First, I should apologize for what I admit is a somewhat sensational title for this post. I do not know how the phenomenon I'm about to describe occurs, but it is among a handful of things I have experienced that defy rational explanation and about which I suspect - but am not 100% convinced there is - some sort of "paranormal" cause.
I tend to be quite skeptical when others claim to have had experiences of this nature. There are so many out there who are willing, for various reasons, to portray fiction as truth and, in some cases, to believe their own fictions. Still, my personal experiences lead me to believe that there is much that our small, insistently rational brains do not know about the human psyche and how it interacts with what is generally considered the objective world. I suspect that all but a very small percentage of paranormal claims could, with enough details about the events that inpire them, be adequately explained in logical, commonplace terms.
Unfortunately, I have no way of proving to any skeptics like myself that I am not knowingly making up what I'm about to describe and that there is no good reason to suspect that my experience is a form of self-delusion, save for its defying rational explanation. I can only assure anyone reading this that my head is well-anchored to my shoulders and that those who know me well would say the same of me.
Enough forerunner.
I stayed up quite a bit later than my wife, last night, and wound up falling asleep on our downstairs couch. Earlier in the evening I had made sure that my cell phone alarm was set so that I could get up an hour or so before the kids and write. My cell phone was on the floor next to me when I fell asleep on the couch.
I woke up briefly on my own before my alarm rang. I would estimate that it was about 5:00 AM. My alarm was set for 5:52. I dozed back into a light, almost hypnagogic, sleep. I think my mind was somewhat active once I was back to sleep, but I cannot recall any of what I was dreaming, thinking, or otherwise experiencing - at least not until sometime later when I became aware of a pressure building inside me. I experienced this pressure as if I, or a part of me, was the trigger of a gun being slowly drawn back, the tension against the spring mechanism increasing the farther back it was pulled. Physically, the base of my spine experienced this tension more than any other part of me.* It built until I felt as if I would somehow snap. Then, all at once, at what seemed about five to ten seconds after its onset, the pressure broke. In my mind's eye, the gun hammer sprung toward a thin metal disk about three inches wide. Then, at the very instant it made contact with the disk, my phone began to chime. It was 5:52. My body and mind somehow knew, down to a fraction of a second, when the alarm would blare.
Over the last several years, I have had this experience many times, though generally with different imagery leading up to the alarm going off each time. I do not track when or how often this occurs. My guess is that it's happened at least 30 times. I've considered logical explanations (i.e., those that do not rely on a paranormal explanation), but I feel they fall short. I may present these at some point, especially if readers show interest. In the meantime, I would love to hear from any readers who have experienced something similar to this phenomenon. I would also be interested in any rational explanations you have found.
*Interestingly, in some schools of yoga, the base of the spine is said to be the seat of kundalini, our corporeal energy, which is coiled within us.
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