Years ago I was with my family on a farm two hours from our home. I got word that the wife of a very good friend had died and her service was to take place that afternoon so I had to pack up the family and try to get back home for another hour's drive to my hometown where the service would take place. With two young children in tow, there was no way I could get to the funeral in time, but I still made the trip, driving country roads to shorten the trip to my hometown. When I got to my friend's home in the late evening I was embarrassed to find no one there but the immediate family members holding each other in a group hug while the tears flowed profusely. I wanted to disappear at having witnessed their intimate grief. I didn't know anyone else in the family so my intrusion may have been resented to some degree, but my friend was gracious in spite of all. I didn't stay once I communicated my sorrow. By the time I got back on the road it was dark and I was nearing my city while still on a very dark stretch of road with fields open on either side. To my right was an old train track with occasional culverts under roadway accesses to the land there. > I'd been stressed on the drive back, quietly wishing I'd waited a day to visit my friend when I suddenly heard my own voice warn me saying insistently, "Now watch this car!" It was as though there were another me, watching over the scene ahead of me, on my right side, very near my ear. I said aloud, "Okay," without a qualm. I don't know the distance, but I saw lights at a very good distance coming my way. I was very calm, not even considering the odd circumstance because I really had focused on the car lights to try to avoid what was going to happen. When the lights were thirty or so yards from me, I saw the lights drifting into my lane and I immediately began to steer my car toward the ditch beside the train track, instantly knowing that my 60 miles per hour dictated I get in and get out again so that I didn't run headlong into a culvert as well. I'm sure the other driver's speed matched mine at least. When I was as far into the deep ditch as I could go, I quickly looked to my left and saw the moonlit glint of the truck door handle passing by me just inches from my window. The pickup truck was partly in the ditch with me. Within seconds he had passed and I firmly got my car back onto the road safely. I looked behind me to see the other driver had recovered as well. I can't say with any assurance that I didn't have help steering myself to safety because the unnatural calm I felt was surreal. I did everything just right to get through the experience alive and intact, something I suspect I couldn't have done without aid. That the would-be accident happened on a fortuitous part of the country road seemed as surreal as the calm I felt about the whole matter until the next morning when I woke up. I don't think my third man, angel, higher self, I'll never know, left me until I was asleep because the calm prevailed for the rest of the night. I suppose I'd felt enough stress prior to the trip home? In any case, I've had several Third Man experiences at stressful periods in my life and each has had a calming effect when my stress and worry had become too much to bear. Very small men, elaborately dressed in almost comic fashion have complimented me about my hair in each experience, as though to interrupt the distress ripping through my brain. The instances have interrupted my head talk as delightful distractions, something I'm thankful for every day, even if they were only hallucinations. I have no idea. Thank you for the opportunity to tell my story! Sincerely, Carol Sent from my iPad