Precognitive Dreams

Why does the eye see a thing more clearly in dreams
than the imagination when awake?

~Leonardo da Vinci

Are precognitive dreams real or just coincidence? To find out, we're going to take a look at some compelling premonitions from history; hear what mainstream science has to say about telling the future; and try some lucid dream experiments which may enable you to have psychic insights.

History is filled with psychic dreams. Perhaps the most famous of all was Nostradamus, whose prophetic insights have been linked to the Great Fire of London, the rise of Hitler, and the 9/11 terrorist attacks.

But precognitive dreams are not just reserved for the mystics of this world. When the Titanic sunk in 1912, hundreds of people came forward with reports of premonitions. Amazingly, it was possible to validate at least 19 of them, including one date-stamped letter.

Famous Psychic Dreams

Precognitive dreams have a long track record that stretches right back to biblical times. Take a look at these two famous reports from the 1800s, which offered with very specific insights about imminent deaths.

Abraham Lincoln

In 1865, two weeks before he was shot dead, Abraham Lincoln had a psychic dream about a funeral at the White House. In the dream, he asked someone who was in the casket and they replied, "the president of the United States". He told his wife about the dream but neither of them took it to heart - for on the night of his assassination he gave his only bodyguard the night off.

Mark Twain

The American writer, Mark Twain, and his brother Henry once worked on riverboats on the Mississippi. One night Mark had a dream about his brother's corpse lying in a metal coffin in his sister's living room. It rested on two chairs, with a bouquet and a single crimson flower in the center. He told his sister about his convincing dream.

Just weeks later, his brother was killed in a massive explosion on a riverboat. Many others died and were buried in wooden coffins. But one onlooker felt such pity for young Henry that she raised the money for an expensive metal coffin. At the funeral, Mark was shocked to see the coffin exactly as it was in his dream. And as he stood over Henry's casket, a woman laid down a bouquet with a single red rose in the middle.

Can our dreams tell the future? Judging by these two stories, the evidence is compelling. So what does modern science have to say on the matter?

The famous psychoanalyst Sigmund Freud rejected the notion of precognitive dreams. He insisted that the meaning of dreams were wish fulfillment - and the idea of psychic dreams was "nonsensical". However, his protege Carl Jung believed psychic energy was somehow involved.

Michael Shermer, who wrote the book Why People Believe Weird Things, believes that dreams are of little value when it comes to telling the future. He says that dreams are merely products of a "fertile and easily overwhelmed imagination" - there's nothing psychic in it.

A Numbers Game

Psychic Dreams: A Numbers Game? According to Robert Todd Carroll, author of The Skeptic's Dictionary, the likelihood of having dreams that predict the future is all a numbers game.

Carroll explains: "Say the odds are a million to one that when a person has a dream of an airplane crash, there is an airplane crash the next day. With 6 billion people having an average of 250 dream themes each per night, there should be about 1.5 million people a day who have dreams that seem clairvoyant."

This is a widely accepted argument in mainstream science. It probably accounts for a vast number of seemingly precognitive dreams. The truth is, people can be easily led and can make their dreams "fit" with world events in order to believe that something exceptional is possible.

However, it doesn't quite explain the fateful premonitions of Lincoln or Twain, whose psychic dreams predicted their own lives with uncanny accuracy.

Using Your Subconscious Intuition

I believe that intuition plays a key role in so-called premonitions. Intuition is the gut feeling you get when you know an outcome but can't explain why.

Intuition is likely to be based on a lot of unconscious information - tidbits of knowledge that you picked up over the years and filed away into your subconscious. Although you no longer have a conscious memory of gaining this information, you can still retrieve the advice on a subconscious level.

Lucid dreams may be a good way of accessing your intuition. When you dream, you play in the realm of the subconscious. There are vital clues and messages that you can pick up as you navigate your dreamworld. And in a lucid dream, you can make those messages come right to you.

The progress of science is about pushing boundaries and daring to conceive what others won't. So with that in mind, here is an interesting lucid dream experiment to induce what may be precognitive dreams.

Lucid Dream Experiment

This technique is known as active precognitive dreaming.

First, think of a question about the future. Make sure you pick something that has a measurable outcome, or that allows you to prove with some degree of accuracy whether your premonition comes true.

For instance:

What will this week's winning lottery numbers be?
What will be the closing value of the FTSE 100 Index tomorrow?
What will be the flight number of the next major commercial plane crash?

The next time you have a lucid dream, ask your question out loud. The answer can manifest itself however you wish. It may be written on a piece of paper, spoken from a dream character, or floating in the air. If the answer is not clear - ask again and demand greater clarity.

Lucid Dreams and Stock Market Predictions

Obviously, these are very difficult questions. In order to prove the existence of precognitive dreams we have to set tough, measurable standards.

However, if you want to induce psychic dreams for personal reasons, you can ask any question you like, such as:

Where will I meet my soul mate?
What career shall I choose?
What shall I name my baby?
Where shall we travel to this summer?
Where did I lose my purse?

Some lucid dreamers have had reasonable success with active precognitive dreaming, so I urge you to try it yourself. Remember to be objective with your results, and write down any psychic dreams in your dream journal. Also add the date as proof that you were actually telling the future...

If you have any measurable or compelling precognitive dreams, be sure to send them in for publication in The Lucid Dreaming E-zine.

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Precognitive Dreams
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