Andy Paquette - Dreamer: 20 years of psychic dreams and how they changed my life

More people than I can name have contributed in some way to this book. Here are some of them: Nina, who sat outside in baking sun, or inside on rainy days, coming up with excellent questions for me to answer. Without her, the book wouldnt be the same. Kitty, who unfailingly spotted errors that I had to fix, and modestly made me aware of them. Dr. Gillian Holloway PhD, with whom I corresponded on subjects related to the book, reinvigorated my interest in the subject by helping me look at it in a new way. Dr. Richard Breedon PhD, whose friendship over the past twenty-two years has always been reliable, and whose unflinching honesty in the letters he has provided for this book will always be appreciated. Dr. David Ryback PhD, who a very long time ago told me this would make an interesting book.

My family and friends put up with numerous verification phone calls from me. Their cooperation is very much appreciated, especially from my skeptical Uncle Tom, who was a very good sport about my calls on paranormal topics.

This book is dedicated to my wife Kitty, who has put up with all my projects for the last twenty-six years, and has been unflagging in her support.

Two people come up from behind me. One flanks me on the right, the other walks directly behind me. They want me to go into an alley with them, an alley I now see to be less than a hundred yards away. I want to cry out, to get the attention of some of the people I see crossing the street, but one look from the man on my right and I know Id better not. They want my money, but want to take it in private. I cant run to the left because of a brick wall. I cant run to the right because I am flanked on that side. I cant stop walking because whoever is behind me keeps pushing me forward. Running forward would bring me to the alley. I decide that the situation is completely out of my hands. I will go in the alley, give them my money, and leave. With any luck, theyll let me keep my passport.

The alley is deeper than it looked from the street. Inside, it is nearly empty, almost clean. The man behind me comes around to my side and brandishes a pistol. He waves me to the back of the alley, well away from any prying eyes on the sidewalk outside. There is what at first looked like a pile of rags lying on the ground at the rear of the alley. Another look and I realize it is a person. A corpse. At that moment, I know these men in front of me are responsible. I lose all my strength then, my knees buckle, and I sink to the ground.

The two men pause for a moment and exchange a few phrases in Dutch. They seem to think I am funny, kneeling on the ground, terror stricken. The man with the gun doesnt pay attention to me for a moment. He holds the gun carelessly by his side, inches from my nose. Im not going to get a better chance than this. I bring my hand to the gun as quietly as I can, intent on grabbing it. Neither man pays any attention to me. Emboldened, I feel the cool metal beneath my fingers when I touch the barrel. I am scared. I hesitate, and this is a mistake.

The gunman looks at me with sad, smirking eyes as if to say, too bad, and shoots me in the neck. The pain is intense. Every nerve I have screams from the overload of sensation. I want to yell, but cant. My throat doesnt work. Warm blood washes down my neck and soaks my shirt. I know I am dying. I dont care about the muggers anymore. I forget they are there. I try to crawl to the street, but it is too far. Every beat of my heart pumps more of my blood into the alley, and with every beat the distance to the street seems to double. It takes an eternity to crawl ten feet. I am still an eternity away from safety and know I will die right there in that alley.

I feel my life slipping away. I grow faint to the point that I barely feel pain. I want to hold on, but cant. I think of my girlfriend, Kitty, in New York. I love her, and cant imagine leaving her this way. Even as I think all these things, I feel my spirit leave my body. My bloody, empty shell lies in the alley, fifteen feet from the sidewalk. Already the muggers are moving towards it to pull it back out of sight. I dont care anymore. I want to see Kitty.

Now I am looking down on Kitty in her mothers New York City apartment. I float near the ceiling. Kitty is alone. She sits at the kitchen table sipping tea. She hasnt heard of my death yet, and probably wont anytime soon. I want to scream at her, to tell her what has happened, that I am right there, that I am dead but not gone. She is completely oblivious. I know there is nothing I can do to attract her attention. I look at her mothers ceiling for a while and wonder. So this is what it is like to be dead. I cant believe it. I am really dead.

I have no idea what I should do next. I think about how I have died and how my spirit left my body. I realize then that it was thinking of Kitty that brought me to her. In this new state, I feel more aware of my surroundings than I ever was when alive. There isnt much to do, but it is interesting that death is not only a rather peaceful event, but I feel more awake when outside of my body than in it.

Some colors on the ceiling attract my attention, pink and blue. I stare at them for what seems like a long time, but time doesnt exist any longer, not for me anyway. There is something about these colors that is familiar. They are like the colors of a neon sign outside my apartment window in Amsterdam. My gaze travels down the wall to a window, where I see the sign. This is my apartment! And then I have another shock: I am alive! I am sitting upright in my cot; with my eyes already wide open. I must have been looking at my own ceiling with my eyes open while convinced of my death, but it was all a dream.

Full of adrenalin, I got out of bed to call Kitty. It was four in the morning in Holland, but would be a slightly more reasonable nine P.M. in New York. She couldnt talk for long, but it was enough to work out the idea that it was time for me to return to the states. Clearly, the loneliness of living in a foreign country had taken a toll on me, or I wouldnt have had such a frightening dream.

Kitty and I made arrangements to share an apartment in New York. Two weeks after the call, I went to the Verinigde Spaarbank and closed out my account. I then walked over to the post office, called Kitty, and told her I would leave in twenty-four hours. My third stop was the travel agency in Amsterdams diamond district. I picked up my one-way ticket to New York City, and turned south on the street for what I knew would be my last walk on these paving stones.

Overhead, the sky was a brilliant blue, just as it had been in my dream. It was then that I realized I was on the street from my dream. I had been on this street before, but it was months earlier. I was uneasy. I had fifteen hundred dollars in cash, a six hundred dollar one way ticket to New York City, and my US passport on me. I felt silly to be so unnerved by a dream, but I was worried anyway. I knew from earlier visits that there wasnt an alley on this street, but I walked faster nevertheless.

The people around me calmly went about their business. They were distributed on the street exactly the way they were in my dream. Or were they? I couldnt be sure; it had been a few weeks already. It seemed the same. And then a big, dark, muscular arm stretched out around my neck from behind.

Hey man, its good to see you again. How much money you got wit you today?

At the same time, another muscular man flanked me on my right.

Is it in US dollars? Is yo money in dollars, hey?

The man behind me held my head in a viselike grip, but continued walking forward, forcing me to do the same.

In heavily accented English the man on the right continued with his banter, alternating between fake friendly comments about the weather and questions about the cash I had on my person. I couldnt get the dream out of my mind. I had never been mugged before, let alone in a manner so similar to my dream. They kept talking about my money, but I could focus on only one thing: was this my dream? It didnt make sense. It couldnt be, because I knew that this street didnt have an alley. The dream was similar, but it had to be a coincidence. Yet try as I might, this man kept my head in his unwanted grip, holding it so that passersby would think he was a friend with his arm around my shoulder, but for me it was a prison.