but it certainly is spooky. Ever since I was a small child I had dreams where I was on a boat with a boy. The dream would start out taking place on the deck of the boat and would be very quiet except for the sound of the motor and the water. In a flash, like a movie, I would be in the water and drowning.
I would struggle for only a moment and then I would realize how beautiful it was, bright and peaceful with a lovely scent of flowers. I would look up and see the boy looking down at me. He would reach down into the water and I could never tell if he was trying to pull me out or to push me under. The sense was that he was pushing me down, but I was never angry or upset with him because of it.
And then there would be deep silence and I couldn't see him anymore but everything was at perfect peace.
That would be the end of the dream and I never would wake up from the dream upset, I was always just fine. When I would think about it later in the day, I would be become upset but never in the dream or just after waking up. I had this dream for many, many years, usually at least two times per year.
And in each dream me and the boy would be a few years older.
When I told my mother about the dreams she told me that when I was about 5 or 6 years old, I used to sleep walk quite a bit. She said that quite often when she followed me I would fill the bathtub with water and put in one of my toy boats and a couple of my dolls. I always left one doll sitting on the boat and the other was always floating in the water. I believe that I was reenacting the dream even at that young of an age.
When my mother asked me if I knew who the boy on the boat was I told her that I didn't recognize him and he didn't look like anyone I knew.
When I was about 15 years old, we moved to a new area and I started in a new school. This school had a program where when a new student came in, another student took them on a tour of the school. They had me go wait in the hall for my tour person to come get me. A few minutes later, he arrived. It took everything in my power not to show him how badly I was shaking.
It was the boy from the boat!
I never told him why I spent the next 2 years watching him so closely. He once asked me out in my senior year. I told him yes (curiosity getting the best of me, I guess). When he called to confirm going out, he asked if I would like to take a ride on his parent's boat for the day. I don't remember how I got out of it but I'm sure I made up some fairly silly story and never did go out with him, not on a boat or anywhere else.
Ever since I declined the boat ride with him I never had the dream again - but I still remember it as clear as day as well as the feelings I had as I was drowning, even now, 18 years after the last dream. I believe the dream may have been something or someone trying to warn me what would happen if I took that boat ride, but if it did happen there would still be peace.
It always makes me stop and ponder just a bit more when people share something that is recurring, something we could call more of a "life experience." I mean, not that the one-time glimpses of souls who have moved past the light aren't as important, we know they are -- but when someone shares a long-term experience, even if in a dream, it makes me ponder over the possible clues to its underlying meaning.
The part that truly made me shudder was the line where Terri said, " . . . everything was at perfect peace."
I once had a dream that I went up into a single engine plane, a white Cessna, and I had never flown in any small aircraft). The dream was wonderful, the plane rose up into the blue and nearly cloudless sky, and as it pointed toward the heavens and leveled off, I could actually feel a floating exhilaration -- even as I lay dreaming -- and I could even hear the roar of the engines! And then I looked out the window and saw a small lake with three piers jutting out from the shore -- noticing one of the piers was painted white with tall white poles at the end. Then, in a split-second, in my dream, that white pier was no longer "way down there" -- it was right next to my window, almost hugging the plane -- and I woke up trembling.
Remember, I had never been in a plane before, and I didn't think I even knew anyone that flew -- but that very day after the dream, a new friend spotted me by the pool and asked if I would like to go up with him in his plane! He said he needed to log in more flight time. I said no at first, then I thought, how silly, and said yes. He told me not to worry, but he did ask how much I believed in the dream because, as he put it, he didn't want to die either!
(OK, I know I am getting long-winded, so here is the rest . . . )
We did go up in his plane that day, and yes it was indeed a white Cessna. And even though he said he couldn't remember water or a lake under where we were going to be flying, guess what? Not two minutes after we left the ground we were soaring over a small lake he had forgotten about! And the lake, well, yes it did have three piers, with large white poles at the end of one of them.
What happened? Well, since I am alive today to tell the tale, actually nothing. I wasn't afraid, but I can tell you, I was nearly numb! I looked at my pilot friend as he worked the controls, and he looked back at me, and then we both grinned as he pointed to the window. He asked, "Do you see the white poles?"
I exhaled with relief as I told him, "Thank God your plane has white struts!"
And so, those were the poles I had seen in my dream, right next to the window.
I guess the point of all my rambling is, we will never really truly know what might keep us from danger, and what might not. Are there messages that come to us to keep us safe, or are they telling us something much different? Could a dead relative be protecting us? Could we have died in a previous life, in the water, in a boat, in the sea? Could someone we know have died in the water, off a boat, and is trying to tell us they are at peace, and that they are OK -- we should not worry?
Who is to say, because even the dreamer never really knows for sure what the message or who the messenger is? After all, it could be a test of courage, or, it could be a warning. The part that makes Terri's story, and life with all of its subtle mysteries so interesting, is that all we will ever know is that in the final analysis, all we can do is listen to what we believe our dreams are trying to say, and then follow our own navigational intuitions to wherever they will lead us.
Thanks for the story, Terri, and for your support of Ghostories. I hope you don't mind my long commentary. Have a great October this year and let us know if you receive any more clues in the months and years ahead.
~--Keno
