Premonitions and a possible reason why we get them

I have had many premonitions in my life and often ponder about how they came to be. Most of them have been about dire situations or life changing decisions. Some have even saved my life, or so I believe as I look back on the situation. But I have never been able to come up with a valid solution as to why they occur.

Premonitions have been happening throughout history. It is not a new phenomenon. Indians, Egyptians, Babylonians, they all have some reference to premonitions or precognition. Most of the time it is a story of them receiving the information while they are dreaming:

The Ancient Egyptians, like many other cultures, held dreams in
www.fruitofthenile.com...

Most revelations of what was regarded by the Indians as coming from the supernatural powers were believed to be received in dreams or visions.
faculty.marianopolis.edu...

Dreams were classified into several types. Those of rulers and leaders such as priests were seen as one type, and those of common people of another. There was also a division between good dreams and bad dreams. If one goes into any large book-store and looks at dream dictionaries written before the advent of modern psychotherapy, it can easily be seen that most definitions are still written in the same style – that the dream will bring good or bad luck regarding money, romance or health. In fact they are derivations of the ancient Babylonian dream books. These speculations, observations and collection of folk beliefs were put into book form by the Babylonians, and are thought to have contained texts on dreams dating back to 5000 BC. These ancient Babylonian dream dictionaries were copied and taken to the library at Nineveh by king Assurbanipal. The great dream encyclopaedist Artemidorus later drew on these records for his own learning. The part of the Jewish/Hebrew Talmud which was written during the Babylonian captivity is also full of dream interpretations and ways of dealing with dreams, and undoubtedly drew on the Babylonian library.
dreamhawk.com...

And even in modern times, the experience of premonitions is mostly during dream states:

For instance, J. W. Dunne's book "An Experiment with Time" was written in 1927 about his own dreams about the future (precognitive dreams),

Many people have contacted us with dreams that occurred before 9/11 that seem to relate to the 9/11 events. We are now soliciting reports of dreams (and other experiences such as feelings, hunches, unexpected deviations from your normal routine, premonitions or daydreams) that occurred before the events of 9/11 and that seem to relate to the terrorist attacks on the United States.
www.aspr.com...

These are just a few examples, there are numerous accounts available to you if you choose to search.
So, what we can derive from this is that premonitions most often occur in/during a dream state.

Part 2: How does the brain function when we are dreaming?

While searching this information, I came across several theories about how the brain functions while we are sleeping, but no one has come up with a definitive answer as to what it does. All of the answers do have one common ground within them. The brain acts like a computer. Actually, it is to be noted that the brain is still the most powerful computer in today’s world. The amount of information that it processes per second is still far superior to any computer we have built/in use today.

So, even though we have proved it to you that the brain is far more superior to today's best computers, many of us out there wouldn't believe it. Why ? Because of the differences in performance. We can obviously see that any low-end computer can beat the fastest human at calculation as well as storing and processing of any information. Here's what we have to say.
library.thinkquest.org...

The incredibly efficient brain consumes less juice than a dim lightbulb and fits nicely inside our head. Biology does a lot with a little: the human genome, which grows our body and directs us through years of complex life, requires less data than a laptop operating system. Even a cat’s brain smokes the newest iPad—1,000 times more data storage and a million times quicker to act on it.
www.scientificamerican.com...

Implicit in the language is the idea that the brain functions as a mechanistic entity complete with "circuits" and “wires” (neural networks). So the metaphor is not just a metaphor; it’s a theory about how the mind works. If the brain is machinery, then it can be programmed and repaired -- though, as Hawking put it bluntly, "There is no heaven or afterlife for broken down computers."
bigthink.com...

So, the brain is a super computer, but what is it computing while we are sleeping?
Well, here are some theories on that. These are “best guesses” from the science world, there is nothing that has been set in stone, and the answer is they don’t really know.

Dreams perform an important function in humans. They help us transfer information from the short term memory to long term memory. This helps us to improve our strategies - we perform better at life. It helps us reflect on what was successful for us and what was not.
Dreams are especially important because this process of sorting information out tends to be done in sleep - its an OFF-LINE process. We store information that is important in short term memory then when we sleep we intensively cram periods of learning into REM sleep. We take information that is relevant to us, information about learning how to perform tasks etc. - then we devise new strategies and this information is then stored in long term memory. Dreams are about our survival strategies
www.unclesirbobby.org.uk...

A recent concept is that of the brain as a computer. Using this analogy, the sleeping state would be the time the computer / brain performs maintenance. This includes cleaning or removing files (memory). Based on this hypothesis, the reason why people dream are due to the cleaning activities of the brain.www.whyguides.com...

"There is substantial evidence that during sleep, your brain is processing information without your awareness and this ability may contribute to memory in a waking state."
www.telegraph.co.uk...

Part 3: The idea

Could it be possible that because your brain is not only processing information while you are sleeping, but is also able to weigh the outcomes of your actions during the day and give you forewarning to an event that is going to occur in the future based off of the information it has processed up to that point?

Most of the time, premonitions have déjà vu attached to them. This usually happens just prior to the event you had a premonition about. Could that be a “marker” that the brain inputs into your daily activity in order to ensure you slow down and take notice? Especially if said event will be life changing.

pre•mo•ni•tion (pr m -n sh n, pr m -)
n.
1. A presentiment of the future; a foreboding.
2. A warning in advance; a forewarning.
www.thefreedictionary.com...

deja vu - the experience of thinking that a new situation had occurred before
reminder - an experience that causes you to remember something

www.thefreedictionary.com...

For example: yesterday you worked all day on your final thesis for school, you searched the web in between doing the assignment and stayed up very late in order to get it done. What you didn’t grasp consciously is that you plagiarized someone else’s work accidentally by using some of the information you looked up on the web in your thesis. Not intentionally, but, you were tired and your brain used that information in order to finish the assignment, so, you don’t even know. You fall asleep and you brain processes that day’s events.

The next day, you initiate a conversation with your professor and you get déjà vu. This allows you to take notice of events that are taking place right after the déjà vu occurs. The professor mentions to you how he wants everyone’s work to be original and anyone that is caught turning in plagiarized work is going to fail the class. You go home, double check your paper and sure enough, you find the part you stole from someone else and correct it.

While you were sleeping the night before, your brain took all the information it received from that day, processed, sorted, and filed it, weighed the odds, and came to the conclusion that you had not been original in your paper, you would probably get a failing grade if you turned it in that way, and because your ultimate goal is to pass the class, your brain decided to make sure you felt the need to talk to your professor, make sure that your conversation went a certain path in order to get the professor to talk about plagiarism, and give you déjà vu in order to make sure you paid attention to the words he was saying directly after the déjà vu occurred.

Déjà vu and premonitions go hand and hand. They are usually experienced together. Gut feelings, intuition, sixth sense, they all lead back to the same thing. Your brain is trying to make you aware of something that is about to occur, has decided it will be detrimental to your survival, and wants you to fix it.

Whether it affects your personal well being, or your life goals, somehow, a certain event is going to lead you down the wrong path and your brain has figured it out. It determined what was going to occur based off of the facts it had and mapped out the proper path for you to follow in order achieve what you want or to help you avoid a life/death scenario.

Thoughts? Ideas?

Thanks,
Blend57

Wrong forum? Mods please correct if needed.

According to quantum theory, there are infinite parallel universes wherein anything that can happen does happen. So perhaps a premonition is just a glimpse into one of those. It's probably something simple like that. Same with dreams.

reply to post by twotif


Could be, but, if you reviewed some of the information I linked, it may be more complicated as well.

Thanks for the response

Blend57

Originally posted by blend57
reply to post by twotif

 

Could be, but, if you reviewed some of the information I linked, it may be more complicated as well.

Thanks for the response

Blend57

It may well be. But based on my knowledge of things, I posited one possible conclusion. That IS what a discussion is....no?

Originally posted by twotif
According to quantum theory, there are infinite parallel universes wherein anything that can happen does happen. So perhaps a premonition is just a glimpse into one of those. It's probably something simple like that. Same with dreams.

edit on 27-7-2012 by twotif because: added last sentence

The multiverse theory supports the concept that there are both identical and alternate universes since quantum assumes infinite expansion of the universe.

Personally, in my years in paranormal activities, I adhere to what you are proposing. I.e. that there is a crossing, all or part, of entities, including ourselves if we are properly disposed, into these other universes.

Premonitions could be nothing more than a travel to, or a remembrance of, an actual set of events that has happened before that a cosmic traveler has experienced.

I tend to believe that our premonitions/deja vu do come from different realities and things that could of happen. A lot of times I will have deja vu just before my kids do something and could get hurt and I can correct the situation such as I had one where there was scissors left out and someone could of ended up in the ER. But I also don't know how to explain where I get dreams of my family members dying and 2/3 weeks later they do. I've been having those since I was 2 years old. Kinda freaked my folks out. Perhaps its because I have some gypsy blood, but I couldn't be sure.

Interesting thread though =)

reply to post by twotif


I did a quick search on quantum theory as well as multi-verse theory. I could not find any information in regards to premonitions, but was able to find some on déjà vu.

If I understand it correctly (Which I probably don’t) It states that there are parallel universes that could be similar to ours.

But that we are unable to cross into them because they run on a different vibration then ours. My limited understanding of this is that there is no way for us to visit them.
www.dailygrail.com...

But, under certain circumstances, something may happen so similar in one that we are able to remember actual events that happened in it.

But the theory goes that maybe something has happened in one of these other universes and that we can access those memories and thoughts from our own minds within our own world.
www.unclesirbobby.org.uk...

Thanks,
Blend57

Is this a correct version of what you are saying?

reply to post by Liv07


Maybe you are processing information at a quicker pace because you are a mother and need to ensure the survival of your offspring?

Your subconscious mind collected the information that the scissors were out, quickly ran through all the possibilities, and decided that your children were in danger. It then induced déjà vu to ensure you took notice and corrected the issue.

With regards to the 3 weeks before your relative died, I have experienced such things and cannot come to a plausible solution for this. Thus the thread
Maybe it is your gypsy blood, but I don’t have any gypsy blood in me, so, I am unsure if that is the answer….

Thanks,
Blend57

Originally posted by blend57
reply to post by twotif

 

I did a quick search on quantum theory as well as multi-verse theory. I could not find any information in regards to premonitions, but was able to find some on déjà vu.

If I understand it correctly (Which I probably don’t) It states that there are parallel universes that could be similar to ours.

But that we are unable to cross into them because they run on a different vibration then ours. My limited understanding of this is that there is no way for us to visit them.
www.dailygrail.com...

There are numbers of paranormal researchers with decades of experience purposefully visiting the multiverse, are they all liars?

reply to post by PeaNice


I dont understand your response, I was asking a question regarding what I researched and what the poster I replied to had mentioned, I showed both possibilities that I saw, one for and one against.

If I have gotten the facts wrong, why not point me in the right direction?

Thanks,
Blend57

reply to post by blend57

I wasn't referring to you.

reply to post by blend57



You're probably right about protecting my offspring. Always have to be on my hands and toes around them. As for the gypsy blood it was the only explanation my mother gave me after I told her about my dreams. Apparently others in the family are the same way. So who knows

Interesting theories but a bit conventional. How about this one:

When a person dies they convert from being a space dweller unconditionally impacted by time, into a time traveller unconditionally impacted by space. The space you are impacted by after you die is the space you existed within effective range of from birth to death. Space itself is a "recording medium" where your radiations and spatial displacements cause permanent distortions the space itself (like a magnetic tape recording). As you time dwell through your "book of life" space, your after-death self tries to communicate with your still embodied self. This communion is called your conscience.

Maybe your conscience (you after you die), which is always right, now that it KNOWS what's "on the other side" of death is trying to tell you something so you don't remain imprisoned inside your shell (book of life) to time dwell within for all eternity.

Install, record, the escape Door at some point in your space dwelling here on Earth.

reply to post by tkwasny


So, you are saying that you #1 are in essence trying to tell yourself to "hurry up and get it over with, there are better things around the corner"

But when you #1 tell yourself that, you #2 thinks you #1 are trying to keep yourself from dying, so, you sabotage the whole plan by staying here?

Is that a correct simple mans explanation?

Thanks,
Blend57

I've always thought that the deja vu and bad feelings I get are some kind of warning. Wherever it comes from, be it the subconscious, God, other dimensions, or whatever, I do find them useful. They have prepared me for nasty shocks and I truly believe they have allowed me to change my life through a few choices I would not have made if not for those feelings. I'm grateful for them, wherever they come from.