Have your ever had visions or premonitions? When I say visions I don’t mean an outward manifestation of a supernatural being or ghost. These things don’t exist so you can’t see them out there, hovering about in the real world. You can however ‘see’ them in your head, as the earliest Christians envisioned the risen Jesus. This doesn’t mean they’re actually in your head, just that you perceive them to be. If they’re vivid enough, you can be fooled into thinking they have a physical presence out in reality. But they don’t; they don’t physically manifest. There is nothing supernatural about them. Visions are a phenomenon of the mind only, occurring under certain, often traumatic, conditions.

Premonitions are a little different. They are the spontaneous appearance in your mind of an event that has yet to happen. Like visions, these are not supernatural occurrences, but the product of the mind. I’ve had a few in my time:

• Back in my fanatical Christian days, I saw the exact circumstances, that led to the conversion of some college friends. This was months before I’d gone to college and I hadn’t even met the friends in question. I wrote about it here.
• While on a plane in severe difficulties, I saw a clear picture of  landing safely in Miami. I told my young daughter who was with me that we needn’t worry – the plane’s other passengers were in a state of high panic – that our time hadn’t yet come. (I thought I’d written about this previously too but can’t locate it here).
• Years ago I saw myself talking to a soul mate in a bar on a cruise ship. This was in the days when I didn’t take – and didn’t want to take – holidays of any sort and long before I had any intention of coming out. Holidaying on a ship was never on my horizons, and, as far as I was concerned, never would be. Yet, strangely I knew to trust that the premonition would one day materialise in reality. Dennis and I have now been together 8 years and frequent bars on cruise ships with alarming regularity.

Here’s what I think happens when premonitions like this occur, at least the ones in my head and probably in the heads of others who experience them. The brain has a set of data about any given scenario. It gathers this data from a wide range of sources: our life experience, others’ experiences, stories, our preoccupations and so on. Added to this data is what is usually more than a little wishful thinking, together with subconscious impulses. The brain then creates a likely or even probable scenario for itself which gives us a momentary but realistic glimpse of what could lie in the future. as for their ‘fulfilment’, there’s also a degree of self-fulfilling prophecy involved, plus the convenient forgetting of those glimpses that don’t ever materialise in the real world.

Nonetheless, the premonitions the brain does create can be vivid and realistic. They’re not illogical or inconsistent in the way dreams can be. As a result, they are pretty convincing.

Which is why, despite her age (95) and how ill she was this summer, I wasn’t persuaded my mother was dying.

A couple of years ago, in what I regard as a premonition, I saw the circumstances of my mum’s death. They were not the same as those she endured during the summer. Rather, she falls asleep in a chair, one she’s only just started using, and when I* go in the room later she has gone.

Perhaps I’ll be proved wrong. Maybe there’s too much wishful thinking in this scenario; I want my mum to take her leave gently and peacefully.

We shall see.

I’ve also had a glimpse of my own demise, but that’s a story for another day.

*Or perhaps it’s my sister; I saw this through my own eyes but it’s more likely it’ll be my sister, who lives nearer, that will find my mum. Whichever, that’s not me in the picture above. I could only hope to be as handsome. Thanks AI.