Precognition: What is it?

Although I don't necessarily consider precognition to be paranormal in nature, many skeptics think it's nonsense and deserves to be lumped in with topics like ghosts, psychics, etc. Hence I have posted this thread in the Paranormal section.

The big question I wish to ask ATS is if you have ever experienced precognition in any form? It can be defined thusly:

pre·cog·ni·tion (prkg-nshn)
n.
Knowledge of something in advance of its occurrence, especially by extrasensory perception; clairvoyance.


Now I have experienced this a number of times in my life under fairly mundane conditions. Often it would take the form of quietly observing a conversation amongst friends, when suddenly I would be able to predict what each person in the conversation was about to say before they'd say it. This would only last for a few sentences and then the fact it would be confirmed would leave me dumbfounded and the effect would wear off.

Have you ever experienced this phenomenon? I have spoken to a number of people in my personal life about this and a surprisingly high percentage of them have experienced this. All of us agree that to say anything before or after the experience to those around us would be pointless. For instance, if you mention it before hand, then you have no way of confirming the validity of your intuitions as the people engaged in these conversations may not carry it out the same way since you have made a prediction. If you mention it after the experience, who among them will believe you?

This brings me to the crux of this thread. Assuming this phenomenon is real, what is actually occurring here, and what does it say about the nature of reality (and free will for that matter)?

Some possible explanations:

-Glitch in "the matrix"

-Some sort of psychic phenomenon

-Rift or glitch in space time, allowing those who perceive the phenomenon to glimpse the immediate future

-Some sort of hiccup in the brain (whereby you have already processed the conversation but your brain hasn't "rendered" it yet, and so you perceive yourself as knowing what is about to be said)

Naturally the materialist views will likely gravitate towards the last of these possible explanations. So ATS: Have you ever experienced this? If so what do you think it is? If we can actually know what someone is going to say before they say it, do we even have free will?

Looking forward to hearing your responses.

DeadSeraph
Although I don't necessarily consider precognition to be paranormal in nature, many skeptics think it's nonsense and deserves to be lumped in with topics like ghosts, psychics, etc. Hence I have posted this thread in the Paranormal section.

Yeah, skeptics are funny creatures.

The big question I wish to ask ATS is if you have ever experienced precognition in any form?

Many times. Very often I will have a special dream containing unfamiliar imagery that I come across in a few days. Sometimes I have waking visions of scenes which unfold later.

This brings me to the crux of this thread. Assuming this phenomenon is real, what is actually occurring here, and what does it say about the nature of reality (and free will for that matter)?

Future events are kind of like a pebble in a pond, with ripples in every direction. Some of those ripples reach us from the future.

Same thing goes on with presentiment.

Yes I have had many exeperiences, in all sorts of forms. It makes zero sense unless one looks at time as anything but linear and one-directional.

I often wonder if time is cyclical, and we know because it's happened before, Lord knows how many times.

The "ripples in a pond" theory is also valid.

My first experience was when I was 10, in dream form. I dreamed that a friend of mine wasn't in Sunday School the next morning because she had to be rushed to the hospital for emergency surgery. That is exactly what happened.

It is possible that there is an energy field that connects us all, every living thing, and we're more tuned into those close to us. Therefore, distance and time mean nothing.

I've had many since age 9. But, this one in my late 30's really creeped me out.

While at work and talking to two other co-workers, both women, I turned to one and said "You're pregnant aren't you." Keep in mind, she wasn't showing, nor looked pregnant in any way. She stared at me and said, " How did you know that, I just took a test this morning, I haven't even told my husband yet." She was visually startled, as I was. Then I replied, " He told me" , she said, "He"

I walked away, telling myself, Stop it, Stop it. This woman had a baby boy 8 months later. She would not come near me anymore. Not being mean, just afraid.

I don't know what causes this, but to me, it's a curse.

For myself, the past 2 months have been interesting. I would have to say both time and a 3nd person view is all I can make out of it. Only for 2 weeks in them 2 months were somewhat crazy! I was either ahead one month or back one, knew pretty much how the week would go, people, places and what they were going to do before they even knew.

Still have a letter wrote to me by my roommate/lover/hater who tried to pull a fast one, yet without reading I already knew. Work was having it's time frame misplaced since it took most of the morning to catch up with time. How here is the interesting part, I either played it out before orI was given a chance to see things outside myself. More like already knowing what is going to happen only watch what I'm doing outside myself. I could have sworn I done the same thing 3-5 different ways!

In childhood I could pick up on anything coming my way or being next to near sometime that day depending on the tones/mood. Knew yet only changed where I was at or going. Someone would say, Let's go here. Picked up a feeling and changed my mind. Never like this though. Even now I have been noticing something strange, I just can not place it TO something. Be Aware is what I've been getting for some time, now how the 2 crazy weeks fit into all this I could not say.

Watching myself react, able to change, seeing how I do things during the day them 2 weeks was more like a dream state. I did learn something though. My everyday life somehow has a self run auto pilot. We tend to place people/thoughts in some sort of box and once that happens, it get turned into being fixed mindset of doing things. Based upon past ideas, thoughts, we tend to keep them as facts, so never actually think about what is happening now.

Best I can do is say I really do not know and it's okay! It's the understanding that somehow your mind has to understand things for some reason. Since the past few months have been interesting, I find the need for understanding is not as important as you actually being there at that point of time; Now.

Peace

nope never have.

Now de je vu that is another story.

reply to post by DeadSeraph


Yes, I experience precognition on occasion. When my best friend died, when Paul Walker died, and most recently when my teacher died.
There are some things I "just know", but, knowing what I know, Yahoshua is very much real, the evidence is overwhelming.

I have experienced it many times throughout my life. I think most people are capable of it.

reply to post by DeadSeraph


From my point of view. I think precondition is a part of synchronicity (synchronous events). Had a few precondition during my life but most hints made no sense until after. Like my unconscious mind telling me spoilers that my conscious mind did not understand.

I would not mind a spoiler right now.

I was really hoping this thread would illicit a more serious response...

reply to post by DeadSeraph



Precognition, whatever it may be, whatever the level, has implications about what the future really is. The way this information is passed along to humans is another matter all together. Akin to precognition is super knowledge, knowing something, something that is current, that you have no way, or should have know way of knowing about.

FissionSurplus


It is possible that there is an energy field that connects us all, every living thing, and we're more tuned into those close to us. Therefore, distance and time mean nothing.

Its probably much more personal than an energy field. It involves a 3rd person/persons.

reply to post by DeadSeraph


The future is not set until it is experienced objectively as the 'now'. People are seeing their possible futures everyday that is how the focused can manifest their dreams and desires. I do not think people 'see' the future, they 'create' it.

In the case of some people what I think happens is they connect to a conscious field which stimulates other parts of the brain giving them how would I say, unusual processing abilities. Unusual in the sense that so many people are in "off" mode and are on life support as far as their operating system goes.

Through this they would able to see many more possible futures and not just for them, for anything also connected to this field. For these people they would be seeing things in cycles and calculating probabilities then trying to factor as many variables as possible. There is always unknown variables because there are simply so many people within the planets consciousness.

This is just how I perceived the subject from my own experience. It is not a fact I am presenting however it is my thoughts.
In regards to 'free will', every now and again I do something I really don't want to do. Then I think to myself why would I want to do that if I had a choice. Which I did. My point being that given a choice with hindsight knowing the outcome will be unfavorable towards me and still choosing it shows me there is no logic to predestined reality if it was the case.
It is the best I can do considering the paradoxical nature of predestined events

reply to post by DeadSeraph


Two main moments in my life that made folk I was with, exclaim loudly and with much profanity, due to a moment of clarity on my part.

First was when myself and some chums were sitting around a patio table many years ago. We had spent all day there, and none of us had even looked at a clock, watch, or phone screen, during the day to see what time it was. We were young, had the day off, and much booze to drink, and therefore gave not a damn of the time. However, after the sun had gone down, and been down for some time, a friend turned to me and asked of me "Whats the time dude?" and without taking a breath to consider the question, I replied "The time is 10:44 pm". I had not seen a clock of any kind all day, and yet when a mobile phone was retrieved from a pocket by one of my other drinking buddies, the numerals had just swapped from 43 to 44 minutes past ten. There followed from the three people with whom I was drinking, a series of loud and unmentionable reactions, and then a stunned silence.

Another time when I appeared to be in possession of some freaky ability to see into the depth of matters which would be otherwise impenetrable, was when a friend of mine invited me to her place for a cup of tea, and within five minutes of being there, and without any discussion of any related topics, I announced "You are pregnant. Get a test." She followed my advice, and sure enough found out that she was pregnant. At first, she was skeptical, not to mention dismayed (this was a period in my friends life where such a thing would not have been workable in the least), but that gave way to amazement when the results of the test came back. It could have been fluke, but I turned around and said the same to another female friend of mine a year ago. Two for two on impending baby (or ,unfortunately, termination) warnings!

reply to post by DeadSeraph


Hi DeadSeraph,

I think it's hard to say if there is a difference between telepathy and precognition. I think that most of us, albeit subconscious for the most part, do experience glimpses telepathy. Precognition could be a telepathic observation of intent and the projection of intent, as well as the ability to see long term cause and effect over time, like "prophecy".

For example, many years ago my daughter, 12 years old, was 3000 miles away, visiting relatives. I had a vision of her being raped. I was extremely upset, as you could imagine, and called the household. I conveyed my vision and was reassured that everything was fine. 2 days later, my daughter spotted a man masturbating outside her window while she was taking advantage of an exercise machine. She screamed, called me, I called 911, she called 911, police and dogs were summoned............in the end, my daughter was NOT raped! But, I believe that I telepathically, as a mother, picked up on that perverts intentions, even 3000 miles away.

reply to post by windword



3rd party.

reply to post by Logarock


By 3rd party, so you mean me, my daughter and the pervert as the three, or do you mean something more metaphysical, like the "holy spirit" or do you mean there's some sort of spiritual netting that represents the 3rd party, like the medium of the world wide web?

reply to post by windword



I mean 3rd party as informer. Something was going to happen and you became informed by a 3rd, as it were, unrelated party. Someone watching out for you and yours.

I've begun to pick up the phone before it rings. I think we have all sensed the phone ringing before we hear it though right? I've also had thoughts enter my head (unusual events) that I dismiss only to later have them occur. A person I had not seen for over a year came to mind one morning a couple of months ago and later that day he stopped by. Just outa the blue.

With the two deaths I knew about before being told (one through a dream and one just entering my mind like "this happened" - but felt it while also thinking it if that makes sense) - I also dismissed them both and only realized later I had known before being told (neither was sick; neither was on my mind on a regular basis). It wasn't precog with the deaths of the people but rather a precog of finding this out/being told. I've always thought I was able to pick up on a signal from them after they had passed but will never know. These instances were many years apart.

As mentioned above - It isn't just cognitive (a thought) for me. It also includes a sense that moves throughout the body (unless in a dream and then it just feels lucid and I remember the dream). While thoughts impact the entire body in everyday life I'm not sure which comes first when this is happening. They could be simultaneous but its hard to tell. It isn't a thought and then...sadness or panic or whatever. It's just all there at once - or feels like it is. I know some of them move into long term memory quite thoroughly (as I'm able to recall details of even ones that aren't emotional - such as the telephone. I am able to recall with all of the same senses what that feels like.

I feel things deeply in day to day life - if someone is embarrassed I may feel their emotion. I see this as empathy but it can also be draining. I've never really studied it but wouldn't it be amazing to know when a precog thought is actually a precog thought so we don't dismiss them?

Premonition / precognition is like anything else in the field of the paranormal. When you experience it yourself, and there is no way to rationally explain it away, you have to accept it. However, you can't reasonably expect others to accept it. Not unless you have some proof of your remarkable claim.

Also, these things are pretty much dead ends. What do you do with a premonition or precognition experience? Unless you can figure out some way for it to profit you or others in some way, of what use is it? But most importantly, how do you prove it happened to anybody else?

I think this is the key to any study of this phenomenon (which I've experienced several times) -- any experiment must provide clear proof that it happened and can't be explained away by conventional means. Unfortunately reproducing an experiment -- crucial to scientific testing, of course -- may prove impossible.