Precognitive Dreams & PremonitionsPart 1

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Precognitive Dreams & Premonitions

(...Continued From Precognitive Dreams & Premonitions Pt 1)

Clearly, my dream had portrayed a vision of the future. Although the events which I had been privileged to glimpse some ten hours earlier were not spectacular, they served a purpose. That same dream came to mind while I was considering whether to tackle the fire myself or not. Somehow, I knew that events would go exactly as they did, and there would be a satisfactory outcome.

Normally, my precognitive dreams are almost inconsequential - reflecting ordinary occurrences in my day to day life. So much so, in fact, that I often experience the feeling of deja vu and recall vague memories of a dream. Perhaps this phenomenon is as a result of each of us acting out part of an unremembered precognitive dream?

Returning to Dr Hearne's experience on the ferry, he found it so intriguing that it changed the direction of his studies, and led to serious research into premonitions which, after fifteen years, remains ongoing. In his own words, he now explains how that event initiated his studies, and the subsequent data uncovered as a result:

When I met my friend at Grimsby station, I told him earnestly of my presentiment. The experience had decided me to alter the emphasis of my parapsychological research from the artificial set up of the laboratory to the real world - where such phenomena are happening naturally.

I asked him if he knew anyone who'd had a premonition. He instantly told of an incredible case concerning his niece Lesley Brennan who - confirmed by witnesses - precognised the Flixborough chemical plant explosion. I began to realise that premonitions were frequent in the population. Surveys in fact show that seven out of ten people accept the existence of premonitions and that over a quarter of the population report that they have actually experienced such things.

As a result of several articles being published about my initial research in several national newspapers, literally hundreds of people wrote to me and completed questionnaires regarding their premonitions. Little research has actually been conducted into premonitions as such. Most scientific effort has gone into laboratory studies involving the statistical analysis of precognition using card or pattern guessing.

The data that I received from percipients showed that nine out of ten of reported premonitions were experienced by females. There was a possibility that a 'reporting bias' was operating in that perhaps men were unwilling to admit to being psychic. I got round that by asking the percipients who else in their family had premonitions. It was still overwhelmingly a female ability. About a quarter

said their premonitions were always on a particular theme, such as plane-crashes.

As to the number of premonitions reported by these subjects, four out of ten said they'd had between two and ten, about a third said between 10 and 50 and about a fifth estimated that the total exceeded 50! This data shows that premonitions are not isolated or random phenomena but that they seem to be connected with certain people. Most percipients experienced their first foreknowledge between 10 and 15 years of age. The latency period between the premonition and later event was usually a day and a few weeks. The subjects were administered a personality test and observed to be significantly more neurotic than the 'normal' population. This finding could conceivably indicate that emotionalism (neuroticism) is part of the 'tuning-in' process in these people to enable them to pick up distress elsewhere.

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If premonitions were just a recent phenomenon in history we could be dubious about their reality, but the fact is that they have been reported in all cultures going back to the beginning of written records. Cuneiform-script clay tablets from Assyria and Babylonia testify that dreams including foreknowledge were experienced thousands of years ago. So too, the ancient Egyptians believed that dreams were messages from the gods and that knowledge about the future could be conveyed through the vehicle of the dream.

In fact, in ancient Egypt special temples existed (Serapeums) where dreams could be encouraged or 'incubated'. After fasting and various cleansing rituals the incubant would sleep in the temple and await a special dream - often about the future - which would be interpreted by the 'learned men of the magic library'. Several papyrii have been discovered listing different dream symbols. The notion of 'opposites' in dreams was an early one. Thus, to dream of a birth could refer to an imminent death.

An ancient Indian book of wisdom, the Artharva Veda, dating from about 3000 years ago, commented on premonitory dreams that the time of night that the dream occurs gives a clue as to when the later event will happen. A premonitory dream occurring early in the night will come to fruition later than one occurring near dawn.

The ancient Greeks were also fascinated by dreams. Aristotle pointed out that some apparently precognitive dreams of future illness in people may be 'prodromic' in that the dream may be aware of symtoms that are not yet available to consciousness. Also that some dreams may be self-fulfilling prophecies.(Continued In Precognitive Dreams & Premonitions Pt 3...)

Authors Details: David F. Melbourne Web SiteDavid F. Melbourne, who lives on a remote Scottish island, has been studying dreams for 25 years and is known all over the world for his accurate dream interpretations. Apart from the general public, he has analysed dreams for celebrities and famous authors, all of whom have admitted a high degree of accuracy.