Tornados, synchronicity, and The Daemon

[mgcardin]

I thought you'd appreciate this one, Tony: As I was reading the introduction to your The Daemon, I was rather thunderstruck (no pun intended) by your recounting of your epic dream of a tornado over the English Channel and its later confirmation in waking life. My own psychic life has been punctuated by recurring dreams of epic storms -- as recounted in some detail in an interview I gave in 2008 to Thomas Ligotti Online -- that are usually followed by periods of sharply heightened creativity and emotional responsiveness to the world. No, they're haven't proved precognitive, but the fact that you once experienced a deeply affecting storm dream yourself really struck me.

And get this: Right when I was in the middle of reading that passage, right when I reached the part where you describe your waking discovery of the actual tornadic destruction in the town you had dreamed of, my wife walked into the room and switched on the television. It was circa 8 a.m., and as the sound and picture faded in, they showed a national news story (which had just then started playing) about massive destruction that had occurred overnight in Oklahoma from an F4 or F5 tornado.

Nice.

Not the destruction and loss of life, I mean, but the timing of it all.

[Hurlyburly]

My girlfriend TAN knows more about Tornados than anyone else on the planet. She'll be along shortly no doubt....

[T-A-N]

Wow that all sounds amazing (more on the subject of destructive storms actually).

I'm a meteorology nut and I find intense storms fasinating. I plan to tornado chase in Oklahoma next year if I can. I love them! I'm kind of obsesed. I can't wait to see a real tornado. I've been fasinated with storms since I was 6yrs old.

Any who, just to add briefly, I have constantly recurring dreams about Tornadoes hitting my town, Crawley. The main dream that has cropped up more than 4 times in the last year is one where I'm in the cinema and all of a sudden, a tornado starts to destroy it with me inside. We never get any storms for real though

None of this is really related to your post, and for that I apologise. I just couldn't help it when I saw the word 'tornado' and the Fujita scale mentioned.

T-A-N xxx

[T-A-N]

My girlfriend TAN knows more about Tornados than anyone else on the planet. She'll be along shortly no doubt....

Was writing a post as you posted x

[mgcardin]

No need to apologize, TAN. That's all quite interesting.

[Anthony Peake]

The tornado incident that I describe in the introduction of the Daemon was really odd. This is how I describe it in the book:

What was even stranger was that each book or article gave me new information that I was not looking for that pushed me into another line of investigation. Then on the 27th October 2000 an event took place that was to give me the final push on deciding the subject matter.

On that night I had a particularly vivid dream. In this dream I was in a place that I had never been before. It was a low-lying headland with a town in the distance to my right. I knew that I was looking out at the English Channel. As I looked I could see a storm approaching out at sea. I watched with mounting horror as the storm turned into a twisting tornado. I saw the tornado hit landfall and rip into a town a few miles down the coast and to my left as I looked out to sea. I then realised that it was heading towards us on this exposed piece of flat land and I looked on in horror as it tore into caravans along the coastline, smashing them into pieces. With this image still in my mind I woke up with a start. The images were so vivid that I can even recall them now, seven years later.

Two days later I heard on the radio that Bognor Regis had been hit by freak tornado and that a good deal of damage had been done. I thought to myself that this was interesting in that Bognor was also on the South Coast. I thought it was odd and possibly a close-hit precognitive dream.

A few weeks later I visited the town Selsey with my mother and future wife. As we got out of the car I had this alarming sensation that I had been to this place before. Everything seemed familiar. It was like a super déjà vu sensation. I had experienced these many times in my life but this one was different. I knew what I was about to see next. As we walked towards the sea-front I was amazed to find that the view from Selsey Bill was exactly that which I had dreamed about. I looked across the bay to my left to see the town that I had dreamed had been hit by the tornado. To my surprise, and horror, I realised that the town in my dream was, in fact, Bognor Regis. On top of that I could see that between Selsey Bill and Bognor were lines of caravans in exactly the spot I had seen them in my dream. My knowledge of the geography of that part of the South Coast was not good so I had no idea before arriving at Selsey that it was that near to Bognor.

On my return to Horsham I decided to get some further details about the 30th October tornado. On checking it up on the BBC website I was stunned to discover that my dream had been far more accurate than I had first believed. The reports on the morning of the 30th had only mentioned Bognor but the website gave much more details. Apparently the twister had travelled along the coast towards Selsey and on the way had badly damaged over 150 caravans. This is exactly what I saw in my dream.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/997029.stm

[T-A-N]

Oh my word that is so cool! The destruction and loss is awful but what you dreamed is amazing Tony. Like I mentioned earlier, I have constantly recurring vivid dreams about Crawley being hit by a tornado but thankfully non of this has happened for real.

The majority of all tornadoes in the USA occur in the Texan plains, away from civilisation. However, there are of course, unfortunate circumstances where tornadoes hit towns. It is a fact that the UK experiences up to 50 tornadoes a year and is the No.1 country in the European Twister League for tornado outbreaks.

All this stuff is fascinating to me and I really do plan on getting up close to a tornado within the next few years.

Anyway....enough tornado chat from me x