My Psychic Senses

It’s one thing to learn about psychic gifts, and it’s a whole other thing to learn how your psychic gifts show up for you. I’m one of those people who had childhood experiences that were out of the norm and learned to shut down that side of me from an early age, so reintegrating my gifts has been a process.

I was having a conversation this evening about seeing a ghost deer in my house as a child. There are a couple of real-life traumas that may have played a part in this, including being in a car accident with a deer at a young age that I don’t consciously remember, and experiencing a deer being gutted in the basement of my home on our ping pong table. Wherever this apparition came from, I was scared to go out into the hallway at night because of this deer.

Cracking Open My Psychic Senses

Fast forward to becoming an adult. I purchased my grandparents’ home after they passed away and felt the presence of my grandfather, who had passed more recently. He would set things out in his workshop that I needed, I would feel like I was hearing communications in the white noise of my hair dryer, and most notably, it was the first time I smelled phantom smells.

I occupied my grandpa’s bedroom, so first thing in the morning, when I woke up and opened the bedroom door, I was greeted with the strong smell of toast. People used to ask me if my grandpa made toast a lot, to which I always answered… I have no idea! I just knew it was him. I do know that when my grandma passed away years before, my grandpa was left to cook his meals, probably for the first time in his life, and he did struggle with that.

Stop And Smell the Roses

This ghost-smelling ability seemed to follow me after that time. On occasion, in the next house I lived in, I would smell a strong rose smell in the closet. Fun story about that house… shortly after I moved in, I was shaken awake in my bed with an old lady standing… perhaps more accurately hovering over my bed. I also struggled with the thermostat in that house, and one day, when it wasn’t working, I yelled at her that I needed the heat on, heard the furnace kick in, and watched the dial move back up before my eyes.

At another house, I hosted a group of girls for an evening of intuitive readings. After everyone left for the night and I crawled into bed, I smelled banana bread. Fun story about that house, I found a random book of matches I had never seen before for a bar in St Charles, Illinois, right when I found out I was going to be moving there.

One of my favorite stories not associated directly with a specific house is the chocolate cake smell. It was morning, and I was still lying in bed at my brother’s house. I was generally a later riser than the rest of the household, so I heard activity in the adjoining kitchen. I smelled chocolate cake so strongly that I questioned why they were making cake at 9 a.m. When I finally came out for the day, there was no chocolate cake to be found, and somehow, I knew the cake had been a sign from my grandma.

Chocolate cake seemed like a strange-smelling choice for my grandma, because when I think of her, it’s pineapple upside-down cake that comes to mind, and that is what I bake in honor of her birthday every year. Time passed, and I was at my mother’s house when the topic of pineapple upside-down cake came up. My mom had written down Grandma’s recipe in her Betty Crocker cookbook, so I flipped to the cake section. To my amusement, across from the handwritten pineapple upside-down cake recipe was a full-page picture of a rich chocolate cake with chocolate frosting,

Recognizing More Psychic Senses

I’ve always been able to see shadowy figures moving out of the corner of my eyes, although I never considered myself to be very visual when it came to meditations, breathwork, and even in my crystal dreaming experience. Although I do usually see swirling colors, I have flashes of scenes that come and go so quickly I can’t quite register what they are, and I do see faces when I close my eyes at night. I also have “visions” that I deem impressions, because vision seems too strong a word to describe how it feels to me. These are all things that are linked to clairvoyance.

But the thing is that even with all of those smells following me around for over twenty years, I didn’t even realize it was a thing called clairsalience. Only in the last five years have I learned more about all the psychic senses and realized how many I have. My strongest would likely be my claircognizance, or clear knowing. I just know things like who is showing up as a random smell. This may be why I learn so quickly. I think this has always been the case, but I’m realizing it more and more now that I’m aware of it.

Clairaudience Coming In Hot

During the early days of the pandemic, I began to recognize my clairaudience, but didn’t have the name for it yet. At one point during my solitary days of the pandemic, I noticed I was having full conversations in my head (and sometimes out loud on my part) and the answers weren’t coming from me because sometimes they said things I didn’t want to hear and sometimes they answered before I finished asking the question. During one such conversation in my head, I heard my name called from the other room.

This happened one other time recently in the house I currently live in. I woke up in the night and heard my name called. This is not the time, spirit! As I’ve become more aware of what clairaudience is and how it shows up, I have accepted it as an integral part of my daily life. I get literal instructions throughout my day that pop in, and I’ve found life is so much more magical when I follow the leads whispered to me.

Add To That All the Feelings

Since the pandemic, I have also realized I’m an empath, so I get physical feelings in my body related to other people’s emotions, but also contraction for negative things and expansive feelings for positive things. This is called clairsentience or clairempathy. I am very much still navigating these waters. I do energy protection every morning and wash away all energy and emotions that are not mine in the morning and evening. And when it comes to navigating the world as an open channel for emotions, I first name what I’m feeling and then consider if it is mine. Case in point, last week I left a dance competition feeling exhausted. It was the last day of the competition, and while I had only taken an hour-long car ride to attend and sat around for a couple of hours, I realized every single person at the convention center was probably exhausted. And almost as soon as I realized what I was feeling wasn’t mine, it dissipated.

Throw in a side of mediumship, and there is a lot I’m processing through my psychic senses and learning to navigate the world within that awareness. The bottom line is that all this information is available to anyone who wants to access it. These experiences have come without formal training, but with more understanding, I have been better able to leverage them in my life. I believe that awareness is the key that unlocks the experiences, but I’m still learning these gifts for myself. I have a feeling that the process will continue as my gifts continue to expand.