Have you ever had an unforgettable dream that predicted a very random future event? Or encountered an animal’s peculiar behaviour that defied logical explanation? These readers have, and they share their experiences in this month’s column:
by Dorah L. Williams
Howling Dogs
“I became aware of a howling dog when I was nine years old. Every night without fail, rain or shine, the neighbour’s dog, Rex, a white collie, would sit in the middle of the road and howl. I asked my father about it. He said when Rex was just a pup, he was out with his mother and his master when his mother was hit by a car and killed. It was 9 pm, and that was why Rex howled every night at 9 pm.
The next time I experienced a howling dog was in the middle of a snowy afternoon in my driveway. There he sat, facing my house, a blonde cocker spaniel howling his heart out. When I opened the door to shoo him away, he ran back to the road. Our black lab, Belle was trying to get out, but I kept her in.
When my husband came home from work, he went to the mall to pick up some groceries. I let Belle out. About 30 minutes later, he was on his way home when Belle spotted him and dashed across the road just as a transport roared past. She was killed on the spot.
Much later, I told my husband about the howling dog. He said there was a blonde cocker spaniel that was hit by a car and killed at the mall.
Fifteen years later, my mother called to tell me that on their way home from my house, they stopped to get gas, and a shaggy old dog came over, sat beside my father’s door and started to howl. She wondered what got into that dog. Three days later, my father died of a massive heart attack.
I would like to say that I never heard a howling dog since. But it was not to be. During the March break, my sister came up with her two boys to spend a few days with my son and me. One morning, I was writing letters, and my sister decided to take the boys for a walk. It was nice and quiet, with no radio or TV playing.
I happened to glance out the window by my table when two strange dogs went by. I assumed they belonged to someone visiting the neighbourhood. And then I heard it. A long, mournful howl. The hairs at the nape of my neck rose up. I prayed he was not in my yard.
I went outside to see where he was. He was in my neighbours’ yard facing their house. Not long after, I saw my neighbour go down his driveway to help a man who had slid into the ditch. He pushed him back on the road, came back to his house and died on his doorstep of a massive heart attack.
That was the last time, 15 years ago.”
Dream Home
“I once had the strangest dream:
It began with me walking through the front door of an “open house” with my partner. The old house had distinctive architectural designs I’d never seen before and must have been beautiful in its day. But it was in poor condition now, with slanted floors due to a foundation problem. That would be costly, besides all the other needed updates and repairs. I became transfixed on that flooring in the dream, studying it closely to gauge how bad it was throughout the main floor.
When we walked into a small room off the dining room, referred to as “the library” by the agent, I was drawn to a particular area filled with packing boxes. Beneath the largest box’s edge, it looked like a small trap door had been cut into the flooring many years ago, and the floorboards had been nailed back into place but did not fit together tightly. I moved the box over a bit to examine this flooring irregularity more closely and noticed something between the cracks of the boards.
I was then somehow removing the floorboard (not sure where the tools came from, but you know how dreams are) and retrieved an old metal box, but I woke up before I opened it to see its contents. I rarely remember my dreams, but I was still thinking about that one the next day for some reason and told my partner all about it.
A few years later, we moved to a new city and, while house-hunting, attended an open house for an old home in a state of disrepair. The minute I walked through the front door, I had a strong feeling of déjà vu. Like I’d been there before (but that was impossible). Even the agent seemed familiar. As he handed us a fact sheet on the house’s details, I noticed one of the rooms was labelled “the library.”
Just as in the dream, he explained it was a small room that the current owner and her parents had only used for storage, but her family had always referred to it as “the library” because her grandfather had stored his extensive book collection in there at one time.
Also, like in the dream, he explained the vendor was the original owner’s granddaughter, who had inherited the house from her parents. The low price reflected its poor current condition.
I walked into “the library,” wondering if I would find that old metal box hidden under the floorboards near the window, just as I had dreamt. And I did.
There it was when I moved some dusty boxes a few feet away to examine the floor in that spot. Precisely as it was in that dream. My partner understood my reaction when I grabbed her hand and nodded toward the cracks in the flooring, reminding her of that dream I’d once had. We were both shocked.
But of course, unlike in the dream, I didn’t pull apart the boards and retrieve the metal box myself. Instead, I returned the old storage boxes to their original position and left the owner a brief note in her mailbox.
I didn’t mention my prophetic dream, thinking that would sound crazy. But I advised her to see if something of value was hidden under the floorboards near the window in her “library” under the old storage boxes before she sold the property in its “As Is” condition.
I enclosed my contact info to show I was sincere, but I didn’t get a reply. However, the house was taken off the market within that same week (when I noticed this and inquired about its status, the listing agent’s office explained the vendor had decided to keep it). Soon afterwards, they began an extensive restoration.
I’ll never know what was in that old box hidden under the floorboards, but still wonder if its contents somehow enabled the original owner’s family to keep and restore their home?
I can’t offer any logical reason why I would have had that dream about finding a “hidden treasure” in that exact location. I had no connection to that family, house, or even city until we moved there years later.”
The Cat’s Meow
“When we married, my husband grudgingly accepted my kitten, Tabitha, as part of the package deal. He was a self-proclaimed dog-lover, and it took some time for Tabitha to win him over. But she eventually did, and as she grew into a lovely adult cat, they became best friends.
My dear husband passed a few years ago, and Tabitha comforted me in my darkest days. But she definitely was grieving too and would walk around the house, looking distressed, as though searching for him and crying in a pitiful way.
One day, I came home from work and found her sitting on our kitchen table. She was staring straight at the chair my husband had always sat in at the head of the table, purring away, just as she once had done, whenever he would talk to her.
She didn’t even notice I had come into the room and was watching her because she was so mesmerized.
Since that day, she no longer seemed to search for him and cry inconsolably. My head and my heart interpret this in different ways, I’ll admit, but what is undeniable is that she was staring at and purring at something only she could see in my husband’s favourite chair that day in our kitchen. And she has been happy and contented ever since.”
Whether it’s an inexplicable foresight in a dream or the mystical behaviour of animals, these first-hand accounts are great examples of all the unknowns surrounding us.
Many thanks to those who shared their experiences for this column of Mystical Manitoulin! Do you also have a tale to tell? Whether you’ve experienced a haunting, a mysterious cryptid sighting, or a brush with the inexplicable, please share it with Canadian author Dorah L. Williams at dorahlwilliams@gmail.com
Your story, too, could be featured in an upcoming column of Mystical Manitoulin!
