'I saw my dead grandparents:' Psychic medium reveals the reality of living with clairvoyance

EXCLUSIVE -- Julia Cartagena has spent her life seeing faces no one else can.

While it sounds like a scene from a horror film, for this psychic medium, sharing her life with spirits is something she claims to be a reality.

Speaking to nine.com.au, Cartagena said despite the understandable doubt from others, she always knew there was something different about her.

"It actually started when I was a child," she explained.

"I was getting premonitions ... I'd have dreams. I had a one specific dream about my grandfather being cut on a barbed wire fence, and the next day it actually did happen.

"They're not always bad like that, but the premonitions are often about things that will happen."

It was the sight of her late grandparents walking past her that finally drove her to see a medium.

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"It really took off after that, as I started to see a psychic myself because I didn't know what was going on.

"I was seeing them walk past me, I was hearing them and I was having dreams about them too."

Mid-interview, my computer started suffering from technical glitches I'd never seen before – a "classic" sign of spirit interference, according to believers.

Undeterred, Cartagena pushed through and admitted that while she always knew she was "different," being a professional psychic was never actually the plan.

The devout Catholic and proud Italian-Australian said she was once an internationally-recognised baker to the stars.

"I baked cakes for everyone, from Richard Branson to Kelly Clarkson," she recalled.

However, she says everything changed when she turned 40.

Overworked and overwhelmed, the Perth local was at the cusp of the biggest moment in her career when everything came crashing down.

Her breakdown, and the visions of her late grandparents, led her to a shaman in New Zealand.

"I was on the verge of a breakdown, Work was too intense, everything was full on. It led me to a spiritual healer, I needed to see someone," she explained.

"[The shaman] asked me five questions about himself, personal questions about himself ... he had the answers already written down on a sheet of paper.

"Then he said to me, 'Julie, you got all five questions correct' and he said, 'You do realise that you've got the ability to be a psychic medium?'

"I just laughed at him. I literally laughed and I said, 'There's no way.'"

Turns out, there was a way.

Cartagena began honing her skills and decided to become a professional psychic medium to help others in their healing journey.

Now, she tours the country with two other clairvoyants as part of their show, Two Psychics and a Medium.

Since she learned how to control her abilities, she claims she no longer sees people who have died when she's just walking around, but she confessed it was hard to be in public places at first.

"When it first started, I actually couldn't turn this off," she explained.

"I was so sensitive to energy, obviously, at the time I didn't know what that meant or why.

"I'm a bit of an empath, so I feel everything that's going on around me and the energy of other people.

"It was really difficult for me to be able to go and stand in a shopping centre, in a line or go to a concert.

"All of those things really affected me on a deeper level because I was actually picking up on other people's energy around me."

She added that everything she does comes from a place of light and hope, and she'd never tell someone if she got a brutal or tragic premonition about themselves.

As our chat continued, she offered to give me a reading.

I thought there was no better way to do some investigative journalism then to experience it for myself!

Of course, I was a bit sceptical, but the things she told me about my relatives, boyfriend and even my parents blew me away.

I truly don't know how she knew some of the details she told me about my life... they were so personal to the point I don't feel comfortable sharing them.

At the end of the day, no amount of logic can explain it away—you simply have to see it for yourself to decide.

Two Psychics and a Medium is touring Australia from May 14.

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