"Shock & Awe"
The dreams started when I was in foster care, shortly after we had been taken, and after my meeting with the “Mr. Clean Angel.” I would have a dream and shortly thereafter, within a day or so, it would happen, or as I would say, “It came true”.
The dreams were different than my other dreams in that they were extremely vivid. They were “lit up” and had very bright colors. After having had a few of them, I looked forward to seeing if the next one would “come true”. When it did, I was always in awe, as I still am today.
The dreams started out as simple dreams. I would dream of a place and within a day or so, I would be in that place. I would dream of a person and in a day or so, I would meet that person. I learned that bright dreams always came true. I simply just had to wait and watch as they happened.
At first, they came true within a day or so, but then some would take a little longer. As it went on, some took weeks and then some took months. It wasn’t long before I could tell about how long it would take. The more dreams I experienced, the more I was amazed.
Right from the start though, I wondered, “How could this be happening? How can it be that I am dreaming about something that hasn’t even happened yet? How can anyone know the future? Or even, how can the future be known?”
It didn’t take long before I concluded that God must be giving me these dreams and showing me these things. There was simply no other solution. However, I was at a total loss as to why this was happening to me.
Each dream taught me more and I came to be dependent on them. Learning as I went, I began looking forward to the next dream.
One night, I dreamed that a red-headed boy moved into the neighborhood, and we became good friends. Sure enough, after just a few days, the boy from my dream showed up. The first time I met him I told him about my dream, and he looked at me like I was nuts.
It took a while for him to come around, but we did become good friends. However from then on, I was very careful about sharing my dreams.
Another time when I was five years old, I was at my Grandma Provins’ [Shirley’s Mom] house during the holidays. The phone rang and everyone was busy, so they asked me to get it.
When I picked up the phone, I said hello and then someone started talking but what was strange was that I could see them. I pulled the phone away from my ear and the visual stopped. I put it back to my ear and it started again. I remember thinking, “I didn’t know these phones could do that”.
I was rendered speechless, and the others started yelling at me to say something but all I could get out was “Aaaahh” wondering if I should try to explain what I was experiencing. Finally, someone came and took the phone from me. From that day on and for years after, they teased me saying, “Don’t let Rick answer the phone, all he says is “Dahhh”.
This has happened to me numerous times over the years and it still amazes me.
The hardest part of all is that it has left me feeling very much alone. Like, no one to talk to about this, and it made it hard for me to relate to others. There was a whole world that existed that I lived in that was almost impossible for me to explain so that others would understand, and it was risky to even try.
Year after year, such was my life. I felt more like a watcher as I was shown in dreams, event after event, which then occurred. It appeared as though my life was not my own.