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Well, the numerous coincidences that I was expiriencing a while back just aren't happening anymore, although something a bit coincidental happened this week.
I've heard that animals sometimes act strangely before an earthquake happens, and I'm wondering if something like that happened to me, except I was the one acting strangely, rather than some other animal (I don't have any pets, so I wouldn't have noticed if animals were acting strangely).
It wasn't a large earthquake. It was only a 3.14 on the richter scale, which is tiny and insignificant, but when it happened, I was very, very, very close to the epicenter, and I felt it quite strongly. It was of very short duration. The Santa Cruz Sentinal reported that sheriff's Lt. Steve Hartness said that "it felt like a truck had hit his house," which I think is a pretty accurate description. I knew it was an earthquake, but my boyfriend insisted on going outside and walking around the house to see if a truck had hit the house, because he didn't believe that it really was an earthquake.
(Actually, what I don't understand, now that I've looked at the date of the newspaper article, is that it says the quake happened yesterday. It was on thursday, at about 6:05 am, not Friday.)
Anyway, so back to my strange behavior. Although I was acting oddly in numerous ways for a few days before the quake, most of that is probably unrelated, since I tend to act strangely in general. What occured to me, though, is that on Monday, 3 days before the quake, I imagined a quake hitting the area. In my imagination, a quake was going to hit, maybe 3 or so days later, which coincides with the actual timing of the quake. I'm not makeing the timing thing up. I seriously imagined what I'd be doing during those interveneing 3 days before the quake hit. While I didn't imagine it as exactly 3 days, I'd say I imagined it as 2-4 days.
Of course, a lot of aspects of my imagined quake didn't happen. I imagined a large, devastating quake, and obviously that didn't happen (which I'm very, very glad about). OTOH, quakes feel a lot stronger at the epicenter than they do when you're miles away. Being at the epicenter for a 3.1 feels a lot like being quite a ways away from the epicenter during a 5.5. I've felt numerous earthquakes during my life, having lived in California continuously since my birth, so when I talk about differences between quakes, I'm not just making it up (although obviously I'm not a scientist and I can only talk about my own expiriences with quakes, rather than scientific info about them). I remember the 7.1 quake of 1989 quite well (that was the largest quake I ever felt), and other small or moderate quakes. Being at the epicenter is a new expirience for me. I'm usually 20+ miles away. (distance isn't the only thing that determines how strongly a quake will be felt. there are other factors).
I don't usually think much about earthquakes. I'm not afraid of them. I realize that a really huge earthquake could hit California and kill people, destroy property, and seriously fuck everything up, but I don't think much about it. I survived the 7.1, and I expect to survive the next big quake. Sitting around imagining an earthquake scenario is very unusual for me. Actually, I can't recall any other time that I've done this. Sure, I talk about them, but it's just regular stuff like saying, "we should anchor that bookcase before the next quake hits. Since we don't know when that is, we should anchor that bookcase ASAP."
Of course, what this made me wonder was, if what I imagined on Monday was somewhat predictive, why did I predict a 3.14 earthquake, when I didn't predict the 7.1, or any of the other earthquakes I've felt that have been larger than a 3.14. The only explanation I can think of was that being at the epicenter might have had something to do with it.
I know this probably doesn't even seem coincidental to the rest of you, but it does to me, both because of the fact that I practically never think much about earthquakes, and because I was acting strangely otherwise. While I realize that it's possible that I'm viewing my behavior during the days before the quake in a biased way that would confirm that I was acting unusually, I did comment to someone on Wednesday, "I'm not usually like this. I don't know what's gotten into me." I wasn't just trying to excuse my behavior. I just really didn't know why I was acting the way I was. |
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