Sometimes the premonition isn't as specific, but just as strong -- or stronger: a great, unexplained feeling of sadness has been bothering you all day; it is only later that you find a close relative has died.

There is a curve in the road where I live that drops off into a little ditch. The curve is at the bottom of a small hill. Since I moved into my house several years ago I have always had "a feeling" that some day someone would have an accident there.

Last week, it happened. Ironically the neighbor across the street from me slid on the ice and creamed my van in the curve just above the little ditch. Luckily, no one was hurt. As I sat in my car afterward with a touch of shock I felt that sense that what I always thought would happen did happen.

Skeptics say these feelings can be attributed to mere coincidence. There are times; however, when a premonition is so strong you have little doubt that something is going to happen. These feelings seem to be most powerful between close relatives, where the bond seems to be strongest. Sounds like New Age gobbledygook, doesn't it? But consider that even many mainstream scientists -- quantum physicists and psychiatrists alike -- understand more and more that all human consciousness is connected.

A premonition can be as subtle as a gnawing feeling or so overwhelming that they jolt you out of your everyday routine and prevent you from thinking of little else. They can be vague, nothing more than a feeling, or they can be so vivid that it is like watching a film. They may foretell something that happens a minute later... or weeks or even many months later.

I admit I have a predisposition toward believing in things like premonitions, omens, karma and Déjà vu. As the mother of grown-up identical twins I have witnessed the phenomenon of one human sensing something about another first hand.

From the time, my daughters were very small they seemed to communicate with one another whether they were in the same room or not. They also seemed to know when one of them needed the other, was ill or upset. They live at opposite ends of the state but still know when something is up with the other one.

Premonitions may be characterized by sensations including anxiety, uneasiness, a vague feeling of disquiet suggesting impending disaster to actual visual or auditory hallucinations. It's a "gut-level" feeling. The sensation tends to occur prior to disasters, accidents, deaths and other traumatic and emotionally charged events.

Generally premonitions are sense-oriented, dominated by a syndrome of physical uneasiness, depression, or distress that is without discernible source or reason. It is an unexplainable feeling that "something is going to happen."

In 1948, the prominent Soviet psychic Wolf Messing traveled to Ashkhabad to give some demonstrations of his abilities. Prior to his performances as he walked the streets of that city he was seized with a terrible dread and an intense desire to leave as soon as possible. He canceled his performances, the only time he did so in his life, and left. Three days later a massive earthquake leveled Ashkhabad, killing 50,000 people. Messing's premonition saved his life; however, he had no specific forewarning of the earthquake.

On October 21, 1966, twenty-eight adults and 116 children were killed when a landslide of coal waste tumbled down a mountain in Aberfan, Wales, and buried a school. According to three surveys taken afterwards up to two weeks before the disaster about two hundred people experienced premonitions. They included depression, a feeling that "something bad" was going to happen (some people accurately pinpointed the day), sensations of choking and gasping for breath, uneasiness, and impressions of coal dust, billowing black clouds, and children running and screaming.

Premonitions occurring in a waking state are more predominant than those that occur in dreams because in the latter they are frequently disguised as symbols, and tend to go unnoticed. However, when theses symbols frequently reappear in dreams, the individual may learn to recognize distinguishing symbols or emotional tones.

A similar factor may relate to doomed ships. The Titanic carried only fifty-eight percent of its passenger load on its disastrous maiden voyage when colliding with an iceberg in April 1912.

The psychiatrist Ian Stevenson recorded more than nineteen incidents of premonitions concerning the Titanic in England, America, Canada, and Brazil, which occurred within the two weeks prior to the ship's sailing date of April 10. People actually cancelled their reservations after dreaming of the ship's doom; others said it was bad luck to sail on the ship's maiden voyage. Some of the survivors said they had felt uneasy but sailed anyway.

Although it is often hard to prove, there have been many famous premonitions recorded throughout history. On of the most talked about is a premonition President Abraham Lincoln had just days before his assassination. He dreamt of people crying in the East Wing of the White House. As he went to investigate he was told that the weeping was for the President who had been assassinated. Days later he was killed in Ford Theatre by John Wilkes Booth and his body was later held in the East Wing so that people could pay respect.

Harriet Tubman, who could neither read nor write, was rumored to have premonitions that helped her lead herself and hundreds of slaves to freedom, safely. She often dreamt of soldiers capturing her and later avoided those places during her journeys. Many believe this is what ultimately allowed her to escape slavery and return five times to lead out some 300 slaves without getting caught or punished.

The functioning of premonitions is not exactly known, that is, why some people possess the ability while others do not. One theory is that some people are more open to psychic suggestion. A cause for the diminishing of this psychic ability in people is that a larger portion of the population has become less intuitive. With the advancement of the scientific age people have began to rely less on their sensations; it is just in recent years that science is investigating the importance of human intuition and sensation.

All I know is that for three years I have had a "feeling" that one day I would end up in my car in a wreck on that curve and last week that feeling became a reality.