My first paranormal experience took place when I was 5 years old. It was summer and we were at my maternal grandmother’s house on a Sunday for a family dinner. My younger brother was missing. We have a very large extended family so it took awhile for my mom to check in with everyone. Her last stop was the kitchen, where I was standing near the back door.
“I can’t find him anywhere,” she stated to a room full of relatives.
“He’s over at Brett’s house,” I suddenly said.
As all eyes turned upon me, the phone began to ring. My grandmother was closest, so she picked it up. That moment is frozen in time for me. She stood listening, her eyes pinned on me. She thanked whoever was on the other end and hung up, never taking her eyes from my face.
“That was Mrs. B. She didn’t know if we knew he was over playing with Brett.”
You could have heard a pin drop.
“How did you know that?” my grandmother asked quietly.
I squirmed under scrutiny from several pairs of eyes.
“I don’t know,” I answered. “I just did.”
For several moments, no one said anything. Finally, my grandmother smiled, then slid her eyes over to my mom. “She’s one of us,” she stated calmly.
Paranormal experiences continued throughout my childhood and in the years that followed, I learned that there were several people in our family, mostly women, who had extra sensory abilities.
For a long time, in addition to psychic knowing, I got premonitions through dreams. Then, as I write in After Here: The Celestial Plane and What Happens When We Die, I was contacted by spirits informing me it was time to learn clairaudience. At the time I refused, telling them I was perfectly content to have my experiences through dreams, which was easy. Just go to sleep and get the information.
They responded by letting me know my dream-time psychic abilities would be terminated until I changed my mind. Grrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr
In Angels and Engineers, I tell of how, years later, the spirits again contacted me about learning clairaudience. How did they do this? By talking to me! I heard them!
This time, I was ready and true to their word, the psychic dreams did return. However, the primary way ghosts continued to talk to me was and is via clairaudience. I can hear them.
I see them too but that wasn’t as big a deal. I’d been seeing them for years. Hearing them was traumatic. I struggled with the idea I had voices in my head. In fact, it brought me to tears the first time I was approached.
“I don’t want to hear them,” I wailed. I was in tech. I lived by logic. This defied it.
I went through several weeks of intense instructions and while I am more used to hearing them now, I’m still getting used to being clairaudient. Dreams are so much easier. Old habits die hard, I guess.
I remember meeting up with a clairaudient many many years ago and asking her if it was hard. She said, “No, not hard, but it is tiring. I’m very worn out after a session.”
That, I now understand. Especially if I’m being asked to relay information between a spirit and a human in real time (as opposed to via email). I find that I often have to ask the spirit to slow down because they are “talking” too fast.
For me it isn’t regular talking, either. The information slams into me so fast it’s almost like mumbling. I then need to allow my mind to process it so I can translate it/understand it. It took a bit of getting used to.
Ghosts sound exactly like what they did hen they were alive. This is different than angels which are different than God.
I first heard God’s voice when I was quite young (7) and it was a gentle yet commanding male voice. I didn’t hear that voice again until after the brain surgery, both during and after the NDE. When God communicated to me during the NDE, his voice boomed. It was so loud it filled up my entire being and it hurt. In fact, for years after, when someone would ask me to talk about it, I felt pain just at the memory of it – it was that loud.
After the NDE he moderated his voice so it didn’t hurt. It was a very unique voice though and there is no mistaking it. I have sometimes thought if was a bit like one of those voices you’d hire to do a commercial or something – there is just something about it that makes you really want to listen – or – you feel hope. Some of the times God has spoken to me – with a word or two of assurance – that voice – that comforting tone – has lifted me out of fear or despair.
Angels are also different. They are also authoritative and their voice booms. I’ve only heard from them in commands. “You will move to California” (told to me in January, 1994 when I was alone in a hotel room in Washington DC). “You won’t be here long” (told to me 6 weeks after we’d closed on a house in the San Francisco Bay Area and again 8 weeks after we’d moved into a rental in Fort Collins, Colorado.
All of these stories are recounted in my books After Here, and Angels and Engineers.
When ghosts talk to me, it isn’t just their voices that are the same as when they were alive, it’s their mannerisms, their personalities. If they were a smart ass in life? They will be one in death – at least during the first level of transition. They don’t lose their sense of humor or joy when they move up but they do seem more celestial and less human than when they are at level one.
Yes, being a clairaudient can be tiring, but it is also a wonderful adventure.
