To dream, or not to dream, that is the question...

I'm coming to the end of reading The Raven King by Maggie Stiefvater, and I genuinely don't know what I'm going to do with my life once I finish this series. It's by far the best series I've read in years. If you haven't read it yet and you're into paranormal/fantasy books, I strongly recommend it.

So to stave off the inevitable moment when I have to leave Gansey, Blue and the rest of the Raven Boys behind forever, I thought I'd write this blog post instead. Part of the reason I love this series so much is because it revolves around the idea of different forms of magic; and one of these is the idea of being psychic.

I have always wanted to visit a psychic, but I'm too scared in case they tell me I'm going to die young, or I'm marrying the wrong person or something. True fact: my mum visited a psychic and the woman told her that there were two men in her life, but she'd be married by the end of the year. She was going out with one guy at the time, but she knew my dad through mutual friends - not that she thought anything of what the woman said. But she ended up splitting up with her boyfriend and, in November that year, after a whirlwind romance (kinda) she married my dad.

Given that I raised on that story (and many others involving my godmother and her psychic ways), I've always had a soft spot for the idea of being psychic and predicting future events. So today, I'm going to share with you my brush with being 'psychic' - let me know what you think in the comments below - do you think I'm reading too much into things, or have you had any experiences like my own?

I guess it started out when I was young, but it seems to have gotten stronger over the years. Just simple things at first, that I never gave any thought to - thinking about a song for no reason, then turning on the radio and that exact song would be playing; thinking about a particular Simpsons episode, and then that night, that would be the episode on TV; thinking about a particular person and then that person would text/call me moments later. Just last night, I was scrolling through Facebook, when Coldplay's 'Fix You' came into my head - the very next post I saw when I scrolled down the screen was a video for Coldplay playing 'Fix You' live at a recent concert - bearing in mind not one of my friends went to that concert, or had mentioned the band to me at all beforehand, nor had I heard a Coldplay song in days (I don't particularly like them so I never listen to them). On Sunday at work, I randomly thought about a couple that had come in a few weeks ago and I hadn't seen since...twenty minutes later they were the very next people to walk through the door.

In August 2014 I visited Copenhagen for a long weekend with my friend. I had a good time, but I returned thinking that now I'd seen the city, I had no urge to return. But in February 2015, I woke up one day with the strongest urge to revisit Copenhagen. I couldn't explain it - it was all I could think about. I've never before woken up with such a strong urge to visit a particular city before. For the next three days, I woke up with the same feeling - all I could about was travelling back to Copenhagen. On the third day, the horrific shootings in Copenhagen occurred. My feelings about returning to Copenhagen ceased abruptly. I have never again experienced the urge to go back there.

But it's my dreams that really freak me out sometimes. I've been a lucid dreamer since I was a teenager (because who wants to be stuck in a nightmare, when you can change your dreams to suit you?) - I thought this was pretty normal, until I happened to tell a uni friend one day and she thought  that was the weirdest thing ever. Turns out not everyone can manipulate their dreams...

When I was 12 or 13, I dreamt about a girl at school that I wasn't friends with having highlights put into her hair. The next day at school, she showed up with highlights in her hair. Not a major coincidence perhaps, but still a little strange. But then last year I dreamt that my best friend was getting married - I texted her to tell her and we both laughed about it. The next week, I had the same dream again...three days later her boyfriend proposed to her. He hadn't told a soul he was going to propose, not even his parents or Emma's parents knew about it.

A few months ago, I dreamt about a child in the class I was teaching - let's call him Adam. In my dream, Adam fell over and scraped the left hand side of his face pretty badly. The next day at work, I watched as the other Adam in my class (there were two) fell over on the playground. When I ran over to help him, I received a shock; his face was injured exactly as I had seen it in my dream. The only difference was that I'd dreamed about the other Adam being injured.

The most recent of these dreams happened last week. I dreamt that a man needed an epi-pen because he was allergic to nuts. Even in my dream, I had a very strong feeling about this epi-pen - because the word 'epi-pen' has never popped up in my dreams before, and that's chiefly why I remembered this dream. The next day at work, a couple came in and ordered food but they asked me if I could leave the peas off their son's plate. I said sure, and the mum said, 'it's because my son is allergic to peas - he needs an epi-pen if he has them.' Again, something that could be a trivial thing, but still a very odd coincidence.

I know reading through all these events probably won't sound like much. Even when I read back over what I've written, I find myself questioning if all these things really meant something or not. But even so, I think it's an interesting story to tell. I've always loved dreaming - one of the main reasons I don't like to get drunk is because it affects my ability to dream - I hate not dreaming. To me, it's just normal to dream every night, and then remember them for days afterwards. I can still remember some of my dreams from childhood. It's just something I've trained myself to do. Also, I love trying to figure my dreams out - I find it fascinating when something that has happened to be that day pops up in my dreams. I guess it's a bit weird dreaming about something that hasn't happened yet, but I'm kinda getting used to it now.

Have you ever experienced anything similar? Have you ever had dreams that have come true, or experienced strong feelings about something/someone for no reason? Or do you think that people read more into it than necessary?