Celebrate Women: Psychic Moms :-)

[holdouttrout]

For celebrate_women this week, the theme is "Mothers and Daughters."

My mother and I are psychic.

You think I am lying to you. You think that, even if I *think* that we are psychic, that I am mistaken. The truth is, however, that we are--just a little, tiny, infinitesimally and uselessly psychic. So is my grandmother, although we don't tell her this, because she's already neurotic enough.

I have had prophetic dreams about such useless things as places I will someday end up and particular things people will say and do. I know, I know--it sounds like deja vu all over again, but I've had that, too, and this is different.

Most recently, I appear to be able to guess the future. I predicted a very old relative's death within a couple of days, and I predicted that my permanent retainer would snap off two days before it did.

See what I mean about useless?

My clairvoyance or lack thereof isn't the point of this post, though. The point is my mother. Because when I told her years ago, half-joking, that I thought I was psychic, she said she believed me. We ended up talking about whether or not we actually believed in psychic abilities, and whether or not twins shared a special connection, and if my dad was crazy or not for thinking that all that stuff was evil. (We generally agreed that he was.)

It's one of the few geeky subjects I've been able to discuss with my mother, who is and always has been grounded in reality to a degree that none of the rest of my family is. My mother watched Star Trek because my dad did, and my brother and I grew up eating, drinking, and breathing science fiction of all kinds (except the ones my dad didn't like because they mentioned animal spirits and ghosts). So she often feels a little out of her depth when I mention anything vaguely fannish.

Nevertheless, she and I were able to connect for a little while on something completely fun, without worrying about who knew more about the subject, without worrying that either would take it too seriously. It was also one of the first times I recall being able to have a conversation with her not as my mother, but as my friend.

And that was something special.

Just don't tell Grandma.

Comments

[knightedrogue.livejournal.com]

Aww. That's cuteness.

The twin thing, btw? Totally real. But I'm sure I've told you my experiences with my mother and her twin.

[holdouttrout.livejournal.com]

Yes. You have told me about your mom's awesome twin connection. :-)

[knightedrogue.livejournal.com]

Srsly. I wish I'd saved those phone messages from when I was in the hospital. It was downright eery. :D

[spiletta42.livejournal.com]

One could argue that the retainer thing was just your subconscious noticing that the glue was ever so slightly loose.

Predicting the passing of a relative sounds real, though. Like God's warning you to say goodbye.

One of my friend's had a boyfriend who was psychic, and he predicted some stuff that was really out of left field, and useful. He dreamed that his neighbor's barn would burn down, and they moved their horse to a pasture farther away from the barn on his advice. Three days later it burned to the ground, when the woman's ex-husband started his arson spree with her barn. They hadn't even known he was in the state. It was pretty creepy.

[holdouttrout.livejournal.com]

One could argue that the retainer thing was just your subconscious noticing that the glue was ever so slightly loose.

But that's not as much fun! ;-)

Yeah. Useful psychic abilities would be cool, but I think most people don't really need them. That is a neat story, though.

[shutthef-up.livejournal.com]

While I'm not entirely sure about The Amazing Kreskin and er, folks like that, both my father and ex-boyfriend totally believed that I had some kind of mojo.

I don't know if it's clairvoyance or what, but sometimes I just *know* stuff. Personally, I just think that it's that I take in information and parse it differently than most people, but I honestly don't know what it is.

However it *was* quite useful that Ex boyfriend was sure I could read his mind.

Bwah-hah-hah-hah-ha!

Oh! He also believed that I could heal him of illness. Which was *really* strange because he simply didn't believe in any of it. But if he was feeling poorly, he'd ask me to 'Do your voodoo', lol.

[holdouttrout.livejournal.com]

However it *was* quite useful that Ex boyfriend was sure I could read his mind.

Bwa ha ha! *grins*

I know that MOSTLY all that kind of stuff (the real stuff, and not the fake on-TV stuff) is just a different sort of perception and intuition. Some of it, however, is downright spooky. I'm wondering, now, if it's more a female thing than a male thing...

*wanders off, musing*

(Also, I can sometimes cure headaches, or alieviate them for a time. So that's awesome! We should combine our powers (*gigglesnort*) and go on the roaaaad!)

[shutthef-up.livejournal.com]

(Also, I can sometimes cure headaches, or alieviate them for a time. So that's awesome! We should combine our powers (*gigglesnort*) and go on the roaaaad!)

Faith Healers R Us!

To be honest, I'm actually a Second Degree Reiki... person. There's a lot of Hoodoo surrounding it, but I see it as a sort of physics thing. Just not necessarily physics we understand or can detect yet. But basically, it involves gathering and directing the free energy that surrounds us all into a person. From there, it sort of follows the same principles as acupuncture - which *does* work, but isn't easily explained, either.

What's nice is that Reiki isn't a belief system of any kind. I've met Reiki practitioners who've had vastly different beliefs.

[holdouttrout.livejournal.com]

Okay, Wikipedia is going to have to be my friend on this one.

Hmmm...interesting. And cool.

You know, I've long been a believer in the power of the mind to take care of the body. I don't know exactly how I feel about most of the energy chakra stuff, but I do know that we don't know much about it yet.

And I've first-hand experience with the headache thing on myself and on others.

[shutthef-up.livejournal.com]

Excellent on the headache thing! I can't do that with Reiki on myself. It makes my headache worse. Argh!

I read the Wiki stuff myself and it's fairly even-handed, I think. Basically, as long as you're open-minded it allows you to think whatever you want.

For a long time, I just figured the chakras, etc., were just a convenient means of visualizing stuff, but the more I've read about it, I think there could possibly be more to it.

*shrugs*

I don't worry my pretty little head about it much.

[crazedturkey.livejournal.com]

I seem to be able to tell when patients are going to die. But I think its more of an intuition thing, in that I can look at someone and see the signs based on previous experience.

Women maybe better at picking up subtle cues than men? Maybe? (or am I being sexist?)

Having said that, though, I have been pleasantly surpised on a number of occasions (not enough though, sadly).

[holdouttrout.livejournal.com]

Women maybe better at picking up subtle cues than men? Maybe? (or am I being sexist?)

If they are, there's definitely a large variance among women--some women are not good at it, whereas some are scarily accurate. Also, I think that perhaps women are *expected* to pick up on subtle clues and learn how to do it more than men do.

I *have* met men who can do it, too. Sometimes I'm just left gaping at how astute people can be.

[shutthef-up.livejournal.com]

I seem to be able to tell when patients are going to die.

In my case, I'm not sure if it's intuition, law of averages or what, but when the news reports someone missing (no matter if it's adult or child), I sometimes get a very strong sense that they're dead. It creeps me out.

Though I do think overall it's an ability to pick up and parse subtle information. I think men are capable of it (in the sense of shamans, seers, etc), but they may be culturally discouraged from exploring that part of themselves.

[chaila43.livejournal.com]

Here via pellucid's frieds page, because the twin thing caught my eye, which is totally true, by the way. :) But also because when I was younger, I thought my mother was psychic. Now I think it was just very sharp intuition (I swear she still knows things about me that I don't) but now I think maybe I should ask her!

[holdouttrout.livejournal.com]

Sometimes my mother still surprises me with her intuition and strength.

[pixie-on-acid.livejournal.com]

My mom used to always know when a friend of the family was stopping by, even though it was random and he never called first. It got so her mother set an extra place at the table when my mom said "-- is coming over."

Even stranger is an event that happened with an acquaintance of my fathers (he was the brother of my dad's best friend at the time). He was at our house for the first time, she was looking for something in the kitchen and didn't say anything when suddenly he said "It's on the second shelf, on the right."

She's taught me to follow my gut instincts, even if they seem crazy at the time. Too often has she decided suddenly to take a different route than normal, or do something she wouldn't normally, only for there to be an accident or something on the normal route.

Honestly, I believe that for everything we know, there is that much exponentially more that we don't know. You might not be crazy at all.

[holdouttrout.livejournal.com]

You might not be crazy at all.

*grins* There's hope!

It's those stories that always make me really thoughtful about just what we don't know. Our brains--even if there's nothing 'mystical' going on--are still amazing, wonderful things, capable of making connections we would never think of rationally.