Sending messages back in time

From about 1975 to 1990 I was involved in psychic research. I am no longer active in this field but my earlier work involved such names as Rita Goold, Paul McElhoney, Graham Phillips and Andrew Collins. I therefore feel a bit guilty that most of my early notes are locked away in my diaries or bound volumes of Psychic News (I was a reporter there for a few years in the early 1980s). One day I would like to publish a book but - prompted by various Facebook friends - I will for now blog the occasional memory. And I will start with one of my more personal experiences: a precognitive dream involving a holy well.

The Holywell dream sketch

I almost never remember my dreams. I understand this is unusual and that most people wake up and are easily able to recall the dream they had that night. But I wake up and remember nothing. Only on rare occasions do I retain even a glimpse of the night's adventures. Rarer still are occasions when I wake up knowing I have had one of "those" dreams; a dream I know is important - usually precognitive. The first time it happened I was in my early teenage years. I was just on my way to the shops to buy  a morning paper to find out the score of the previous night's Everton match. I realised I already knew the score - 2-nil. I 'knew' this because - I remembered - I had dreamt it the night before. (This was the days before internet and texting which gave you instant news and football results!). I realised this was 'impossible' but I also knew with absolute certainty that the score would be 2-nil. I bought the paper. The score was 2-nil. Such 'special' dreams are, as I say, rare but when they occur I write them down in my diary. I awoke one September morning in 1985 gripped by a dream and wrote it down, adding drawings of the scene in the dream. 

Alan Cleaver's diary

Saturday, September 28th 1985 - 11.50pm

On the morning of Saturday, September 28th, 1985 I had a dream about a holy well. The well (really a spring) had a stone building over it. Inside it was rather barren and divided into two by a wall. In each half was a stone trough filled with flowing water from the spring. I was with a group of people and it was pointed out that the real well was at the back of the building. We walked round the back and there was water flowing from the ground. It seemed to be coming out of a hole in the wall. There were flowers around it and guinea pigs (!). There was concern over a child who had been killed - I think by being beheaded or the throat cut - but then it was announced that the child was still miraculously alive. I cannot remember who was there except one person: Gaynor Sunderland, who seemed to be a close friend rather than the vague acquaintance she is. I don't know the location of the well. The dream appeared to be in colour. It did not have the 'premonition' feel about it but I did remember it and, after waking, felt impressed to write it down. c.f. attached drawings...

Drawings made on Sept 28th 1985 showing the layout of the holy well.

Holy wells had been an interest of mine but I did not recognise this as any particular well; nor did it occur to me that the death of the child might be a legend associated with the holy well. I write that Gaynor was a 'vague acquaintance' but I had not yet met her (we first met in June 1986). She had been featured in Alien Contact by Jenny Randles and Paul Whetnall (1981); she had had a close encounter in July 1976 (when she was nine) near her home just outside Flint. I also knew her as one of the participants in The Green Stone affair but, as I say, in September 1985 had not met her. It's rather bizarre I mention that the dream did not feel like one of my premonitions!

The fulfilling of the dream

On June 27, 1986 I met Gaynor at the flat of Boyd Lees and we did indeed become friends as part of a group of people interested in psychic matters. You might think I was then waiting for this dream to come true but of course I had all but forgotten about it. On the weekend of September 13 and 14, 1986, John Merron, Boyd Lees, Caroline Wise and myself travelled to Flint to spend a weekend with the Sunderland family. We visited her local holy well, St Winefride's Well, in Holywell, Clwyd and it was then that I realised this was the dream I had experienced a year before. 

St Winefride's well with pool outside. 

The stone trough inside St Winefride's well

The layout of the building with its stone trough and, outside the main building, another pool for the water clicked and I told the others about my dream. Marion Sunderland (Gaynor's mother)  told of the legend of St Winefride: how she tried to flee would-be rapist Caradog, how her head was cut off and the well formed at that spot, and how her uncle - St Beuno - had prayed for her and miraculously she was restored to life. It all seemed to fit - but what about the 'guinea pigs'? These stone figures above the well seemed to match that part of the dream:

Stone figures at St Winefride's Well. Picture: Simon Davies

As we talked, I pointed out we were now "in" the dream that Alan Cleaver was having in September 1985. Could we perhaps send him a message?! We chose to try and signal the word 'Bag' (we chose this word because earlier in the day, Boyd had accidentally dropped her bag into the well). I wrote it in large letters with water on the paving slabs next to the well; I seem to recall we also stood about waving at "the 1985 Alan Cleaver"! I'm not sure what I was expecting to happen; hopefully when I got home my diary would have changed to read "and I also got the impression of the word 'bag', and saw a lot of crazy people waving their arms about!". But no such luck. Colleague Clive Harper, on hearing about this experience, suggested I might be too quick to accept the failure of the experiment; he pointed out that I had woken that morning in 1985 impressed enough by the dream to write it down - I may not have received the message 'bag' but the fact the dream was important did get through. It's a nice idea - but would be pushing even my gullibility.

Thoughts now

Personally, I'm still quite intrigued by this dream. Looking back with an analytical mind I can see how I could have read about Holywell and stored it in my subconscious (and knowing that Gaynor lived near there). And I realise the legend and 'guinea pigs' could have applied to a number of holy wells. But those factors, the layout of the well and that I would indeed become friends with someone at the other end of the country (I was living in London at the time) all leave me to feel there was a precognitive aspect to this dream. I also count in the fact that this was one of the few dreams in my life I could actually recall upon waking - making it 'special'.

Holy wells and psychic phenomena

Martin Shorthose, writing on the Holy Wells and Sacred Springs of Britain group on Facebook, points out that supernatural phenomena of various kinds is often associated with holy wells:

From the Orthodox Christian perspective, it was Holy people - saints - which many of these wells mark. The Orthodox have a lengthy process leading up to the canonisation of a person as a saint. This includes reputation for working for the Kingdom of God in their life and some witnessed acts of healing or other miracles during their life and after their death through their relics or their tomb or even bits of their clothing. It is not of course the Saint who heals, but rather by the grace of God that the person is healed.

Many holy wells have stories of healings, granting of prayers, ghosts and other phenomena and Paul Devereux's theory of Earthlights ties in well with this (the springs would appear on weaknesses - 'fault lines' - in the landscape). In particular, I have studied cases where people appear to have vanished at or near holy wells which is highly suggestive of... - but that's a blog for another day.