“Sometimes a mirror reflects more than the face standing before it.”

For thousands of years, people have stared into mirrors searching for answers that lie beyond ordinary sight. Ancient Greeks practiced catoptromancy—the art of divination through mirrors—believing that under the right conditions, a mirror could reveal hidden truths, spiritual messages, or visions beyond the physical world. Similar forms of scrying have appeared throughout history using polished metal, crystal balls, still water, and obsidian mirrors.

Whether these experiences originate from the subconscious mind, altered states of consciousness, or something beyond our current understanding remains an open question. I never expected to have an experience that would forever change how I viewed mirrors.

The Mirror in the Basement

It happened while I was investigating the historic Palmer Hotel in Minnesota.

Deep beneath the hotel was a small room in the basement. The room was almost empty except for a large mirror hanging on the wall and a single candle providing the only light. Everything about the room felt still, as though time itself had slowed.

Drawn toward the mirror, I stood silently, allowing my eyes to rest upon my reflection.

Minutes passed.

The room faded from my awareness.

Then, without warning, my surroundings disappeared.

I was no longer standing in the basement.

Instead, I found myself somewhere entirely different.

I was a small boy.

I was alone.

I was sitting inside a cave.

The landscape outside looked primitive, belonging to what I could only describe as prehistoric times. There were no modern structures, no familiar sounds—only stone, earth, and silence.

But what overwhelmed me most was not what I saw.

It was what I felt.

An indescribable sense of abandonment consumed me. I knew, somehow, that I had been left there alone. I wasn’t simply imagining loneliness—I was experiencing it with an intensity that felt completely real.

Then, as suddenly as it began, I was standing once again in the basement of the Palmer Hotel, staring at my own reflection.

I had no explanation for what had just happened.

What I didn’t realize was that nearly a year earlier, another experience had described almost the exact same scene.

A Journey to New Mexico

About a year before my experience at the Palmer Hotel, I traveled to Mimbres, New Mexico, for a soul retrieval with well-known shaman Athena Wolf.

During the session, Athena described what she said she experienced while performing the retrieval.

She told me she had been taken to what she believed was one of my past lives.

According to Athena, I had been born as a young boy with a club foot during prehistoric times.

She described a tribe struggling to survive. Food had become scarce, forcing everyone to relocate in search of game. Because the boy could not walk with the tribe, a heartbreaking decision had to be made.

Athena then shared something that caught me completely off guard.

She said that the man who is my father in this lifetime had also been my father during that lifetime.

According to her account, he made the painful decision to leave me behind inside a cave because no one was willing—or able—to carry me as the tribe searched for food.

I listened carefully, but I had no reason to believe or disbelieve what she described. I simply accepted it as her experience during the soul retrieval.

At the time, I had no idea how significant her words would later become.

The Night Everything Changed

Later that evening, after returning from the soul retrieval, I went to sleep expecting nothing out of the ordinary.

Sometime during the night, I suddenly woke.

Immediately, I realized something was terribly wrong.

My right foot would not respond.

It had dropped completely.

It felt as though it had become paralyzed.

Fear swept over me.

I immediately woke my husband and asked him to look at my foot. He could clearly see that something wasn’t right. Seeing his reaction confirmed that I wasn’t imagining what was happening.

The emotional weight of the experience was overwhelming.

Only hours earlier, Athena had described a lifetime in which I had been born with a club foot.

Now my own foot had suddenly become unusable.

Neither of us knew what to do.

Eventually, I fell back asleep.

When I woke the following morning, everything had returned to normal.

My foot worked perfectly.

There was no pain.

No weakness.

No lingering symptoms.

To this day, I cannot explain what happened. There may be many possible explanations, including medical ones. I simply know what I experienced and how profoundly the timing affected me.

The Pieces Come Together

It wasn’t until I stood before that mirror in the basement of the Palmer Hotel nearly a year later that Athena’s words came rushing back.

Without consciously thinking about the soul retrieval, I had experienced what felt like the life of a small boy abandoned inside a cave.

The similarities were impossible for me to ignore.

Athena had independently described:

• A young boy.
• A club foot.
• Prehistoric times.
• A cave.
• A father forced to abandon his son.
• A tribe leaving in search of food.

Then, months later, while practicing what could be described as catoptromancy without any expectation of receiving a vision, I experienced what felt like that same child’s overwhelming loneliness and abandonment.

I cannot say with certainty what happened.

Perhaps the vision emerged from my subconscious mind.

Perhaps it was symbolic.

Perhaps it was influenced by memories of Athena’s session that I hadn’t consciously recalled.

Or perhaps it represented something that current science has yet to explain.

Each reader will arrive at their own conclusion.

Mirrors Between Worlds

Psychologists have documented that prolonged mirror-gazing under dim lighting can produce vivid perceptual experiences and emotionally charged imagery. Spiritual traditions, however, often view mirrors as tools capable of quieting the conscious mind, allowing deeper levels of awareness to emerge.

Whether those experiences arise from the subconscious, archetypal memory, or a spiritual source remains a subject of debate.

For me, the mirror at the Palmer Hotel became far more than an antique hanging on a basement wall.

It became the final piece of a puzzle that had begun nearly a year earlier in the mountains of New Mexico.

I cannot prove what I experienced.

I can only share my story.

Perhaps the greatest mystery surrounding catoptromancy is not whether mirrors reveal another world—but whether they reveal parts of ourselves that we have forgotten.

Sometimes, the most extraordinary discoveries begin with nothing more than a single candle…and a mirror.

Dawn Monforte