Weekend Engagement Prompt
Prompt:
What's the weirdest experience you've ever had? Use your own photos.
I do not think this experience is the weirdest I've ever had, but it's a somewhat recent experience that came to mind when I saw this weekend's prompt. I guess another word for my experience, besides weird, is eerie.
It was super early in the morning as I was sleeping in the upstairs bedroom of our previous house; most likely 3 or 4 a.m. I only remember a snippet of the dream I was having: I stood on the landing between two short staircases that went in opposite directions. One led down into a basement door that was closed. Water forced itself up from under the crack in the basement door, creating a flood that rose up onto the stairs. Someone (and I can't remember who) was telling me to go down into the basement, and I told them I couldn't. The conversation circled back and forth a few times: Go down. I can't. Go down. I can't. Then, I woke up.
As I was making my coffee downstairs, I could hear the mechanical whirrrr of the sump pump through the floor. It was in the crawl space below the kitchen and made this sound whenever it rained and needed to force water out. My blinds weren't open, and the only thought that occurred to me was Oh, it must be raining today. So I went about my morning routine.
After a little while, I noticed the whirring sound was repeating itself over and over again; the most I've ever heard it. The sump pump was being over-pumped and sounded like it would eventually exhaust itself. I didn't hear heavy rain outside, so I thought Oh no, the sump pump is broken. I walked around to the back of the house to see what was going on. The whole backyard was flooded with water; some of it pouring heavily down into the crawl space. I saw it leaking through the tennis court behind the house from a drain near the community pool.
After calling the public works facility to take care of the flooding, my thoughts went back to the dream I had. It was too big of a coincidence to ignore. The logical part of me kicked in and thought maybe I heard the sump pump in my sleep and it caused me to dream about a flood. As the sump pump continued to whir I went upstairs to the bedroom and listened closely. I could not hear it. Not to mention, I also listen to a white noise machine while I'm sleeping, so it would have been blocked out.
I sometimes think dreams are our subconscious trying to send a message to us. Other times, my logical side assumes it's just a mix of our daily thoughts and occurrences. However, I've never had such a vivid dream that foretells a distinct occurrence the following morning.