THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Saturday, August 26, 1995 TAG: 9508260478
SECTION: LOCAL PAGE: B1 EDITION: FINAL
TYPE: Column
SOURCE: Charlise Lyles
LENGTH: Medium: 72 lines
Without the dreams, Karen Gessner's life would be pretty normal.
Well, yes, the big, old dimly lighted house that she lives in on New York Avenue in Norfolk's Colonial Place has an Addams Family aura about it: large jagged rocks out front, a covered pool table where the dining table should be, dusty antiques with spooky silhouettes, three birds (including a gray cockateel), three cats and two dogs (one with a deep limp).
But other than that, Gessner is a basic 38-year-old divorced mother of three teenagers who works the night shift as an electrician at the Ford Plant.
When she called me to talk about how her dreams have been coming true for years, Gessner thought I wouldn't listen, just blow her off as insane. As a reporter, I've talked to others who said their dreams foretold events. But Gessner has witnesses.
So why not some ink for a self-proclaimed prophet? After all, some politicos are but shady prophets.
Besides, Pat Robertson made the front page this week, saying he prayed Hurricane Felix into a pussycat. And here by the seaside, psychics abound. So what's wrong with acknowledging our intuitive practices and powers?
For years, Gessner's neighbor Tom Bachman has known about her dreams. ``This is the 1990s, and I'm a mechanic type, a retired Navy boiler technician. I have to see it to believe it,'' said Bachman, 43. He has.
``Once she told me a plane was going to crash in a foreign country, somewhere in Europe - she couldn't pinpoint the exact country - and everyone on board would be killed.''
That was in early December 1988. About two weeks later, Pan Am Flight 103 crashed over Lockerbie, Scotland. All 244 passengers and 15 crew were killed.
The dreams always come about two weeks before an incident, says Gessner, a plain woman whose round eyes stare right into you.
Bachman also vaguely recalled that in April 1989 Gessner told him she dreamed of a ship explosion.
``I dreamed I was looking out over the ocean,'' Gessner says she told him. ``I could see two Navy ships. They looked like toys. As I watched there was a huge explosion. Then I said, `That's sabotage.' My thoughts made me think it would be called something else.''
On April 19, an explosion inside a gun turret on the battleship Iowa killed 47 sailors.
About nine years ago, when Gessner's dreams got to be a regular thing, she told coworkers at a Suffolk peanut plant where she then worked. They laughed, she says.
Then a strange thing happened. The Challenger blew up. Just like Gessner said she had dreamed.
``I dreamed that I was standing in a marshy field watching some type of rocket shoot up into the sky. After a few seconds, it split in two like a wishbone. A couple of weeks later, one of the guys at work said, `The Challenger took off and exploded.' When I went into a break area and saw it on TV, I saw my dream all over again.''
Gessner also dreamed the death of her father, said her brother-in-law Jsun Blackwell.
Now at the Ford Plant, coworkers regularly consult Gessner's oracles, said one who asked not to be identified.
One asked if she dreamed about Felix.
``I said, `Don't worry,' '' Gessner recalls. `` `It's not going to do anything.' '' ILLUSTRATION: LAWRENCE JACKSON/Staff [color photo]
Karen Gessner often dreams of disasters such as crashes and
explosions, usually about two weeks before they occur.
by CNB