Repeated Personal Experiences = Evidence?

[Durakken]

So I'm curious what others think about this

From time to time I have a short dream that has a series events and then ends in someone in the dream dieing.
Later, sometimes years later, everything in the short dream save for the death and after that point happens as it happens in the dream.

These dreams are more or less mundane.
They never repeat.
I have no control over this and often forget the dream till the event begins to happen.
This means I can predict something several minutes into the future when this happens.
Things I have no ability to know about do appear in these dreams such as people, games, and various other things that I had no knowledge of when I dreamed the event, and in some cases the idea didn't even exist yet.

I have even had dreams where I asked whether i could change the events that I dreamed about and that played out the same way predictably.


So, since it is not repeatable and as far as I can think up untestable (without me being followed 24/7 for years after such a dream), would you, if you were in my place, accept this as evidence of the ability to predict the future or some sort of weird coincidence of brain chemistry?

 

[Aught3]

I don't know what you have experienced but it seems to me you could accept it for yourself as evidence but you would have to realise you won't be able to convince anyone else.

It seems to me there is a way you could test this, but you would have to be able to remember the dreams when you woke up. Since you say that you sometimes can't how do you know that these experiences aren't just deja vu?

 

[Durakken]

Sometimes I do, sometimes I don't. More often than not I don't.

Like the one where I question whether I can alter the events I remembered and knew it was happening while it was happening.

Often times it is futile to to remember them anyways because person/place/things in the dream have not entered into my knowledge base...

For example one was just sitting in a class room during a lecture. Nothing special. When I had the dream I had never even been in the class room or met any of the people, but where and while the events happened I knew everyone in the classroom and the classroom.

I distinctly remember the dream several times before, and I remember and can predict the events as they happened in those dreams and the dreams that I don't have clear memory of before the events begin to occur I remember within the first few seconds of the events.

for the times when i didn't remember the dream before it is something like the feeling i get when I suddenly figure something out.

Interestingly, I don't have these as much and I don't remember any time when I've ever actually tried to change the events that were happening so that they occur slightly differently. I think that might be because if I do have more of these I would be more likely to try to change something just to test out whether i actually could or not which would mean I would diverge from that timeline and make it impossible for me to predict...if that makes any sense?

Even if i were able to figure out a way to give evidence that is testable it would be so mundane and generalized it wouldn't be worth going through the hassle because as said, extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence and nothing that this would show would give that type of evidence.

 

[borrofburi]

some sort of weird coincidence of brain chemistry?

You'd be impressed at the ways brain chemistry can screw with things. One of the theories of deja vu I remember was that the chemicals that indicated you were recalling a memory accidentally got triggered so it felt like you were remembering. Another was that some fluke of the mind resulted in the memory being transcribed prior to the brain processing the actual event, so that you literally did have a memory of the event prior to your brain processing it, though only by a few milliseconds.

 

[Durakken]

some sort of weird coincidence of brain chemistry?

You'd be impressed at the ways brain chemistry can screw with things. One of the theories of deja vu I remember was that the chemicals that indicated you were recalling a memory accidentally got triggered so it felt like you were remembering. Another was that some fluke of the mind resulted in the memory being transcribed prior to the brain processing the actual event, so that you literally did have a memory of the event prior to your brain processing it, though only by a few milliseconds.

See the thing is, i had the memories for years before in some cases, plus as i said they are dreams and not deja vu. Some might be but not those that i clearly remember remembering before the event ever happened.

 

[borrofburi]

See the thing is, i had the memories for years before in some cases, plus as i said they are dreams and not deja vu. Some might be but not those that i clearly remember remembering before the event ever happened.

I was presenting the extremely odd ways in which your brain can do things, not things that may directly apply to you.

How do you know you've had the memories for years? Is this not remember remembering the memory? If your brain can fake remembering, why can't it fake remembering remembering?

 

[Raistlin Majere]

WOW! Seriously? I do the same exact thing :S

I think it's the same thing anyway, I'll tell you what happens to me and then you can decide if it's similar or not.

First off, it's definitely not deja vu, it's different than that feeling. When it happens to me it takes a second at first for me to realize that it's happening because it's a bit disorienting at first. It's like you KNOW you've seen what's happening before. You know what people are going to say, how others will react to it and then how they will respond. You realize when it happens that you had already dreamed of everything that's going on exactly how it's happening, except you completely forget about the dream after the night you have it until it actually starts to play itself out. Also, I've found that the dreams vary in time from the event. Sometimes it's years, sometimes it's weeks.

Well, my dreams don't always involve someone dying. The only one that did, the person actually died. But they do play out exactly as I remember they should and no, you can't change it. No matter how hard you try, you can't change what you know should happen. Believe me, I've tried lol.

I know it's not the brain faking the memory. It wouldn't make sense that we know what's going to happen when the even starts then. I haven't really found out the answers as to why this happens, etc. but it happened to me the other day and I recalled that while reading this.

I do think it's strange though that all of the events that you foresee include the death of someone, even though the death never actually ends up happening.

 

[Niocan]

Repeated Personal Experiences are the only evidence one should rely completely on, with everything else being a very probable but unconfirmed rumor.
With that being said, what you're experiencing is indeed a form of precognition. Dreams are very mysterious things to most people but basically it's an archetypal overlay of a message between your conscious and subconscious, and as such only you will be able to fully extract the message at hand.
There are some very common traits and death is an interesting one, as it doesn't necessarily mean death of a person/thing. This is getting into psychoanalysis and things of this world that most here would love to explain away, but you've had the golden truth: Personal experience

Check Openingmind's youtube channel out for a plethora of material to absorb if you feel inclined to look into this ^.^

 

[borrofburi]

WOW! Seriously? I do the same exact thing :S

As do I, and all 3 people I had a conversation with about it in highschool, does that prove the human race is full of future-knowing-psychics? Or is it more likely that all of us are experiencing some natural phenomena?

I know it's not the brain faking the memory. It wouldn't make sense that we know what's going to happen when the even starts then. I haven't really found out the answers as to why this happens, etc. but it happened to me the other day and I recalled that while reading this.

Or maybe it's the brain faking knowing what's going to happen.




It should be noted that this *is* deja vu you are experiencing.

It should also be noted (though not necessarily applicable): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kJMg7WNDQ8Q
Also for good measure: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bfhIuaD183I

 

[borrofburi]

Repeated Personal Experiences are the only evidence one should rely completely on

Which of course proves that homeopathic medicine works.

 

[scalyblue]

Personal experience is probably the worst type of evidence available; it must be always be taken with a grain of salt when you realize that everything that you experience is influenced by flaws and shortcuts your brain takes; and the brain is very easily fooled. Were you to write down. "Bob smith will die of a pulmonary infarction as a result of blunt force trauma caused by a car accident on 12, oct 2009 with a mazda RX-6," have the document dated and notarized and stored with a party of disinterest, and then the events happened exactly as stated, with no vagueness and no horoscope assumptions, then you might have some evidence. Other than that, it's a coincidence, or it's a flaw in your perception.

Case in point, there was a verified sighting of a UFO, a bright light on the horizon that a police officer saw..he chased after it and it was weaving across the sky...turns out he was chasing venus, and he was on a curvy road. His personal experience put a spaceship there, was that trustworthy at all?

A man sees lenticular clouds and thinks that aliens are visitng, is his perception trustworthy at all?

Nostradamus made bunches of predictions, look at the depths of idiocy people go through to try to make his predictions fit modern events.

Quick, what did you eat for breakfast the day after that dream? The week after? Can't remember? then why think you can remember the dream accurately?

 

[Niocan]

See what I mean? Both of them explained it away and told you to fuck off with your views because they don't match the high collectives'.

Dreams are different.

 

[Durakken]

borrofburi, like I said, I'd be willing to say that yes some may be deja vu, but I don't think all of them are as there are a number of them, few in number granted, that I remembered and talked about them with others before they happened. So... I gotta say that it definitely isn't deja vu in those cases.

Also, as I said, the events are almost always extremely mundane and since I'm almost never around any sort of date or names and I don't know the locations and it never is a long string of events nor is it ever from anyone else's perspective so to confirm what I'm talking about someone would have to observe my dreams and then observe my perspective for years.

scalyblue, what you are talking about has a lot to do with various knowledge plus humans having bad memory generally. I have pretty good knowledge of what's going on and a pretty good memory or at least as far as can be demonstrated. also your argument is predicated on misunderstanding of how memory works. A dream is more likely to remember what one has to eat because one is more likely to put more significance on the dream.

Niocan, while I don't think what borroburi and scalyblue are looking at what I'm putting forth as credible and are a bit contemptuous I also think what you are saying is ludicrous. Evidence that can not be confirmed can't be taken all that serious. Even if I saw a guy walk through a wall repeatedly I would not claim that as evidence someone can do that less someone else saw it and I could not figure out any other way it could be done.

The problem with this is while i can't confirm with anyone else I can't think of any explanation other than I'm slightly insane or there is a massive flaw in my memory that with everything else does not seem to be there. So If I conclude that I'm not insane and this flaw doesn't exist due to that being unlikely I have to conclude that what I am experiencing is some sort of future sight, but with that then I have to conclude a number of other things which are less likely to be.

Both conclusion I disagree with them being probable so I'm left with a big question mark of what actually happening.

 

[Master_Ghost_Knight]

Unfortunatly no.
To aproach this sort of questions, it is a good rule of thumb that ultimatly there is a reasonable explenation. Having said that let me tell you about my personal experience on this matter, and you tell me if this couldn't possibly aply to you.

With me there are generaly 2 types of situations that ultimatly gives this sort of result.

The type 1 is usually a coincidental event (and extremely rare), for all this time in your life that you may have had semi-reasonable dreams it is quite likely that in your life time a couple of them turn out to become real. People paint a mental picture of everything arround, where you live, who do you live with, how does a person behave, what roles are expected for them to play; With a semi-reasonable dream this sorts of things can come into play and there is a chance that it may actually hapen. With me this is generally mundane things, and sense we tend to forget the details that don't match and remember the details that do, it re-enforces a hit, it may be with a further retrospect you may find out that there are allot of the details that you got it wrong.

The type 2 is a fake memory (very common), in this type you have never actually dreamed about it, you have never been in that situation before, and there is nothing even hinting that you could possibly know anything before hand, but sometimes when you look at the event and paint a mental picture of it for some reason you dissoaciate both in your mind, leading to give you the impression that what you remembered was not what happened and that you must have know before. Of course you only are convinced that you actually known of it before after the event and as you are trying to remember it, and sense the feeling of vagueness and lack of memory of where did you knew that before leads you to believe that it was a dreamed (probably fueled by popular colture) and not that you didn't associated the picture of the event and that you have never seen that before. (thus giving the impression that you couldn't remember what you have dreamed before the event actually happening, because you never did dreamed it, and you never did knew it before the event)

 

[Durakken]

Unfortunatly no.
To aproach this sort of questions, it is a good rule of thumb that ultimatly there is a reasonable explenation. Having said that let me tell you about my personal experience on this matter, and you tell me if this couldn't possibly aply to you.

With me there are generaly 2 types of situations that ultimatly gives this sort of result.

The type 1 is usually a coincidental event (and extremely rare), for all this time in your life that you may have had semi-reasonable dreams it is quite likely that in your life time a couple of them turn out to become real. People paint a mental picture of everything arround, where you live, who do you live with, how does a person behave, what roles are expected for them to play; With a semi-reasonable dream this sorts of things can come into play and there is a chance that it may actually hapen. With me this is generally mundane things, and sense we tend to forget the details that don't match and remember the details that do, it re-enforces a hit, it may be with a further retrospect you may find out that there are allot of the details that you got it wrong.

The problem with that is, as i said, a lot of times I have never known or been in contact with those things in the dream when I have the dream. And there is the follow up problem which is why the other one isn't likely either.

The type 2 is a fake memory (very common), in this type you have never actually dreamed about it, you have never been in that situation before, and there is nothing even hinting that you could possibly know anything before hand, but sometimes when you look at the event and paint a mental picture of it for some reason you dissoaciate both in your mind, leading to give you the impression that what you remembered was not what happened and that you must have know before. Of course you only are convinced that you actually known of it before after the event and as you are trying to remember it, and sense the feeling of vagueness and lack of memory of where did you knew that before leads you to believe that it was a dreamed (probably fueled by popular colture) and not that you didn't associated the picture of the event and that you have never seen that before. (thus giving the impression that you couldn't remember what you have dreamed before the event actually happening, because you never did dreamed it, and you never did knew it before the event)

I have a limited number of types of dreams... Nightmares are dominant. Everyone once in a while I'll have a "good" ~.^ dream but on a very limited basis. I have never had a dream like what other people describe where it all great and blah. I have had 2 freakish "god speaking" dreams which i dismiss as brain chemicals as nothing has ever come of them. 1 dream where I literally dreamed an entire day and thought it was real, because of how realistic it was, and a few dozen future sight type dreams.

The last type ALWAYS ends with someone dying, which you would think would be an excellent clue, but considering the nightmares, not so much. this happens with every single one that I would say was predictive of the future about people and places i couldn't know about. This also throws out the ability for it to be a fake memory or deja vu.


I'm not saying this is some sort of supernatural thing or that I can actually see the future, but I don't think it's deja vu/fake memory or coincidental either.

 

[Josan]

I'm just curious, how much of the dream to you remember when you wake up the morning after you awake? Because the way I see it, either you remember them quite well, and in that case you can keep a dream journal and see how well you actually hit. If you don't remember them, I would be suspicious if you actually dreamed all the details you do, and instead find a situation that is sort of similar a year later, and then honestly just mistake a lot of the details to be in the dream, when they in fact never were.

I haven't really had any sort of freakish dreams like these ones, my dreams tend to be quite unrealistic, and I rearly remember the details the day after. However, through my life I've had some freakish experiences that are slightly similar. The first is that sometimes a a movie or a specific episode of a series pops into my head, something I haven't thought about in years, and then later that day or the day after, it comes on TV. When I was younger I was always freaked out by this, but later I came to realize just how likely it actually is, I remember the hits, and forget the misses. The second is some really heavy déjà  vu. But that is the thing about déjà  vu, when it is happening, you are sure that you know EXACTLY what is going to happen over the next few second, but you can't do anything about it, you can't react to it, and you can't predict it either, you just feel you know. I personally love when I get déjà  vu, it's just so earily creepy, I also love when really freak coincedenses happen, they make for great stories

 

[Master_Ghost_Knight]

You haven't read anything that I said Durakken.

 

[borrofburi]

borrofburi, like I said, I'd be willing to say that yes some may be deja vu, but I don't think all of them are as there are a number of them, few in number granted, that I remembered and talked about them with others before they happened. So... I gotta say that it definitely isn't deja vu in those cases.

[Deja vu] is the experience of feeling sure that one has witnessed or experienced a new situation previously (an individual feels as though an event has already happened or has happened in the near past), although the exact circumstances of the previous encounter are uncertain. ... The experience of déjà  vu is usually accompanied by a compelling sense of familiarity, and also a sense of "eeriness", "strangeness", or "weirdness". The "previous" experience is most frequently attributed to a dream, although in some cases there is a firm sense that the experience "genuinely happened" in the past.

How precisely is that not deja vu? note "most frequently attributed to a dream".

The problem with this is while i can't confirm with anyone else I can't think of any explanation other than I'm slightly insane or there is a massive flaw in my memory that with everything else does not seem to be there. ... Both conclusion I disagree with them being probable so I'm left with a big question mark of what actually happening.

Not really. Did you watch the brain brushwood video on probability? The most important thing he said was, paraphrased: the likelihood of a single specific event happening is low, but it turns out that probability skyrockets for repeated events. How many dreams do you have on average a night? Some large number like 5. More importantly, how many dreams at night are slightly impressed upon your memory? At least one, probably more (because while you have 5 a night, you certainly don't remember 5 a night). So you get on the order of 400 to 800 or even higher dreams poorly transcribed upon your memory per year. Is it any wonder that some of these poorly transcribed memories (i.e. few details) are then found to match up with reality? Add to that poor recall, and that your brain really likes to make things fit whether or not they do, and I honestly don't think it's as improbable as you think it is, or that it requires anything anywhere near an amazing coincidence.

Anyway, I have to go to class, this may have been said and better, but I didn't read it because I'm late.

 

[Durakken]

borrofburi, like I said, I'd be willing to say that yes some may be deja vu, but I don't think all of them are as there are a number of them, few in number granted, that I remembered and talked about them with others before they happened. So... I gotta say that it definitely isn't deja vu in those cases.

[Deja vu] is the experience of feeling sure that one has witnessed or experienced a new situation previously (an individual feels as though an event has already happened or has happened in the near past), although the exact circumstances of the previous encounter are uncertain. ... The experience of déjà  vu is usually accompanied by a compelling sense of familiarity, and also a sense of "eeriness", "strangeness", or "weirdness". The "previous" experience is most frequently attributed to a dream, although in some cases there is a firm sense that the experience "genuinely happened" in the past.

How precisely is that not deja vu? note "most frequently attributed to a dream".

The problem is I said I had told other about what i dreamed of before the event happened and thus could not be deja vu

 

[Aught3]

The problem is I said I had told other about what i dreamed of before the event happened and thus could not be deja vu

Well if this is the case start keeping a dream log. If you get better at recognising what's going on in your dreams then it might become possible to actually test this.