I play in a blues band, but I don’t do it for a living. I’m a computer programmer by day, and by night I live out my fantasies with three friends I’ve known since grammar school.

We write songs during our spare time and perform at small venues in the hope some record executive will hear us. After all, what’s life without having something to dream about and hope for?

Several months ago, we stopped by a place where we sometimes perform. We just went over there for some drinks and to listen to the newcomers who play there on open mic night.

As usual, the “talent” was mediocre, but then an older woman (when I say “older,” I mean she was maybe fifty years old) walked up to the stage with her guitar and started playing. She had a quality about her that was mesmerizing, particularly because she talked rather than sing.

At first she spoke about herself, her ex, her kids. Then she looked across the room at our table and starting talking about us. At first we laughed at everything she said because we assumed she was just winging it, making things up. She spoke about who we were, our aspirations, the kind of music we played, what did for a living. But then she was getting very specific – and very accurate. She was right on.

Here was a complete stranger talking about us as if she had known us all our lives. And she was mentioning intimate details that we had never talked about other than within our own group. Things like what we thought about the manager of our band, how we almost let our drummer go even though he was a good buddy (You should have seen the look he gave us when she mentioned that.)

And when she said Barry, our lead guitarist, was leaving his job to start a business, his mouth dropped open. He had never mentioned it to us.

Afterwards, she came over and sat with us. We questioned her knowledge of us and still thought it was some kind of trick. Then she dropped this bombshell: She looked at Gary and told him she was sorry his parents would be getting divorced. Gary stiffened and said his parents had been happily married for almost thirty years. She looked at him and nodded, then excused herself and walked away.

We all looked at Gary who seemed distraught. Then he called after her and said you may be right, they just started talking a few weeks ago about living separately. He asked how she could have possibly have known. She smiled and touched her heart. “It’s all in here,” she said. She wished us good luck and walked out of the building and that’s the last we ever saw of her.

H. Gubinoff
Toronto, Canada

It was bedtime and as usual it was pandemonium in the house.

The kids were in various stages of turning in for the night. Little Jeffrey was crying because his sister took something from him. Of course, Julie denied it saying the book was hers. And their older brother Keith was busy at his computer doing God knows what.

I’m a single mom, and I lead a good life, but I yearn for a good man and to be married again. When the kids were finally in bed and the noise disappeared for another day, I sat down at the computer and was eager to see if I had another email from a newfound friend down in Texas.

His name is Cal. I guess it’s short for Calvin and we truly met by happenstance. Well, maybe there was a little more to it. That’s why I’m telling you about it.

About a week ago, I awoke in the middle of the night with the unusual feeling that something was amiss. I felt a little odd, and I couldn’t fall back asleep. After tossing and turning, I decided to get up and with nothing else to do, turned on the computer.

The moment I got on AOL, there was this IM that immediately came on the screen. It was from Çal, and he said he just woke up and couldn’t fall back asleep, and I was on his mind. He said he just went over to the computer and as he came on AOL, my name appeared on his buddy list.

We had met online a few days before and he had the feeling we were on the same wavelength. I think he may be right. It’s now happened several times that we have come online at the exact moment. Since this happens at different times of the day or night, I think we have connected with one another, at least telepathically.

W. Steiner
Juneau, Alaska

It was September, 2005 and I had just returned from a trip to Europe.  I had been gone the entire summer, and although I was glad to be back and get on with my life, I had mixed emotions because I had left Linda, the woman of my dreams.

Let me explain.

Linda was living in London, and we had met accidentally in a busy pub one Friday night.  We hit it off immediately, and I could tell by her face that she was really into me.  For the next several weeks, we were inseparable.  She had a part time job and every spare moment was spent with me.

But Linda told me she had no intention of leaving London and coming back to the states.  As I am at a place in life where I want to settle down and raise a family, I was devastated that day at Heathrow when we said goodbye.  Linda made it clear that although she loved me, there was no way she would compromise.

Tears were streaming down her face (I was controlling mine), but she was resolute, and that was that.

I spent the next month job hunting.  The European trip had been a present to myself after voluntarily leaving a job that I held for twelve years.  But Linda was never far from my mind.  In fact, this is why I’m writing you.

I believe in the power of positive thinking and that most of us possess psychic ability to one degree or another.

Although Linda and I had agreed not to write each other for fear of dragging out the agony, each night I meditated and silently called out to her to reconsider and come back.  Night after night after night, I envisioned hearing a knock on the door and upon opening it, there she stood, suitcase in hand, and a look in her eye that said I’m yours.

Well, I admit it didn’t happen exactly that way.  But she did come back six months later.  And the first thing Linda did was call me from the airport to ask me to come and get her.  When we finally laid eyes on one another, she said she had heard my pleas night after night and she repeated precisely the same words I had used.

Jesse Kelter
Covington, KY

When I was nine years old, I was seriously injured on my bike when a car sideswiped me.

Unconscious for several days, I awoke in the hospital and couldn’t remember a thing.  Fortunately, the only long-lasting physical problem is I walk with a slight limp.  But I believe something happened to me during those days of unconsciousness because ever since I’ve had a sort of sixth sense.

Although I can’t predict everything that is going to happen, I do have special insights into certain things.  For example, when the airplane went down in the Hudson River in New York, I had a premonition in a dream the night before.  I could see people streaming from the plane onto life rafts and could see that the shoreline was nearby.  I could also see the skyscrapers in the distance.

Long before President Obama decided to run for office, I envisioned a young thin black man addressing a pool of reporters while standing behind a podium affixed with the presidential seal.  And behind him were seated his wife and two young children, both girls.

Sometimes I pick up on the thoughts of my brother who lives three thousand miles away on the other side of the continent.  I’ll call him up afterwards and tell him what he was thinking.  This never fails to startle him.

We are only two years apart, but it is as if we had been born identical twins.  We look alike, think alike and are in the same profession, dentistry.  However, he doesn’t have the premonitions or ESP that I have.

Donnie Schoof
White Plains, NY

My story may be of interest to anyone out there that believes in fate or just plain love at first sight.

I’m not a young woman; in fact, I’m in my late forties and have never been married.  Although I long ago gave up on the idea of having children, I still have romanticized how wonderful it would be to spend the rest of my life with a wonderful man who loved me.

Well, it happened.  His name is Austin, and we met in the most bizarre way possible.  I enjoy going to garage sales, flea markets, antique shows – anywhere I can find a bargain.  I love to put on a large hat, dress a little eccentric and find myself looking at the people more than the merchandise.

It was on a Sunday a little over four months ago when I was winding my way through an art fair in my neighborhood. I was talking to one of the merchants when I suddenly swirled around for no particular reason…and I found myself staring right into the eyes of a man about twenty feet away.  It seemed as if our eyes were locked into one another.

At first I felt a tad dizzy because although we’ve all had an experience like that, the intensity of our stare caught me quite by surprise.  After a few seconds (which seemed like an eternity), I turned back around.  And to be honest, I was too timid to turn back.

But then I heard a voice asking me if was enjoying the show.  When I turned back I realized it was “he.”  I was kind of dumbfounded for a moment (maybe that’s why I’ve been single all these years), but when I regained my composure, we absolutely clicked from that moment on.

His name is Nick and we’ve been practically inseparable since that afternoon.  In retrospect, I don’t think it was a coincidence that we met.  Nick said that he had spotted me several minutes before but didn’t know how to approach me.  He said he couldn’t take his eyes off me and felt the only thing he could do was catch my eye.

Since I wasn’t even facing him, I have to believe there was some force or spirit that was determined to get us together.

Edith Mettler
Newport Beach, CA

Several years ago I had the most unsettling dream.

My dead uncle appeared and said I should wake up at 3:30.  He kept repeating it over and over:  wake up at 3:30, wake up at 3:30.  The strangest thing about that night was the fact that when I did awake, it was exactly 3:30.

I didn’t think much about that episode until two years later when my grandfather died.  The time on his death certificate was 3:30AM.

Recently, I had another unusual experience.  I was driving to work in the morning when suddenly my neck stiffened up.  I could barely turn my head to see the cars beside me, and I was afraid I might cause an accident.

When I arrived in the parking lot, all of a sudden my neck was OK.  It was as if nothing had happened to it.  Very, very strange.

Later that evening, I received a call from a long time friend of mine.  She said she had sad news to tell me.  That a mutual friend of ours had passed away from a long illness that very morning.  When I asked if she happened to know the time, she said she was there when it happened:  about eight o’clock…the exact time my neck stiffened up.

P. Andresson
Zurich, Switzerland

Tom and I were married three years ago.

We had met on a computer dating service, and we feel truly lucky that our paths crossed.  What we didn’t realize when we first met were how many incredible coincidences occurred before meeting one another.

Now mind you, Tom is from a small town in Indiana and I’m from Nebraska.

First of all, his sister and my best friend had roomed together in the dorm at Duke.  Tom’s uncle Manny knew my uncle Bruce while working at a GM plant in Detroit.  And although we had never met previously, nor even heard of one another, both Tom and I had worked for the same retail chain but in a different part of town.

On the night Tom and I met at a coffee shop, we also realized we:

1. Frequented the same coffee shop and had seen each other on numerous occasions but never spoke.
2. We were currently reading the same book.
3. We had the same major and the same minor as undergraduates.
4. We wrote down on a sheet of paper our favorite movie, then showed it to each other.  It was the same.
5. Our mothers have the same first name.
6. We each have one sister, one brother.
7. We visited Paris the same week in 2005.

Anyway, although it’s nothing astounding, I thought you’d be interested because I do believe fate brought us together and all these coincidences meant we were right for each other.

F. Brownstein
Lincoln, NB

I was ten or eleven at the time, and something happened that day that I will never forget.

I was with my friend Les walking to a local park for a pick up game of basketball when a woman rushed out of a nearby apartment building.  She was frantic and running here and there, all the while yelling, “Jimmy, Jimmy, where are you?”

We stopped and looked around, hoping we’d see the person she was looking for.  We went over to her and asked what was wrong and she said her four year old had somehow disappeared and she couldn’t find him.

At first we walked up and down the street looking in doorways, doing everything we could to find her little boy.  But then Les said he thought he knew where Jimmy was hiding.

He went over to the woman who was beside herself with fear and Les asked her if she had a friend in the building who Jimmy knew.  When the woman nodded, Les said with an air of certainty, that’s where he is, I’m sure.

The woman looked at him and rushed inside.  A few minutes later she came out of the building holding her son in her arms.  She rushed up to Les and gave him a big kiss on the cheek and asked how he knew.

Les shrugged and said he didn’t know why but he could see in his mind where her little boy was.

Les and I are still in touch after all these years.  He is a financial advisor and says his telepathic instincts help him understand his clients better as well as helping him predict the trends of the marketplace.

G. Stillwater
Norfolk, VA

I have to tell you what happened to me last week.  I’ve been telling all my friends, and some of them are skeptical.  But everything I am about to say is true.

I was driving in my car when an uncontrollable urge came over me.

It was as if I had been invaded by another being.  I suddenly felt the need to contact an old high school friend.  His name is Bernie and I hadn’t seen him in over fifteen years.  In fact, I hadn’t even thought about him during most of that time.

Bernie and I were merely acquaintances in a high school club we used to belong to.  We were never really close, never hung out together.  We knew each other primarily because we had mutual friends in the club.

But this day I had the strongest feeling I should contact him.  I didn’t know why, but I knew it was important to call him.  Problem was, I didn’t have the slightest idea of where he was or how to get a hold of him.

The only thing I could think of was to call an old friend who always seemed to know where everyone was.  And this was the amazing surprise that I’m about to tell you about.  Her name is Sally and when I called her, the first words out of her mouth were, “Have you heard from Bernie?”

I was speechless, truly speechless.  Sally asked if I was OK, and I told her the reason I had called.  She went on to say that Bernie wanted to organize a reunion of our old gang and he had called her the previous day asking for my phone number.

If that isn’t telepathy or ESP or just plain eerie, I don’t know what is.

Well, Bernie and I did speak on the phone and it was nice to hear his voice and learn what he had been up to all these years.  He went on to tell me that he has had these telepathic experiences before, but this was the first time someone else he was thinking about had picked up on his thoughts.

M. Postner
Bismarck, ND