In the wake of disasters, multiple reports of prophetic dreams and oracles often surface. Immediately after the Titanic sank, dozens of people reported canceling their trip because of dreams that foretold of the sinking. It makes you wonder how many others had a similar warning but ignored it and paid the price.

A mother, a father, and their five children were all fast asleep when frantic screams jarred the parents wide awake. “Daddy’s dead, Daddy’s dead, Daddy’s dead!” The parents rushed down the hall to comfort their hysterical son. The father picked up the four-year-old and held him close, patting him and whispering, “Everything’s okay. Daddy’s right here.”

In the morning the boy was still upset. As they went through the familiar routine of getting all of the children fed and ready for the day, the parents realized they couldn’t just drop the little guy off at day care as usual. They decided to alter their routine. The mother would take the older children to school, and the father would take their son to day care. The father phoned his office to let people know he’d be late for a scheduled meeting and then drove his son to preschool.

The father and son met with the boy’s teacher to discuss what had occurred the night before. After making sure that the boy was calm and settled in his normal routine, the father clicked back into work mode and set off, late for his meeting at the Twin Towers in New York City. On the way, he checked for voice messages. There was one. He expected it to be an update about his nine o’clock meeting. Instead he heard his wife’s frantic voice pleading, “Don’t go into the city. Please don’t. And tell me you’re not there. Please, tell me you’re not there. Turn around and come back home.”

A sick feeling overcame him. Something felt terribly wrong. She was practically crying. Then he heard her say, “An airplane just exploded into the Twin Towers.”

The date was September 11, 2001. Thanks to their son’s prophetic dream and their decision to prioritize their son’s needs, the father never made it to his meeting, but drove back to their home in New Jersey unharmed.

By taking action on a prophetic dream, this woman kept her property safe. The dream took place on some property Sheila owns in another state. A trailer sits on the property. In her dream, the trailer door was wide open, and all of the neighbors were milling in and out at random, throwing beer cans and trash all around.

Sheila says that it was one of those dreams that you watch from outside the dream box; you’re not in the cast of characters.

The dream was unsettling. Sheila hadn’t visited the property for some time since it was an eight-hour drive each way, but the message of the dream kept nagging at her. She decided to make a road trip to check on her property. Sure enough, when she arrived, the door was wide open and her trailer was trashed. Thanks to the dream, she was able to secure the trailer and avoid further problems.

Perhaps you’ve had your own prophetic dreams. I’ll always remember one I had when my daughter Julie was about three. In the dream I walk to the edge of a swimming pool and look down into the water. There, at the bottom of the pool, is Julie’s lifeless body clad in her pink-and-white-checked swimsuit. I awoke filled with dread, and from that moment on, I never could relax when Julie and I were around a swimming pool.

I heaved a sigh of relief when she grew out of that little pink swimsuit and then dismissed the dream as irrelevant. I never gave any more thought to the idea of this dream being prophetic until I was working on this chapter. Then I realized that the image of Julie’s dead body at the bottom of a swimming pool made me watch her even closer.

Of course, I will never know for sure, but I’m beginning to wonder if the dream was a crinkle in time, giving me advance warning of a possibility that was out there. If that is true, perhaps the dream and the caution it generated in me saved Julie’s life.

Have you ever had what seemed to be a prophetic dream and later dismissed it as irrelevant because you adjusted your behavior accordingly?

©2013 by Ann Bolinger-McQuade. 
Reprinted with permission of the publisher, 
Jeremy P. Tarcher/Penguin, a member of 
Penguin Group (USA).  www.us.PenguinGroup.com.