As the plane crashed into the glass building, shards of glass scattered all around me. I looked through the shattered glass windows and watched in horror as human bodies plummeted to the ground.
I awoke with a start, sweating profusely, unable to catch my breath.
It was Sunday, September 9, 2001.
I have experienced terrifying nightmares, but this one was especially unsettling.
I got out of bed and gulped down a big glass of water and attempted to go back to sleep, but the visions in my dream were haunting me.
I repeatedly relived the dream in my mind and attempted to put the pieces together.
In the dream, I stood in a big, tall glass building.
I heard a loud crash, the sound of glass breaking, followed by a deafening boom.
When I looked up, I watched as an airplane crashed into the glass building where I stood.
I realized that I was all alone in that building; however, as the glass shattered, I watched human bodies fall all around me. I was struck by this overwhelming sense of impending doom just as I woke up.
It was just a bad dream.
I kept telling myself that.
I have a history of dreaming very vividly, and it used to be a running joke amongst my friends that I could predict pregnancies with my dreams. A few times, I dreamt someone's pregnancy before it had been announced. But this could be a coincidence, as many of my friends were starting families at that time.
When I was little (age 2-4), I had a recurring nightmare. In this dream, I sat in a small, crowded boat as it floated on the sea. I watched a large ship sink in the distance, hearing the sounds of people screaming as they jumped from the side of the ship into the water. I often awoke from this recurring nightmare inconsolable, and it resulted in sleeping issues that caused my parents to seek the advice of a pediatrician. The doctor diagnosed these as "night terrors." These recurring nightmares ended before I began attending kindergarten. Interestingly, I was obsessed with the Titanic and all things Titanic as a child, as it really piqued my interest. When I got older, I joked that I had been a passenger on the Titanic in a previous life, but I'm not sure that I actually believed that. It made for interesting conversation.
But this particular dream about the glass building haunted me.
At the time, I was living in Edmonton with my bestie Janna. We were in our third year of school at the University of Alberta.
As soon as I got out of bed, I told Janna about my dream. She listened intently, assured me that it was just an unsettling dream, and we carried on with our regular Sunday routine.
My mom was scheduled to fly in on Friday for a weekend visit, and I worried about her safety on a plane. Maybe this dream was trying to warn me that my mom was not safe on an airplane? I called my mom and described the dream and my worries to her. Like Janna, she listened and empathized with my fear but assured me that a West Jet flight from Saskatoon to Edmonton would be safe and uneventful.
Still unable to shake the dream, I got out my trusty journal and began to write. Instead of my typical angsty Evan revelations ("I love him, but I just don't know if we'll ever make it through the distance. Is he truly my soul mate?"), I wrote the details of my nightmare in the journal and expressed all the worries (there were so many) that went along with this vivid nightmare.
I tried to push the vision and this sense of dread from my brain and enjoy my Sunday.
By Monday, I felt better about things, carried on with my regular university life, and accepted that it was just a bad dream.
On the morning of Tuesday, September 11, I awakened with a start as Janna came bounding into my room and jumped on my bed. "Kirstie! Get up! It's your dream!"
I wiped the sleep from my eyes and followed her to the living room where the TV blasted a special news report.
Frozen in disbelief, I watched the footage of the airplane crashing into the twin towers. Shivers ran down my spine as the reporters announced a second plane hitting the towers.
It was my dream. It was exactly as I had dreamt and it was happening in real life on my television.
I think that everyone was in shock on September 11. Along with the dread, sadness, and anger that everyone felt, I also felt perplexed, wondering why my brain presented me with this similar scenario in the form of a dream, 2 days prior to the actual event.
I have no idea why I experienced the events of 9/11 in a dream days before it happened. I attempted to find a scientific explanation for this, but nothing really stuck. Dreaming about a plane crash can reflect feelings of fear or uncertainty that accompany life transitions, which tracks with my life at the time; however, why was that dream so vivid and unsettling? We dream hundreds of times a night and this particular one stuck with me to the point that I detailed it in a journal entry.
I don't think that I have psychic abilities, but I also wonder that if I did, what would be the point of predicting a horrible event that I could not have possibly prevented? Was I supposed to do something with this dream?
Maybe it was just a very unique coincidence?
I went back last summer and re-read my journal entry that outlined the events of my dream. Perhaps I had exaggerated this event over the years? But as I read my unusually messy handwriting from September 9, 2001, it made my heart race, and I relived the overwhelming sense of dread that the dream evoked.
I guess some things just can't be explained.
No comments:
Post a Comment