Have you ever heard of Synesthesia? I'm not saying it is the explanation for these events, but it certainly sounds like another possibility.
Synesthesia is a human (possibly animal as well?) phenomena where two or more senses are tied together. Usually involving sight as the 'mind created sensation accompanyment'. For example, a hearing/sight synesthete actually believes they can see music. When they hear sounds, the sensation input is also linked to their sight and their mind creates a visualization that complements that sound. The sensation connection can be so real and dependable that many synesthetes don't even know "regular" people do not experience the extra sensations untill even their late 20's (or even later), when they finally figure out they're actually seeing things others do not.
The most common form IIRC is almost a duplicate vision. Certain colours are associated with certain letters/symbols. As in the letter A would always be seen as red, and perhaps F is always seen as blue. With others this vision can come in the form of auras around people, that is, happy people are seen as.. say yellow while sad people are seen as brown. Sort of an extra condition on seeing a smile or a frown, obviously these are not the only things which physically indicate if a person is happy or sad.
I would like to suggest that perhaps you have a light form of this condition. Maybe your sight is somehow tied into your
feelings (as you call it). Perhaps by seeing the state of your house, or looking at your mom, you could tell she was trying to hide something from you... causing the dreaded 'gates of hell' feeling you described.
Then again, I have no way of telling if this is what is going on. However, at the least, it is some cool information for anyone who was unaware of the phenomena.
Here's an
MIT website on synesthesia if anyone's interested in more info. A google search turns up 80 000+ hits as well.
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