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safe.
    One day, Jim recounted a psychic experience of his own, which occurred when he was a psychiatric resident at the Meninger Institute in Kansas. During a snowstorm, his car had a flat tire on a remote country road. When it was clear that he wouldn't be able to return home on time, he knew that his wife would be worried. He really wanted her to know he was okay, but there were no phones. During what they later established had been the same period, his wife had a dream in which she saw Jim's car having tire trouble but that he was unharmed. Not surprisingly, this unusual communication between them had stirred Jim's interest in the psychic.
    I was touched by Jim's story as well as incredibly relieved to be in the company of an educated person with advanced academic credentials who'd also had such experiences. At least I wasn't the only oddball running around! This gave me solace. Also, I'd taken a risk in trusting Jim, and he didn't let me down. Far from condemning me, he'd shown a profound respect for what I was going through. So when Jim encouraged me to go farther and remember other such events, I felt safe enough to do so.
    My mother had a close friend, Harry, a Superior Court judge in Philadelphia. She thought of Harry as her mentor, loved him dearly, credited him with inspiring her to attend medical school in an era when few woman were being accepted. When I was ten, Harry ran for reelection to the post he'd held for the past thirty years. Few things in life meant more to him than being a judge. A week before the election, I had the following dream:
    I'm in a huge, well-lit room jammed with people. Harry is up on the podium giving a speech. It's so crowded I can barely breathe. My head pounds. I'm afraid of something but I don't know what it is. A man's voice comes in over a loudspeaker and announces that Harry has lost to his opponent. Harry lowers his head, walks into the crowd, and is about to leave the room when suddenly a woman whose face I can't see rushes toward him and bites his hand. From Harry's expression, I know he recognizes the woman and is crushed.
    I didn't want to alarm my mother, especially after her reaction to my premonition about Evan. But I was upset and wanted her support, so I took a chance and told her. Anticipating the success of her friend, she of course found my dream the last news she wanted to hear. She sighed and put her arm around me. “Why do you say such negative things?” she asked, exasperated. After my predictions of her father's death and her friend's suicide, this was just too much. I sat there and wished I could take it back, but the damage was already done.
    The night of the election, I sat with my parents in Los Angeles, anxiously awaiting the outcome. Nightmarishly, it was as my dream had predicted: Harry lost by a landslide. If it had only been his defeat, the dream would have seemed less significant. But there was more. At the polls that night, Harry's daughter-in-law, a manic-depressive under psychiatric care, had an acute psychotic break and rushed up to him, viciously biting his hand. Immediately following this attack, she fled into the crowd to hide. Later, she was found and admitted to a hospital for treatment.
    Of course, the lives of Harry, his son, and his daughter-in-law were radically disrupted that evening. Over the next few months I heard a lot about their suffering, and couldn't help but question what role my dream had played. Although my parents never suggested that my prediction was in any way responsible, I had my doubts, especially when in a moment of frustration my mother told me never again to mention another dream to her. I knew she was disconcerted by what had happened; I knew she hadn't meant to hurt me. She was simply on overload, and I backed off. But it was also true that she could be overbearing, that she was a woman of great force, and that I couldn't help re acting to her. From that day on, in any case, I kept to myself what I'd come to regard