Precognition or Déjà Vu?

The Force of God Split This Wood

I had a conversation yesterday with Hendrik and Elise about those times when you experience something you're sure you've dreamed about in the past. She had a dream scene that she saw, months later, in a movie. I had a mundane dream sequence of driving in a car with Cristian and two other people I didn't know in a U-shaped parking lot; months later, when it happened, I almost had to pull over.

But, I said to Elise, there might be a simple explanation for this phenomenon. It's possible that we never had these dreams at all. It could be simple déjà vu and that the a priori experience of it was a fake memory of a dream that never occurred yet seemed real and specific. Her point was then how could one trust any memory? The real proof would be in writing down the dream prior to the event.

I don't often dream and less so since Wendy died. This morning, though, I dreamt of going to an office park. I think my purpose was to go to a therapy appointment of some kind. There was an atrium in the building, and on a table there was a photo album of people at a swim party. I poured over the photos. Men and women my age having fun, relaxing in the swimming pool. They were playing sports, pool games, and even board games--there was a table-like platform in the pool and each would swim up to take their turn. After that, I ran into a college friend of mine who had just left a photography class. He said that this week's models were infants, and that the assignment was to get all sorts of shots with shadows and expressions. He showed me how he would coo and shout at the babies to get the right expression.

My next dream was short and upsetting. I was driving down a rural Northwest mountain road. I came to a stretch where there were cars all around, some of them overturned. I slowed down and really had to think about what I was seeing. I thought, why would people arrange their cars this way? I slowly realized this was a massive pile-up. I quickly pulled over and ran to find survivors. On the side of the road, there were huge cut logs hanging from chains--some sort of tribal art installation, I suppose. Where they would likely not sway even in a heavy wind, the accident and flying cars had made them sway violently. I had to dodge them like a videogame character. Then I woke up.

There was a realness and detail to the second dream fragment that was missing from the first. It frightens me, especially after yesterday's conversation.