Jean's post on pictures jumping off walls (http://www.writelink.co.uk/community/blogs/entry/I-m-Feeling-Lucky) reminded me of a similar event about 20 years ago.  Mine was considerably less damaging, but potentially as dangerous and at the time very spooky.

Ronnie, Carol's father, had died unexpectedly three years previously. At the time of the incident, I was seriously ill and I took to bed early. We had a heavy-framed, glass-fronted picture, a study of the Snow Queen's Arrival hung on the wall right above the bed. With my customary thoroughness, I'd hung this picture on a length of cotton.  COTTON!!! It was doubled over in the interests of health and safety.

Some of the prescription drugs I took at the time made me quite dopey (before you say anything, Mo, this is as opposed to being totally dopey without prescription drugs.)

Now that I've painted the scenario, here's the action, and it's all right, you can carry on reading. I was in bed alone.

I was dreaming about Ronnie, and in the dream he suddenly shouted, "Move David."

So I did. I rolled out of bed ... and as I did so the picture came crashing down onto the pillow. If I hadn't moved it would have caved my head in and I refuse to accept, as some commentators insist, that caving my head would give everyone some peace.

I've long been interested in the paranormal, so it begs the question, did Ronnie see that the picture was about to fall, that the cotton was breaking, and did he send me a warning from beyond the grave?

Of course he did. There's no other explanation, is there?

Well, actually, there is.

My hearing back then was 20/20 (unlike now, when it's 0.05/20) and it was the only bit of me that worked properly. Suppose that I heard the cotton snapping? Suppose I subconsciously heard the sound, and realised that the picture was about to fall? My subconscious would translate my own alarm system into the dream and Ronnie telling me to move.

That then begs the question, how much do we hear when we're asleep? Theoretically, our senses are cut off from the rest of the world, but are they? Mothers will waken when their babies are crying in the next room. We tend to think that they can sense the babies crying, but perhaps they "hear" them.

Perhaps, Jean, something in your subconscious told you to get in the airing cupboard where it knew you would be safe.

No matter what you choose to believe, one thing is certain. I could get a novel out of Jean's and my own experience.