Man’s Dream About Having Heart Attack Leads to Real-Life Diagnosis and Life-Saving Surgery
A man who dreamed he died of a heart attack took it as a sign and was soon diagnosed with a dangerous heart condition.
Jeremy Schwartz had a “vivid” dream in which he suddenly died of a heart attack while climbing Ama Dablam, a 22,000-foot mountain he was due to climb during the then-upcoming month of October, in 2025.
Earlier that year, he rode a bicycle across the whole 1,000 mile length of Italy, and completed a solo, 120‑mile circumnavigation of a mountain range in Albania. In short, he was the last 63-year-old you would imagine suffering a heart attack.
Nevertheless, after waking from his dream, Schwartz immediately searched online for a consultant cardiologist and went for an appointment two days later.
“I’ve never had anything like a premonition before. But this dream was so strong and so clear that it left me with an overwhelming sense of importance and urgency,” Schwartz said. “It was so vivid, clear and memorable.”
Schwartz underwent a heart scan, blood tests, an MRI, a CT scan, and an echocardiogram, before being told he had an aortic aneurysm, a dangerous, weakening and bulging of the aorta that can rupture, just a few days before his flight to the mountain in Nepal.
He was transferred from the consultant to Cesare Quarto, a cardiac surgeon at the Cleveland Clinic’s London location, and successfully underwent the David procedure: an open-heart surgery that replaces a diseased aortic root.
Schwartz said his diagnosis came as a “complete shock.”
“It is not the first time I have heard a similar story,” said Dr. Quarto. “I strongly believe some patients have an internal alarm bell that starts ringing. Some are able to hear it, and some aren’t.”
“If something feels wrong, it’s not clever or manly to pretend it isn’t. Don’t wait, don’t rationalize, don’t tough it out. Get it checked out. It’s how you get to keep living the life you love.”