Precognition - Possible?

[ForAllOfThis]

Firstly let me introduce myself, I am currently a sixthform student hoping to go to university in september to study psychology. I am a skeptic, like most of the people found on this forum. I'm hoping this sparks some genuinely interesting discussion as the theory is biologically based.

'Dr. 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. Using very rigid standards, Dr. Ryback examined those responding to the survey. He rejected many of these claims and reached a conclusion that 8.8 percent of the population was having actual precognitive dreams.'

(http://www.webspawner.com/users/arizonaare/index.html)

This converts to roughly 38 people out of 433 participants to show precognitive dreams.

However the first criticism is that Dr.Ryback was looking for precognitive dreams, and he was the one who rejected and acccepted said claims which leads to the fact that their may be investigator bias involved.

If anyone else finds any more information on this study I would be really interested in hearing about it.

Evolutionary Theory

Assumptions: Precognition is caused by a gene.

Humans with the precognitive gene would be more likely to survive because they could predict disastrous future events (by chance) and possibly prevent them from happening or move away from where they have seen the event from happening. There is then an increased chance that the gene for the precognitive ability is passed onto the offspring and the process repeats itself.

Problems that I have identified with this explanation:

How could a gene cause precognitive dreams or abilities?
Can the precognition be controlled or is it an innate behaviour?

Discussion and input appreciated.

[SimonC]

Hi ForAllOfThis and welcome to UKS.

Regarding your request for comments - firstly it would clearly be essential to determine whether such a phenomenon really existed, before looking for explanations of any kind, biological or otherwise.

I would ask how the precognitive quality of a dream was determined in the study that you mention. What precise mechanism was used to determine the accuracy of the dream, and how closely did a dream have to correlate with subsequent events for it to be deemed precognitive?

I am sure that you are aware of 'retrofitting'. This is often experienced in the field of mediumship - the sitter will receive information, and will then interpret it selectively to fit real-life events. This is also a possibility of this occuring here, where a person might alter their recollection of a dream to fit something that happens later.

A person dreams of a red lorry in a road crash, then a week later sees a green bus have an accident. A person inclined to believe in precognition might regard this as 'near enough', based on the thematic similarity. Do you propose any mechanisms to limit this tendency?

I would also ask whether the people in the study were required to record their dreams at the time, or only to comment later, if they experienced something which they believed they had dreamed. The latter would allow too much leeway in remembering the dream incorrectly to fit events ( intentionally or otherwise ).

Anyway, I hope these intital thoughts will be of interest to you.

[SimonC]

Regarding this sentence in the page to which you link, ForAllOfThis

Anecdotal documentation for precognitive dreams that did not come true is extremely rare.

Surely a 'precognitive dream that did not come true' was just a bog-standard 'dream'?

[Fiona]

Would it not be true that all dreams would have to be recorded in some standard way, and some proportion of them identified as in some way predictive: then presumably some of that subgroup would "come true" and others wouldn't? This sounds very difficult to me. Would predictive dreams only be the ones about extraordinary events? What about the ones which predict me going to work in the morning? (ok, I have mundane dreams, but hey, they often come true!) How long would one be expected to wait?

I was puzzled by the examples in the article. I can see that Napoleon's dream could be imagined to be predictive but I was not aware that the "stately pleasure dome decree(d)" had been discovered


As to the neo-darwinian explanation - this kind of thing gets science a bad name. Retrofitting evolutionary advantage is a kind of woo which can be immensely entertaining but it is not very helpful

[Matt]

Precognistion is certainly possible. You yourself made the prediction that you might go to university in september. However such precognitions need not be supernatural in origin. The ability to make such predictions is indeed influenced by genetics and our intelligence has indeed been seleceted by evolution.

Our unconcious mind produces many images to show us. Whilst it may seem plausible that occasionally it presents a prediction based upon evidence that we are not conciously aware of and even a certain amount of guesswork, this is not necessary to explain the phenomena of people reporting precognitive dreams.

Many factors which we do know happen may be in play here.

Selective memory - of the many billions of images in our dreams we only remember a miniscule fraction. Those that seem pertinant are more memorable, so0metimes we only remember a dream once it has apparently come true.

Filling in the blanks - if you've ever tried to record your dreams you'll know how difficult it can be. Many times we fill in seemingly missing parts of our dreams just so they make a little more sense. In the case of precongnitive dreams it may be that we're fitting the dream to events rather than the other way round.

Evolving memory - as you look back on your past you'll find your memory of distant events less and less reliable. What seesm crystal clear to you when discussed with friends who had the same experience suddenly seesm in conflict with their versions. As you rememebr your precognitive dreams with no-one else to contradict your version of events your memory is free to transplant a memory of reality inot your meory of the dream.

Telling stories - there's a certain type of person who when retelling past events makes no effort to elaborate, exagerate bend or the facts to tailor the sotry to their audience. Such killjoys and party poopers are rare. Most of us when asked for a tale of precognitive dreams will search hard in our memory banks to find one and will adapt the tale to make it a better story. This even includes a small number of people who will downright lie just to get attention.

Having said all that here's a tale of a precognitive dream. I was young about ten or so and my Dad emerged from the bedroom. He was uneasy, there was something wrong. I could tell. He picked up the phone and dialled impatiently. This stalwart of mine, a Dad, every ten year old's personal idol, the source of all my stability and security was visibily shaken by there being no answer. Now my Dad is an atheist, hard core super sceptic, more than that he's a cynic. Wolrd weary of insubstantial tales of supernatural and extra terestrial origin he's instantly dismissive. However when I asked my Mum what was wrong it turned out that he'd had a very vivid dream about his Mum, my Nanny. He'd dreamed that she'd died. The emotions hadn't gone away on waking and so he'd phoned just to make sure. Just to settle himself. With no answer he got dressed in a hurry and went round there - Nanny and Grandad only lived a few hundred yards away. He went alone whilst we waited by the phone.

It seemed an age as my Mum reassured me that dreams were just dreams and than no-one should expect something to come true just becuase it had been foretold in a dream. All that had happeend was that Daddy had been upset by his dream and needed to see that Nanny was OK.

The phone rang...

Everything was OK, No death, no accidents no illnesses. Nanny would go on to outlive Grandad with another twenty years in her compared to His ten.

So even if precognitive dreams are a reality in either an unconcious or supernatural sense they're completely unreliable. In this instance thankfully so.

[ForAllOfThis]

Would it not be true that all dreams would have to be recorded in some standard way, and some proportion of them identified as in some way predictive: then presumably some of that subgroup would "come true" and others wouldn't? This sounds very difficult to me. Would predictive dreams only be the ones about extraordinary events? What about the ones which predict me going to work in the morning? (ok, I have mundane dreams, but hey, they often come true!) How long would one be expected to wait?

I was puzzled by the examples in the article. I can see that Napoleon's dream could be imagined to be predictive but I was not aware that the "stately pleasure dome decree(d)" had been discovered


As to the neo-darwinian explanation - this kind of thing gets science a bad name. Retrofitting evolutionary advantage is a kind of woo which can be immensely entertaining but it is not very helpful

Firstly I cannot find any other information on the study at this time. I'll try to find some after this post, as well as other possible studies. Also the link to the page was to give credit to where I found the information about the study.

All dreams would have to be collected in a standard way by the individuals (I hear dream diaries are very popular) but then comparing the dreams to real life events (say a car crash) would be immensely difficult because the data would have to be all collected from the participant who may lie to make themselves look good (demand chacteristics).

Predictions not extraordinary would also have to count, there is always a possibility that you don't go to work the next day (illness or death) although it would be more impressive if you predicted that. Still I agree that the criteria would have to be very strict to stop retrofitting which is also difficult.

There might be a possible future technique in the works, given 20 years or so. The use of fMRI machines to look at images in peoples head, they could analyse the brain patterns and record the images seen. Then a third party could more accurately record the dreams (than the person themselves) and then at the end of each day some sort of survey needs to be filled out about the days actions.

Another thing being overlooked would be actions in the virtual world. It may sound rediculous but look how many people use the popular game "world of warcraft" (although im not one of them) is it possible to predict ingame events such as these as well as real life events. Such things like that would also need to be tested.

The main problem with doing a lab experiment into precognition such as the zemmer cards and guessing whos going to text or phone youis that its very unrealisitic. This makes it hard to generalise the findings to real life especially as we know little about a phenomona that actually exists. It may work on a whole different level to what we understand, for example it may be an instinctive response. This could work when we find ourself in a situation (say a 10 second period) then we get a flashback to our dream or maybe a gut instinct on what to do next.

In response to the neo-darwian comment does that mean you have a better theory to how people could have precognitive abilities (which means you have to assume they exist).

[seren]

there's a certain type of person who when retelling past events makes no effort to elaborate, exagerate bend or the facts to tailor the sotry to their audience. Such killjoys and party poopers are rare.

Then you will be amazed and delighted to meet one right here. I am a TERRIBLE liar. I can't (or won't) even exaggerate for comic effect. I can't sell stuff because I'm no good at "bigging it up"; it is what it is. I'm dreadful at poker because I can't bluff. My mum always used to say I took everything literally, and I never grew out of it. So, yup, hi, I'm Seren and I'm a killjoy and a party pooper!

But even I recognise that I "interpret" my dreams to create a coherent narrative. They come out garbled and I arrange them into some kind of order

I once had a dream where I was told everything would be OK once I found "Jose Perez". At least, that's what I remember. I have been idly looking for Jose ever since. Never met the fellow.

[Matt]

Then you will be amazed and delighted to meet one right here. I am a TERRIBLE liar. I can't (or won't) even exaggerate for comic effect. I can't sell stuff because I'm no good at "bigging it up"; it is what it is. I'm dreadful at poker because I can't bluff. My mum always used to say I took everything literally, and I never grew out of it. So, yup, hi, I'm Seren and I'm a killjoy and a party pooper!

Yes.. that's exactly what an inverate liar would want me to believe.

But even I recognise that I "interpret" my dreams to create a coherent narrative. They come out garbled and I arrange them into some kind of order

I once had a dream where I was told everything would be OK once I found "Jose Perez". At least, that's what I remember. I have been idly looking for Jose ever since. Never met the fellow.

Maybe it's someone who dreamed they we Jose Perez....

[ForAllOfThis]

http://www.parapsych.org/members/jb_rhine.html

Reading that shows there is statistical significance of precognition using the zemmer cards.

A parapsychology paper I found

http://dbem.ws/Precognitive%20Habituation.pdf

Although I don't quite understand how the procedure leads to evidence of precognition (If someone could explain it in simpler terms that would be helpful =)).

What I'm finding is that I haven't came across any evidence that refutes precognition. Has anyone found any scientific studies that refute the possibility that precognition exists? I would be interested in reading them. Thanks! Also I know these studies are not related to precognitive dreams, I was just looking at evidence that may show precognition exists or doesnt exist.

[Croydon Bob]

What I'm finding is that I haven't came across any evidence that refutes precognition.

You can't prove a negative. Could you find any evidence that refutes the existence of pink elephants?

And proper trial of precognitive dreams would have to have a control group and double-blind testing. Not easy but perhaps a group of people inventing fake dreams, and the person evaluating would not know which papers were "real" and which fake. Only if the "real" precognitive dreams scored higher would there be a real effect. Claiming 8% of people had real precognitive dreams means nothing, it could easily fall into coincidence and/or wishful thinking, only a double-blind trial could test that.

[ForAllOfThis]

I didnt say anything about proving a negative.

I meant as in I havent found a study (such as the use of zemmer cards or by test of another means) that shows no statistical significance and suggests that precognition doesn't exist.

[SimonC]

I didnt say anything about proving a negative.

I meant as in I havent found a study (such as the use of zemmer cards or by test of another means) that shows no statistical significance and suggests that precognition doesn't exist.

I stand open to correction here, but I think that Zener cards are usually used as a test for clairvoyance/ESP, rather than precognition.

None of the Zener experiments have ever provided conclusive data. In the cases where statistical significance is claimed, there has often been doubts about the protocols of the testing, the rigour with which cheating was prevented, and the interpretation of statistics.

[FarSideOfTheMoon]

Often patterns found in test data are pronounced as significant - after the test is done. You can find loads of patterns in data. The key is trying to find a pattern that matches your hypothesis, repeatedly. No use doing a test 10 times until you get a pattern that matches your hypothesis, and discarding the other tests.

This cherry picking is at the heart of these types of tests.

[Croydon Bob]

I meant as in I havent found a study (such as the use of zemmer cards or by test of another means) that shows no statistical significance and suggests that precognition doesn't exist.

A quick google and look at references to meta-analysis of precognition shows that there have been loads of studies that have found no statistical significance. You don't seem to be looking very hard.

The fact that more than one meta-analysis seems to show something "small but significant" could easily be down to, say, one-in-ten of the studies involving fraud by someone involved, which would then taint the entire analysis. Indeed, if you look at the history of some of the people carrying out some of the studies then there is very likely to be figure fiddling involved, either because the scientist is an idiot who trusts others not to cheat or because they cheat themselves.

[03cammd79]

I for one can safely say that precognitive dreaming does happen. I've experianced it too many times for each event too be coincidence. I'm only 15 and i can remeber atleast 20 different instances where my dreams have really happend.

What i question though is what causes it? I cannot recall any precognitive dreaming prior to starting secondary school? Why Is this? There must be some form of genetic or social catalyst that 'turns on' the precognition 'switch'.

One problem that i have (and i guess all people that 'suffer' from precognitive dreaming) is that i do not know when a specific dream is precognitive untill the real event actually happens. Then by the time you tell people about the dream nobody beleives you, they think you are just some nut trying to get attention.

My most dramatic procognition (i dont blame you if you dont beleive me but i know when i dremt and that wont change) was that of the BA plane crash landing at heathrow. My dream was about a month prior to this event and what i saw in it clearly depicted a British Airways plane coming in to land at heathrow and a very stange angle. i did not actually see that the crash as i wsa busy bird watching with a group of anoracks in a field near an airport(i am yet to explain this) but i just had the knowledge that the plane did crashland. Upon awakening from the dream i had forgoten the name of the place that i was but i was sure that it was either gatwick, luton or heathrow.

Now i had this dream at the begining of december 07 and i had experianced many precognitive dreams before so that morning i was desperatly looking through the flight lists on teletext to see is anything stirred more detail out of the dream. This was unsuccessful. It was not untill a few days after the actual crash landing on Jan 17th that i rememberd the dream, trust me i was in shock. I know that there is a bit of a gap between december 07 and mid january 08 but this surely cant be a coincidence? I mean howmany BA flights crashland at a london airport?

Ive had many more experiances similar to this and am willing to share them if needbe.

But whatever you think i know that precogniton is possible its just that people who see things need to get to grips with recording dreams as fully as possible and to share them with others otherwise we'll be none the wiser about whether precognition actually exists (which i strongly beleive it does but for the benefit of those who dont...)

add me at [email address removed] should you want to talk to me, not that i'm online very often or that i actually talk about anything interesting...

Dan