Now tell me what is more likely - that there is a static future, which a human brain is occasionally able to see with accuracy that creates magic feelings in you?
Or that human brains naturally imagine and dream things, some of which are possible to occur in the future, some of which are even LIKELY to occur in the future - and that when, by chance, something you imagine or dream comes true your brain releases chemicals that make you feel good?
I can't fault your logic and I fully agree. However, see what you think of this - a personal account. Of course, I'm just a name on a forum, so I accept the criticism that I'm lying, or critically mistaken, can validly be levelled at me. The event happened approximately 12 years ago. I never actually recorded the date, unfortunately, so that approximation will have to suffice.
First off, I admit I'm a prolific dreamer and have kept a dream diary (off and on) for over 20 years. Often I'll make notes immediately on waking, then write up the dream later in the day or week. In this particular instance I made notes immediatley I awoke and wrote up the dream that night. Unfortunately, whilst I still have my notes - and a good memory of the dream / event - I've lost the notebook where I wrote up the "polished" version.
This is what I dreamed: I was driving to work, the normal route, and on rounding a corner onto a straight section of road I encountered a tailback of cars. The cars were queued up to the brow of the hill and beyond. I thought this was odd, as I had never before encountered a queue at that point. I began to slow down, trying to see what the problem was up ahead, when I noticed a man running towards me down the grass verge. All I remember of him is that he was dressed smartly. Before I could react, the man suddenly lurched in front of my car. I slammed on my brakes but I hit him and he rolled over the bonnet of the car. I had the impression he then ran off, but didn't see. I woke up.
Before I arose I scribbled some notes about this dream. I wrote that the dream was oddly depressing and "unusually mundane". Almost none of my dreams can be classed as "mundane" and I can't recall any other that didn't contain at least one ridiculous event or element. Also, the dream was peculiar in that the scenery, my car, everything I remember, appeared as if real. There were no typical dreamlike distortions or differences.
About an hour later I set off to work (my route, BTW, was entirely rural and normally I would encounter nine or ten cars on the five mile journey). As I approached the stretch of road that had figured in my dream, the dream itself was in my mind, but only as a matter of interest, as in, "Hey, this is where I dreamed about last night."
I rounded the corner and, at exactly the same point as in my dream, I saw a queue of cars. Just like my dream, it stretched half-way along the straight road and consisted of maybe 40 vehicles. Immediately I felt some element of shock at the similarity but at this point I don't believe I was thinking in terms of premonition.
Even so, as I was almost "prepared", I did slow down significantly and as I approached the last vehicle in the queue I was travelling around 10 - 15mph.
At this point I saw a man running towards me on the grass verge. I cannot say it was the "same" man as in my dream, and I don't recall the features of either, but this guy was also dressed quite smartly and I certainly don't recall any differences. I'm not entirely sure what my thoughts were at this time, but to the best of my knowledge I did recall what happened in my dream when the guy fell or jumped in front of my car.
I slowed to walking pace and 3 yards in front of my car the guy stumbled and half-fell into the road. He braced his fall with his hands and ended up on one knee on the tarmac. I jammed on the brakes and stopped the car without hitting him. I went to open the door to check if he was OK but clearly he was in a hurry as he got straight back up and ran off down the road.
I later found that there had been a car crash over the brow of the hill. The guy was actually a witness who was running to the hotel on the corner to make a call to the emergency services (this was before the days when everyone had a mobile phone, and anyway mobiles tended not to work in that area).
To the best of my knowledge, that's an accurate statement of what happened. Other than the fact that in the dream I hit the guy, and in reality I missed him (just), I could discern no differences whatsoever between the two events.
I actually hesitate in writing up the addendum, but seeing as I'll likely get panned for the story above, I figure, What the hell.
Every one of the next four nights that week I dreamed of something that came to pass the next day. None were as dramatic as the first incident, and individually they could be likely be dismissed as chance. However, when I consider the week as a whole I have to say it was a damn strange time.
It's worth noting that never before or since have I had anything remotely like this happen to me.
As I say, people may want to suggest I'm lying. That's fine. I have done so before when others have posted anecdotes. Perhaps it really was coincidence. Billions of people have billions of dreams every year. Can the chances of my account being random chance be accommodated in these billions? I have no idea. All I'm doing is posting this to show why I decline to utterly write off the possibility that premonition is a valid - if fleeting and unpredictable - phenomenon.
) I am as hardcore a skeptic as they come.
, but in the evening there was a trailer for a nature documentary dealing with the microscopic life that can be found in the home. The trailer involved a simulation of a miniature camera rushing through a carpet, encountering bugs and wriggly things and finally - a mouse. It was pretty much exactly what I'd dreamed.
