When I was a young man, I often hiked and backpacked alone in the Black Hills. One summer day, I set up my tent in a meadow below a place called Cathedral Spires, and then hiked up steep gullies exploring the Spires. It's a very beautiful, awe-inspiring area, and one that is located next to the center of creation, according to local Indian beliefs.

Late in the afternoon, I became tired and found a nice grassy shelf to rest. I fell asleep, and dreamed I became disconnected from my body. I was looking down on myself from above, as though I was atop one of the granite spires that towered 100 feet above the grassy ledge on which I lay. I awoke with a strong feeling of dread. The sun had begun to set, and the gully was completely silent. No sounds of wind in the pines or birds calling, just dead, oppressive silence.

A strong sense of fear overcame me, and my inner voice told me I needed to leave that place immediately. I hurried back down the gully to my campsite, about a quarter of a mile from the base of the Spires. As soon as I left the gully, the overpowering feelings of dread and fear vanished, and I felt foolish and superstitious. The next morning, however, the vivid memories of that incident, made me realize that some power, spiritual or otherwise, had warned me to leave that place.

I've returned to the site alone and with others a few times over the years, and I've never had a repeat experience like the one I described, yet 40 years later, the memory is still vivid enough to cause my skin to break into goosebumps.