1. I was given the last rites as a 9 month old infant when I contracted whooping cough. A few days prior to becoming infected by it, my aunt had taken me outside at my grandmother's house and let me crawl on the ground. I was a rather fast crawler for an infant, and I crawled into the woods that abutted her property. When my aunt caught up with me, I was in a patch of poison ivy. Over the next few days, as the whooping cough took its toll on my body, I was covered over 80% of my body with poison ivy rash. The whooping cough had raised my temperature to 104 degrees and the itching of the rash wouldn't let me sleep. My mother told me that the doctors said it was a miracle that I survived it. To this day, I can rub poison ivy all over me and nothing happens.
2. My blood type is O-, CMV-, which is in less than 2% of the population. Because of this, when I donate blood, it is given to premature babies, infants or burn victims. I have donated over 15 gallons in my lifetime.
3. Three times in the last 10 years, I have willed a dream I was experiencing to go in a direction of my choosing. All three times, I realized during the dream, that it wasn't real and that I was in fact, having a dream. The first two times, I was in a cemetery that I used to cross to get to my friend's house. The third time, I was in front of a building where I played little league. I focused on making my body fly above the landscape that was in my mind's eye at the moment. The first time, it only lasted for a few seconds, as if my brain realized that I wasn't suppose to be able to do this, and I fought to keep from waking up. By the third time, it felt like I was controlling the dream for at least 45 seconds. That last time was over 5 years ago, and I haven't had it happen since.
4. I have a partial photographic memory. This was very helpful in high school. All my friends and the other kids in school would study for lengthy periods of time for an exam, and I would glance over my notes twenty minutes before the test and I'd ace it. As I've gotten older, this ability has diminished. But I still can see pages of my old notebooks or images from books I read over 35 years ago from time to time.
5. When I was a child, I sang in the church choir. I had a clear soprano voice and the priest in my parish had me sing solos from time to time. One day when I was 10 years old, two kids who had just transferred to my class started laughing during one of these solos, and I froze on the spot. I became so shaken by this, that I couldn't sing in front of people anymore. The priest made the two kid's lives a living hell for the next few years because of what they did. Only one time in the last forty years have I been able to sing in front of people, and that only happened because I was extremely coked out at a party back in the late 80's. There was a guy sitting alone and playing guitar on the deck of my friend's house and I sat beside him while he played. He started to sing a Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young song and I joined in. He kept playing songs and slowly, he stopped singing and left me singing solo. He played about six or seven songs and suddenly I caught his eye looking at something behind me, and when I turned around, there were over twenty people listening to me. The old fear came back and I froze again, and haven't sang since.