Tuesday, May 12, 2015

A Dream Of Tragedy

The year was 1952. Mrs. Bessie Smith of Baltimore, Maryland was at her job as cook at a local restaurant. That restaurant being located beside the local fire station. Back at her home her husband slept with their three young sons, their daughter, and another youth who was staying with them.

As Smith approached her house after her shift ended it became difficult for her to make her way down the hill to her home. The fire equipment and gathering crowd slowed her approach.

Eight months previously Bessie Smith dreamed her children had burned to death. Then seven months later she dreamed her children burned to death on the third floor of the family home. The next day there was a fire in the home which stemmed from a faulty chimney.

Her dream made such an impression as a harbinger of doom that the Smiths had all the stoves removed except for those on the first floor of their three story abode. They had the landlord make repairs on the faulty chimney.

Now, as she came home from work, she found out how true her premonitions had been. 

Her husband Armond had tried to rescue the children. The youngest, their nine-month-old daughter was carried out by her father badly burned. She later died at the hospital. Brave Armond went back in after the others but never made it out. He and two of his sons were found burned to death on the third floor, the children firmly held in their father's arms.

The other son and another girl who was staying with the family managed to escape by climbing out onto the roof and being pulled to safety by a neighbor.

The cause of the fire was undetermined at the time, but fire fighters said it started on the first floor.

I read the newspaper account of this sad story and immediately thought Bessie Smith's dreams might not have been so much prophetic as the result of her legitimate fears, perhaps because of previous problems. But both dreams came before the nonfatal fire which prompted the chimney repairs and stove removals.

As one who has experienced premonitions in my own life, I have no problem with seeing this as a precognitive dream. Especially noticeable was Smith's dream having the children dying on the third floor.


The whole story is sad. And sadder still it is that the Smiths acted on the dreams and were still unable to avoid tragedy.

The newspaper account I used in writing this post can be found here.

7 comments:

  1. That's just awful.

    The whole story is sad. And sadder still it is that the Smiths acted on the dreams and were still unable to avoid tragedy.

    Indeed

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    1. You know something that bothers me? Over the past year I've dreamed three times of a fire at my house. Not so much a fire but of smoke (of course where there's smoke there's fire). Just a few weeks ago I took a short nap on my bed on a sunny afternoon. Minutes later I dreamed I was enveloped in smoke with my smoke alarm blaring. So real it was that I could have swore I actually heard it. And I was choking on the smoke (I was on my back and credit the choking to sleep apnea). Anyway, I jumped and was on my way to find an exit when suddenly the smoke cleared and the sun was shining in and the smoke alarm was silent. Thank God, I had been dreaming! Sometimes you can't tell if something is a premonition or a deep-seated fear. But I've never really had fears about being in a fire.

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    2. Premonitions downright scare me, but I'm not too sure why. A bit off topic, but on the topic of recurring dreams, what do you make of those? I have pretty much the same dreams (or variation of) all the time and have for as long as I can remember.

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    3. Alice, speaking just for myself, knowledge about the future could be very unsettling. I have stated often that dreams are an important aspect to be considered in understanding the human psyche. I'm now very much into analyzing my dreams - not necessarily for premonitions, but for deeper meanings. It's as if the filter is off when we are in the dream state and thoughts which we might normally ward off dance out onto the stage without reluctance.

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  2. Horrifically awful. As another person who experiences prophetic dreams I don't quite get WHY I experience them. I've never been able to use them for good! But they did help me move from materialism to faith so there has been a benefit, I guess.

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    1. Have you written about your prophetic dreams? I would be delighted to read about your experiences.

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  3. http://theaspirationalagnostic.com/2014/09/12/i-never-dream-about-lotto-numbers-though-dammit/

    Thank goodness for the search function- I couldnt remember when I wrote it :) It doesn't go into a lot of detail but I'm happy to chat about it more with you if you like.

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