I get paid to talk to dead people Marylin Whall has been a medium for as long as she can remember. Actress Patricia Arquette, right, star of TV's Medium. (AP Photo/Matt Sayles) Source: AP SPIRITUAL medium Marilyn Whall, 56, has visions and premonitions and people who have passed on to the next life communicate with her - sometimes in the strangest places. People often ask me how long I have been a medium, but I've just always had what I call 'a knowing'. Some mediums have had spirits visit with them, whereas I've just always had a feeling and trusted it or been guided by it. As I get older and look back I am reminded of how I have always had visions or known things. For instance, 21 years ago I lost a dog and my partner at the time told me the gate had been left open and the dog must have run away. A few days later I was driving home from work and I had a vision of the dog lying in a pool of blood under the gate. I told my partner about this vision and he admitted that someone had run over the dog and he hadn't wanted to tell me. When a person comes to me from the spirit world I'll feel a presence or I'll start to hear them. Then they'll start to give me some information, like a name or an age. When mediums are working, we can often look out into a room full of people and see a little star or spirit light above the person the spirit is connected to, or we'll feel drawn to the right or left side of the room. Sometimes the information comes when you're not working. In 2009 I was travelling in the UK and went into a hairdresser to get my hair done. As soon as I walked into the salon and was introduced to the stylist, I felt her mother was there in spirit. I though, 'Oh no, I'm not working today.' The whole time she was doing my hair I didn't say anything, although I could feel her mother's presence. As I was standing at the cash register I knew I just had to say something. I told the girl: 'Your mum is here and she has a message for you.' The message was related to an offer the girl had for a job overseas. She started to cry and told me she'd been standing at the train station that morning and had been debating whether or not to take the job and had asked her mum, who had recently passed away, for guidance. I often get asked about the difference between a medium and a psychic. Mediums are psychic but psychics aren't necessarily mediums. Psychics are intuitive and can get into someone's energy field and see things with a third eye. Mediums work with the emotional and heart centres. It's about getting out of the mindset of the physical and working with energy. It's about adjusting to a higher frequency. Psychics might see something with their vision, or a flash from the other world, but it doesn't actually mean they're connecting, whereas mediums can connect with the past world, they can give evidence such as names and street addresses. Mediums can be very sensitive, so I often feel a lot of emotion, but it's like a power pack - there are times when it feels like someone's turned the switch off. I think the TV show Medium is probably an accurate portrayal of what mediums do. I've certainly had premonitions in my dreams. We also have visitations and we can't always unravel them initially. We might try to interpret things, but it's a bit like finding a needle in a haystack. If there's something going on with one of my kids, for example, I'll often have a dream or a premonition and then the whole scenario will be played out a few months later. For instance, one night I woke up and heard my mum, who had passed away, saying, 'She will be okay.' At the time I didn't know what she meant, but a few days later my sister flew out to New Zealand shortly before the Christchurch earthquake struck. When I heard about the earthquakes, my first reaction was, 'Oh my God, my sister!' But it turned out she had flown in and out of Christchurch in a short space of time and hadn't ended up staying there at all. Find more soul news here