Submitted by a reader who prefers to remain anonymous. From her blog:
“As a follow-up to my last blog “Proof of Life After Death” which explored the possibility of psychic mediums communicating with those who have crossed over…
There are more ways besides mediums that your deceased loved ones can personally communicate with you..to let you know they are well and watching over you. I would like to share with you one…of many signs…that have proved to me that my deceased loved ones still live on. This story is about my beloved Grandmother or as I called her – Nana.
About 10 years ago I was trying to have a 2nd child…my first came easy but the 2nd proved to be difficult. I happened to be staying at my mom’s overnight (where Nana had lived the last few years of her life) and before I went to bed asked Nana to pray for me to have another baby.
That night, THE DREAM happened ..I was asleep but still knew as it was happening that it was TOO REAL to be just a dream… my Nana came to me. The dream was as real to me as you reading this right now. I was crying, so happy to see my Nana and hugged her and asked her if she was OK …”Good,” was her response…”I can’t stay long,” she said “but want to tell you that you are going to have another baby!” I responded that I knew I was asleep and could she offer me any PROOF that she was really there talking to me. She said, “Remember the slippers. You’ll know it’s me because of the slippers. Remember the slippers.”
When I woke the next morning the “dream” I had the previous night was as clear as day. I remembered her “slippers” message but in the wake of day…slippers.. had NO meaning for me. None. That is, until I finally asked my Mom (without giving her any details about my dream) … “Mom, this is gonna sound crazy but is there anything special you would think of associated with Nana and slippers?”
She immediately said “Yes, I was reading an article in a magazine a few days ago about a daughter who was taking care of her elderly dying mother (as my Mom had taken care of my Nana) and how her dying Mom’s slippers (and the loss of one of them which paralleled her loss of independence) were a major point of the article.” My Mom then told me that the article moved her so much because it reminded her of my Nana that she saved the article for me to read. The title of the article…”The Gray Slippers.”
Welcome, baby Ryan 3-2-04!
Thank you Nana, for being there for me… always.
XO
Below are the extended notes provided by cognitive psychologist and statistician Barbara Drescher for use in Skepticality Episode 225. Take a look and leave your comments below. Also, please be sure to listen to the podcast for our own sarcastic and hilarious commentary. Also, visit Barbara’s blog.
This is another case of the very human tendencies to find meaning in coincidences and ascribe agency. There are several points to address here.
– Dreams that we can remember are often described as vivid, and we experience (and remember them) as if they are physically real because brain activity while we are dreaming is very similar to brain activity when we are awake. So to say a dream did not feel like a dream is not only not unusual, it’s how most people experience dreams, and when we believe they are meaningful, we’re more likely to share them and thinking about them, construct stronger images to beef up the memory.
– The slippers in the story her mother read are not connected with being pregnant or with anything in the author’s life. They are not even connected with anything in the grandmother’s life or the mother’s life.
– When the author asked her mother if she knew what “slippers” meant, her mother searched her memory for some reference to slippers and came up with the story. This is not at all unusual. In fact, it would be unusual for her to come up with nothing. I would be much more impressed if, for example, the mother arrived at the author’s house with slippers the author wore as a baby. Even if that were the case, it would still be a case of making connections between unrelated things (finding patterns) and assuming that they must be related in a causal way (ascribing agency).
But there is no reason to think that there is anything more than the dream of a woman who was focused on having a child, a woman who looked for greater meaning in that dream.
