Déjà Rêvé?

Ian Wilson 2011Second Revision, Public Domain, Copyright Withheld by Author

AbstractThis paper examines the very real phenomenon of Déjà Vu and how it connects to an even more profound subtype known as Déjà Rêvé. Déjà vu is French for “Already Seen” and Déjà Rêvé is French for “Already Dreamed”. Often people who experience Déjà Vu link the origin of the familiar memory to something they have dreamed days, weeks, months and even years before they experience “Déjà Vu”. Déjà Rêvé suggests that dreams have a direct and relative relationship with physical reality. If so, then understanding and exploring this is critical to science and critical to understanding the origins of “reality”.

IntroductionPresident Abraham Lincoln, weeks before his assassination, dreamt of his death. Author Mark Twain had a dream involving the death of his brother Henry weeks before Henry would die in a riverboat accident, with remarkable and uncanny detail in regard to the funeral that followed. British painter David Mandell dreamt three times of planes crashing into the twin towers. In 1996 he painted a picture of such a dream and had it time-stamped in a photograph using his bank's clock for reference. German actress Christine Mylius[1] would send her dreams to Professor Bender at the Institute for Borderline Areas of Psychology for archiving. When she would have a dream come true, they would reference it in the archives. Irish aeronautical engineer J. W. Dunne[2] would keep a detailed account of his dreams and using the Scientific Method would investigate his own precognitive dreams.

This is a small sampling of cases of precognitive dreams in our historical record. More importantly, there is a high probability that you have personal experiences with Déjà Rêvé.

Does the Arrow of Time Point Backwards?Physicists Yakir Aharonov and Jeff Tollaksen[3] from the Schmid College of Science at Chapman University have produced the following results in an experiment that John Howell from the University of Rochester confirmed: The “Arrow of Time” can point backwards and the future can affect the past, called “Retrocausality” (also called “Backwards Causality” and “Reverse Causality”).

Discoveries such as retrocausality in quantum physics suggest that the future already exists. Quantum theory, if applied to human consciousness, might suggest how “dreams that come true” in the case of Déjà Rêvé relate to retrocausality.

In 2010 Professor Daryl J. Bem[4] from Cornell University published findings in support of precognition in a paper entitled “Feeling the Future: Experimental Evidence for Anomalous Retroactive Influences on Cognition and Affect”. His findings further support the reality of retrocognition and precognition. Historically, research into precognition has been ongoing since 1888[5]

with the British Society for Psychical Research.

A growing body of research and science both in physics and human cognition is starting to present a new model of Time in which the past, present and future may in fact be interconnected and relative.

Precognitive dreams and retrocausality show a non-linear aspect with regards to Time and Space.

Scaled Up from the Quantum UniverseProfessors of Physics, Aaron O'Connell, John Martinis and Andrew Cleland proved with their UCal Resonator[6] that quantum predictions can be observed with the naked eye when scaled up. Their findings demonstrate that when the Ucal Resonator is cooled to the quantum ground state and excited by a single qubit, this would put the resonator in a state of superposition, effectively being on/off at the same time as expected by quantum theory.

The Quantum Universe is the micro scale from which everything scales up into the Macro Universe. The Laws of Physics change between the quantum and the macro scale. It is in the quantum scale that all the “strange physics” such as quantum entanglement, superposition and particle/wave duality occur. It is at this scale that we observe the arrow of time changing direction and flowing backwards.

The Quantum Universe may connect answers regarding how precognitive dreams and human perception could be affected by quantum states and be subject to the same “spooky action from a distance” as observed in quantum mechanics.

Biophysicists Stuart Hameroff and Sir Roger Penrose[7] proposed a model of consciousness known as the Orch-Or model. In this model they provide research and evidence that quantum states are naturally occurring within the neurons of the human brain and that such states are required for information processing within the alpha/beta tubulin within each microtubule.

Henry P. Stapp[8] from Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory at the University of California published an article entitled “Quantum Mechanical Theories of Consciousness” that describes, where classical mechanics fails to describe, the mechanics of Consciousness and how quantum mechanics succeeds to describe.

Does consciousness derive itself from quantum measurements as it scales up into a larger consciousness system? Can consciousness exhibit behavior such as “spooky action from a distance” and have a measure of perception? Does superposition and entanglement also affect consciousness? Precognitive dreams beg the question: How does time and space exist as such that a future probability could be known through a system as common as dreaming?Raising awareness with regard to this unique property of human perception and dreaming allows for critical thinking and theories to emerge which ultimately will broaden our already growing understanding of reality and how the observer is entangled and interconnected as part of the system that it exists within.

How Frequent is Déjà Rêvé?In 2010, Arthur Funkhouser and Michael Schredl[9], who published “The Frequency of Déjà Vu (Déjà Rêvé) and the Effects of Age, Dream Recall Frequency and Personality Factors”, found in their samplings that the cases of people who have had these types of experiences could be as high as 95.2%.

Based on this research, there is high probability that you may indeed be one of these people. This paper then will be of some benefit providing some insights into the reality of this phenomenon.

What Does Dreaming The Future Suggest?Looking at the relationship where, in between a precognitive dream and the future event, there exists a

Causality Paradox, where the dream precedes the future event within the chronological order of time, the dream itself becomes the origin of this future event with regard to causality.

What is observed is a relationship between a dream and an actual physical event from a non-linear perspective.

Like particle/wave duality, is there a type of dream/reality duality? If you weigh in on the gravity of this relationship the implications are quite profound.

1.) Are people simply dreaming of an already existing future event brought about by scaled up quantum mechanics at work in human cognition?

2.) Are people creating a dream which in turn actualizes into a future event?Precognitive dreams present evidence of a relationship between certain dreams and physical reality. This relationship is at the heart of what this abstract attempts to address and provides inquiry as to what this relationship is and what can science do to explore this further.

In understanding the causality paradox, let’s examine this question:

“If one was to change a precognitive dream, would such changes occur in physical reality when the dream comes true?”

Affecting Causality Through DreamingIf there is a relationship between a precognitive dream and the future event it represents, what would the implications be if a person changes the precognitive dream and those changes occur when the dream actualizes? In what way would changes occur and how does science even begin to challenge such an idea?

If you’ve watched the movie by Christopher Nolan called “Inception”, the idea of lucid dreaming was presented. Lucid Dreaming is not science-fiction, it is science fact. The first evidence of this type was produced in the late 1970s by British parapsychologist Keith Hearne. A volunteer named Alan Worsley used eye movement to signal the onset of lucidity, recorded by a polysomnograph machine.

The first peer-reviewed journal was written by Stephen LaBerge[10] and provided empirical evidence that people can indeed be lucid and awake in their dreams. Lucid Dreaming is a tool by which science can explore the potential of precognition. For serious and critical research into precognitive dreaming, it will be teams of researchers who employ lucid dreaming exploration to drive hard at the methods of control by which to further validate this potential.

Lucid Dreaming allows for critical thinking and intent-driven action, which allows for more control over the challenging realm of dreams. It is here that people can direct their intent and act with a logical and awake mind to perform experiments.

When people are lucid or awake in a dream, they carry over the important logical, analytical and cognitive functions related to memory and perception that they naturally have when they are normally awake.

Once a person achieves the lucid state required for dream exploration, the next step is merging this focus state with the attention focused on the precognitive area within the dream state. If the person is successfully lucid while in a precognitive dream, the next step is to try to change the dream as an experiment to see if these changes could actualize when the future event actualizes. We will examine some evidence that suggests this is not only possible, but that is also a very important area that science can explore further.

Lucid Precognitive DreamsLucid Precognitive Dreaming is another potential within the Science of Dreaming. A lucid precognitive dream simply merges the waking state awareness associated with a lucid dream within the precognitive dream context. It is simply a natural progression with dreaming and some lucid dreamers report such experiences. Robert Waggoner,[11] recent President of the International Association for the Study of Dreams, writes about lucid precognitive dreams in his book entitled “Lucid Dreaming: Gateway to the Inner Self”.

When in any lucid dream, the person dreaming has the potential to act upon directed thought and make rational, logical and analytical choices. With the causality paradox, having lucid awareness in a precognitive dream allows for immediate action to be taken to affect such a dream.

In 1985, Stephen LaBerge[12] published a lucid dreaming article in Omni Magazine called “Power Trips: Controlling Your Dreams”. The article presented the fact that people could have lucid dreams and control the outcome of such dreams. It was this article that started my own personal exploration of lucid dreaming. It was through this technique of lucid dreaming that lucid precognitive dreams would start to present themselves.

Progressing from a non-lucid precognitive dream to a lucid precognitive dream is a natural progression for personal development with dream exploration. In order to have such experiences, however, the person must be trained in lucid dreaming and have the ability to navigate through a spectrum of dream experiences to isolate the specific precognitive state.

Robert Waggoner,[11] in his book “Lucid Dreaming: Gateway to the Inner Self”, describes two types of lucid precognitive dreams. The first is “Ambient Lucid Precognitive Dream” and the second is “Active Lucid Precognitive Dreams”.

Ambient lucid precognitive dreams are when a person simply observes the precognitive dream in a lucid state but does not take action to affect causality. Active lucid precognitive dreams are when the person takes action and affects causality by changing the precognitive dream.

What constitutes a precognitive dream from a non-precognitive dream is only ever determined when the dream actualizes into waking reality. When observing precognitive dreams from a lucid state, it is nearly impossible to suggest that the initial dream is precognitive at all. This is only ever realized at the point that such a dream actualizes.

Most people who have precognitive dreams will have them in a dimly conscious and spontaneous manner. To really get at the heart of this relationship, introducing lucid dream techniques is optimal for allowing further investigations into this system. It is a natural progression for a person to go from a dimly aware consciousness, to a fully awake and aware consciousness, to precognitive dreams at their source.

Where lucid precognitive dreaming differs from the usual non-lucid version, is in that it comes with the more intense feelings of Déjà vu and a more concrete and coherent state of memory and awareness. Lucid dreaming allows for more short and long-term memory than non-lucid dreaming. The dreamer will experience more clarity and memory at the time that such a dream actualizes into waking reality.

Once science understands that precognitive dreaming is a real event, the next challenge to science is to answer how a dream actualizes into a future physical event. What are the mechanics of actualization?

The Dreaming SpectrumThe challenge in accessing precognitive dreams stems from the fact that dreams appear to be

multifaceted and spectrum based. Not every dream will be precognitive in nature. Where some people report having precognitive dreams, there will be others that will report never having them. This creates a contrast in the psychological memory model with regard to what information can and cannot be accessed during sleep.

Like any science (chemistry, biology, physics), the science of dreams must categorize and break down universal focus states that dreamers have. The evidence for a spectrum-based system within dreaming emerges when you observe non-precognitive and precognitive dreams. Further research into dreams, as Carl Jung discovered, is that certain dream archetypes exist.

Take common dream themes that unrelated people can have. Some examples of common dreams that do occur are:

1.) Dreaming of teeth falling out.

2.) Dreaming of running or moving very slow.

3.) Pulling hair or sticky substance out of mouth.

Certain dreams will deal with fantasies and desires. Others will deal with fears and appear as nightmares. Some dreams will help with problem solving and inspire new ideas. All of these properties of dreaming can be broken down into a spectrum of dream experiences of which precognition is a part of.

Are dreams spectrum based? Like light which when passed through a prism presents a spectrum of visual color, do dreams also have layers with specific functions and roles? Precognitive dreams suggest this is so and thus becomes a focus of interest for science.

To further address precognition in dreams, the “Precognitive Layer” becomes the area of interest for dream exploration. The next challenge is isolating and finding this specific layer within the spectrum and conducting experimentation and research.

An Experiment in Spectrum AnalysisTraveling in the real world requires navigation and the same holds true for travel within a dream. Unlike real-world travel where we have maps, GPS and navigation systems, dream navigation relies on memory and experience to move through this vast gestalt of information to get at key specific details.

The majority of people dream on auto-pilot and do not practice lucid dreaming techniques. Only people who practice lucid dreaming will ever have a lucid precognitive dream. Lucid awareness is a requirement for precognitive dream research if science is to progress forward past the auto-pilot mode that most people experience.

An experiment that I conducted in 1997 through 1998 was aimed at addressing the precognitive layer and how navigation in this state could allow for access and observations. The problems were quite apparent: Many dream focus states existed and navigation was met with incoherent noise. A system needed to be found that could allow some ability to distinguish what layer and focus state a person could be in during a lucid dream.

The idea was simple: Become lucid in the dream state, focus on the precognitive layer and leave a symbol or shape on the surface of the dream to see if such a symbol or shape would actualize later if the dream was precognitive in nature.

It served to help with navigation as well as solve the causality question: If a person changes a precognitive dream, will those changes actualize in physical reality?

When in a dream state, lucid dreamers can change the dream. This becomes self-evident to any lucid dreamer who takes action to influence the outcome of a dream. Lucid dreamers also have discovered that not all dreams respond to this type of dream control. They become more rigid and less responsive. This is an observation that came into view while attempting to alter precognitive dreams. The precognitive layer is more resilient to change than non-precognitive layers, but it is not immune to change. It is mutable.

In my experimentation in 1997 of lucid dream exploration, several dream layers were marked by myself with geometric symbols such as triangles, squares and circles with the intent to map out such layers and isolate the precognitive layer. The technique required lucid dreaming awareness, intent and dream control to induce a change to the surface of an observed lucid dream.

This at least established a protocol and action that allowed for a thought experiment, to begin exploring lucid precognitive dreams. The next part of the experiment is the mechanics of actualization. If a triangle or square appeared on the surface of a precognitive dream, could such a change actually occur in physical reality? If so, what are the implications of such a discovery?The results of this experiment demonstrated that causality could be affected by changing, specifically, a lucid precognitive dream. In 1998 one such dream presented a small window of opportunity. The dream related to known surroundings as observed in physical reality. The context of the dream was very straight forward and is explained in the following paragraphs.

The dream presented a physically known location with people that I recognized from my waking life. This made the dream a candidate for experimentation as it appeared to match a physical environment known to me rather then a dream environment with no link to physical reality. The next step was to progress with the protocol of marking the dream with a symbol. As it was only a dream, the idea of putting a triangle on the forehead of a person I know in waking reality was merely a product of opportunity. Through intent and dream control, a triangle appeared on this person’s forehead from a distance over 6 feet.

It was not known if the dream was precognitive at that time. In this case, the dream was precognitive in nature. As the dream actualized, the triangle formed on the forehead of the person as it had in the originating lucid precognitive dream. The triangle appears in photographs. The photographs are presented here and in the appendix at the end of this abstract. The mechanics of how a precognitive dream actualizes becomes the next phase of the experiment.

This photograph shows the result of the experiment. The triangle is visible on the persons head in physical reality, with the cause of the event relative to changing a precognitive dream from a lucid state in the past context of a few weeks.

Larger photographs are located in the appendix.

If we look at this event and see the underlying mechanics involved, what we are describing is a dream that has future potential and is altered before the future actualizes. What this also suggests is a direct relationship between precognitive dreams and this physical reality.

What is this relationship and how do we understand the mechanics of precognition in a more scientific and meaningful way?

We know from all the anecdotal evidence that precognitive dreams have relevance through the historic record. In our modern age people are still reporting having this experience, as they have done back in 350BC when Aristotle[13] published a paper entitled “On Prophesying by Dreams”.

Skeptic have argued that there was no such thing as lucid dreaming (Malcolm, 1959) until science could finally measure it in the late 1970s. Lucid dreaming has been ongoing as a part of human culture since the early Veda's. Buddhists have long studied lucid dreaming as part of their religion. It was merely a challenge for science to get at the evidence to satisfy skepticism that such a human potential exists.

The same holds true with precognitive dreams, given the body of historic anecdotes and modern day reports. Like lucid dreaming, it will only be a matter of time before science can have more measurable results in precognitive exploration. Daryl Bem's[4] work in 2010 helps establish more evidence and progress into this field of science.

There is hope that science can finally measure neurological events with something as complex as precognition. George Dragoi and Susumu Tonegawa[15] from MIT show with their paper, “Pre-play of Future Place Cell Sequences by Hippocampal Cellular Assemblies”, where mice demonstrate temporal sequences of firing of place cells expressed during a novel spatial experience occurred on a significant number of occasions during the resting or sleeping period preceding the experience.

The hippocampus, known for long-term memory storage, and the frontal temporal lobes which deal with short-term memory are good candidates for exploration when attempting to measure precognition. This in theory will be a matter of scientific inquiry.

New developments in MRI (magnetic resonance imaging) technology also present another opportunity to potentially extract images from the visual cortex. Researchers from Japan's ATR Computational Neuroscience Laboratories[15] have developed new brain analysis technology that can reconstruct the images inside a person's mind and display them on a computer monitor. According to the researchers, further development of the technology may soon make it possible to view other people's dreams while they sleep.

David Mandel would paint his precognitive dreams [VIDEO], but the ATR research could potentially provide clear detail and images which could allow future events to be rendered in monochrome or potentially color. If the dream recorded was precognitive in nature, clearer imagery would help provide more concrete evidence of precognitive dreams. This technology, if capable of recording dreams in the

near future, will expand dream research into new uncharted territory rich with new discoveries.

SummaryIf we return to Jeff Tolkassen's work with “Retro Causality” and Bem's research into “Retro Cognition”, we have some interesting insights scientifically to the causality paradox that precognitive dreams present. What we are left with is an understanding that a “Future” potentially already exists and can be measured from the past.

What is gained from lucid precognitive dream investigations presents an opportunity to have first-hand experience with future events and affect change using directed intent. Lucid precognitive dreaming is a frontier field for future dream research.

How this system operates mechanically is a new and exciting avenue for scientific research. The physics of precognition and non-linear and non-localized consciousness presents new areas and theories by which to describe the nature of reality and the universe.

Photographs, witness testimonies and a news article follow in the Appendix.

If you found this information useful, feel free to share it with your peers. It is public domain with no copyright and free to reproduce as needed.

For further information and questions, please use the following contact information.

Contact Information

Ian WilsonEmail: ianwilson27@hotmail.com (must tag e-mail subject with [DEJA] to omit spam filter).

Skype: ian_a_wilsonWebsite: http://www.youaredreaming.org/

Articles: http://www.youaredreaming.org/articles/

Blog: http://you-are-dreaming.blogspot.com/

CreditsI would like to thank Dr. Art Funkhouser, Anthony Peake, Dr. Robert Waggoner, Dr. Ed Kellog, Tom Campbell, Dr. Brian Whitworth and a long list of other influences which have broadened my perspective into new emerging theories or have inspired me to share my research and exploration into lucid precognitive dreams.

Thanks to Dr. Fred Allan Wolf for pointing me to his fantastic book “The Dreaming Universe”, which provides an interesting historic and modern view into the relationship between dreams and reality.

Recommended WebsitesDr. Art Funkhouser's website on Déjà vu and Déjà Rêvé

http://www.deja-experience-research.org/

Discuss déjà vu and precognitive dreams on British author Anthony Peake's forum:

http://www.anthonypeake.co.uk/forum/index.php

For more research related to dreaming, check out the International Association for the Study of Dreams.

http://www.asdreams.org/index.htm

References[1] Mylius, Christine (1974) “Traumjournal: Experiment mit d. Zukunft” (Dream Journal)

[2] Dunne, J.W (1927) “An Experiment with Time”

[3] Tollaksen, Jeff (2010) “Back From the Future” Discovery Magazine [L]

[4] Bem, Daryl (2010) “Feeling the Future: Experimental Evidence for Anomalous Retroactive Influences on Cognition and Affect” [L]

[5] Sidgwick, E. M. (1888). "On the evidence for premonitions". Proceedings of the Society for Psychical Research

[6] A. D. O’Connell, M. Hofheinz, M. Ansmann, Radoslaw C. Bialczak, M. Lenander, Erik Lucero, M. Neeley, D. Sank, H. Wang, M. Weides, J. Wenne, John M. Martinis & A. N. Cleland (2010) “Quantum ground state and single-phonon control of a mechanical resonator” [L]

[7] Penrose, Roger (1989). “Shadows of the Mind: A Search for the Missing Science of Consciousness.”[8] Henry P. Stapp (2007) “Quantum Mechanical Theories of Consciousness” [L]

[9] Funkhouser, Arthur, and Schredl, Michael (2010) “The frequency of déjà vu (déjà Rêvé) and the effects of age, dream recall frequency and personality factors” [L]

[10] LaBerge, Stephen (1990) “Lucid Dreaming: Psychophysiological Studies of Consciousness During REM Sleep” [L]

[11] Waggoner, Robert (2009) “Lucid Dreaming: Gateway to the Inner Self”[12] LaBerge, Stephen (1985) “Power Trips: Controlling Your Dreams”, Omni Magazine [L]

[13] Aristotle (350BC) “On Prophesying by Dreams” [L]

[14] Dragoi, George & Tonegawa, Susumu (2010) “Pre-play of future place cell sequences by hippocampal cellular assemblies” Nature [L]

[15] Kamitani, Yukiyasu and Tong, Frank “Decoding Seen and Attended Motion Directions from Activity in the Human Visual Cortex” [L]

Appendix A: Photographic EvidenceThere are two photographs showing the triangle event on the co-workers forehead, as mentioned in this abstract, one Polaroid and the other print.

Image 1: Original Scans

Image 2: Close-up of First Image

Image 3: Close-up of Polaroid

Image 4: Enhanced to show location only.

Example 2:In lucid dreaming literature, one method to affirm lucidity is to look at one's hands. In a lucid precognitive dream using that technique, I also took the time to induce a red triangle on my left hand which in turn actualized with the same mechanics in the above.

Here are some scans from 2000. The black and white helps bring out the image, showing the dark blotchy triangle.

Scans from 2000

I have taken more recent photographs in 2010 that follow on the next page.

Photographs 2010

Appendix B: Witness TestimoniesHere is Kevin's account of the event.

These are individual accounts when I would try to replicate the experiment without lucid dreaming in waking reality.