Doug's anomalous experiences

@Mediochre Thanks for your perspective, it's interesting to hear.

04 - Phone Call

This incident occurred on the afternoon of Tuesday, June 17th, 2014. As with the doorknob incident, I recorded the details in emails written within hours of their occurrence.

My stepfather's final six weeks on earth were spent in a veteran's hospital on the edge of town. He'd suffered a heart attack at the end of March, followed by a collapsed right lung that needed to be slowly reflated in the hospital. Ironically, the lung was finally fully reflated within a day of his death from a fatal heart rhythm in late July. After six weeks in the hospital, he'd hoped to be released to die at home, as my mother had done years before. Alas, his wish was not to be granted...


After leaving the VA hospital on Tuesday afternoon of June 17, I heard the little tune my cell phone plays when I have a new message in my voice mailbox. At the time I thought it odd that I didn't hear the phone ring a minute or two earlier, when the person who left the message must have called to speak with me. The phone was in my pants pocket, but I should have been able to hear it as I walked out of the hospital to my car.

I was in my car, about to leave the hospital complex, when I heard the voicemail tune. I paused to listen to the message, but instead I got a "Check call restrictions - 34" error message. The hospital was way out in an undeveloped area of the Las Vegas Valley, but I was still surprised that my cell phone couldn't connect with the nearest tower. At the time, I didn't get many phone calls, so I thought there was a good chance that the voicemail message was from E, my stepfather. I figured he'd simply left me a reminder for something to do when I got home. I decided to listen to the message when I got there, instead of walking back into the hospital to find out what he wanted (if indeed he was the one who left the message). It took about an hour to get back to the house, in part because I stopped to get a few things at the local supermarket.

It was a little after 3 PM when I got home. After putting away the groceries, I listened to the voicemail message. Sure enough, it was E, but what he said thoroughly alarmed me. First he said, "Doug, I can't breathe". Then there was a short pause, after which he said "I'm having so much trouble", or something very close to that (the shock of the first sentence made it hard for me to remember the second one exactly).

Interestingly, he didn't sound out of breath, but his voice was weak, with a forlorn, desperate quality that really frightened me. Thinking this might be the last voicemail message I'd ever receive from my stepfather, I made sure not to delete it. I phoned him back immediately, but he didn't answer. He didn't have the voicemail box on his cell phone set up, so I wasn't able to leave a message. I called a couple more times, then waited for him to call me. When we finally connected, I told him I'd heard the message he left just after I departed the hospital, and asked if he was breathing better. He didn't understand what I was talking about, asserting he hadn't called me. He said he dozed off to sleep right after I left his hospital room. At that, I realized right away that I might have experienced the living equivalent of a phone call from the dead. I shared my thought with E, saying I was going to look for the message, and that I'd play it for him when I saw him the next day. After our conversation ended, I looked for E's message in my voice mailbox. It was gone!

Even though E was seriously ill, he was still very sharp mentally, so there's no doubt in my mind that he was telling the truth when he said he did not call me. Besides, if he were dangerously short of breath, why would he phone me when the nurses' station was just outside his door? If I'd been able to hear the message before leaving the hospital parking lot, it still would have taken me a few minutes to reach his bedside. Having previously driven to the hospital himself for doctor's appointments, he knew this, so there's no reason he'd call me first in such an emergency.

For those wishing to learn more about the phenomenon described above, something similar happened to the author Scott Rogo (Phone Calls from the Dead, and many other titles). I've forgotten the details, but I believe a recording of his voice was heard on a friend's answering machine, although Rogo had no memory of having made the phone call. I think he was able to demonstrate convincingly that he could not have made the call, yet the voice definitely sounded like his.

In addition, a parapsychologist from our current era, Cal Cooper, has augmented the list of cases cited in Rogo's book with many of his own in Telephone Calls from the Dead.

Another great story  

I suppose the mundane explanation might be that your step father was half asleep and called you while partially dreaming and so had no recollection of it later. I've been told I talk in my sleep on occasion and when I was younger I used to sleep walk a lot, so it isn't beyond the realm of possibility he could have called you while half asleep. That doesn't explain the issues with your cell phone not working initially and then the message mysteriously disappearing.


A more interesting explanation is that perhaps being near death made it a bit easier for him to do things out of body or poltergeist, and so while he was a sleep (and possibly truly having difficulty breathing while asleep), part of him managed to break away and poltergeist a phone call to you.

[Ninshub]

FWIW, in case there are any doubters about Doug's sincerity with these accounts, which I'm sure is not the case for the people already frequenting this forum, I can vouch for the No. 4 Phone Call account, to some degree, as it was during this period that Doug and I had just started our friendship through PM'ing on the previous forum. I remember Doug sharing the details of it to me as it was happening.

I have yet to catch up with all the posts in this thread but your floodlamp experience reminded me of something that happened when I lived in a shared house once.  The landlord was always finding fault with me because he was jealous that my girlfriend was somebody that he fancied.  There had been tension between us for some time and one time, I overheard him say something spiteful about me before he left the house.  I was walking down the stairs and anger was welling up inside me.  Part of me wanted to punch the glass in the partitioning doors and I threw my fist at it with no intention of actually making contact.  I withdrew my fist at the last second and I only felt a slight breeze  on my knuckle but no pressure occured.  The glass pane shattered into thousands of tiny pieces.  His son tested the remaining pane  later by headbutting it (!!?) but he could not break it.   My thoughts at the time centered around chi.  Maybe we have an energy field that can channel strong emotions and intent or maybe it is something totally non-physical.  I have no idea!

Not yet, tim (at least to my knowledge), and he's the parent I most wanted an after death communication from. We'd been partners in a number of memorable gambling ventures, and I'd secretly hoped he'd find something for me to make money from. (My financial health wasn't so great when he died.) I guess I have my sheer arrogance and selfishness to blame for the wall that seems between us now, blocking communication.

Doug, you certainly don't seem arrogant to me, or selfish.

05 - Premonition

On a night in late March, 1977, I found myself in a pleasant, contemplative mood after praying for about a half-hour. My mind wandered freely, brushing lightly on familiar things and people, until it settled on the woman I once knew while working at the Money Tree Casino (see 02 - Flood Lamp). Lazily and without emotion, I began to wonder how she was doing in the Netherlands, the land of her birth to which she had returned not two years before.

Without warning, I found myself caught up in a growing wave of euphoria as I felt a connection opening between me and one or more heavenly beings. It was only the second time I'd experienced such a joyous connection. While the connection lasted,  I was given to know that a major event having to do with the Dutch airline KLM was about to make news. Still in bliss from my encounter, I tried to learn more about the event, whereupon I perceived there would be a tragic accident involving one of their flights. At that, my bliss turned to shock and then great sorrow, as I realized I'd experienced a premonition of an airline disaster. Needless to say, the bliss of the experience ended with that realization, and I spent the next few hours in a funk, wondering where in the world a KLM airline would go down.  

I breathed a sigh of relief while scanning the newspaper headlines on the following day, finding not a word about the disaster. However, on the day after, the paper carried a bold headline about the KLM disaster on Tenerife in the Canary Islands. With 583 dead, it remains the worst airline disaster in aviation history:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tenerife_airport_disaster

I've never had another such premonition of a public disaster including the loss of lives, and I'm glad for that. I think people who regularly perceive such events must be driven out of their minds at times.

05 - Premonition

On a night in late March, 1977, I found myself in a pleasant, contemplative mood after praying for about a half-hour. My mind wandered freely, brushing lightly on familiar things and people, until it settled on the woman I once knew while working at the Money Tree Casino (see 02 - Flood Lamp). Lazily and without emotion, I began to wonder how she was doing in the Netherlands, the land of her birth to which she had returned not two years before.

Without warning, I found myself caught up in a growing wave of euphoria as I felt a connection opening between me and one or more heavenly beings. It was only the second time I'd experienced such a joyous connection. While the connection lasted,  I was given to know that a major event having to do with the Dutch airline KLM was about to make news. Still in bliss from my encounter, I tried to learn more about the event, whereupon I perceived there would be a tragic accident involving one of their flights. At that, my bliss turned to shock and then great sorrow, as I realized I'd experienced a premonition of an airline disaster. Needless to say, the bliss of the experience ended with that realization, and I spent the next few hours in a funk, wondering where in the world a KLM airline would go down.  

I breathed a sigh of relief while scanning the newspaper headlines on the following day, finding not a word about the disaster. However, on the day after, the paper carried a bold headline about the KLM disaster on Tenerife in the Canary Islands. With 583 dead, it remains the worst airline disaster in aviation history:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tenerife_airport_disaster

I've never had another such premonition of a public disaster including the loss of lives, and I'm glad for that. I think people who regularly perceive such events must be driven out of their minds at times.

Thanks. That's very interesting.

Reading your account, I wondered whether there was any particular association in your mind between the woman you had known and KLM, beyond a common link to the Netherlands.

Thanks. That's very interesting.

Reading your account, I wondered whether there was any particular association in your mind between the woman you had known and KLM, beyond a common link to the Netherlands.

Thanks for your comment, Chris. I can't think of any other possible associations, apart from the common link you mentioned. As far as I knew, my friend had nothing to do with the airline, nor did any of her family members. It simply turned out that for me, she was the common link to the tragedy yet to unfold.

I have yet to catch up with all the posts in this thread but your floodlamp experience reminded me of something that happened when I lived in a shared house once.  The landlord was always finding fault with me because he was jealous that my girlfriend was somebody that he fancied.  There had been tension between us for some time and one time, I overheard him say something spiteful about me before he left the house.  I was walking down the stairs and anger was welling up inside me.  Part of me wanted to punch the glass in the partitioning doors and I threw my fist at it with no intention of actually making contact.  I withdrew my fist at the last second and I only felt a slight breeze  on my knuckle but no pressure occured.  The glass pane shattered into thousands of tiny pieces.  His son tested the remaining pane  later by headbutting it (!!?) but he could not break it.   My thoughts at the time centered around chi.  Maybe we have an energy field that can channel strong emotions and intent or maybe it is something totally non-physical.  I have no idea!

Wow, another apparent case of intention only to break glass!

Your report brings to mind one from a friend in southern California. He had a  scrape with the law after smashing the screen from one of the video gambling machines he was playing. He'd already been in a bad mood over one thing or another, and a particular machine he was playing had begun to irritate him badly one day. While getting up to leave the machine, he violently flung his hand out toward the screen as a final gesture of disapproval. Since his fingers hardly made contact with the screen, he was surprised at all the damage they caused. I believe they showed him the video of the incident. After having spent three days in jail, he eagerly signed off on the video as proper evidence and all, but he never accepted the verdict that it was his swipe that broke the glass.

I suppose the mundane explanation might be that your step father was half asleep and called you while partially dreaming and so had no recollection of it later. I've been told I talk in my sleep on occasion and when I was younger I used to sleep walk a lot, so it isn't beyond the realm of possibility he could have called you while half asleep. That doesn't explain the issues with your cell phone not working initially and then the message mysteriously disappearing.

Thanks for your suggestion, Hurm. The unfortunate part of the experience was that there was no phone call registered to my cell phone in the minutes before I received the little ringtone indicative of a voicemail message. Moreover, after listening to the alarming message at home (Doug, I can't breathe...), it disappeared from my cell phone call database. I'm afraid these inconsistencies appear to support the idea that my stepfather's "phone call" was created by my own unconscious mind and imprinted directly to my cell phone's circuitry, totally ignoring the usual step of using the phone's technology to deliver a normal phone call. Calum Cooper (Telephone Calls from the Dead) and other collectors of such accounts seem to all agree that such phone calls are rather ephemeral in nature, not to be tripped up by logical processes.