Premonitions: Are they real or not?

Premonitions have been a favorite subject of psycho-spiritual studies and have significantly figured in pop culture. Such is the interest in premonitions, being labelled as a phenomenon, because they seemed to occur to everybody, everyday.

Whether you believe in them or not, many experts say that premonitions are tough to explain in a rational or scientific way.

This was the case of my aunt Felina. According to an uncle, a day before my aunt died they treated her to a restaurant, wherein a group of diners wearing all black attracted his attention.

“I pointed that out to them, asking, why are those people in that table wearing all black? But they replied: wala naman kaming nakikita na naka-itim.”

He continued, “On the way home, we talked about those who have died—relatives, friends and colleagues. That night, she just had her cellphone activated and immediately called up everybody, including a sister whom she said that she will leave her kids to her because she was going somewhere that summer.”

“The following morning, we were going to send her off on a plane and we all noticed na maganda ang suot niya. Sabi niya, ‘Ganyan talaga kasi dean na ako (she was just named college dean in a state university in Mindanao).’ Sinakay ko na siya sa kotse, tapos pagtingin ko sa rearview, wala siyang ulo. It was so weird then but I didn’t give it much thought.”  

By 3’o clock that afternoon on that same day, my uncle switched on the radio and heard the most spine-tingling news—a plane crashed in Mt. Sumagaya in Claveria, Misamis Oriental. It was reported to be one of the worst aviation disasters in Southeast Asia, but it weighed more heavily on my uncle, knowing in his heart that my aunt perished in that plane crash that left no survivors. “I finally understood the meaning of everything that transpired the day and hours before the accident.”

Sr. Mabel Pilar, FMA, school directress of Mary Help of Christians School in Minglanilla, who is somehow sensitive to things paranormal, shared also one premonition that happened to her. “I could not sleep. It felt very cold; I could actually feel the wind in my room. I opened my window to check things and then I saw a hazy figure of a nun that passed by.”

“It suddenly came to me that a nun was dying at that very moment,” she said.

True enough, on that very hour and time, a fellow sister who was close to her but was sent on a mission to Japan a few weeks before passed away. Because her body could not bear the chilly weather, she suddenly contracted pneumonia.

Now, how do you explain stories of people who seem to sense their impending end? Let me share this story about the seatmate and bestfriend of my younger sister.  It was a Friday afternoon when Gia, a 10-year-old honor student, asked my sister, “Cara, when we die, do we have to tell all our sins in purgatory?” Because my sister, very young as she was, could not offer any answer, Gia sought out their teacher to ask the same question.

A few hours after, Gia, who was buying barbecue at a roadside stall near her home, was hit by a sand and gravel truck in Naga. It was a big-impact roadside crash that landed in the local news. Among the 17 victims, Gia was the last to be found and the only one who died.

This account makes you ponder, why did that little girl asked that question? Did she really have any idea that she was dying? And was she trying to tell this to the people close to her?

When one speaks of his death, how do you react? Do you take it lightly? Do you knock on wood and wish that it doesn’t happen anytime soon? I remember one Christmas reunion wherein we had our usual palm-reading session to amuse ourselves. After our turns, we had then convinced our grandfather to have his palm read. I asked the relative doing the reading what the lines of his palm said. She said my 77-year-old Lolo Pretang still has many years to go. To this he laughed, “Last night I had dream. An angel carved a line across the palm of my hand.”

We fell silent not knowing what to say, but nevertheless, resumed the laughter not too long after. A few days later, we had to return to our grandparents’ home for the wake and funeral of lolo, who peacefully died in his sleep.

The mystery of premonitions is that they don’t appear like premonitions. They come across like a gut feel, but may be because we are in denial. Or we fear that we are overreacting, so they are brushed aside like a passing joke, taken not seriously. The confirmation of that feeling always comes after. At times, it magnifies the grief after realising that we had all the signs but did not heed them or did not do anything.

Still and all, whether we have premonitions or not, they teach us to always treasure our loved ones—so that their passing would not leave us with painful what-ifs and regrets, but only good memories.