One night in 1994 as I was falling asleep, when I was in that half- awake/half-asleep hypnagogical state, there appeared before my closed eyes the close-up of a toddler boy's face. At first he was looking down as if he was shy, then he slowly raised his eyes, looked directly at me, smiled, and said in his sweet voice: "Mommy, I'm coming." His eyes were the same color brown as mine, and in general he looked a lot like I did when I was three years old.

I looked deeply into his eyes, so deeply that I was able to see beyond them. And what I saw was breath-taking. There was a bright white light and I felt pure, unconditional love pouring into me. I sensed that I was looking at eternity.

Questioning my own sanity, I soon began asking friends if they had ever heard of such parent-child contact. They hadn't, and most dismissed my experience as "just a dream" or "wishful thinking." I was frustrated. I knew what a night dream felt like; I knew what a daydream felt like; I had been hypnotized and in meditation. I was familiar with the feeling of having something rising from my subconscious mind into my conscious mind. And what I experienced with my son's spirit was nothing like that. There was a distinct feeling of another soul coming from the outside into me.

I continued searching for an explanation and for other persons who had experienced contact with their unborn child. I sent a letter to FATE magazine's "Can You Help These Readers?" column, and within weeks after that letter was published, I received intimate letters from grateful parents all over America describing their own precognitive dreams and visions of their children.

Suzanne told me about a dream that she had when she was pregnant, in which she saw a tiny boy playing a huge French horn. She also had disturbing dreams about a young soldier dying in Vietnam, with pieces of his flesh splattered onto a barbed wire fence.

She did give birth to a boy and he did learn how to play the French horn. One day when he was practicing, she thought he looked so cute that she decided to take his picture. That's when it struck her that her son looked exactly like the little boy she had seen in her dream.

Over the years, her son started telling her about nightmares he was having, in which he saw a young soldier being killed, and pieces of his flesh splattered onto a barbed wire fence. Suzanne was shocked, as she had never told her son about her own identical dreams. Through hypnosis and other analysis, they concluded that her son's previous life had ended in Vietnam, just as they saw in their dreams. So in this case, the mother not only saw her son as he would appear in his coming life, but also as he appeared in his most recent past life.

Christine related a story about a mischievous little boy who appeared to her one night as she was sleeping on her couch. She was awakened by a cool breeze on her arm. When she opened her eyes, she was face to face with this little boy who was not either of her two sons. Even though she knew he was not her son, she said to him, "What are you doing up? Go back to bed!" The visitor giggled, ran across the room, and hid behind a chair. When she got up to look for him, he was gone.

A year later she became pregnant and ultimately gave birth to a third son, a boy who grew to look exactly like the child she saw that night. She reports that she continues to have a stronger psychic link with him than she does with her other children.

I also heard from parents of adopted children. Sue told me about a memorable dream in which she was sitting in a rocking chair. Above her floated two cherubs, one on each side, and she felt completely at peace in their presence. Several years later she and her husband adopted a baby boy. When that child was two, the adoption agency called and asked if they would like to adopt a two-year-old boy as well. They were thrilled!

One day as she was rocking her sons, one two-year-old in her left arm and the other in her right, she was suddenly overwhelmed with a feeling of peace. She recalled her unusual dream about the cherubs and concluded that those baby angels were actually the spirits of her sons-to-come.

This and other stories from adopted parents led me to believe that the psychic link between parents and their children-to-be is not connected to biology. It appears that both biological and adopted children have knowledge of who their primary caretakers will be, sometimes years before the children are even conceived.

This phenomenon is not only unique to mothers. Fathers also told me about their experiences of pre-birth communication. One man, a farmer, had fallen asleep one day out in the fields. When he opened his eyes, he saw four little faces looking at him, and they said, "Don't worry, Daddy, we're coming." He now has four children who look like the spirits that comforted him that day.

Another father saw his three future children standing on the shore with his wife as he was close to drowning in a lake. As soon as he saw their images, he felt calm and knew that he would survive this crisis. Over the following years, all three of those children were born.

In the years that have passed since my own son appeared to me, I have continued collecting stories from other parents and have discussed this phenomenon in live lectures, on the radio, and on television. Each time I "go public" with this information, I hear from parents who thought they were the only ones that this happened to.

I have also found two books which specifically chronicle such pre-birth contacts: "Coming From the Light" by Sarah Hinze and "Soul Trek" by Elisabeth Hallett. The author of "Soul Trek" also has a web site dedicated to this topic: http//www.montana.com/lighthearts/

My purpose for telling people about my research and other resources about life before life is to bring comfort and support to parents who have experienced this telepathic dream state, and also to shed light on the nature of consciousness. My purpose is not to convince skeptics or others who feel uncomfortable with the implications of this evidence. Pre-birth contact is a link of love, not a link of rational thoughts. However, if you still have doubts after reading this article and other supporting research, I offer this quote from astronaut Edgar Mitchell as my closing point:

"There are no unnatural or supernatural phenomena--only very large gaps in our knowledge of what is natural."

Author Bio

Theresa M. Danna has a master's degree in professional writing from University of Southern California and lectures in venues including the Whole Life Expo. To obtain an audio cassette of her lecture, appearance on Art Bell's Dreamland radio program, or a video cassette of her segment on "Sightings," you can e-mail her at:

prewombpsi@earthlink.net

She is also interested in hearing more pre-birth communication stories from parents worldwide .