Precognition
Encyclopedia
In parapsychology
, precognition (from the Latin
præ-, “before,” + cognitio, “acquiring knowledge”), also called future sight, and second sight, is a type of extrasensory perception that would involve the acquisition or effect of future information that cannot be deduced from presently available and normally acquired sense-based information or laws of physics
and/or nature. A premonition (from the Latin praemonēre) and a presentiment are information about future events that is perceived as emotion.
The existence of precognition, as with other forms of extrasensory perception, is not accepted as other than a purely psychological process by the mainstream scientific community because no replicable demonstration
, "on demand", has ever been achieved.
Scientific investigation of extrasensory perception (ESP) is complicated by the definition which implies that the phenomena go against established principles of science. Specifically, precognition would violate the principle that an effect cannot occur before its cause. However, there are established biases
, affecting human memory
and judgment of probability
, that create convincing but false impressions of precognition.
's Parapsychology Laboratory, 75% of 1777 dream
-based experiences were of an ostensibly precognitive type, as were 60% of 1513 wakeful experiences. A similar pattern was identified for a separate collection of 157 cases experienced by children; here, the largest category of experiences was again of precognitive dreams (52%), followed by precognitive intuitions (52%). A German case collection produced a similar figure: 52% of 1,000 cases were of the apparently precognitive type. A British study of 300 volunteered cases showed 34% to be apparently precognitive.
), and belief in its occurrence as a form of seeing into the future (this can be through visions, déjà vu
or through dreams which is usually the cause of recognition) . The first thorough collection and critical review of such spontaneous cases was created by the British Society for Psychical Research
(SPR). Reports of these cases were authored by Eleanor Sidgwick
in 1888, and H. F. Saltmarsh in 1938. Sidgwick believed the evidence warranted further investigation as to the validity of the concept of precognition, and Saltmarsh offered that the evidence, if it did not scientifically establish the phenomenon, at least excluded alternative hypotheses. Nicol, however, in a later review, came to the conclusion that their evidence was not so suggestive, given, in particular, the long length of time between the occurrence of some of the most suggestive cases, and their first report to the SPR.
J. W. Dunne, a British aeronautics engineer, recorded each of his dreams as they occurred to him, identifying any correspondences between his future experiences and his recorded dreams. In 1927, he reported his findings, together with a theory, in An Experiment with Time
. In this work, at least 10% of his dreams appeared to represent some future event, pertaining to some relatively trivial incident in Dunne's own life, or some major news events appearing in the press a day or so after the dream. Dunne concluded that precognitive dreams are common occurrences: many people have them without realizing it, largely because they do not recall the details of the dream. Also reported in the book was an experiment Dunne conducted with several other people who studiously recorded their dreams and sought to associate them with subsequent experiences. Dunne felt these confirmed his theory, but a 1933 independent experiment failed to replicate his findings.
, in precognitive Ganzfeld
hallucinations and visions. While such experiments have produced some suggestive evidence for precognition, they have been somewhat limited to studies of selected participants, and have involved procedures that can be too expensive for other researchers to replicate, or too complex to theoretically interpret.
in the 1930s at Duke University
's Parapsychology Laboratory. Rhine used a method of forced-choice matching in which participants recorded their guesses as to the order of a deck of 25 cards, each five of which bore one of five geometrical symbols. The test of precognition was based on the fact that these "guesses" were made before the deck was shuffled by the experimenter. In an effort to distinguish between different parapsychological accounts of precognition, and to better understand its conditions, experiments were conducted in which the order of the target deck of cards was determined by hand versus machine, or by reference to macroscopic events, such as randomly selected meteorological readings, or by complex algorithms. Early experiments also sought to determine the temporal scope of precognition by organizing the target deck only 1-2 versus 10 days, or even a year, after responses had been recorded and secured.
Experiments by Samuel G. Soal
, a mathematician, and colleagues seemed to provide impressive evidence of precognition. They ran forced-choice ESP experiments in which someone attempted to identify which of five animal pictures a subject in another room was looking at. Their performance on this task was at chance, but when the scores were matched with the card that came after the target card, three of the thirteen subjects showed a very high hit rate. These experiments were hailed as "the most impressive data ever reported" for ESP, with controls that "seem to be absolutely watertight". Rhine described Soal's work as "a milestone in the field". A dissenting view came from research chemist George Price who reviewed Soal and Bateman's book Modern Experiments in Telepathy for the journal Science
in 1955. Price argued that
since ESP was so unlikely, the positive results not attributable to error were more likely the result of deliberate fraud. This prompted several replies that Price's criticism was unfair, resting on the mere possibility of fraud rather than actual proof. In 1978, the experiments were in fact exposed as totally fraudulent. The statistician and paragnost Betty Markwick, while seeking to vindicate Soal, discovered that he had altered his data to create all the extra hits and give the study its statistical significance. The untainted experimental results showed absolutely no evidence of precognition in the hits or the ratios.
A meta-analysis
of all reports in the parapsychological literature of card-calling experiments on precognition was conducted in the late 1980s. This encompassed 309 experiments reported by 62 different investigators and published between 1935 and 1987. 23 of the 62 investigators reported positive results. The overall result offered precognition as a reliable but small effect over these studies, and an effect that could not be accounted for by levels of methodological reliability (as assessed by rating the studies on eight attributes of method), nor any publication bias against reporting null results.
Other researchers, including Smithsonian Executive Secretary Charles Greeley Abbot
and British psychologist R. H. Thouless
, introduced the study of precognition in the displacement of guesses to targets. This involved a set of target symbols, and "guesses" as to their identity, but, rather than precognizing the order of a whole deck of symbols, scored for precognition by checking the correspondence between each response and the target assigned to one or more trials ahead of that to which the response was originally assigned. Several studies using this method have continually offered displacement as reliable evidence for precognition.
Following these experiments, a more automated technique of experimentation was introduced that did not rely on hand-scoring of equivalence between targets and guesses, and in which the targets could be more reliably and readily tested as random. This involved testing for precognition with the use of high-speed random event generators (REG), as introduced by Helmut Schmidt
in 1969 and further conducted, in particular, at the Princeton Engineering Anomalies Research Lab
(1979–2007). In this procedure, participants indicate when they believe (by whatever means available to them) that the REG has produced an event that either conforms or differs from one of two target events. In comparison to the card-guessing type of experiments, this procedure permits much more data to be collected in an experimental session, while reducing the number of alternatives that need to guessed.
and electroencephalographic activity, or indirect psychological measures, such as ratings of preference for one or another target alternative. In these experiments, participants are not asked about their experiences, and do not need to be informed that they are participating in an experiment on ESP. Dick Bierman and Dean Radin have reported positive evidence of precognition in experiments of these kinds.
Some psychologists have explained the apparent prevalence of precognitive dreams in terms of memory biases, namely a selective memory for accurate predictions and distorted memory so that dreams are retrospectively fitted onto subsequent events. In one experiment, subjects were asked to write down their dreams in a diary. This prevented the selective memory effect, and the dreams no longer seemed accurate about the future. Another experiment gave subjects a fake diary of a student with apparently precognitive dreams. This diary described events from the person's life, as well as some predictive dreams and some non-predictive dreams. When subjects were asked to recall the dreams they had read, they remembered more of the successful predictions than unsuccessful ones.
.
Firstly, there are several ways to explain precognition as a form of extrasensory perception. Precognition can be conceived as an extraordinary process of clairvoyance
, involving no direct perception of the future. If, as is offered by the philosophy of determinism
, all future events are determined by present conditions, then it can be suggested that it is clairvoyance of all the relevant present conditions that permits one to know their future outcomes. Alternatively, if somebody in the present is aware of what will happen in the future, then it can be suggested that it is telepathy
of that information that grants oneself a like knowledge of the future. "Seeing into the future" can also be conceived as not a direct perception of a future event, but only a perception of one's own future experience of that event; what J. B. Rhine
called precognitive sensory perception. Support to this suggestion is given by the meta-analysis which includes the study of a subset of experiments in which details were provided about the feedback of target information given to subjects in the future. The study shows that when no feedback was given, the significance of the results fell to chance-expectation. This does suggest that the contacts were being made with the subject's future experience of receiving the target information, and not with the targets themselves.
The construct of psychokinesis
permits another set of ways to think about precognition. It can be suggested that precognition involves the influence of present conditions so that they conform with what is precognized. Alternatively, a retrocausal
process can be proferred as an explanation, raising the idea that, at a future time, the ostensibly present conditions are influenced backward in time.
As for theories of precognition itself, parapsychologists have offered several phenomenological theories that – like most psychological theories themselves – do not presume to provide a physical explanation of how precognition occurs, but only seek to describe the processes that must, it seems, be occurring at a psychological level of explanation. There are two classes of such theories, which are not exclusive to each other.
in quantum mechanics
, particularly as it implicates the constructive role of human observation. Precognition, in the context of these theories, is generally conceived in the manner of retroactive psychokinesis
, but without recourse to any notion of the transmission of psychophysical energy. According to some observational theories, it is at the point of observation of a future event that the event is, in fact, determined, and, under certain conditions of motivation, randomness and feedback, this future observation can inform the present observer.
. The theories explain precognition as the retrieval of memories from the brain in the future, which could occur in a similar way to that in which ordinary memories are retrieved from the brain in the past.
The theory proposed by Jon Taylor is based on David Bohm
's theory of the implicate order, which suggests that if similar structures are created at different places and different times, the structures resonate with a tendency to become more closely similar to one another. Taylor applies the principles to the neuronal spatiotemporal patterns that are activated in the brain, to show how an information transfer could be produced. For example, a precognition would occur when the pattern activated at the time of the future experience of an event resonates with any similar pattern that is spontaneously activated in the present. This might enable the present activation to be sustained until it produces the conscious awareness of an event similar to the one that will be experienced in the future.
compiled the best-known and largest body of dream evidence. Dr. Rhine collected over 7000 accounts of ESP experiences. The majority of these accounts were dream related and were seemingly precognitive in nature. The material for this work was collected by advertisements in various well-known popular media.
David Ryback, a psychologist in Atlanta, used a questionnaire survey approach to investigate precognitive dreaming in college students. His survey of over 433 participants showed that 290 or 66.9 percent reported some form of paranormal dream. He rejected many of these claims and reached a conclusion that 8.8 percent of the population was having actual precognitive dreams.
An early inquiry into this phenomenon was done by Aristotle in his On Divination in Sleep. His criticism of these claims appeals to the fact that "the sender of such dreams should be God", and "the fact that those to whom he sends them are not the best and wisest, but merely commonplace persons." Thus: "Most [so-called prophetic] dreams are, however, to be classed as mere coincidences...", here "coincidence" being defined by Aristotle as that which does not take "place according to a universal or general rule" and referring to things which are not of themselves by necessity causally connected. His example being taking a walk during an eclipse, neither the walk nor the eclipse being apparently causally connected and so only by "coincidence" do they occur simultaneously.
Other researchers in this area are more guarded in their reports on the value or use of dreams. In his book The Interpretation of Dreams
, first published at the end of the 19th century, Sigmund Freud
argued that the foundation of all dream content is the fulfillment of wishes, conscious or not and devoid of psychic
content. On the other hand, Freud's view of precognition evolved. According to Jung, Freud's "materialistic prejudice" and "shallow positivism" lead him to reject the entire complex of questions relating to precognition and the occult as "nonsensical." , But years later, adds Jung, Freud both "recognized the seriousness of parapsychology and acknowledged the factuality of 'occult' phenomena."
Dreams which appear to be precognitive may in fact be the result of the "Law of Large Numbers". Robert Todd Carroll
, author of "The Skeptic's Dictionary" put it this way:
"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."
Parapsychology
The term parapsychology was coined in or around 1889 by philosopher Max Dessoir, and originates from para meaning "alongside", and psychology. The term was adopted by J.B. Rhine in the 1930s as a replacement for the term psychical research...
, precognition (from the Latin
Latin
Latin is an Italic language originally spoken in Latium and Ancient Rome. It, along with most European languages, is a descendant of the ancient Proto-Indo-European language. Although it is considered a dead language, a number of scholars and members of the Christian clergy speak it fluently, and...
præ-, “before,” + cognitio, “acquiring knowledge”), also called future sight, and second sight, is a type of extrasensory perception that would involve the acquisition or effect of future information that cannot be deduced from presently available and normally acquired sense-based information or laws of physics
Physics
Physics is a natural science that involves the study of matter and its motion through spacetime, along with related concepts such as energy and force. More broadly, it is the general analysis of nature, conducted in order to understand how the universe behaves.Physics is one of the oldest academic...
and/or nature. A premonition (from the Latin praemonēre) and a presentiment are information about future events that is perceived as emotion.
The existence of precognition, as with other forms of extrasensory perception, is not accepted as other than a purely psychological process by the mainstream scientific community because no replicable demonstration
Reproducibility
Reproducibility is the ability of an experiment or study to be accurately reproduced, or replicated, by someone else working independently...
, "on demand", has ever been achieved.
Scientific investigation of extrasensory perception (ESP) is complicated by the definition which implies that the phenomena go against established principles of science. Specifically, precognition would violate the principle that an effect cannot occur before its cause. However, there are established biases
Cognitive bias
A cognitive bias is a pattern of deviation in judgment that occurs in particular situations. Implicit in the concept of a "pattern of deviation" is a standard of comparison; this may be the judgment of people outside those particular situations, or may be a set of independently verifiable...
, affecting human memory
Memory
In psychology, memory is an organism's ability to store, retain, and recall information and experiences. Traditional studies of memory began in the fields of philosophy, including techniques of artificially enhancing memory....
and judgment of probability
Probability
Probability is ordinarily used to describe an attitude of mind towards some proposition of whose truth we arenot certain. The proposition of interest is usually of the form "Will a specific event occur?" The attitude of mind is of the form "How certain are we that the event will occur?" The...
, that create convincing but false impressions of precognition.
Belief
Many of the "psychic experiences" that are volunteered to parapsychologists by the general population involve apparent precognition. In one review of a U.S. case collection, submitted to Duke UniversityDuke University
Duke University is a private research university located in Durham, North Carolina, United States. Founded by Methodists and Quakers in the present day town of Trinity in 1838, the school moved to Durham in 1892. In 1924, tobacco industrialist James B...
's Parapsychology Laboratory, 75% of 1777 dream
Dream
Dreams are successions of images, ideas, emotions, and sensations that occur involuntarily in the mind during certain stages of sleep. The content and purpose of dreams are not definitively understood, though they have been a topic of scientific speculation, philosophical intrigue and religious...
-based experiences were of an ostensibly precognitive type, as were 60% of 1513 wakeful experiences. A similar pattern was identified for a separate collection of 157 cases experienced by children; here, the largest category of experiences was again of precognitive dreams (52%), followed by precognitive intuitions (52%). A German case collection produced a similar figure: 52% of 1,000 cases were of the apparently precognitive type. A British study of 300 volunteered cases showed 34% to be apparently precognitive.
Case collections
History records many instances of apparent precognition (see Ides of MarchIdes of March
The Ides of March is the name of the 15th day of March in the Roman calendar, probably referring to the day of the full moon. The word Ides comes from the Latin word "Idus" and means "half division" especially in relation to a month. It is a word that was used widely in the Roman calendar...
), and belief in its occurrence as a form of seeing into the future (this can be through visions, déjà vu
Déjà vu
Déjà vu is the experience of feeling sure that one has already witnessed or experienced a current situation, even though the exact circumstances of the prior encounter are uncertain and were perhaps imagined...
or through dreams which is usually the cause of recognition) . The first thorough collection and critical review of such spontaneous cases was created by the British Society for Psychical Research
Society for Psychical Research
The Society for Psychical Research is a non-profit organisation in the United Kingdom. Its stated purpose is to understand "events and abilities commonly described as psychic or paranormal by promoting and supporting important research in this area" and to "examine allegedly paranormal phenomena...
(SPR). Reports of these cases were authored by Eleanor Sidgwick
Eleanor Mildred Sidgwick
Eleanor Mildred Sidgwick, née Balfour was an activist for the higher education of women, Principal of Newnham College and a leading figure in the Society for Psychical Research.-Biography:...
in 1888, and H. F. Saltmarsh in 1938. Sidgwick believed the evidence warranted further investigation as to the validity of the concept of precognition, and Saltmarsh offered that the evidence, if it did not scientifically establish the phenomenon, at least excluded alternative hypotheses. Nicol, however, in a later review, came to the conclusion that their evidence was not so suggestive, given, in particular, the long length of time between the occurrence of some of the most suggestive cases, and their first report to the SPR.
J. W. Dunne, a British aeronautics engineer, recorded each of his dreams as they occurred to him, identifying any correspondences between his future experiences and his recorded dreams. In 1927, he reported his findings, together with a theory, in An Experiment with Time
An Experiment with Time
An Experiment with Time is a long essay by the Irish aeronautical engineer J. W. Dunne on the subjects of precognition and the human experience of time. First published in March 1927, it was very widely read, and his ideas promoted by several other authors, in particular by J. B. Priestley. Other...
. In this work, at least 10% of his dreams appeared to represent some future event, pertaining to some relatively trivial incident in Dunne's own life, or some major news events appearing in the press a day or so after the dream. Dunne concluded that precognitive dreams are common occurrences: many people have them without realizing it, largely because they do not recall the details of the dream. Also reported in the book was an experiment Dunne conducted with several other people who studiously recorded their dreams and sought to associate them with subsequent experiences. Dunne felt these confirmed his theory, but a 1933 independent experiment failed to replicate his findings.
Free-response studies
With free-response methods, experiments have been conducted in precognitive dreaming at the sleep laboratory of the Maimonides Medical CenterMaimonides Medical Center
Maimonides Medical Center is a non-profit, non-sectarian hospital located in Borough Park, Brooklyn. Maimonides is both a treatment facility and academic medical center with 705 beds, and more than 70 primary care and sub-specialty programs...
, in precognitive Ganzfeld
Ganzfeld experiment
A ganzfeld experiment is a technique used in the field of parapsychology to test individuals for extrasensory perception . It uses homogeneous and unpatterned sensory stimulation to produce an effect similar to sensory deprivation. The deprivation of patterned sensory input is said to be conducive...
hallucinations and visions. While such experiments have produced some suggestive evidence for precognition, they have been somewhat limited to studies of selected participants, and have involved procedures that can be too expensive for other researchers to replicate, or too complex to theoretically interpret.
Forced-choice studies
Most experiments on precognition have involved a forced-choice procedure. The first such ongoing and organized research program on precognition was instituted by J. B. RhineJoseph Banks Rhine
Joseph Banks Rhine was a botanist who later developed an interest in parapsychology and psychology. Rhine founded the parapsychology lab at Duke University, the Journal of Parapsychology, and the Foundation for Research on the Nature of Man...
in the 1930s at Duke University
Duke University
Duke University is a private research university located in Durham, North Carolina, United States. Founded by Methodists and Quakers in the present day town of Trinity in 1838, the school moved to Durham in 1892. In 1924, tobacco industrialist James B...
's Parapsychology Laboratory. Rhine used a method of forced-choice matching in which participants recorded their guesses as to the order of a deck of 25 cards, each five of which bore one of five geometrical symbols. The test of precognition was based on the fact that these "guesses" were made before the deck was shuffled by the experimenter. In an effort to distinguish between different parapsychological accounts of precognition, and to better understand its conditions, experiments were conducted in which the order of the target deck of cards was determined by hand versus machine, or by reference to macroscopic events, such as randomly selected meteorological readings, or by complex algorithms. Early experiments also sought to determine the temporal scope of precognition by organizing the target deck only 1-2 versus 10 days, or even a year, after responses had been recorded and secured.
Experiments by Samuel G. Soal
Samuel Soal
Samuel George Soal — known as S.G. Soal — was a British mathematician and psychical researcher.Samuel Soal is mostly, today, remembered as the most prominent researcher in academic parapsychology to have been charged with fraudulent production of data...
, a mathematician, and colleagues seemed to provide impressive evidence of precognition. They ran forced-choice ESP experiments in which someone attempted to identify which of five animal pictures a subject in another room was looking at. Their performance on this task was at chance, but when the scores were matched with the card that came after the target card, three of the thirteen subjects showed a very high hit rate. These experiments were hailed as "the most impressive data ever reported" for ESP, with controls that "seem to be absolutely watertight". Rhine described Soal's work as "a milestone in the field". A dissenting view came from research chemist George Price who reviewed Soal and Bateman's book Modern Experiments in Telepathy for the journal Science
Science (journal)
Science is the academic journal of the American Association for the Advancement of Science and is one of the world's top scientific journals....
in 1955. Price argued that
since ESP was so unlikely, the positive results not attributable to error were more likely the result of deliberate fraud. This prompted several replies that Price's criticism was unfair, resting on the mere possibility of fraud rather than actual proof. In 1978, the experiments were in fact exposed as totally fraudulent. The statistician and paragnost Betty Markwick, while seeking to vindicate Soal, discovered that he had altered his data to create all the extra hits and give the study its statistical significance. The untainted experimental results showed absolutely no evidence of precognition in the hits or the ratios.
A meta-analysis
Meta-analysis
In statistics, a meta-analysis combines the results of several studies that address a set of related research hypotheses. In its simplest form, this is normally by identification of a common measure of effect size, for which a weighted average might be the output of a meta-analyses. Here the...
of all reports in the parapsychological literature of card-calling experiments on precognition was conducted in the late 1980s. This encompassed 309 experiments reported by 62 different investigators and published between 1935 and 1987. 23 of the 62 investigators reported positive results. The overall result offered precognition as a reliable but small effect over these studies, and an effect that could not be accounted for by levels of methodological reliability (as assessed by rating the studies on eight attributes of method), nor any publication bias against reporting null results.
Other researchers, including Smithsonian Executive Secretary Charles Greeley Abbot
Charles Greeley Abbot
Charles Greeley Abbot was an American astrophysicist, astronomer and Secretary of the Smithsonian Institution. He was born in Wilton, New Hampshire.-Life:...
and British psychologist R. H. Thouless
Robert H. Thouless
British academic Robert H. Thouless is best known as the author of Straight and Crooked Thinking , which describes flaws in reasoning and argument....
, introduced the study of precognition in the displacement of guesses to targets. This involved a set of target symbols, and "guesses" as to their identity, but, rather than precognizing the order of a whole deck of symbols, scored for precognition by checking the correspondence between each response and the target assigned to one or more trials ahead of that to which the response was originally assigned. Several studies using this method have continually offered displacement as reliable evidence for precognition.
Following these experiments, a more automated technique of experimentation was introduced that did not rely on hand-scoring of equivalence between targets and guesses, and in which the targets could be more reliably and readily tested as random. This involved testing for precognition with the use of high-speed random event generators (REG), as introduced by Helmut Schmidt
Helmut Schmidt (parapsychologist)
Helmut Schmidt is a German-born parapsychologist. In the early 1970s he pioneered research into the effects of human consciousness on machines called random number generators or random event generators at the Rhine Research Center Institute for Parapsychology...
in 1969 and further conducted, in particular, at the Princeton Engineering Anomalies Research Lab
Princeton Engineering Anomalies Research Lab
The Princeton Engineering Anomalies Research program was established at Princeton University in 1979 by Robert G. Jahn, then Dean of the School of Engineering and Applied Science, to pursue rigorous scientific study of the interaction of human consciousness with physical devices, systems, and...
(1979–2007). In this procedure, participants indicate when they believe (by whatever means available to them) that the REG has produced an event that either conforms or differs from one of two target events. In comparison to the card-guessing type of experiments, this procedure permits much more data to be collected in an experimental session, while reducing the number of alternatives that need to guessed.
Unconscious perception studies
Another class of experiments have tested for precognition by unconscious signs. These have involved physiological responses, such as of skin conductanceGalvanic skin response
Skin conductance, also known as galvanic skin response , electrodermal response , psychogalvanic reflex , skin conductance response or skin conductance level , is a method of measuring the electrical conductance of the skin, which varies with its moisture level...
and electroencephalographic activity, or indirect psychological measures, such as ratings of preference for one or another target alternative. In these experiments, participants are not asked about their experiences, and do not need to be informed that they are participating in an experiment on ESP. Dick Bierman and Dean Radin have reported positive evidence of precognition in experiments of these kinds.
Psychological
Various psychological processes have been offered to explain experiences of apparent precognition.Cognitive failure/distortion models
Suited to explaining at least naturalistic occurrences of apparent precognition are several more or less hypothetical unconscious cognitive processes. These include:- Selection biasSelection biasSelection bias is a statistical bias in which there is an error in choosing the individuals or groups to take part in a scientific study. It is sometimes referred to as the selection effect. The term "selection bias" most often refers to the distortion of a statistical analysis, resulting from the...
where people remember the "hits" and forget the "misses," remember coincidences more often than other non-coincidences, or when they were correct about a future event rather than instances when they were wrong. Examples include thinking of a specific person before that person calls on the phone. Human memory, it is argued, has a tendency to record instances when the guess was correct, and to dismiss instances when the guess was incorrect.
- Unconscious perception by which people unconsciously infer, from data they have unconsciously learned, that a certain event will probably happen in a certain context. As with cryptomnesia, when the event occurs, the former knowledge appears to have been acquired without the aid of recognized channels of information.
- Self-fulfilling prophecySelf-fulfilling prophecyA self-fulfilling prophecy is a prediction that directly or indirectly causes itself to become true, by the very terms of the prophecy itself, due to positive feedback between belief and behavior. Although examples of such prophecies can be found in literature as far back as ancient Greece and...
and Unconscious enactment in which people bring events that they have precognized to pass, but without their conscious knowledge.
Some psychologists have explained the apparent prevalence of precognitive dreams in terms of memory biases, namely a selective memory for accurate predictions and distorted memory so that dreams are retrospectively fitted onto subsequent events. In one experiment, subjects were asked to write down their dreams in a diary. This prevented the selective memory effect, and the dreams no longer seemed accurate about the future. Another experiment gave subjects a fake diary of a student with apparently precognitive dreams. This diary described events from the person's life, as well as some predictive dreams and some non-predictive dreams. When subjects were asked to recall the dreams they had read, they remembered more of the successful predictions than unsuccessful ones.
Parapsychological
There are several ways by which precognition can be conceived as occurring without fundamental dependence on normally recognized processes of perception and cognition, i.e., by psiPsi (parapsychology)
Psi is a term from parapsychology derived from the Greek, ψ psi, 23rd letter of the Greek alphabet; from the Greek ψυχή psyche, "mind, soul".-Etymology:...
.
Firstly, there are several ways to explain precognition as a form of extrasensory perception. Precognition can be conceived as an extraordinary process of clairvoyance
Clairvoyance
The term clairvoyance is used to refer to the ability to gain information about an object, person, location or physical event through means other than the known human senses, a form of extra-sensory perception...
, involving no direct perception of the future. If, as is offered by the philosophy of determinism
Determinism
Determinism is the general philosophical thesis that states that for everything that happens there are conditions such that, given them, nothing else could happen. There are many versions of this thesis. Each of them rests upon various alleged connections, and interdependencies of things and...
, all future events are determined by present conditions, then it can be suggested that it is clairvoyance of all the relevant present conditions that permits one to know their future outcomes. Alternatively, if somebody in the present is aware of what will happen in the future, then it can be suggested that it is telepathy
Telepathy
Telepathy , is the induction of mental states from one mind to another. The term was coined in 1882 by the classical scholar Fredric W. H. Myers, a founder of the Society for Psychical Research, and has remained more popular than the more-correct expression thought-transference...
of that information that grants oneself a like knowledge of the future. "Seeing into the future" can also be conceived as not a direct perception of a future event, but only a perception of one's own future experience of that event; what J. B. Rhine
Joseph Banks Rhine
Joseph Banks Rhine was a botanist who later developed an interest in parapsychology and psychology. Rhine founded the parapsychology lab at Duke University, the Journal of Parapsychology, and the Foundation for Research on the Nature of Man...
called precognitive sensory perception. Support to this suggestion is given by the meta-analysis which includes the study of a subset of experiments in which details were provided about the feedback of target information given to subjects in the future. The study shows that when no feedback was given, the significance of the results fell to chance-expectation. This does suggest that the contacts were being made with the subject's future experience of receiving the target information, and not with the targets themselves.
The construct of psychokinesis
Psychokinesis
The term psychokinesis , also referred to as telekinesis with respect to strictly describing movement of matter, sometimes abbreviated PK and TK respectively, is a term...
permits another set of ways to think about precognition. It can be suggested that precognition involves the influence of present conditions so that they conform with what is precognized. Alternatively, a retrocausal
Retrocausality
Retrocausality is any of several hypothetical phenomena or processes that reverse causality, allowing an effect to occur before its cause....
process can be proferred as an explanation, raising the idea that, at a future time, the ostensibly present conditions are influenced backward in time.
As for theories of precognition itself, parapsychologists have offered several phenomenological theories that – like most psychological theories themselves – do not presume to provide a physical explanation of how precognition occurs, but only seek to describe the processes that must, it seems, be occurring at a psychological level of explanation. There are two classes of such theories, which are not exclusive to each other.
Subliminal awareness
One class of theories – principally as discussed, albeit in quite disparate ways, by Dunne (1927) and Saltmarsh (1938) – supposes that awareness is fundamentally trans-temporal, acquiring information beyond the "specious present" of information that is typically available for immediate awareness. While we are only ever consciously aware of some limited temporal range of information, these theories assert that, unconsciously, a much wider temporal range of information is sampled and used for the benefit of the organism.Psi-mediated instrumental response (PMIR)
This theory, offered by then psychologist Rex G. Stanford, proposes that humans unconsciously and automatically scan their environment for motivationally relevant information, including - as the subliminal awareness models suggest - information that will only occur in the future of each conscious observer. This information will be used, by those who are so disposed, to place the person in a goal-relevant position with respect to its environment. This creates the experience of precognition, should some of this information have been represented in conscious imagery or other representational forms.Observational theories
One class of parapsychological theories makes reference to the measurement problemMeasurement problem
The measurement problem in quantum mechanics is the unresolved problem of how wavefunction collapse occurs. The inability to observe this process directly has given rise to different interpretations of quantum mechanics, and poses a key set of questions that each interpretation must answer...
in quantum mechanics
Relational quantum mechanics
Relational quantum mechanics is an interpretation of quantum mechanics which treats the state of a quantum system as being observer-dependent, that is, the state is the relation between the observer and the system. This interpretation was first delineated by Carlo Rovelli in a 1994 preprint, and...
, particularly as it implicates the constructive role of human observation. Precognition, in the context of these theories, is generally conceived in the manner of retroactive psychokinesis
Psychokinesis
The term psychokinesis , also referred to as telekinesis with respect to strictly describing movement of matter, sometimes abbreviated PK and TK respectively, is a term...
, but without recourse to any notion of the transmission of psychophysical energy. According to some observational theories, it is at the point of observation of a future event that the event is, in fact, determined, and, under certain conditions of motivation, randomness and feedback, this future observation can inform the present observer.
Resonance theories
Another class of theories is based on the block universe model, in which future events already exist in spacetime, according to the special theory of relativityTheory of relativity
The theory of relativity, or simply relativity, encompasses two theories of Albert Einstein: special relativity and general relativity. However, the word relativity is sometimes used in reference to Galilean invariance....
. The theories explain precognition as the retrieval of memories from the brain in the future, which could occur in a similar way to that in which ordinary memories are retrieved from the brain in the past.
The theory proposed by Jon Taylor is based on David Bohm
David Bohm
David Joseph Bohm FRS was an American-born British quantum physicist who contributed to theoretical physics, philosophy, neuropsychology, and the Manhattan Project.-Youth and college:...
's theory of the implicate order, which suggests that if similar structures are created at different places and different times, the structures resonate with a tendency to become more closely similar to one another. Taylor applies the principles to the neuronal spatiotemporal patterns that are activated in the brain, to show how an information transfer could be produced. For example, a precognition would occur when the pattern activated at the time of the future experience of an event resonates with any similar pattern that is spontaneously activated in the present. This might enable the present activation to be sustained until it produces the conscious awareness of an event similar to the one that will be experienced in the future.
Methodological
The experimental research into ostensible precognition has, like much of the research into extrasensory perception, been subject to various critiques of its methodology. This concerns the fundamental logic of the methods, and particular aspects of procedure. A general issue is concerned with the possibility that the phenomena contradict generally recognized principles of science, coupled with the absence of a method to demonstrate precognition on demand.In dreams
Louisa Rhine at the Parapsychology Laboratory at Duke UniversityDuke University
Duke University is a private research university located in Durham, North Carolina, United States. Founded by Methodists and Quakers in the present day town of Trinity in 1838, the school moved to Durham in 1892. In 1924, tobacco industrialist James B...
compiled the best-known and largest body of dream evidence. Dr. Rhine collected over 7000 accounts of ESP experiences. The majority of these accounts were dream related and were seemingly precognitive in nature. The material for this work was collected by advertisements in various well-known popular media.
David Ryback, a psychologist in Atlanta, used a questionnaire survey approach to investigate precognitive dreaming in college students. His survey of over 433 participants showed that 290 or 66.9 percent reported some form of paranormal dream. He rejected many of these claims and reached a conclusion that 8.8 percent of the population was having actual precognitive dreams.
An early inquiry into this phenomenon was done by Aristotle in his On Divination in Sleep. His criticism of these claims appeals to the fact that "the sender of such dreams should be God", and "the fact that those to whom he sends them are not the best and wisest, but merely commonplace persons." Thus: "Most [so-called prophetic] dreams are, however, to be classed as mere coincidences...", here "coincidence" being defined by Aristotle as that which does not take "place according to a universal or general rule" and referring to things which are not of themselves by necessity causally connected. His example being taking a walk during an eclipse, neither the walk nor the eclipse being apparently causally connected and so only by "coincidence" do they occur simultaneously.
Other researchers in this area are more guarded in their reports on the value or use of dreams. In his book The Interpretation of Dreams
The Interpretation of Dreams
The Interpretation of Dreams is a book by psychoanalyst Sigmund Freud. The first edition begins:.The book introduces Freud's theory of the unconscious with respect to dream interpretation...
, first published at the end of the 19th century, Sigmund Freud
Sigmund Freud
Sigmund Freud , born Sigismund Schlomo Freud , was an Austrian neurologist who founded the discipline of psychoanalysis...
argued that the foundation of all dream content is the fulfillment of wishes, conscious or not and devoid of psychic
Psychic
A psychic is a person who professes an ability to perceive information hidden from the normal senses through extrasensory perception , or is said by others to have such abilities. It is also used to describe theatrical performers who use techniques such as prestidigitation, cold reading, and hot...
content. On the other hand, Freud's view of precognition evolved. According to Jung, Freud's "materialistic prejudice" and "shallow positivism" lead him to reject the entire complex of questions relating to precognition and the occult as "nonsensical." , But years later, adds Jung, Freud both "recognized the seriousness of parapsychology and acknowledged the factuality of 'occult' phenomena."
Dreams which appear to be precognitive may in fact be the result of the "Law of Large Numbers". Robert Todd Carroll
Robert Todd Carroll
Robert Todd Carroll , Ph.D., is an American writer and academic. Carroll has written several books and skeptical essays but achieved notability by publishing the Skeptic's Dictionary online in 1994.-Early life and education:...
, author of "The Skeptic's Dictionary" put it this way:
"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."
See also
- Anomalous cognition
- Déjà vuDéjà vuDéjà vu is the experience of feeling sure that one has already witnessed or experienced a current situation, even though the exact circumstances of the prior encounter are uncertain and were perhaps imagined...
- Dune (novel)Dune (novel)Dune is a science fiction novel written by Frank Herbert, published in 1965. It won the Hugo Award in 1966, and the inaugural Nebula Award for Best Novel...
- Fortune-tellingFortune-tellingFortune-telling is the practice of predicting information about a person's life. The scope of fortune-telling is in principle identical with the practice of divination...
- List of parapsychology topics
- Premonition (film)Premonition (2007 film)Premonition is a 2007 American drama film directed by Mennan Yapo and starring Sandra Bullock and Julian McMahon. Principal photography took place in Louisiana.-Plot:...
- Premonitions (novel)Premonitions (novel)Premonitions is a young adult novel by Jude Watson, first published in 2005, in which a teenage girl has to cope with disturbing visions.-Plot summary:Gracie knows when bad things are about to happen. Or sometimes when they have already happened...
- RetrocognitionRetrocognitionRetrocognition , from the Latin retro meaning "backward, behind" and cognition meaning "knowing", describes "knowledge of a past event which could not have been learned or inferred by normal means". The term was coined by Frederic W. H...
- Second sightSecond sightSecond sight is a form of extrasensory perception, the supposed power to perceive things that are not present to the senses, whereby a person perceives information, in the form of a vision, about future events before they happen , or about things or events at remote locations...
Further reading
- Guiley, Rosemary Ellen: Harper's Encyclopedia of Mystical and Paranormal Experience, New York: HarperCollins, 1991, pages 465-466
- Robertson, Morgan and Stevenson, Ian, M.D.: The Wreck of the Titan: The Paranormal Experiences Connected with the Sinking of the Titanic. Cutchogue, NY: Buccaneer Bks, 1991.
- Spence, Lewis: An Encyclopedia of Occultism, New York, Carol Publishing Group Edition, 1996, pages 329
- Barrett, Deirdre, PhD .”The Committee Of Sleep”. New York: Crown Publishers, 2001
- Quinn, Adriene. “Dreams of History That Came True”. Tacoma: Dream Research, 1987.
- Reed, Henry, PhD. “Getting Help From Your Dreams”. Virginia Beach: Inner Vision Publishing, 1985.
- Thurston, Mark. PhD. “Tonight’s Answers To Tomorrow’s Questions”. San Francisco: Harper & Row, 1988.
External links
- Precognition, Presentiment & Remote Viewing - Dean Radin
- "Precognition and Second Sight" in Robert Todd Carroll's The Skeptic's Dictionary
- Definition of "precognition" in James Randi's An Encyclopedia of Claims, Frauds, and Hoaxes of the Occult and Supernatural
- The Best Case for ESP?
- Failed Psychic Predictions for 1998
- Online Psi Experiments Links to precognition experiments (Parapsych.org affiliate of the AAASAmerican Association for the Advancement of ScienceThe American Association for the Advancement of Science is an international non-profit organization with the stated goals of promoting cooperation among scientists, defending scientific freedom, encouraging scientific responsibility, and supporting scientific education and science outreach for the...
) - International Association for the Study of Dreams Guidance on dreams from a clinical approach with little emphasis on precognition
- Intuitive Connections
- Wait, what? Study Finds Evidence for Precognition - LiveScienceLiveScienceLiveScience is a science news website run by TechMediaNetwork, who purchased it from Imaginova in 2009. Stories and editorial commentary are commonly syndicated to major news outlets, such as Yahoo!, MSNBC, AOL, and Fox News....
- Edgarcayce.org
- Stockdreams.org