"The greatest seeming security is only a temporary disguise of the abysmal. All of us are skating over thin existence." Charles Fort

FT101: In 1986, I was as student at North Staffordshire Polytechnic. On the night of 2 March I had a disturbing dream. I was with a group of people in the countryside. Above me was an electricity pylon and along one of the cables leading from it a man was walking as if on a tightrope. Suddenly the man slipped, fell across the wires and was electrocuted. To my right a young woman walked past sobbing hysterically "He’s dead, he’s dead". I looked to my left and saw a country lane lined with police cars and an ambulance. The police officers came up to us and led us away one by one. As they came to lead me away I ran off looking for a telephone to call my father. I found one but I couldn’t get through. I then woke up.

The following weekend I travelled to Doncaster to visit my father. On the journey back I caught a train from Doncaster to Sheffield, and as usual I sat right at the front of the first carriage. I regularly made the same journey, but this time was different. As I looked out of the window I experienced fear and sadness and felt that I would never travel that route again. I reached Sheffield without mishap and left the train to find my connection to Manchester. It turned out to be the same train. I had a few minutes to wait, so I took a walk to steady my nerves. When I returned I passed the replacement train driver as he was climbing into the cab. I remember looking at him and feeling sorry for him, but I couldn’t explain why. I went to board the front carriage, to sit at the front as usual, but at the last minute changed my mind and moved back to the third.

The train had just reached the western side of the Pennines outside a village called Chinley when it crashed head on with a locomotive coming the other way. Fortunately we were travelling slowly after an earlier stop at a signal, but our driver was killed and there were many injuries, the worst of them being in the front carriage. When news of how bad it was reached my carriage, a young woman who was standing in the aisle to my right started crying and called out "He’s dead, the driver’s dead".

A few minutes later the emergency services arrived along a country lane running alongside the railway on my left-hand side. They came onto the train and started to lead the injured off one by one. I was taken to hospital but soon released. My first thought was to ring my father, but I couldn’t get through to him as he was making calls to find out if I was okay. Paul Willoughby, Tottenham, London.

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FT105: We were living in Malta in the 1960s and one Sunday I went along to the National Stadium to watch a football match between Ipswich Town and a local team. It was an enjoyable game if you were an English supporter, as Ipswich had overwhelmed the Maltese team of part-timers.

That night I dreamed I went to a football match in Sunderland’s Roker Park stadium. Afterwards I went to collect my car from Valletta multi-storey carpark. At the time there was no such car park anywhere in Malta. Reaching the carpark I discovered that my car had disappeared. I informed the local Maltese police and went home, searching all the little Maltese inlets for my stolen vehicle. As I trudged sadly up the steps leading to our flat, I heard the telephone and rushed up the remaining steps. Grabbing the phone, I was informed by the Maltese police that my car had been found undamaged outside an ice-cream parlour in Houghton-le-Spring, a few miles from Sunderland. I awoke confused by a dream that had taken place in towns 1000 miles apart.

At the time of the dream, my mother back home in Durham sat up late burning the midnight oil and writing her weekly letter to me. I received her letter on Tuesday morning. She informed me that my favourite uncle had gone to Roker Park, where he’d taken me often as a youth, to see a Sunderland match, and that his car had been stolen from the central multi-storeyed carpark. It had later been found undamaged in Houghton-le-Spring, near Valente’s ice-cream parlour.

Nothing like this has happened to me either before or since, and I am at a loss to comprehend or explain it. Frank Watson, Belmont, Durham.

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FT110: At the age of 14 in 1978, I as trying to settle into a new school and was getting bullied by Karen and her gang. She drove me to tears and distraction by tripping me up, stealing my sandwiches and spitting in my drink. She was a rough girl who swore and I was scared stiff of her.

One day, she tripped me down a flight of stairs and started laughing. I looked up and found that her face had turned into a grinning skull. Instead of crying I stared in astonishment which replaced her laughter with a puzzled expression.

Afterwards, I dreamed that she was standing on a bridge. I did my best to avoid her, but I couldn’t and was instead drawn like a magnet to where she stood. It occurred to me that I could not cross the bridge anyway because there was a line dividing it, and I knew I couldn’t step over. She smiled at me, then turned away and vanished. I remember her hair was a strange purple colour, a colour that is still vivid and fresh in my mind.

Two weeks later she was killed instantly when a car hit her on the way home from a party. Before she’d gone out that night she had dyed her short cropped hair bright purple. Linda Hardy, Wellingborough, Northamptonshire.

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FT112: Reading Steve Leggett’s story [FT110:50] reminded me of an incident three years ago. I was a college student preparing for exams. I had mislaid a library book needed for revision and spent all day searching without success. That night, I dreamed I was in my study, opening and closing various drawers. I looked behind the radiator and there was the book. Much to my amazement, I found the book the next morning in that very place. Pardeep Bhakar, Ilford, Essex.

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 FT132: During the long and pleasant summer of 1960, when I was seven years old, I passed the house of an old lady each morning on my way to school. She was usually in a rickety old chair on her front porch. "Good morning, Mrs Thorpe," I would call and she would say: "Good morning, Peter".

One night near the end of the school year, I dreamed I was walking to school past Mrs Thorpe’s house. She was there as usual, sitting on her porch, and I noticed with detachment that she had no face. Despite this I called out as usual: "Good morning, Mrs Thorpe" and in return I heard a voice that was calm and kindly but devastating nonetheless: "Goodbye, Peter". I sat upright in bed, breathless and sweating. After a moment I lay down again and was soon asleep.

The next morning, as I packed my satchel for school, my mother told me in a hushed voice that Mrs Thorpe had been taken ill during the night and had died. Even though I was a young boy I knew I had been privileged. Mrs Thorpe had come to me in death to bid me farewell. I never told anyone of my experience that night until I was a grown man. Peter Lloyd, Salisbury, Wiltshire.

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 FT133: This is to share with you a strange thing. I’m 44 years old and a business consultant. My first wife (I’m divorced now) woke up one morning, quite upset, and asked me if I knew anybody named Baisse. Asked why, she replied that someone of that name was going to die (she didn’t say how) and that it would make headline news.

At the time, there was one fellow named Claude Bez who was president of the Girondins de Bordeaux football club and was always in dispute, notably with Bernard Tapie, president of Olympic Marseilles at the time. Thinking of him, I told her jokingly that it would not be such bad news since the guy was not very popular with me.

That same evening, while we were having dinner at home with friends, a TV news flash said that the radical group Action Directe had assassinated Mr Besse (who was I believe the CEO of Renault). My wife and I just stared at each other and said nothing. We never discussed it again. Christian Toussay, Paris, France.