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Precognitive experiences -- if they are real -- show things that will happen in the future,
not things that you've already experienced.
Precognition
The reliance upon precognition reaches back to ancient times, when prophets and oracles
were sought for their access to the future. The Greeks considered the future immutable. Free
will, however, can change the perceived future, as seen in the many incidents of individuals
saving their lives and escaping disasters by changing their previously formed plans based on
precognitive information. Psychical researchers estimate that one-third to one-half of all
precognitive experiences may provide useful information to avert disasters.
This apparent ability to alter the perceived future makes precognition difficult to understand.
If precognition is a glimpse of the true or real future, then the effects are witnessed before the
causes. Such conditions do occur in quantum physics. The most popular theory holds that
precognition is a glimpse of a possible future that is based upon present conditions and
existing information, and which may be altered depending upon acts of free will. That theory
implies the future can cause the past, a phenomenon called "backward causality" or "retro-
causality."
A different and controversial theory contends that the precognitive experience itself unleashes
a powerful psychokinetic (PK) energy, which then brings the envisioned future to pass. Such
self-fulfilling prophecies were examined in the 1960s by the London psychiatrist J. A. Barker,
who contended in his book, Scared to Death, that people who died in the manner and at the
time predicted by fortune-tellers were literally "scared to death" and contributed somehow to
their own demise. Barker studied more precognitions surrounding the coal slide disaster in
1966, at Aberfan, Wales, which killed 144 people. He established the British Premonitions
Bureau, which collected precognitive data in order to avert disasters. Barker succeeded in
finding a number of "human seismographs" who tuned in regularly to disasters but were
unable to accurately pinpoint the times.
Dunne's Theory of Serial Time proposes that time exists in layers on dimensions, each of
which may be viewed in different perspectives from different layers. The origin of all layers is
Absolute Time, created by God. Needless to say, the scientific community rejected Dunne's
theory.
J. B. Rhine and Louisa Rhine began the next significant systematic research of precognition in
the 1930s at the Parapsychology Laboratory at Duke University. J. B. Rhine's original goal
was to prove telepathy, but his experiment with ESP cards also revealed precognition and PK;
however when other perused psychical researchers Rhine's work, precognition continued
being an ongoing research project.
One peculiarity concerning precognition is that one rarely perceives one's own death; perhaps
one explanation is the trauma it too great for the ego to accept. Some notable exceptions do
exist: Abraham Lincoln dreamed of his own death six weeks before his assassination.
However, his dream was not of being shot and dying, but of being an observer after the fact.
He saw a long procession of mourners entering the White House. When he entered himself
and passed the coffin, he was shocked to find himself looking at his own body. American
presidents John Garfield and William McKinley experienced foreknowledge of their deaths.
A.G.H.
Sources:
Guiley, Rosemary Ellen. Harper's Encyclopedia of Mystical and Paranormal Experience, New York:
HarperCollins, 1991, pp. 463-464
Déjà vu
This is a term that designates disorientation in time in which a person feels that he has
been to an unknown place before, or has previously experienced a situation, or met a
person before. Déjà vu is an unexpected sensation of familiarity that applies to events,
experiences, sensory impressions, dreams, thoughts, statements, desires, emotions,
dreams, visits, the act of reading, the state of knowing, and, in general, the
circumstances of living. The term is French for "already seen," and was first used to give a
description to such experiences in 1876 by E. Letter Boirac, who called it "le sensation du
déjà vu." In 1896, F. L. Arnaud introduced it to science. There is no adequate English
equivalent for the term "déjà vu."
The sensation of déjà vu has been found to be a common psychological experience. According
to a poll conducted in 1986 by the National Opinion Research Council of the University of
Chicago, 67 percent of Americans reported instances of déjà vu, up from 58 percent in 1973.
In other studies the phenomenon has been reported experienced more among women than
men, and more among younger people than older people.
There is a wide variance in theories explaining déjà vu. Some psychologists refer to it as
"double cerebration." As early as 1884, theories were advanced suggesting that one
hemisphere of the brain received information a split second earlier that the other half. In 1895,
the English psychical researcher Frederic W. H. Myers theorized that the subconscious mind
registered information sooner than the conscious mind. The speculation of a biological
process for déjà vu, if there is any, has not been proven.
However, many researchers are cautious when dealing with instances of déjà vu because
of the chance the person who experienced the sensation may have read or seen
something that is now in his unconsciousness that triggers the impression. The most
reliable subjects of are young children. A.G.H.