My maternal grandmother is eeriely … knowledgeable. Having been on the receiving end of her “dreams,” “hunches,” “guesses” I can say that if some people claim they’re psychic, or have a special rapport with God or something… yeah, they might be bullshitting themselves… or … there might be unique and ways they filter information where there’s actually something to it.
In Grandma’s case, I think that she’s genuinely more empathetic than the average person, so she knows just by looking at you when you’re not feeling well or when something’s “not right” in your life; she’s very detail oriented, and tends to notice things like keys not being where they should, or mud on your shoes or long hairs on your clothes; and also has an extremely keen sense of smell and awareness of her home environment, so that she can smell something beginning to burn or feel a breeze in the house from an open window; and tends to make very accurate leaps in intuition regarding seemingly bizarre behavior, though she keeps the precise methodology to herself. I think the combination of these four things as she sorts through life enables her to perceive things you and I might miss. Also, her successes embolden her to keep doing things this way.
Now it also is a fact that my grandmother is a wary optimist; very pragmatic; and tends to want to think the best of people despite obvious misgivings they may present. She will rarely confront you directly, but if you give her cause to doubt you, she will bust you damn near every time. I think her subconscious mind will pick up on things she won’t allow herself to “see” and occassionally this information presents itself in a way she finds acceptable: in her dreams.
You need examples.
She frequently makes declarations when people in her church are getting sick, going through bad times or is going to die. But she regularly makes the rounds with the Sick & Shut In Committee to people’s homes and hospital rooms and has a memory for past visits and family histories of ailments that would shame an elephant.
She frequently gets the urge to call up family members when they’re in the middle of a crisis, saying things like, “Something told me I needed to call you.” But my grandmother has a fairly close relationship with her brothers and sisters, her late husband’s family and her own kids and grandkids, so she regularly talks to everyone. When people fall out of touch, she assumes that something’s not going well in their lives. When things are going well for them we always call her. Sometimes this leads her to wake up dreaming about a person, comment to the family about it, and within a week or two we hear from the person and all the hell they have been catching lately.
She can tell when people – even total strangers – are lying to her. But this may be because she has somehow taught herself to recognize body language and facial cues people give away when they do lie. She’s also pretty good about busting solicitors over the phone and noting when things have been moved around her house. I could never sneak into the kitchen for a snack without waking her.
She gives great advice and will hold you to the fact she gave you great advice and that you didn’t take it when she counselled you and shit blows up in your face.
But rather than admit it’s because she’s constantly running facts by her inner bullshit detector, or that she strategically lays things out in her room just so so that she can tell if people are going through her things, my grandmother would rather have you believe she just gets these great intuitions magically through the ether. I suppose it’s her way of coping with the fact that, sweet as she is, she can be a bit of an insufferable know-it-all.
