I've occasionally had dreams that seemed to signal something would happen in the future. Now, I'm not at all calling myself psychic. (I think that's silly.) But consider: When was the last time you had a certain feeling only to be proven right? We've all been there.
After Redditor blueechohawk asked the online community, "What is some foreshadowing you saw in real life?" people shared their stories.
"A couple hours later..."
At work, we have some private Facebook groups for internal communications. Me and a co-worker show up for the early shift, we sit down to get to work, and find we've been locked out of the Facebook groups.
"This is not good," I say. "Something big's coming down, and they don't want us talking to each other, spilling the beans."
"You're just being paranoid," said my co-worker. "It's probably just a computer glitch."
A couple hours later, the higher-ups started handing out the layoff notices.
"A lot of those jobs..."
I got kicked out of a supervisor meeting since I was merely a permanent-contractor-supervisor. I immediately called my boss and said "something big is happening."
They laid off half their employees. It's known as "black Monday." A lot of those jobs were eliminated and consolidated, so a lot of really good paying, non college jobs simply ceased to exist because f*ck young people, I guess. If boomers can't have them, nobody can.
"Since Covid..."
At our office, you can reserve meeting rooms through Outlook.
You can also see who has meeting rooms reserved, and their attendees.
When I see upper management having vague meetings with titles like, "Continuing our Talk" or "chat," I know that layoffs/firings are coming.
Since Covid, I've correctly warned everyone of two rounds of layoffs, one forced retirement, and one upper manager's pending retirement. I've earned the nickname 'The Prophet.'
"My wife and I..."
My wife and I went to one of those New Year's Eve parties at an Embassy Suites. Embassy Suites have a layout of four or five floors of rooms along the outside of the building and a giant concourse open area in the middle. They had a balloon drop strung up across the open area. The previous times we had been there, the balloon drop went off without a hitch at midnight.
This year, 2020, the balloons refused to drop, other than a minor trickle where the mesh was able to open. It was set up wrong or something. Eventually, people had to go up to the 4th floor railings that the mesh balloon holder was strung across and shake it from each side to get all of the balloons out of the one small opening. It took ten minutes. Ten sad, sad minutes.
As this was happening, I said to my wife, "Nope. That's it. Let's just cancel 2020. This is not a good sign."
Additional punchline: Our divorce hearing is scheduled for later this month.
"Two months into college..."
A classmate in high school told me the name of the college she was going to. I said the first thing that popped into my head which for some reason was "Are you ready to be a Wolf?" She laughed and told me that was really random and that their mascot was a Knight or something.
Two months into college she texted me and told me that the school was changing their mascot to a wolf.
"I figured he would win..."
When Trump got elected in 2016. I figured he would win but not because I'm into politics or even cared to be honest. I drove cross country to visit family and all's I saw were Trump signs everywhere and very few for Clinton. It was so many I pointed it out to my wife. I said if this is a sign of his support I think he's going to win. Then he did. Sometimes it's better to be wrong.
"When I was six years old..."
When I was 6 years old, we lived in an apartment building that had a tight knit community. I befriended a lot of the elderly residents because I was curious and they were lonely.
There was an old war veteran (I live in finland and we haven't had a war since the 40's so veterans are rare and very old) named Bruno whom I also befriended. He got around with a walker and we often talked in the porch swing in the yard.
One night I had a dream: I was in the staircase in our apartment building, and there was Bruno with his walker. He greeted me and told me he was going. Then we both fell down the shaft of the staircase and I had a really distinct feeling of "one of us is going to get badly hurt". It was a feeling unlike I had ever had in a dream.
The next morning mom was looking a bit pale so I asked what was wrong and she took me to the staircase to look out the window. The flag was in half mast. I asked her if bruno had died. She, freaked out by how I knew this, affirmed my suspicion.
"She finished the sentence..."
My father's sister had come for a visit to our place. She was going back by train. My mother was unwell and I was really young so my father decided that he'd go aline to drop my aunt at the station. Nope
My mum put her foot down that she was going. father tried to dissuade her, but to no avail. He finally gave in.
While coming back from the station, my mum told my father that she'd dreamt the previous night that we had met with an accident while coming back from the station. So she'd been desperate to come or she'd be uneasy the entire time.
She finished the sentence and a truck hit our vehicle. Both my parents were seriously injured but I was safe.
"One time..."
One time I was taking a shower and I happened to look over at the toilet paper and noticed the roll had no toilet paper. I thought to myself "that's unfortunate," but didn't give it another thought. A few minutes later, I got the urge to take a sh!t, climbed out of the shower, dried myself off, and did what needed to be done. Then I realized what I had gotten myself into.
"He's pulled through..."
In February, I randomly started crying because I was suddenly worried about my dad, who had told me he had a mild flu. I even told my boyfriend I was worried he would die - I'm not usually stressed out by medical stuff, and my dad was in excellent shape for his age.
My sister called the next day and we were in the ER with him within a half hour. He had a massive stroke.
He's pulled through, with some complications but he's still mostly here. I take my intuition more seriously now.
"Probably when..."
Probably when the Supreme Court overturned voting protections because "voter suppression against minorities doesn't happen anymore" and then states immediately took action to suppress the voting rights of minorities.
"I woke up..."
When I was early into university I kept a dream journal and would write down my dreams as soon as I woke up to retain as much detail as I possibly could.
I woke up one January morning and wrote down the details of the dream before. In my dream, it was one of those blisteringly cold winter days where the sun is behind a thick gray haze. I was walking along a very rocky shoreline which was familiar in feeling but I couldn't place it.
In the distance, I saw a casket sitting where the broad rocks of the shore flattened out. I approached it and lifted up the lid and looked in. There was an old man inside and he was dead with his skin discoloured. He looked familiar but for some reason I couldn't recognize him exactly in the dream.
After writing this down, I get dressed and leave for school because I had a chemistry lab to attend at 8:30 in the morning. I get into my lab and as soon as I am seated my phone rings. It's a friend from far away:
"Are you sitting down? I have to tell you something."
He explains that an elderly man we both knew had gone missing the evening before and that a search had been going on all night. That morning they found his body wedges between some rocks along the cliffs about a half-mile away from the enormous mansion he had lived in for half a century. I was in shock and had to go home for the remainder of the day and also the next.
The official story is that he went for a walk unattended and slipped and fell off of the pathway along the shore. I have reason to suspect he was pushed.
After university I actually went to live at that mansion and help out his widow, who was a great friend of mine. There were many strange experiences there which I have written about before.
"Being sleepy and dumb..."
Several years back I was listening to music and my left ear phone broke. Being sleepy and dumb my immediate thought was that I had become deaf in my left ear. A few months later I crashed my bike and dislocated my middle ear and I became partially deaf in my left ear.
"Our laws kicked in..."
Boss was giving a presentation. Email notification popped up. "Termination of employee X". It was a second, boss did not see it. Employee X was there. Employee X was under a lot of stress a!ready.
He left. Called in sick.
Our laws kicked in and after TWO YEARS of paid sick leave they paid him to leave.
"Back in November..."
Back in November or December when the US had a very very low number of documented covid cases, I had texted my group chat that covid was in our state. One of them said, very matter of factly, "I'm not worried about Covid at all."
In the back of my head I was thinking...hmm... that statement's probably gonna bite him in the @ss
I think my peers tend to think I obsess over things that don't matter or worry too much and kind of brush it off. This is one of those situations where I really didn't want to say I told you so, but...
"A guy I was working with..."
A guy I was working with used to work for the Minneapolis police force. He was talking about how a lot of older cops don't get off of street work and still use procedures they used when they first started. He said the new guys knew about them but were to intimidated by the the older guys and let them do them.
2 weeks later George Floyd's death happens.
"I knew Trump won..."
I knew Trump won the election when the news casters suddenly started frantically trying to find some non openly racist trump supporters 2 hours or so before the announcement.
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