I was on a plane, sitting in a seat on the right side, but I could see out windows on both sides of the plane. We were flying in a city full of skyscrapers, and the plane was actually flying between these skyscrapers. I knew it was New York City, as I was born and raised there, it was familiar to me. I knew we should not be flying where we were and my sense of anxiety was mounting. I could see right into some of the offices we were flying past, could see the shocked and scared looks on the people in the offices looking back at the plane.

A man stood/stooped just a couple rows ahead of me; he couldn't stand straight up due to the overhead carry-on luggage storage lockers. He half-turned, looked right at me and said "They're trying to hijack the plane" as he used his right arm in a sweeping fashion to gesture towards the front of the plane. At that same time another man came walking/sprinting quickly up the aisle towards the front of the plane saying "Let's go!" as if he was going to try to help. I never did see who the hijackers were.

When I looked to the front of the plane, somehow I could see out the front, as though I could see through the pilots' windows--and we were heading straight for a building. I didn't recognize it though. As the plane got closer to it I remember feeling there was no point in panicking now, we were going to crash into this building and there was nothing anyone could do. And then the plane flew into the building. It was almost graceful, the plane actually entered the building before everything dissolved into flame...

When I opened my eyes, I was once again looking out the front windows of the plane but this time, we were heading towards the ground, not straight down, but more like about a 35 degree angle... and once again, the plane I was traveling in crashed--flying directly into the ground.

At this point I woke up, I mean BOLTED straight upright in bed, sweating, shaking, in a panic, heart racing, and I looked at the bedside clock. It was 6:00 am (EST) on the dot. The dream was so real, so detailed I got up shaking and went into my roommate's room and woke him up. I told him "I just had a dream about being on a hijacked plane that crashed and I needed you to talk to me because I'm on the verge of a panic attack"--something that has never ever happened to me before or since; I'm not one to let my emotions run away with me.

Several hours later when the tragic events of Sept. 11th unfolded, I was deeply shocked by the similarities between what I had dreamed and what actually transpired.

I don't often talk about this to anyone; I didn't think anyone would believe me. I am 47 now; I was 40 when I had this dream. I dream like anyone else, sometimes remembering dreams, more often not. I have never experienced anything like this before or since that day. I remember it like it happened this morning... all these years later.

--Patti Viscardi, 2008

EDITOR'S NOTE

The one anomalous detail in the dream, crashing twice, is interesting--as if the dream jump-cut from the World Trade Center to the plane that hit the ground in Pennsylvania, or perhaps the Pentagon. As if it's a news-summary trying to be thorough...

A predictive dream like this is upsetting several ways at once--

1. Any predictive dream has scary implications: am I crazy, or is ESP real? If I saw the future, is time fixed? Are we doomed, unfree? These are testable questions!
   • J.W. Dunne's classic An Experiment With Time found that predictive dreams are common--it's just that most are trivial and get overlooked. I duplicated his experiment and got the same results: a flock of minor predictive dreams punctuated by a few spectacular ones like Patti's.
   • Is the future fixed? No! The only study I've seen (described in Sally Rhine Feather's The Gift) of predictive warnings of this sort found that out of over 400, about 2/3 weren't acted on, for various reasons. But over 100 dreamers could take action; and about 2/3 of them succeeded in changing the outcome. Less than one per cent made things worse or brought about what they'd feared. However dreams like this work, they can save lives--if you can act on them. Sometimes you just can't.
2. But Patti's dream is unusually rough. Dreams of dying are the hardest, and she has to die twice...
3. Warning-dreams of this sort often feel more urgent and real than ordinary dreams. Patti's panic attack isn't unusual.
4. Even if Patti knew her dream was dream's predictive, what could she do? A warning dream may help you prevent a drowning, a fall, a car crash; but phoned-in nightmares don't cancel flights! Helplessness hurts; being unable to save lives can even create a sort of virtual survivor's guilt.

--Chris Wayan

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