Inside Madrid’s Reina Sofía Museum: What I Experienced as a Medium
“He can see us.”
The words entered my awareness as clearly as if someone standing beside me had spoken them.
At that moment, I was in a long hallway inside Madrid’s Reina Sofía Museum. Our tour guide was speaking, visitors gathered around us, and sunlight filtered through tall windows covered by heavy iron bars.
But I was no longer focused on the tour.
Several spirits were watching me from behind those windows.
They knew I could see them.
When Spirits Recognize That You Can See Them
People often ask how they can learn to see spirits.
What many do not realize is that when you can perceive spirits, they may also recognize that you can perceive them.
Most of my experiences with Spirit are peaceful. Mediumship has brought comfort, healing, understanding, and reassurance to many people. It has also shown me again and again that consciousness continues after the body dies.
However, spiritual sensitivity comes with responsibility.
There are places where the emotional energy is so concentrated that walking into them can feel overwhelming. Hospitals, prisons, battlefields, and locations where many people suffered may hold layers of grief, fear, confusion, and unresolved pain.
The Reina Sofía Museum was one of those places for me.
Entering the Reina Sofía Museum
My wife, Terri, and I were visiting Spain when we joined a tour of the Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía in Madrid.
The museum is known for its remarkable collection of modern and contemporary art, including works by Salvador Dalí, Joan Miró, and Pablo Picasso. We were especially interested in seeing Picasso’s Guernica.
Before entering, I knew very little about the building’s history.
Almost immediately after passing through security, I sensed that something felt different.
It was not simply that the building was old. The energy felt heavy and layered, as though many lives and emotions had become connected to the space.
Our guide led us into a long hallway with white walls and tall windows. Heavy iron bars covered the windows, giving the hallway an institutional and almost prisonlike appearance.
As I listened to the guide, I saw three women dressed as nuns walking toward us.
They appeared together and moved with purpose. Their presence did not frighten me, but I immediately wondered why they were there and how they were connected to the building.
My attention was then pulled back toward the barred windows.
This time, I saw several men looking down at us from behind the glass.
They were not vague shadows or impressions. I could see them clearly in my mind, much like a scene suddenly playing out in front of me.
Then I heard the words:
“He can see us.”
The Energy Became Overwhelming
Shortly after hearing those words, I began to feel lightheaded.
It was not fear. I did not believe the spirits were deliberately trying to harm me.
It felt more like their attention had suddenly turned toward me all at once. There were too many impressions, too many emotions, and too much energy arriving all at once.
Imagine walking into a crowded room where everyone begins speaking to you at once. Now imagine that many of those people are confused, distressed, or desperate for acknowledgment.
That was how the experience felt.
I tried to remain present and listen to our guide, but concentrating became difficult. I grounded myself and reinforced the spiritual boundaries I normally use, yet the intensity remained.
That was when our guide began explaining the building’s history.
From Hospital to Museum
The Reina Sofía occupies the former Hospital de San Carlos, also known historically as the Hospital General.
The effort to bring Madrid’s hospitals and charitable care facilities together at this location dates to the reign of Philip II in the sixteenth century. The present Sabatini Building was largely conceived and constructed during the eighteenth century under Charles III. Although only part of the original architectural plan was completed, the building began operating as a hospital in 1788.
The hospital continued operating into the 1960s. After it closed, the building was nearly demolished before being protected as a historic monument. Restoration began in 1980, and it was eventually transformed into the museum known today.
As I learned this history, what I had been seeing began to make more sense.
For generations, people had entered that building while sick, frightened, grieving, impoverished, or alone. Some recovered and returned home. Others died there. Countless families received life-changing news within those walls.
Not every spirit remains attached to the place where the body died. Most souls transition naturally.
However, in my experience as a rescue medium, confusion, fear, attachment, trauma, or an inability to accept death can sometimes cause a spirit to remain close to the Earthen Plane.
I began to wonder how many of the people I was perceiving still felt connected to the former hospital.
Standing Before Picasso’s Guernica
The purpose of our tour was to see Picasso’s Guernica.
Picasso created the painting in response to the bombing of the Basque town of Guernica during the Spanish Civil War. The work has become a universal symbol of the suffering and destruction caused by war. It has served as a central part of the Reina Sofía’s collection since the museum presented its permanent collection in 1992.
By the time we reached the painting, I was physically drained and beginning to feel nauseated.
I remember thinking that I would have left the building had I not been with a tour group.
As I stood before Guernica, I received another impression.
To be clear, this was not an art historical interpretation of Picasso’s work. It was the personal spiritual impression I received in that moment.
I was shown a connection between the suffering depicted in the painting and the emotional pain that had once filled the former hospital.
The anguished figure on the right drew my attention toward people who had lived with mental illness and emotional torment. The mother holding her lifeless child brought my awareness to children who may have died within the hospital. The central figures seemed to reflect the fear, confusion, and helplessness once experienced throughout the building.
I am not suggesting that Picasso intended those figures to represent the former hospital.
Instead, I believe Spirit was using the imagery before me to communicate something I could understand.
The painting expressed suffering in a visual language. The spirits were showing me that they recognized their own pain within it.
Was I Being Spiritually Attacked?
At the time, I described the experience as an energetic attack.
Looking back, I would describe it differently.
I do not believe the spirits were attempting to hurt me. I believe I became overwhelmed by the concentration of energy, emotion, and spiritual activity in the building.
That distinction matters.
When we describe every uncomfortable spiritual experience as an attack, we can create unnecessary fear. Not every heavy feeling is evil. Not every confused spirit is dangerous. Not every difficult location contains something malicious.
Sometimes we are simply encountering pain that has not yet been released.
That does not mean we should ignore our own well-being. Compassion does not require us to remain in an environment that is affecting us physically or emotionally.
Discernment means recognizing what we are experiencing and knowing when to establish a stronger boundary, ask for help, or leave.
What the Experience Taught Me
The uneasiness began to lift almost immediately after I exited the museum, although it took several hours and a long nap before I felt completely like myself again.
The experience reminded me of several important truths about mediumship.
First, psychic and mediumistic abilities should never be treated as entertainment. Communicating with Spirit involves real emotions, real histories, and real responsibility.
Second, spiritual protection is not about creating fear or believing that danger is everywhere. It is about establishing clear boundaries so that we can remain grounded and decide when we are available to receive information.
Third, having the ability to perceive a spirit does not mean we are required to engage with every spirit we encounter.
That lesson is especially important for people beginning to develop their abilities. Curiosity can cause someone to open themselves too widely before learning how to close the connection again.
Developing psychic abilities should begin with grounding, discernment, boundaries, and an understanding of how your own energy feels.
Finally, the experience reminded me that spirits who remain near the Earthen Plane are not simply characters in a ghost story.
They were once people.
They had families, fears, hopes, regrets, and lives that mattered. Even when their energy feels difficult, they deserve to be approached with compassion rather than treated as something frightening.
Mediumship Requires Both Compassion and Boundaries
Most of my experiences with Spirit are comforting and peaceful.
They remind us that love survives death and that our loved ones continue beyond the physical body.
But mediumship also brings us into contact with souls who may be confused, frightened, or unable to move forward. Those encounters require patience, discernment, and respect.
The Reina Sofía Museum showed me how quickly spiritual energy can become overwhelming when many impressions arrive at once.
It also reminded me that boundaries are not a rejection of Spirit.
They allow us to serve responsibly.
The goal is not to fear the spirit world. It is to understand it well enough to remain grounded within our own energy while responding with compassion to what we encounter.
Have you ever entered a building or historical location and immediately felt that something was different?
Share your experience in the comments.
To learn how to establish boundaries before developing your psychic abilities, read Before You Open Your Psychic Gifts, Learn How to Protect Your Energy.
You can also learn more about rescue mediumship and why some spirits may have difficulty transitioning.
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