When I was a child, my mother mentioned to me a few times that my father had had dreams that later came true. “He has dreams that tell what is going to happen,” she said.

Usually, these dreams foretold the death of some old person, so to me as a child and teenager they were unimpressive. Most of these people were so old that it seemed pretty evident to me that they had one foot in the grave and were about to fall in. “He dreams other things too, and they come true,” my mother said.

I found it hard to believe that a dream or anything else could tell the future. To me time was strictly linear, and there was no way anyone could look ahead and see what had not yet happened. I particularly didn’t think dreams could tell anyone anything useful, especially if other people’s dreams were anything like mine. Mine were mostly jumbled up and made no sense to me. At times they were scary, but at other times I would dream about playing and having a good time. That I liked.

As an adult, my dreams have surprised me. Some of them have foretold things about my own personal life, and at least one foretold a significant national event. I can’t believe that I’m any different from other people, so I think we must all have these dreams, but we simply haven’t learned to recognize and remember them. I believe that they are not just functions of our brains but are somehow intertwined with the spirit realm.

I’ve never studied dreams or had any training concerning dreams. That simply has not interested me. My interests have been focused on the conscious physical every day world. I’ve always figured if I could deal with that adequately, I would be doing okay. But the spirit realm, even the dream thing, has forced its way into my life.

To illustrate how significant dreams can be, I’d like to tell you about the most dramatic and detailed precognitive dream I’ve ever had. It happened in the middle of January 2003. At the time, I was living with my husband and four big dogs in a small town in southeast Louisiana.

At the start of the dream, I stood on the surface of the earth and looked up at the sky, and I was aware that I was dreaming. My thoughts in the dream were about the beauty of the clear sparkling sky. I began to float upward; it was a wonderful breezy floating sensation. I could see rays of sunlight above me and the earth below me. As I rose higher and higher, I began to feel the presence of others. In my dream I wondered if these others were angels, but soon their spirits felt like other people. I sensed that they were highly intelligent people, and they were extremely happy and exuberant – even in a celebratory mood – about something they had accomplished. Their great happiness went all through me, and I thought, “This is the most beautiful dream I’ve ever had.”

Then I seemed to pass through the wall of a craft that I thought must be an airplane of some kind, but still I was floating. I thought that I should recognize the craft, but I didn’t. It looked like some kind of lab to me, but it wouldn’t come into clear focus. Then I saw the people that I had been feeling, but I couldn’t see their faces clearly. I thought they looked like they had on space suits, but I wasn’t certain. I remained overwhelmed by the happiness all of them were feeling, and that intense feeling seemed to obstruct my ability to see clearly. Again I thought, “This is the most beautiful dream I’ve ever had.”

Then I felt a huge destructive power approaching. It seemed to crawl through the sky like enormous claws that would rip everything to shreds. It frightened me more than anything I could remember, and I realized all these wonderful people around me were doomed. There was no time to save them. So, my most beautiful dream ever became my most terrifying dream ever.

Suddenly there was a horrible explosion that seemed to fill the sky. I could feel that I was still alive and still in one piece, but everything and everybody around me had been destroyed. I felt an evil frightening presence who was jubilant over this destruction. I wanted to flee that presence and return to earth. All around me there were bits and pieces of the craft as I floated downward. I looked down, and I could make out the Gulf Coast of the United States, particularly Texas and Louisiana. I saw debris from the explosion falling across both states, mostly toward the northern regions.

On seeing that, I woke up with the image clear in my mind, and I heard the words, “Two weeks,” as loudly and clearly as if someone were standing over my bed. I felt the spirit of a man standing in the room, and then I felt a second stronger spirit. This second spirit whispered something to the first one, as if to correct him, and the first spirit then said, “Two and a half weeks. Two and a half weeks.” I heard it distinctly. I looked at the clock, and it was about 2:30 a.m.

I understood that the spirits were telling me that the terrible tragedy I had dreamed about would happen in two and a half weeks. It frightened me so much that I woke up my husband and told him about the entire dream and spoken words. “I know it’s going to happen,” I said. “Just wait and see.”

I thought a big jet was going to crash and that the lab appearance of the craft must have been the instruments in the cockpit. Maybe it would be another terrorist attack, but there was nothing I could do about it. On any given day there must be hundreds of jets in the air over Texas and Louisiana. Anyway, who would give any credence to the dream of a nobody in a nowhere town in Louisiana? I tried to convince myself that it was just a scary dream, but I couldn’t. I prayed for God and the angels to protect the plane and the people in it.

At that time I had been sick for several weeks, although I needed to be out working. My mind and efforts were focused on getting well and getting back to work. I wasn’t keeping up with the news and wasn’t aware of many recent events. Two weeks passed, and I thought of the dream and prayed every day.

Two weeks, three days: Saturday, February 1, 2003, about 8:00 a.m. the Space Shuttle Columbia exploded on re-entry into the earth’s atmosphere. Seven beautiful lives destroyed. It happened only about 16 minutes before the scheduled landing at Kennedy Space Center in Florida.

My dream had occurred the morning of the launch.

I had been so wrapped up in my own problems that I didn’t even know the shuttle had been on a mission. I should have asked questions about the part of the dream in which I thought the people looked like they were in space suits, but I didn’t. And the fact that I saw debris spread across two states, which did indeed happen, should have told me the disaster involved a craft flying higher than any plane could go. I was ashamed and felt extremely guilty about my inability to prevent the tragedy.

I think God and the angels and the two spirits in my bedroom were proud of those astronauts and their work and wanted to save them. I think dreams and messages probably were sent to many other people. There was no reason for the warning to be sent only to me. Apparently no one who received the message knew what to do about it.

I’ve dreamed dreams like this, so other people must be dreaming them too. It remains for us to believe, to study, and to learn how to use these dreams. We are being sent warnings and guidance. We must learn to accept it.

The Space Shuttle Columbia crew were: Rick D. Husband, commander; William C. McCool, pilot; Michael P. Anderson; David M. Brown; Kalpana Chawla, the first Indian-born woman astronaut; Laurel Clark; and Ilan Ramon, the first Israeli astronaut. May they continue their work and their joy in the spirit realm.

G. W. Lupo is retired from social work and newspaper reporting/editing and now writes about the supernatural, mostly her own experiences. She also writes spec scripts and fiction for children in her home north of New Orleans. Her blog can be found at http://www.supernaturaltraveler.blogspot.com.