buddah_psst

I want to share with you all an experience I had this summer when I was working in Westwood, CA. Our company, one of the major Hollywood studios, had offices located in one of the hi-rise towers – our division occupied the top two floors of the building, the 23rd and 24th.

Everyday several of my co-workers and I would take the elevator down to the street level and walk into Westwood for lunch. For the first two years, nothing extraordinary happened. But that all changed around April or May of 2008. As we were walking to lunch, I would suddenly be overcome by what I can only describe as a “waking dream.”

Although I was still aware of everything around me, (my friends, sounds of street noise, the sidewalk, cars and buildings), I was also “seeing” something else: everything would suddenly get really still and quiet. It felt like the whole of Westwood was empty – every building silent, streets completely free of traffic, and there was a strange kind of sound you could just barely make out. It was hollow sound, maybe like wind blowing, or something odd you just can’t quite put your finger on. Then a terrible feeling of grief would hit me like a wall.

These impressions would only last a few seconds, but they were incredibly powerful. My friends would continue walking and talking right along side of me the whole time, completely oblivious to what was going on in my head. This happened at least three or four times from April to June. I became increasingly worried about the possibility of an earthquake, and I finally mentioned it to my co-workers. They laughed it off and started referring to me as “gloom & doom.”

I finally left my job around the first of July – partly because I wanted to move on, but partly because I just didn’t feel safe working on the 23rd floor of a hi-rise building anymore. I began having terrible apprehension about the month of August, in particular, the dates of Aug. 8th and 10th. But when those days came and went without incident, I relaxed a little.

I began to think maybe my “waking dreams” were meaningless – a false alarm. Then one day something even stranger occurred to me as I was driving home from a movie. I had gone to a Friday afternoon show since I was not working that day. The movie let out around 4:30pm, and I was driving home from Hollywood, heading west on Melrose Avenue.

Anyone familiar with L.A. will know that traffic on any given Friday at that time of day is bound to be heavy. This day was no exception, until I got to the corner of Melrose and La Brea Avenue. I began having a feeling of vague unease – something was wrong with the afternoon light. It was a very, hard, white light, almost like all the color was suddenly sucked out of the sky and everything became harsh and glaringly illuminated. I felt what I can only describe as a kind of extreme dread. I wanted to get home as quickly as possible.

I know this is hard to believe, but I swear this is what happened next: as I was driving west on Melrose Ave., I began noticing something very, very odd, especially for L.A. – all the people walking and all the cars driving were GOING EAST, the opposite direction from me. NO ONE was walking west, and there were NO CARS IN FRONT OF ME going west as I crossed La Brea Ave. This continued to be the case for almost a mile, all the way to Robertson Blvd. The look on the faces of the people walking on the street was dead, as if they were sleepwalking.

The whole thing was so surreal, I can hardly believe it happened – I’m posting this here in hopes that someone else has experienced something similar and can help me make heads or tales of it.

Lately I have had the feeling that something is coming – heading directly for us here in L.A., and I can’t say if it’s an earthquake, or something else, but whatever it is, it’s very, very big and will cause a massive evacuation of the city. I think it may be so big, people be forced to leave their homes and businesses permanently.

Anyone else getting this kind of thing happening to them?