was raised as an atheist and later became agnostic, so I was never exposed to the holy significance of any times or numbers, except through Hollywood films. Last summer (May 2009 into June), I began to have a troubling series of 3:33 a.m. wake-ups, three or four a week, and found myself in a sick dread of going to sleep, knowing what was coming yet having absolutely no understanding of it.

Worse yet, I’d always seem to wake up exactly at the beginning of the minute - I’d stare at the clock in the evil stillness, waiting for it to click over to 3:34; it would take the longest time. During the afternoons, I began to dread the clock as well. Sure, it could be any old time when I glanced over at whatever random interval, but I’d also always glance over at…3:33.

I began to write the wake-up times down on a little pad after a while, to try to find a pattern. A few days into that, the 3:33 wake-ups stopped; the date was May 20. As I’d learn in early June, that was the date two friends, with a third person I’d met - an acquaintance - were swept to their deaths by an avalanche in China. Shortly after that, another two friends and people I’d worked with perished, both in the mountains. Then my aunt passed away. Six deaths in about as many weeks.

The wake-ups and even the daytime 3:33s have since disappeared, but the message, in retrospect, was dead clear. Something was pushing through from the other side. I can still remember that feeling - that some dark, ambivalent energy hovered between me and the clock, studying me with unknowable intent.

Freaked out? I still am. If you get these wake-ups, try to listen. I don’t think it’s just coincidence or the subconscious or sleep cycles.