A Nut in a Nutshell

I'm Francesca Lilybottom, not my real name of course, a nickname given to me by Mimi that has stuck. Call me Frankie. I'm 33, married, have a son, and am a paranormal fanatic. I have always been drawn to the unusual and strange, and while outwardly I appear normal, I am actually unusual and strange myself. Mimi and I get along so well because we are both warped and twisted, we get each other's humor, and we are the only one's we can stand to be around without starting to get that I-Swear-I-Will-Stab-You feeling.


Mimi has current paranormal experiences to tell you about, I have past experiences and obsessions with certain legends that I will share with you. I will also attempt to visit the sites of my obsessions and document the experiences for you.

Okay, my fascination with the paranormal began when I was fairly young. My first concrete experience was shortly after my great-grandfather died. He was bed ridden for the last few years of his life, and in an effort to make things easier for him my grandmother had given him a bell to ring when he needed something. It was a bell that made me think of the one my teacher would ring when recess was over. Gold with a black handle, and the shrill ringing would give you a headache if you were standing to close to it when he rang it.

On the day of my great-grandfather's funeral we had gone back to my grandmother's house to have the post burial gathering. Being young, I was very sad he was gone, but I wasn't interested in sitting inside while everyone cried, I hated seeing my mom cry. I grabbed a Dixie cup of Tab (oy! that stuff tasted awful) and went out on the porch. As I sat in the swinging chair, the church bells from the church my grandfather helped to build started to toll. I remember smiling when I though of him as the bells rang through the neighborhood and when the bells stopped, I whispered "I love you PawPaw." I immediately heard his bell ringing, and I was surprised. I went inside and went down to his bedroom, his bell was still on his nightstand next to the hospital bed. "Pawpaw?" I asked out loud, and I could hear the bell ring again. I was looking at the bell itself, it had not moved, but I clearly heard it. I knew he was letting me know he was still with us, and that he loved me too. I never told anyone about it, not because I thought it wasn't real, but because I was afraid to make anyone cry when they thought about him.

My second brush with the strange and unusual was a few years later when I was a freshman in high school. I had been having the same dream over and over again for almost 2 weeks, a house on fire with a family trapped inside. In my dream the family got out just as the roof collapsed. It always made me wake up feeling anxious and relieved at the same time.

I was riding the bus home one day from school when I looked up from my book as the bus stopped at a red light, I saw the house I had been dreaming about, it was whole and unburned. I was so shocked that I saw the house I had been dreaming of, I missed my stop and ended up walking 12 extra blocks to get home. I had the same dream again that weekend. The following Monday, on my home from school, I was looking for the house, I couldn't remember where it was. I finally saw it, still intact. I stopped having the dream for a while, when I told my friends about how weird it was, they all laughed at me.

A month or two later, I was on my home from school again chattering with my friends and generally oblivious to the world outside our bus. The bus jerked to the side and my purse flew out of my lap, as I was trying to pick my junk up off the floor before it rolled all over the bus floor, I heard a siren. I looked up as the fire truck flew past us, the bus had pulled over so the fire truck could pass by. I got this sick and excited feeling I knew that truck was going to my dream house.

Sure enough, when the bus got about 3 red lights down the highway, you could see the firetruck lights flashing, there were 4 fire trucks, an ambulance, and 3 cop cars at the house I had been dreaming about. I repeat AT.THE.HOUSE.I.DREAMED.ABOUT!!!!!!!!!!! I was freaked out and thrilled at the same time, I had seen this coming, hadn't I? The more I thought about it, the more scared and sick to my stomach I started to feel. Should I have done something? Should I have warned someone?

The only way to cope with how I was feeling was to ignore the situation all together. I only had one friend who believed me anyway so it wasn't like I could ask for advice from anyone. I stopped having the dream shortly after the fire. The family who owned the house was out of the home when it burned down, but 3 firefighters were able to only just escape as the second story ceiling collapsed.

Since that time, I have occasionally dreamt about things that have happened after I dreamt them. It is always a bit disconcerting, but I have learned to be pleased when the good things happen, and not to freak out when the bad things happen. I have also learned to accept that I am usually unable to suss out the dreams fast enough to stop anything bad happening, and that most times they are meant to happen so stopping them isn't what I'm meant to do anyway. I have never had a dream of anyone dying (KNOCKING ON WOOD), if I did I would be compelled to do something to try to help. The bad dreams aren't easy to stop, but they are easier to work through then they used to be.

So that's me, a nut in a nutshell! Tell me about you. Have you had any brushes with the supernatural? Do you have prophetic dreams? If you could choose to would you?