MUSE MONDAY
Please welcome Cyndie Zahner to Muse Monday with an inspiration that will give you chills.
Project
Dream is fiction
but was inspired by real life.
I have
had several paranormal experiences throughout my life. For years, I thought I
was crazy. Then I had a premonition of 9/11 two months before the Twin Towers
fell.
I kept
notes about the vision on a work calendar. My notes were vague at best. I didn’t
know what building was going to fall. I didn’t know what would cause it to
collapse. I wasn’t even sure it was in New York State, let alone New York
City. I only felt like the building
existed somewhere in northeastern America by a body of water, maybe a Great
Lake. I couldn’t decipher with any accuracy the true capacity of what was about
to happen.
For
years after, I questioned why I had such a premonition. It hadn’t helped
anyone.
Yet, I
began thinking. What if it had? What if someone with a keener sixth sense than
me—and I know there are many people with psychic abilities—had been able to
prevent a death?
Ten-year-old
Izzy Jimenez does just that in the opening of Project Dream. The scene
is based on another vision I had while saying prayers in a small chapel in my
hometown.
Many
years ago, a new friend asked if I would like to visit a side chapel of a
Catholic church. In Project Dream, that chapel is in San Diego, but in
real life, that little sanctuary is in Erie, Pennsylvania.
The
chapel struck me as lovely. I knelt beside my friend and immediately began
praying. I don’t recall who I prayed for, probably one or all three of my kids.
Regardless, there I was—I like to say I was minding my own business
praying—when I had this swooshing feeling like an angel came down out of the
ceiling. I’ve had these experiences before and often ignored them, blaming everything
on my wild imagination. This time, however, the woman, white spirit, ghost,
whatever you would like to call her, was relentless. She wouldn’t leave.
She
said, quite clearly, “My daughter doesn’t believe in this sort of thing.” She
chuckled, told me she wanted her daughter to know she loved her, and just
before she left, she opened her arms and showed me roses.
The
dream seemed so real that I was quite shook up. When we were leaving, my friend
asked what was wrong.
I said,
“You are going to think I’m crazy, but I think the mother of one of those women
in that chapel appeared to me.”
Of
course, she looked at me like I was nuts. But still shook, I described the
things I heard the woman express, and my friend became quiet.
“What
was the woman’s name?” she asked.
I told
her I’d seen lots of spirits but I never seemed to get their names right. They
usually only gave me feelings or showed me signs. Then I remembered, and said,
“oh wait, the woman’s name might have been Rose.”
My
friend was quiet for a long time. I was sure she thought I’d lost my mind. The
silence was piercing. Finally, she spoke. “My mother’s name was Rose.”
And
from that true-life experience, I conjured up the entire first chapter of Project
Dream.
Blurb:
What happened to the kids in
Area-51?
In 2002, the CIA removed teens
from detention centers and placed them in a National Security Test Program
called Project Dream. Children selected had two characteristics: physical
superiority and a sixth sense.
When the awkward, destitute Izzy
Jimenez is caught stealing clothes, authorities enroll her for two reasons:
Izzy swims like a fish—and she sees angels.
Terrified and alone for the first
time in her life, Izzy finds herself in a military school set deep in the belly
of a desolate Nevada desert within Area 51. There, she attends classes and
learns to perfect her clairvoyance, hoping authorities will allow her to go
home. But when she and other students master remote viewing and produce results
that stun White House officials, additional children are recruited, and Izzy’s
hope of going home dwindles.
Not until the beautiful and
popular Rachel Callahan arrives and befriends Izzy does her life become
bearable.
Project Dream is a coming-of-age
story of teenagers thrown into the most unusual circumstances. Each struggle to
survive their time in the desert with the goal of getting out and going home,
but—
Can any of them really go home?
Links:
Interview Link:
Social Media links:
Buy Links:
Bio:
CJ Zahner writes fictional thriller novels.
Two of her books, Dream Wide Awake and Project Dream, include
paranormal elements inspired by her real-life premonitions.
In 2001, two months before the Twin Towers
fell, Zahner began having vague weekly visions of first, approaching a city
from a plane’s view and, second, being inside a collapsing building. The
visions continued until the September 11th fatal disaster. Throughout her life,
Zahner had other premonitions, but not until this premonition did she consider
her visions had merit.
Although her 9/11 premonition was
indistinct and helped no one, it did inspire her to ask: could someone with a
sixth sense develop the ability to prophesize future events and protect people?
With that, her Dream Series was born. Now she uses past real-life premonitions
she’s experienced as the basis for scenes in her novels.
Excerpt:
When the woman
neared, Izzy turned. “Hello.”
“Hello.” The
woman nodded and walked by.
Izzy closed her
eyes and scratched her forehead. If only she had been born with a flowing
tongue like Belo said of Enrique.
“Ma’am.” She
couldn’t open her eyes when she heard the lady turn. “Did your mother die?”
Oh, that sounded
horrible. Why had she asked such a thing? She wasn’t even sure the white spirit
was her mother.
“Of lung
cancer?” Izzy opened her eyes. “She smoked, right?”
The lady stared
but didn’t say a word.
“She says you
shouldn’t go to New York City.”
The lady’s face
wrinkled. “What?” She sounded cross.
“I’m sorry.
It’s—well.” Izzy scratched her nose. She might be breaking into hives. “I saw
this lady by you and she kept slashing the letters NYC like you shouldn’t go
there and she wouldn’t stop, so I thought I better tell you. She kept doing it
over and over and, well, I know she doesn’t want you to go to New York City.”
The woman took a
step toward Izzy. The wrinkles melted from her face. “I do have a trip
scheduled to New York. Next week. For a conference.”
Goosebumps
crawled over Izzy’s skin. Whenever people, real human beings, confirmed what
the white people told her, chills spread through her.
The lady stood
still, waiting for Izzy to say more.
Izzy scratched
and the lady stared.
“What was her
name?”
“What?”
“My mother. What
was my mother’s name?”
The woman
appeared hopeful. She held her breath, waiting. But Izzy didn’t know the
woman’s name. She had difficulty hearing the white people. Usually, they simply
gave signs.
Yes, signs.
“Oh.” Izzy held
a finger up. She remembered the sign. “Rose? Is your mother’s name Rose?”
The chapel door
opened behind Izzy, and she heard her mother’s voice. “Izzy, what are you
doing?”
“Nothing, Mama.”
Izzy sidled down the hall toward her mother.
“I hope she
wasn’t bothering you.”
The woman said
nothing. She stared at the two of them, a perplexed expression tainting her
face. After a time, she left the building without saying more.
“Izzy,” Mama
barked. “What were you talking to that woman about?”
“I only said
hello to her, Mama.”
Her mother gazed
at her skeptically. “Remember what Belo said. Don’t talk to anyone.”
“I didn’t, Mama.
I promise.”
“Go collect your
things. Your brother called. It’s time to pick him up.”
Izzy hurried
back into the chapel and grabbed her coat, missal, and satchel. She smiled and
waved goodbye to Jean as she exited.
Eight days
later, the World Trade Centers collapsed. Izzy prayed the woman from the chapel
had not been inside. She watched for her in church on Sunday and at the chapel
during the week when she and Mama went to pray for the people who had died, but
Izzy didn’t see the woman.
Three weeks
after September 11th, Izzy and her mother visited the chapel on a
Sunday evening once again. The lady was sitting in the pew next to the woman
named Jean. When Izzy walked in, she heard the lady say, “That’s her. That’s
the girl.”
“That’s Isabelle
Jimenez,” Jean said.
The woman stood
and rushed toward Izzy. Jean followed.
“Mrs. Jimenez?”
The lady glanced at Izzy’s mother.
“Yes?”
“Mrs. Jimenez,
your daughter saved my life.”
Izzy’s mother
made her spend the next two Saturday afternoons praying in church. But it was
too late. Saving that woman’s life would prove Belo right.
They would come
for her.
One Taste Too Many – Barnes and Noble – https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/one-taste-too-many-debra-h-goldstein/1128297322
