The credo of Starfleet is to seek out new life and new civilizations. Until recently, I never really considered seeking out the dead. For the most part, my budding spirituality has been about trying to be a better person, learning about the universe and connecting with what I have presumed to be God. On Michelle’s birthday, I reached out to my deceased wife and received a response.
Despite my experience on Stardate 11072021, I never seriously believed ghosts to be something that were able to be obseved or experienced in this plane of existence. My prior encounter with her felt more like a lucid dream. This was different.
It started when I grabbed her ID from my mirror, turned the lights down and just started talking to her in my mind. I started to regret how I was and who I was during our time together. And then, like something out of a movie, the instrumental Unchained Melody started to play on my phone. I found that particularly peculiar because I wasn’t on my phone, proceeded to look and saw it had a picture from the movie Ghost. I turned away from the phone and saw her outline materialize on my bed. I began to ugly cry.
I reached out my hand and felt that she grabbed it. Michelle seemed to communicate directly into my thoughts. She asked about a very specific event in my life that I never speak of. This event was unrelated to us, but it seemed she was reacting to it. I didnt want to respond to that…what proceeded felt like what I could only describe as an argument.
The song Breakeven by The Script played. It felt as if Michelle was signaling that she had moved on, that she no longer felt for me as I did for her. I proceeded to try to engage a bit more and I think she must have got irritated or something because it seemed like she was gone and the music stopped.
I sat there feeling very unusual because the encounter had unfolded in a way I hadn’t anticipated. I wasn’t done talking and yet I felt like she was gone. Later, I discovered that the song ‘Unchained melody’ wasn’t in my likes or playlist. I proceeded to grab her picture and do the same thing the very next night. Remarkably, ‘Unchained Melody’ began to play again. There I saw a full outline of Michelle on my bed. It seemed like she was synced up with my thoughts again… I talked to her about the kids and lamented about the timing of her passing…among other things. Despite her seeming detachment, I emphasized that she would always be part of our family.
At that moment, Faith Hill’s ‘There You’ll Be’ began to play. The song captured the essence of our feelings towards each other. A white, luminescent hand appeared, holding mine. Then, it was gone. The whole thing gave me a bit of closure too.
I told the crew (kids) about what happened and they were naturally curious, full of questions. They wondered why they hadn’t experienced similar encounters with Michelle or their grandma. I had no answers for them… Although I do plan to try to do something during my mom’s birthday to see if something comes out of that. I’m not sure how to even go about that during a group event but I guess we’ll see.
Now that some time has passed since all of that, I’m still trying to figure out how to interpret all of this. If this isn’t me losing my mind, if death isn’t the end…what comes next? How much interaction do those do the departed have with this life? Me and many other people have had some remarkable synchronicities…a series of coincidences so uncanny and unlikely that they seem to be orchestrated from something else.
Many individuals go on to attribute these synchronicities to God(s), the dead or other otherworldly beings. I’ve used to be skeptical of everyone else’s interpretations. I thought it was more logical that the person was suffering from a delusion caused by stress (excessive cortisol) or having too much dopamine resulting in ideas of reference. And sometimes I think that might still be the case for some individuals…but…
If you accept one single synchronicity, one single event caused by God, the dead, or something else… If IT can interact with our thoughts and/or our environment…. How often does it occur? Why does it decide to either interact or not? I have more questions than answers…whether this is all just an elaborate defense mechanism due to some existential need for meaning, some defense mechanism, a failing of my brain biology or something more profound…I can’t say for certain.
I frequently feel so alone, so disillusioned with the state of this world. But if this is real .. then I am never alone and theres a real possibility that the future will be enchanted.
BlogTrek: Strange New World 