A Little Wildflower that will Haunt Me Forever

First let me make it clear that I don't believe in ghosts or demons or other such thing. I am a fairly sensible man of forty seven who has never had any fear of dark places or being alone anywhere at anytime of the day or night. For me, the fact that after all these years no indisputable evidence of the existence of ghosts has yet appeared, makes it seem very unlikely they do in fact exist. However, there are obviously mysteries and strange occurrences in this world of ours and one area that has always interested me are dreams. This is simply because sometimes my dreams are very vivid and lifelike and at times I am almost certain I have experienced something in a dream that has subsequently come true, but I am never completely sure. But one strange dream I had some years ago has kept me wondering ever since and I am no nearer to understanding how and why it happened... all thanks to a tiny wild spring flower.

My, and I guess most peoples most vivid dreams seem to occur as the night draws on towards dawn. There have been times when  dreaming just before dawn that I am not actually fully asleep, and in this state the content of the dream can be influenced to some extent. Again this is something many people have experienced. During these dreams, characters seem to come and go out of the shadows of my dark room some making vague contact with me, perhaps a dead relation or friend, or often just a totally unknown character. The main point being that none of these dream characters have ever made what I could call direct contact with me and they seem to always do what I am willing or expecting them to do, in other words I am in control. One dream changed all that forever.

I remember it was a blistering August heatwave and long after the sun had gone down behind Roger's Mountain a few miles away, the air was still unbearably heavy and sleep was something to be treasured when it eventually came when the night was almost over. One morning before dawn I dreamed. The room seemed misty and now and then some shadowy figure would appear from some corner and after some vague interaction with me, sometimes which had me in fits of laughter, they would melt away again... I was more awake than asleep, I knew I was dreaming and I had no fear. From one corner of the room the misty dark seemed to spread aside and brighten a little and from here walked a young woman. She was particularly vivid with a long whitish dress, long dark hair and she had her hands behind her back. I remember I was taken aback straight away, for she was looking straight at me as she walked slowly across the room towards the bed. She came closer and I could see she was in her twenties, pretty but certainly no great beauty that we men often hope to dream. She stood beside the bed and slowly took a bunch of little wild flowers from behind her back. She held out the flowers obviously for me to take, but as I reached for them she turned and walked away, but just before she melted into the mist she turned and looked at me straight in the eye.

I was very glad to wake up at that point and I was thoroughly shaken by the reality of this strange dream, but something far more disturbing was to come later that day in the safely of full daylight. I was pondering over this dream on and off throughout the day and I hoped I would never dream so vividly again. I got a phone call from my neighbor Sam at 5pm to say that he'd collect me to go fishing at six so after eating I went to my bedroom to collect my fishing gear. I knew the sheets were soaked in sweat from the night before so having a little time to spare before Sam was due to call I decided to change the two light sheet. I grabbed the sheets and instinctively shook them when they were off the bed. As I did something like a moth or butter fly drifted lightly to the floor. I picked it up and sat on the bed, I couldn't believe what I had in my hand. It was a freshly plucked spring flower that only grew in the little meadow near the stream. But this was mid august... these spring flowers had been gone since early March, yet here I had a freshly plucked one in my hand.

I sat on the bed until Sam's hooting horn broke my chain of thought. All I could think of was the girl in my dream and her bunch of fresh spring flowers, one of which I seemed to have in my hand right now. The young woman never appeared in my dream again, but the little spring flower is safely pressed in the pages of the old family bible. Is there any other explanation for that spring flower being in my room in mid August other than being put there by that girl... I have to admit there is none... I couldn't even make a wild guess. Who was she? Where did she come from?... I don't know, but the flower she carried were fresh... that surely means something, but what I have yet to even guess at.

Something my mother once told me began to play on my mind. When she was a child she was pushing her younger sister on a swing in the backyard. The rope broke and her sister fell heavily onto the rock hard parched ground. Severely injured she remained hanging between life and death for three days. On the third day my mother skipping home from school and too young to realize how badly injured her sister was, saw a familiar figure standing at the edge of a little wood. It was her sister. She was to make her holy communion some weeks later and her dress had already been bought, she was now wearing this dress which surprised my mother. They spoke very little. My mother sister just said she would be going away for a while but she would see her again someday. When my mother got home her sister was dead, laid out in her new dress. Many years later I held my mothers hand as she lay dying, she lived a long live and she wasn't sad. But one thing she said came to mind again later on."I'm going to meet my sister again after all these years"... "You never believed me did you?" She was right I didn't.

I wonder was that young woman in my dream my mothers sister? and if so where did she come from? Did she leave that one little fresh flower on purpose for me to find? And if she did just how many other seemingly unimportant items are we ignoring when something out of the ordinary occurs. With that one little flower now safely tucked away in the old bible, my view of the possible existence of "other places" has changed forever... The young woman who I believe visited me was a "conscious" being who made eye contact.... Maybe she'll call again... I'll be waiting.

Sent in by Tim Mc Caffrey, Copyright 2009 http://www.ghost-space.com/