"Psychic" Dreams

[Sky]

Hello,

I'm new to the forum, and just wanted to share my thoughts on the subject of "psychic" dreams -- which are often used by people as a justification for their belief in the paranormal.

I consider myself to be a rational and skeptical individual, and I have also experienced "psychic" dreams in the past. To be specific, I had a dream of an exact snapshot of a future event, taking place at a location I had never visited before. I'm not delusional, I'm quite sure that I didn't imagine it, though since my claim is unverifyable, I don't expect any of you to beleive my experience just because I claim to have experienced it -- but it's convincing enough for me. I simply don't believe that the dream was really "psychic" at all.

Using Occam's Razor as a guideline, I'd assume that most of you would conclude that I must be delusional, since there's little other proof of my claim -- alternatively, you may beleive that I have a fulty memory of my dream, and became convinced "retroactively" that it had occured due to the limitations of human memory. These explanations are plausible enough to outside observers -- but as a first-hand participant, I don't buy them; However, I will suggest a couple of alternative simple explanations that fit within a scientific framework:

1) The brain is theorized to be capable of 100 Trillion (100 Billion for those of you outside north america) calculations per second. (Assuming that thought, cognition, and therefore dreams are able to be algorithmically modeled, as current research seems to suggest). That's a lot of processing power -- it's possible that I actually dreamed about many, many alternative future experiences that never came to be, in addition to one that did. Widespread underestimation of the normal capabilities of the human brain can account for a lot of supposed "paranormal" experiences as such. That's why 'psychics' are wrong so much -- it could be just a very large number of random plausible future experiences that they 'see' -- nothing extraordinary. -- This is the simplest explanation that fits all of the facts from my perspective, and the one I'm inclined to believe.

2) One could make an elaborate argument for the possibillity of real psychic phenomena using quantum mechnics (even with the plausible and deterministic 'transactional' interpetation, as opposed to 'everett many worlds') But barring other evidence to support such a claim, this seems wildly implausible, as a violation of Occam's Razor. Also, pseudo-scientists have beaten this concept to death, so I'm not even going to get into it here, but it does seem to be a remote possibility, which would also account for the unreliability of predictions (since reality is a large dynamic system with many agents affecting outcomes). -- This seems to be a rather remote possibility which shouldn't be seriously considered yet, but may have elements of truth to it.

While the second possibility is widely criticized, and rightly so -- I don't see what's wrong with the first assumption I've made above, and I see it as a neat, scientific, reality-based explanation of apparent "paranormal" experiences that I've had (granted, only twice in my life).

Although I didn't really make an explicit point with this discussion, my primary motive in posting this is to advocate a different approach that's less confrontational when people make a claim of "paranormal" experience -- perhaps shaping explanations of their experience to fit a scientific model of the world without branding them as delusional or outright mistaken would be a more compelling argument, and a defense against mystical / spiritualist belief formation -- which folks resort to when all other explanations fail them. A less adversarial approach to such individuals may save a greater number from the perils of cognatively dissonant fundamentalism and mystical realities.

All comments appreciated.

 

[Nyarlathotep]

I have no idea how many calculations per second the brain can do, so I won't even touch that part of your hypothesis. I don't need to.

Your idea is basically a round about way of saying "I have dreamt and/or imagined lot's of things, occasionally some of these things have happened." By your own admission, this has only happened on rare occasions. So why then, do you count the hits as a paranormal ocurence and ignore the misses? I think that it's more akin to the fact that you imagine and dreams lots of different things so it's almost inevitable that eventually some of them will match reality, just like those infinite number of monkeys with typewriters writing Hamlet.

As for the idea that you might be seeing "alternate futures", that would imply that every dream, fantasy and figment of your imagination that you come up with is a glimpse into an alternate future. So what seems more likely to withstand Occams razor? That dreams are glimpses into alternate realities or that they are just your imagination? I would think the latter.

 

[Francois Tremblay]

So what is the probability of this event happening, you think ? One out of a million ?

That means it happens to hundreds of people every day in North America. You just happened to be one of them.

All it proves is that you don't understand probabilities.

 

[jmercer]

So what is the probability of this event happening, you think ? One out of a million ?

That means it happens to hundreds of people every day in North America. You just happened to be one of them.

All it proves is that you don't understand probabilities.

Francois, do you have any other posting modes other than insulting and/or demeaning? Sheesh.

 

[Sky]

I think my point has been misunderstood.

More clearly --

what appears to be "paranormal" -- can be explained by simple probability. Random behavior of the brain. What are the odds? Who knows -- no one has uncovered the exact mechanism of thought as of yet -- one would have to know how many computations create a "thought" to have any conception of the probability of such an occurence.

Nothing makes the dreams more real than imagination, except they seem more real. I am counting the misses as well. That's the point. I can dream of green slime creatures devouring new york city, or I can dream about visiting a particular park or monument which I've never visited before, and a particular conversation ( unrelated to the momnument) taking part there. The former would almost certainly never occur, the latter, quite reasonable to possibly occur.

The mind doesn't differentiate these things while asleep, really -- but when you dream about one, and the exact thing occurs, that doesn't mean it was "paranormal" or "psychic" -- that's all. I was saying that it really is all one's imagination -- and that people don't give enough credit to the power of the imagination, and assume that people who believe these things didn't experience what they claim to experience. I'd say that while sometimes they're crazy, quite often, people *may* really experience such things, and a blanket dismissal of their experience isn't likely to convince them of the skeptical position. Their experience isn't a proof of the existance of some paranormal power, and shouldn't be treated as either a lie, or lunacy. It's a bit greyer... that's all.

Perhaps the second point I made distracted from the overall theme of my commentary.

 

[jmercer]

Hello,

I'm new to the forum, and just wanted to share my thoughts on the subject of "psychic" dreams -- which are often used by people as a justification for their belief in the paranormal.

I consider myself to be a rational and skeptical individual, and I have also experienced "psychic" dreams in the past. To be specific, I had a dream of an exact snapshot of a future event, taking place at a location I had never visited before. I'm not delusional, I'm quite sure that I didn't imagine it, though since my claim is unverifyable, I don't expect any of you to beleive my experience just because I claim to have experienced it -- but it's convincing enough for me. I simply don't believe that the dream was really "psychic" at all.

Using Occam's Razor as a guideline, I'd assume that most of you would conclude that I must be delusional, since there's little other proof of my claim -- alternatively, you may beleive that I have a fulty memory of my dream, and became convinced "retroactively" that it had occured due to the limitations of human memory. These explanations are plausible enough to outside observers -- but as a first-hand participant, I don't buy them; However, I will suggest a couple of alternative simple explanations that fit within a scientific framework:

Welcome to the forums.

"Delusional" is a strong word. There are people who believe something, but are open to alternative explanations; these folks are not delusional. Then there are people who believe something and are totally closed to anything that casts doubts upon their beliefs. Time will tell which catagory you fall into, but your initial post shows promise that you'll fall into the first catagory and not the second.


From my perspective, precognitive dreaming is a question that has several mundane explanations, one of which you identifed - becoming convinced retroactively that you had the dream. However, another and simpler explanation is that you did indeed have the dream, and it somewhat matched the events. But (there's always a "but", isn't there? ) the dream only became signficant to you once it "matched" events that were similar enough to raise the recognition.

You might have hundreds of these dreams... but only focus on the ones that "deliver". The failed ones are non-events and are forgotten.

 

[gnome]

2) One could make an elaborate argument for the possibillity of real psychic phenomena using quantum mechnics (even with the plausible and deterministic 'transactional' interpetation, as opposed to 'everett many worlds') But barring other evidence to support such a claim, this seems wildly implausible, as a violation of Occam's Razor.

I would say it violates more than Occam's Razor, as it would also be against known principles of quantum mechanics.

I imagine any argument linking QM with psychic phenomena rely on the listener's ignorance about the details. True, QM has some startling implications, but as yet no indication that information can be transmitted backwards in time.

I don't think you're delusional, as I think it's natural to experience. Memories of dreams are tenuous in the first place, and I've found they are easily subject to what you might call involuntary post-hoc editing--a possibility you mention. I have experienced that myself.

But I do like your approach, and welcome to the forum!

 

[Sky]

Thanks for the feedback -- but about QM and transmitting information backwards in time -- I refer you to the supporting information of the Transaction Interpetation of QM and its primary supporting evidence, the Afshar Experiment -- Which seems to me to refute the commonly accepted copenhagen interpetation, and makes the transactional model best fit all of the evidence.

 

[Garrette]

Okay, going way beyond my expertise here, but I'll give it a shot.

Cramer himself says his Transactional Interpretation is based mainly on Afshar's experiment, but he fails to address the serious concerns with that experiment.

Namely, Afshar assumes in his experiments that photons detected at certain detectors travelled certain paths. His assumption does not stand up; at least, it holds no more validity than the opposing assumption that they travelled other paths. Without his assumption, the entire experiment and its implications collapse.

Second, even if Afshar's experiment holds true, the Transactional Interpretation does not posit what you claim it posits, i.e., it does not provide a quantum explanation for backward-in-time dreams.

 

[Correa Neto]

But...

QM is supposed to describe behavior of very small entities. "Paranormal phenomena", I think, do not qualify. Their odd behavior can not be extended to macroscopic elements.

For example- If it is possible to "teleport" a photon, it does not necessarily means that a brick can also be teleported. The same is valid for (the not yet proven claim of) transmitting information backwards in time.

edited for typos

 

[Ryan O'Dine]

But...

QM is supposed to describe behavior of very small entities. "Paranormal phenomena", I think, do not qualify. Their odd behavior can not be extended to macroscopic elements.

For example- If it is possible to "teleport" a photon, it does not necessarily means that a brick can also be teleported. The same is valid for (the not yet proven claim of) transmitting information backwards in time.

edited for typos

I’m no expert, but my understanding is that macro events are, in fact, possible in QM. Superconductivity and superfluidity are such events. More to the point, it’s not impossible to “quantum tunnel” a brick somewhere, but the more macro you get, the less probable. You may have to wait the age of the universe before it happens, but it could possibly happen.

On the other hand, I've always thought that using QM to explain psychic phenomena is a bit like using a microscope to study meteorology -- the instrument is way too precise to make sense of something so foggy. (Not that I would discourage Sky from trying )

 

[Correa Neto]

Neither I am a QM expert, you would need to have the tunnelling effect happening for all particles that compose the brick (preferentially) at the same time, and the new coordinate sets for each individual particles must keep, at the brick's destination point, the same relative positions to themselves that they kept at the initial position of the brick. Imagine a coordinate axis internal to the brick. If particle #5654437 is at X1Y1Z1 in respect to this refference frame, at the brick's original position, at the new position, particle #5654437 must still be at X1Y1Z1 in respect to this refference frame.

As you said, the odds of this happening are very small. Individual particles may tunnel, say, to Zeta Reticulii, but no one would never notice any changes to the brick, given the number of particles that compose it.

QM is thus, helpfull to describe phenomena at this small scale, unless we are talking about events that are composed by a large number of particles, under the influence of an external force. Photons may be emmited by a group of atoms at the same time, following QM laws, but after receiving an ammout of energy. There is a low probability that an individual atom will emmit a photon. However, the odds that all atoms would spontaneously emmit a photom at the same time, without the stimulus, are quite smaller.

The same reasoning is valid when it comes to data transfer. Imagine a small string of data, composing the word "BOOO". Lets assume that out brain somehow manages to capture such type of data, say, by being able to detect some sort of changes (say, spin) in particles that compose it. The odds that the "BOOO" spin change patterns are somehow spontaneously tunneled from somewhere in space and time to a human brain are very small. The odds for the transfer of more complex and usefull pieces of data are even smaller.

 

[arthwollipot]

Steering the thread away from quantum mechanics and back to dreams for a moment...

Not that I dont' enjoy QM but it wasn't the main point of the thread...

I feel that so-called "prophetic" dreams are actually a specific instance of deja vu.

And I feel that deja vu is a malfunction of the circuits in the brain responsible for recognition.

It is well known that there are areas of the brain that "light up" when you recognise something - whether it be a sight, or a smell, or a taste, or a thought. There are people who have had this area of the brain damaged, and they cannot recognise anything.

My hypothesis (and I admit that I haven't the facilities to test this) is that deja vu is a brief misfiring or a malfunction of this recognition center in the brain. It makes us believe that we recognise something when it actually hasn't happened to us before.

I once had a deja vu experience of having a deja vu experience... of having a deja vu experience... of having a deja vu experience... I think you can see where this is going. The original experience which sparked the original deja vu is long forgotten. But I had this recurring deja vu seven times. That is - I have a memory of recognising the experience for the seventh time. I think I also have a dim memory of the sixth time, but apart from the certain knowledge of the number of times, the early ones are now lost to my memory.

Prophetic dreams are simply another manifestation of deja vu. You may or may not have dreamt something similar to the situation, but the recognition circuit fires and you experience the deja vu. Researchers now understand that memories are not explicitly stored in the brain - they are reconstructed "on request" as it were, and are frequently modified in the process. When the recognition circuit misfires in response to a particular trigger, the brain manufactures a suitable memory, and modifies it as necessary to closer resemble the trigger for the recognition impulse, because after all, it was "recognised".

So the "prophetic dream" may or may not have been an actual dream you had. If it was, it may or may not have closely resembled the event that triggered the deja vu. But the deja vu process makes it resemble the trigger event. If necessary, the deja vu process can manufacture the memory from whole cloth.

That's my theory, anyway. Until we get a device where we can play someone's dream on a screen, I don't see how it's testable. But I think it is at least plausible given what I know about neurology and how memory works.

 

[Soapy Sam]

My memory of dreams is poor. Unless I repeat the events of the dream to another person, or write them down immediately after having it, the memory rapidly fades. This l;oss is common experience and the reason for "dream diaries". I suspect memory also loses accuracy as it fades . I think if asked to describe a dream two hours afterwards, I would embellish and add details which were not actually in the dream. Asked to repeat it years later, I might be wildly inaccurate.

One exception occurred many years ago, when I had a series of waking dreams - or hallucinations- after consuming some home made wine which might not have met the Appellation Controlée standards in every respect.

One of these dreams, several years later "came true."
But.
At the time,of the dreams, I repeated the events of the dreams to several people, within seconds of having them. I later wrote a version down, which one of the listeners agreed matched what I had told him. The real life event was similar, broadly to the events of the dream, but far from an exact match.

Yet the emotional impact on me at the time was profound. Were I less critical of my own mind, I might have been convinced that I had experienced a precognitive dream. I did not. But I had a fascinating experience.

 

[Gaga]

[...] I feel that so-called "prophetic" dreams are actually a specific instance of deja vu.

And I feel that deja vu is a malfunction of the circuits in the brain responsible for recognition. [...]

Exactly my thought.
When I was younger I used to associate déja vu with dreams I supposedly have had.
I think (wild @ss guess) that when a déja vu does happen, the brain tries frantically to associate the event with something in our memory banks, maybe a dream that was somewhat similar would fill the gap.

A lot of "psychic" dreams then, are just us minding only the hits. As far as I remember, it never actually happened to me (i.e. outside te déja vu experience)

edited to change the Ã_ to a. Is there a way to type a letter with accent here?

 

[Ashles]

1) The brain is theorized to be capable of 100 Trillion (100 Billion for those of you outside north america) calculations per second. (Assuming that thought, cognition, and therefore dreams are able to be algorithmically modeled, as current research seems to suggest). That's a lot of processing power -- it's possible that I actually dreamed about many, many alternative future experiences that never came to be, in addition to one that did. Widespread underestimation of the normal capabilities of the human brain can account for a lot of supposed "paranormal" experiences as such. That's why 'psychics' are wrong so much -- it could be just a very large number of random plausible future experiences that they 'see' -- nothing extraordinary. -- This is the simplest explanation that fits all of the facts from my perspective, and the one I'm inclined to believe.

I'm not sure about this.

Firstly these estimates are pretty much incredibly wild estimates. They may be roughly correct but they may be very far out. There's really nowhere near enough information at the moment to estimate in any meaningful way (just like when you hear people say the brain is equivalent to 5,000Gb of memory, or something similar - it isn't really a meaningful estimate).
You can't just say a neuron is a bit or similar.

Secondly I don't see any way in which we can equate potential calculating figures for the brain to the number of 'future experiences' imagined/dreamed/invented.
I don't know how they are comparable. A 'future' could be anything from a brief image of a building to a highly complex structured series of conceptual 'scenes'.
We may all have similar brains, but some people dream more than others, some people have vastly more wide ranging imaginations than others, and again I don't see what the relationship is between potential calculaing power of the brain is and number of dreams.

I think sometimes it is very easy for people to get too fooled by analogies that compare the brain to computers.
Of course, they are very different.
Also just because the brain has a lot of 'processing power' doesn't mean that the power is all available for inventing dreams.

What research are you referring to regarding algorithmic dream modelling?

 

[c4ts]

Wait, who theorized that the brain was capable of 100 Trillion calculations per second? And who said you could use "Billion" and "Trillion" interchangeably? Why wasn't I informed?

 

[gnome]

Wait, who theorized that the brain was capable of 100 Trillion calculations per second? And who said you could use "Billion" and "Trillion" interchangeably? Why wasn't I informed?

I should point out, that in the UK a "Billion" is equal to 1,000,000,000,000, what we call in the US a "Trillion".

In the UK, our "billion"--1,000,000,000... is called a "Thousand Million".

It's been a long time since I even thought of this, but it explains that.

 

[Soapy Sam]

gnome- Is that true?

I agree that it was true thirty years ago, but in every geology text I have read since 1970 , US, UK or European, the word 'billion' has meant 10^9 , as in 4.6 billion years.(bya)

 

[gnome]

gnome- Is that true?

I agree that it was true thirty years ago, but in every geology text I have read since 1970 , US, UK or European, the word 'billion' has meant 10^9 , as in 4.6 billion years.(bya)

Shows you how up to date I am. You're probably right...

Score a point for scientific notation!