Shortly after adopting Sweetie, the lemon beagle from my previous blog entry and the dog that helped me realize I have a gift, I started having "the dream". I put it in quotes because it was not quite a dream - it just started as one, and turned into so much more.
In this dream, I was the front-seat passenger of a car. Nothing special about the car itself, except for some reason I could never look at the driver. There was a driver, but I was physically incapable to turning my head to the left to look at them. I could only see in front of me, and to the right out of the window. This car pulled into a neighborhood street, as if pulling forward out of a driveway, then stopped. I then looked to the right out of the window to see a giant black truck heading straight towards us, not slowing down at all. Panicked, I try everything I can to open to the door - pull the handle, shove, kick, beat on it - but no luck. I stare straight into the grill as it hits. The amount of pain I experience is insane - like my brain was flash-fried. But only for an instant. Then I woke up.
I sat up in bed, holding my head with both of my hands as the pain quickly faded, but the sensation of what I dreamt not fading. I left the bed and moved to the couch, unable to sleep anymore and not wanting to wake my wife. To this day, it was possibly the most intense dream I'd ever experienced.
I had the dream a few more times, and each time just as intense. What I found most interesting is that when I intentionally thought of the dream and the impact of the car, I did not feel the pain. I could imagine it, remember it, but not actually feel it the way I did after the dream.
But then, something unusual happened. I would be doing normal, everyday things, and my mind would flash to right before impact with no warning. Again I would experience the pain - just a flash, pain, and everything normal. Like a sudden daydream, only lasting at most a half a second. This would happen 2-3 times a week on average - no warning, no pattern that I could detect. Oftentimes my wife would see me flinch, and I'd explain to her what happened. This occurred off and on for about three years.
Eventually, we sold our home and purchased another one in town. We had a few days of overlap where we had access to both homes, so we would often carry over small boxes before the movers came for the furniture. It was one of these days that we came home and found Sweetie on the sidewalk. It seems that in the 30 minutes we were gone, she had gotten out of the fenced-in backyard and ran into the street and was hit and killed by a car. We were beyond devastated. We took her body to a vet to have her cremated, and we still have her ashes in our china cabinet - one day we will pour them in her favorite park.
While a terrible death, we took some solace that the last three years of her life were her best - spoiled rotten, loved constantly. We definitely made up for her horrendous existence before we came into the picture.
Just before we left the old neighborhood, I was chatting with one of our elderly neighbors who wanted to say goodbye. She brought up the fact that she saw Sweetie get hit, and I almost stopped her from telling me about it as I didn't want to think about it. But when she mentioned that it was a big black truck that hit her, I almost fell over!
I finally pieced it all together. My "dream" was actually a vision of seeing Sweetie's death from her perspective! The reason I wasn't driving is because SHE was, and I couldn't change anything because this was how it was always going to be. I was only allowed to watch and experience it, and nothing more. I also realized that I hadn't had the "dream" since she died, and to this day I still haven't.
It's also worth noting that I've never experienced anything like this since. If I had before, I never made the connection. But now I'm constantly on the lookout for anything similar. But honestly, I don't ever wish to experience this again - way too painful of an experience