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Dreaming the Future: Premonition, Recollection or Coincidence?

Posted 05-31-2011 at 06:30 PM by enchilado

A number of days ago, while camping, I had a dream that my little brother told me about his pet rat dying. I remember thinking something about how he looked as though he was deliberately looking sad to show how upset he was, or something like that.

I forgot about this, and only remembered when I next saw him and he told me that his pet rat had died. Strange, yeah? But did I dream what was going to be happen because it was, or was it just a coincidence? Or do we perhaps dream a great many things that we later forget about, and are only reminded of them when the events come true?

My father has told me about how he once dreamt that a train that his sister would be travelling on in a few days was going to derail, and he was so sure that it would happen he convinced her to cancel the trip. It derailed and a number of people were killed.

He's not the sort of person to make up stories (despite his beliefs in conspiracy theories), and his sister has confirmed the story. So, assuming that I haven't been lied to, why did he dream this? And how?

A fourth possibility is that these events happen because we dream them...

tl;dr: dreaming the future is some weird shit

Posted in My Life

Comments 23

Total Comments 23

Comments

You didn't dream about it at all. The fact that you forgot about it until your brother mentioned it to you is an indication that you experienced deja vu.

Neurologists/psychologists are not entirely sure what causes deja vu, but it's thought to be a glitch in the connection between the parts of the brain that deal with memory and processing current events. It makes us feel as if what we're currently experiencing has happened before. Because we rationally know that's not true, most people explain it away as being in a dream.

So... deja vu. Not a breach in the second law of thermodynamics.

Posted 05-31-2011 at 11:34 PM by Nate

	I get really odd bursts of deja vu at times. Like, someone'll do something, but my response has been thought about long before I say it. Very weird stuff.
	Posted 06-01-2011 at 12:23 AM by AlexFili

	No, you didn't think about it long before you said it. You just felt like you had. Deja vu.
	Posted 06-01-2011 at 12:24 AM by Nate

	: You didn't dream about it at all. The fact that you forgot about it until your brother mentioned it to you is an indication that you experienced deja vu. No, it wasn't deja vu, because it happened differently and anyway I remember thinking about it after I woke up.
	Posted 06-01-2011 at 12:59 AM by enchilado

	I hate Deja Vu. It frightens me everytime it happens and when it does happen I tend to sit there in a long silence scared. There have been numerous times where somebody will do something and I will experience Deja Vu and I end up sitting there so quiet that people are like "Hello?" because I just seem to sit there all quiet staring into space.
	Posted 06-01-2011 at 01:18 AM by JennyGenesis

	You just felt like you thought about it after you woke up. Deja vu.
	Posted 06-01-2011 at 02:50 AM by Phylum

	No, I remember my exact thoughts.
	Posted 06-01-2011 at 04:35 AM by enchilado

	I hate Deja Vu. I have to mention it every time I get it. FREAKY
	Posted 06-01-2011 at 04:37 AM by Jordan

	: No, it wasn't deja vu, because it happened differently and anyway I remember thinking about it after I woke up. : No, I remember my exact thoughts. Yup, that's what deja vu often feels like. I mean, are you actually suggesting that you have the ability to tell the future?
	Posted 06-01-2011 at 05:46 AM by Nate

	: I mean, are you actually suggesting that you have the ability to tell the future? That would be ridiculous. I don't know what I'm suggesting.
	Posted 06-01-2011 at 05:56 AM by enchilado

	I believe you Ench, that shit can happen! It's happened to me before but not on anything important. I think something about our brains is so much more powerful than we know because we only use like 10% or something.
	Posted 06-01-2011 at 07:06 AM by STM

	Is there any chance that you experienced Deja Vu and your brain created a false memory to explain the experience?
	Posted 06-01-2011 at 09:02 AM by Rex Tirano

	: I think something about our brains is so much more powerful than we know because we only use like 10% or something. DIE DIE DIE DIE DIE DIE DIE DIE DIE DIE DIE DIE DIE DIE DIE DIE DIE DIE
	Posted 06-01-2011 at 10:45 AM by Wings of Fire

	What WoF is trying to say is that you only 10% of your brain at any given time. You use 100% of it during the course of a normal day.
	Posted 06-01-2011 at 11:34 AM by OANST

	Deja vu is so cool. Makes me feel like Nostradamus.
	Posted 06-01-2011 at 11:48 AM by Mr. Bungle

In the absence of specific evidence in support of the supernatural, any mundane explanation is vastly more likely. Especially when it comes to dreams.

I mean, the last one I had involved becoming a father to a child brought to term by a crack in the floor, which sounds more like Greek mythology than premonition. But suppose some relevant and unlikely time in the future I remember the "father" and "child" part.

COINCIDENCE??? Answers on a postcard.

Posted 06-01-2011 at 12:57 PM by Bullet Magnet

I think something about our brains is so much more powerful than we know because we only use like 10% or something.

I don't think any brain, no matter how powerful, can see into the future. It hasn't happened yet. It's precisely because I don't believe in this sort of thing that I'm a little weirded out.

Is there any chance that you experienced Deja Vu and your brain created a false memory to explain the experience?

I know it wasn't deja vu - his expression was different in the dream and in real life, we were in a different place, and I had different thoughts about it.

I forgot about that dream until he reminded me - maybe I forgot about loads of other dreams that, had the events come true, I would have recalled. I don't know. But it's weird.

Posted 06-01-2011 at 02:44 PM by enchilado

	I get Deja Vu almost all the time, and while it makes for an interesting feeling, it also makes me feel like I'm in Monty Python. It also seems like my brain does just what Rec Tirano said. Because I definately do not remember dreaming it, and yet whenever I get Deja Vu, I always seem to think, "I dreamed this."
	Posted 06-02-2011 at 01:02 AM by Oddey

	Clairvoyance and prophecy would utterly void free will were it not already voided by physics.
	Posted 06-02-2011 at 02:08 AM by Bullet Magnet

	Physics schmysics.
	Posted 06-02-2011 at 02:23 AM by enchilado

	It's a glitch in the Matrix. THEY CHANGED SOMETHING ...Nothing happened, citizens. Go about your business.
	Posted 06-02-2011 at 03:54 PM by MeechMunchie

	@WoF YOU ARE EVIL YOU ARE EVIL YOU ARE EVIL YOU ARE EVIL Maybe it's all to do with the silence. Said the nerd.
	Posted 06-02-2011 at 04:57 PM by STM

	Matrix schmatrix.
	Posted 06-02-2011 at 04:58 PM by enchilado

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