On December 15, 1966 I was a college freshman still living at home. As I was waking up I had a really strange dream - all of the Disney characters were standing around in a circle holding hands, and they each had a tear running down his or her cheek. I remember thinking "Did Walt Disney die?". Later that day I heard that Disney had died a few hours after I had the dream. It is possible that I may have heard about him being ill, and that led to the dream, but I don't recall hearing anything about his health before I had the dream.

In January 1969 I was in the Air Force, and had been on leave at home after finishing boot camp at Lackland and classes at Sheppard. I had been able to get home on weekends while at Sheppard, and was about to ship off to California, with the possibility of winding up in Vietnam on everyone's mind, not to mention not having any idea how often I would be able to get home during the next four years. I was sitting in our living room just about to head out the door, when our smart little calico cat, Habib, jumped up on my lap with a rook chess piece in her mouth and dropped it into my hand. This was from a set my Aunt had given me when I was six, and was one of two pieces that had been missing for years. Habib then looked up at me with what I can only describe as a worried, inquiring look. I can still see it. Then she jumped down, and seconds later returned with the missing knight, then ran off.

In June 1979 I was taking courses in Los Angeles, and on June 11 went to the UCLA Student Union to play some snooker. I had been there a couple of hours, when suddenly an overwhelming sense of loss came over me, for no reason that I could think of. I found out later that the UCLA hospital was next door to the Student Union, and that I had been standing only feet from John Wayne when he died.

In December 1981 I was working in San Francisco and had just ordered a new Honda. The day I picked it up was the only day I ever took the bus to work in my life. That day a pretty and somehow familiar-looking young lady got on the bus and sat down next to me. She was carrying a book, and I asked her if she was a law student. She seemed slightly affronted, and said she was not, but this evolved into more conversation. I stayed on the bus well past my stop until the end of the line, when she finally gave me her phone number. On the following January 10, which happened to be my parent's wedding anniversary, after a quick drive up to Coit Tower with all of San Francisco bay before us, we became engaged, and were married in June.

Back to the summer of 1978 - I was taking a quantum mechanics course at Berkeley, and was focused on action-at-a-distance and other non-intuitive concepts. I lived on College Avenue, and was in the habit of strolling down to the little ice cream shop on Telegraph Avenue. On one occasion, I saw a pretty brunette working behind the counter, and the odd thought just popped into my mind that "one day that girl or someone much like her is going to be my wife". I dismissed the thought, and didn't think of it again until 7 years later, 3 years after we were married, when my wife told me she had been working in that shop that summer.