I'll just come out and say it: I believe babies have a sixth sense, one which allows them to see dead people.
It's a belief I've held since 2003, when I'd sit and watch my baby nephew communicating with someone in the same room who I couldn't see. He'd either look over my shoulder or up at the ceiling and stare intensely before pulling a wide toothless baby smile and then start to giggle. It was very strange.
My sister and I tried many times to come up with a plausible explanation for her son's apparent ability to communicate with nothing but fresh air. At first we thought he was filling his nappy and giving a celebratory smile, but that proved a bum steer. We even considered if he might be cross-eyed, but his eyesight was perfect. After going through every possible explanation we came to the conclusion that it was his 'Sixth Sense' and just like the boy in the M. Night Shyamalan movie 'The Sixth Sense' he could "see dead people".
My grandmother had passed away a few months after my nephew was born and we liked the idea that it was her who was making him giggle. When he'd start giggling at the invisible entity we'd say to him: "Are you smiling at Nana again?"
My nephew's sixth sense lasted until he was about one year old. It stopped about the time he started walking. And then one day, when he was about two, my sister and I showed him a photograph taken when he was three months old sitting with his Nana. "Do you remember this lady?" my sister asked him. "Yes," he replied. "That's the lady that talks to me in the sky." I kid you not, that's what he said!
Three year's ago my sister had a second child, this time a daughter, and she too seemed to communicate with something invisible in the room. We wondered if my Nana had returned, only this time with my father who had passed away when she was just five weeks old. And now Joe-Joe's sixth sense seems to be active as I've been watching him from a distance this morning smiling and laughing at invisible people in our living room. I wonder... It's nice to think that my dead family members are keeping him amused when I'm preparing his bottles of milk.
I'd be interested to hear if you believe your baby has a sixth sense. Leave a comment.
Latest dirty nappy score: Daddy 47, Mummy 40, The Dragon 4, The midwife 1
Im working as a live in nanny for a family of 4. The daughter is 4yrs old, and has recently developed an imaginary friend whom she has full conversations with. The youngest is a 2month old boy, who will stare into 'space' and smile, talk, and laugh harder than the adults can get him to. Last night I was holding him on the counter, and he was staring at the wall cabinets about 3 feet away. For about 10 minutes he was smiling and laughing. Two people have passed in the house, the kids grandparents. The grandfather passed away when the 2 month old was in womb. We wonder if its the grandparents showing the children that they are looking after them, and giving them the love and laughter a living grandparent would.
ReplyDeleteThanks for sharing this story.
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