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Precognition (from the
Latin Latin (, or , ) is a classical language belonging to the Italic branch of the Indo-European languages. Latin was originally a dialect spoken in the lower Tiber area (then known as Latium) around present-day Rome, but through the power of the ...
'before', and 'acquiring knowledge') is the purported
psychic A psychic is a person who claims to use extrasensory perception (ESP) to identify information hidden from the normal senses, particularly involving telepathy or clairvoyance, or who performs acts that are apparently inexplicable by natural laws, ...
phenomenon of seeing, or otherwise becoming directly aware of, events in the future. There is no accepted scientific evidence that precognition is a real effect, and it is widely considered to be
pseudoscience Pseudoscience consists of statements, beliefs, or practices that claim to be both scientific and factual but are incompatible with the scientific method. Pseudoscience is often characterized by contradictory, exaggerated or falsifiability, unfa ...
. Precognition violates the principle of
causality Causality (also referred to as causation, or cause and effect) is influence by which one event, process, state, or object (''a'' ''cause'') contributes to the production of another event, process, state, or object (an ''effect'') where the cau ...
, that an effect cannot occur before its cause. Precognition has been widely believed in throughout history. Despite the lack of scientific evidence, many people believe it to be real; it is still widely reported and remains a topic of research and discussion within the
parapsychology Parapsychology is the study of alleged psychic phenomena (extrasensory perception, telepathy, precognition, clairvoyance, psychokinesis (also called telekinesis), and psychometry) and other paranormal claims, for example, those related to near ...
community.


Precognitive phenomena

Precognition is sometimes treated as an example of the wider phenomenon of prescience or foreknowledge, to understand by any means what is likely to happen in the future. It is distinct from premonition, which is a vaguer feeling of some impending disaster. Related activities such as predictive
prophecy In religion, a prophecy is a message that has been communicated to a person (typically called a '' prophet'') by a supernatural entity. Prophecies are a feature of many cultures and belief systems and usually contain divine will or law, or pr ...
and
fortune telling Fortune telling is the practice of predicting information about a person's life. Melton, J. Gordon. (2008). ''The Encyclopedia of Religious Phenomena''. Visible Ink Press. pp. 115-116. The scope of fortune telling is in principle identical w ...
have been practised throughout history. Precognitive
dream A dream is a succession of images, ideas, emotions, and sensations that usually occur involuntarily in the mind during certain stages of sleep. Humans spend about two hours dreaming per night, and each dream lasts around 5 to 20 minutes, althou ...
s are the most widely reported occurrences of precognition. Usually, a dream or vision can only be identified as precognitive after the putative event has taken place. When such an event occurs after a dream, it is said to have "broken the dream".


In religion

In
Judaism Judaism ( he, ''Yahăḏūṯ'') is an Abrahamic, monotheistic, and ethnic religion comprising the collective religious, cultural, and legal tradition and civilization of the Jewish people. It has its roots as an organized religion in the ...
it is believed that dreams are mostly insignificant while others "have the potential to contain prophetic messages".
Hinduism Hinduism () is an Indian religion or '' dharma'', a religious and universal order or way of life by which followers abide. As a religion, it is the world's third-largest, with over 1.2–1.35 billion followers, or 15–16% of the global p ...
has a subsystem of psychology called
Indian psychology Indian psychology refers to an emerging scholarly and scientific subfield of psychology. Psychologists working in this field are retrieving the psychological ideas embedded in indigenous Indian religious and spiritual traditions and philosophies, an ...
with dreams believed to contain information about the future. There are seven classifications of dream or 'swapna', in which those which become 'manifest' are called 'bhāvita'. Precognition has a role in
Buddhism Buddhism ( , ), also known as Buddha Dharma and Dharmavinaya (), is an Indian religion or philosophical tradition based on teachings attributed to the Buddha. It originated in northern India as a -movement in the 5th century BCE, and gra ...
with dreams believed to be 'mind-created phenomena'. Those dreams which 'warn of impending danger or even prepare us for overwhelming good news" are considered the most important.


History

Throughout history it has been accepted that certain individuals have precognitive abilities, and such visions have sometimes been associated with important historical events. Despite the lack of scientific evidence, many people still believe in precognition. A poll in 2005 showed 73% of Americans believe in at least one type of paranormal experience, with 41% believing in
extrasensory perception Extrasensory perception or ESP, also called sixth sense, is a claimed paranormal ability pertaining to reception of information not gained through the recognized physical senses, but sensed with the mind. The term was adopted by Duke Universi ...
.


Antiquity

Since ancient times precognition has been associated with
dream A dream is a succession of images, ideas, emotions, and sensations that usually occur involuntarily in the mind during certain stages of sleep. Humans spend about two hours dreaming per night, and each dream lasts around 5 to 20 minutes, althou ...
s and
trance Trance is a state of semi-consciousness in which a person is not self-aware and is either altogether unresponsive to external stimuli (but nevertheless capable of pursuing and realizing an aim) or is selectively responsive in following the dir ...
states as well as waking premonitions, giving rise to acts of prophecy and fortune telling.
Oracle An oracle is a person or agency considered to provide wise and insightful counsel or prophetic predictions, most notably including precognition of the future, inspired by deities. As such, it is a form of divination. Description The word '' ...
s, originally seen as sources of wisdom, became progressively associated with previsions of the future.Inglis (1986), Chapter on "Precognition" Such claims of seeing the future have never been without their sceptical critics.
Aristotle Aristotle (; grc-gre, Ἀριστοτέλης ''Aristotélēs'', ; 384–322 BC) was a Greek philosopher and polymath during the Classical period in Ancient Greece. Taught by Plato, he was the founder of the Peripatetic school of phil ...
carried out an inquiry into allegedly prophetic dreams in his ''
On Divination in Sleep ''On Divination in Sleep'' (or ''On Prophesying by Dreams''; grc-gre, Περὶ τῆς καθ᾽ ὕπνον μαντικῆς; Latin: ''De divinatione per somnum'') is a text by Aristotle in which he discusses precognitive dreams Precognit ...
''. He accepted that "it is quite conceivable that some dreams may be tokens and causes
f future events F, or f, is the sixth Letter (alphabet), letter in the Latin alphabet, used in the English alphabet, modern English alphabet, the alphabets of other western European languages and others worldwide. Its name in English is English alphabet#Let ...
but also believed that "most o-called propheticdreams are, however, to be classed as mere
coincidence A coincidence is a remarkable concurrence of events or circumstances that have no apparent causal connection with one another. The perception of remarkable coincidences may lead to supernatural, occult, or paranormal claims, or it may lead t ...
s...". Where
Democritus Democritus (; el, Δημόκριτος, ''Dēmókritos'', meaning "chosen of the people"; – ) was an Ancient Greek pre-Socratic philosopher from Abdera, primarily remembered today for his formulation of an atomic theory of the universe. No ...
had suggested that emanations from future events could be sent back to the dreamer, Aristotle proposed that it was, rather, the dreamer's sense impressions which reached forward to the event.


17th–19th centuries

The term "precognition" first appeared in the 17th century but did not come into common use among investigators until much later. An early investigation into claims of precognition was published by the missionary Fr. P. Boilat in 1883. He claimed to have put an unspoken question to an African
witch-doctor A witch doctor (also spelled witch-doctor) was originally a type of healer who treated ailments believed to be caused by witchcraft. The term is now more commonly used to refer to healers, particularly in regions which use traditional healing ...
whom he mistrusted. Contrary to his expectations, the witch-doctor gave him the correct answer without ever having heard the question.


Early 20th century

In the early 20th century J. W. Dunne, a British soldier and aeronautics engineer, experienced several dreams which he regarded as precognitive. He developed techniques to record and analyse them, identifying any correspondences between his future experiences and his recorded dreams. He reported his findings in his 1927 book ''
An Experiment with Time ''An Experiment with Time'' is a book by the British soldier, aeronautical engineer and philosopher J. W. Dunne about his precognitive dreams and a theory of time which he later called "Serialism". First published in March 1927, the book was ...
''. In it he alleges that 10% of his dreams appeared to include some element of future experience. He also persuaded some friends to try the experiment on themselves, with mixed results. He noted a strong cognitive bias in which subjects, including himself, were reluctant to ascribe their dream correspondences to precognition and determinedly sought alternative explanations. Dunne concluded that precognitive elements in dreams are common and that many people unknowingly have them.Dunne (1927). He suggested also that dream precognition did not reference future events of all kinds, but specifically the future experiences of the dreamer. He was led to this idea when he found that a dream of a volcanic eruption appeared to foresee not the disaster itself but his subsequent misreading of an inaccurate account in a newspaper.
Edith Lyttelton Dame Edith Sophy Lyttelton (''née'' Balfour; 4 April 1865 – 2 September 1948) was a British novelist, playwright, World War I-era activist and spiritualist. Biography Lyttelton was born in Saint Petersburg, the eldest daughter of A ...
, who became President of the
Society for Psychical Research The Society for Psychical Research (SPR) is a nonprofit organisation in the United Kingdom. Its stated purpose is to understand events and abilities commonly described as psychic or paranormal. It describes itself as the "first society to co ...
(SPR), regarded his theory as consistent with her own idea of the
superconscious The superconscious (also super-conscious or super conscious) is a proposed aspect of mind to accompany the conscious and subconscious and/or unconscious. It is able to acquire knowledge through non-physical or psychic mechanisms and pass that kno ...
. In 1932 he helped the SPR to conduct a more formal experiment, but he and the Society's lead researcher
Theodore Besterman Theodore Deodatus Nathaniel Besterman (22 November 1904 – 10 November 1976) was a Polish-born British psychical researcher, bibliographer, biographer, and translator. In 1945 he became the first editor of the ''Journal of Documentation''. From ...
failed to agree on the significance of the results. Nevertheless, the Philosopher
C. D. Broad Charlie Dunbar Broad (30 December 1887 – 11 March 1971), usually cited as C. D. Broad, was an English people, English epistemology, epistemologist, history of philosophy, historian of philosophy, philosophy of science, philosopher of sc ...
remarked that, "The only theory known to me which seems worth consideration is that proposed by Mr. Dunne in his Experiment with Time." ''An Experiment with Time'' was widely read and "undoubtedly helped to form something of the imaginative climate of
he interwar He or HE may refer to: Language * He (pronoun), an English pronoun * He (kana), the romanization of the Japanese kana へ * He (letter), the fifth letter of many Semitic alphabets * He (Cyrillic), a letter of the Cyrillic script called ''He'' ...
years", influencing many writers of both fact and fiction both then and since. According to Flieger, "Dunne's theory was so current and popular a topic that not to understand it was a mark of singularity." Major writers whose work was significantly influenced by his ideas on precognition in dreams and visions include
H. G. Wells Herbert George Wells"Wells, H. G."
Revised 18 May 2015. ''
J. B. Priestley John Boynton Priestley (; 13 September 1894 – 14 August 1984) was an English novelist, playwright, screenwriter, broadcaster and social commentator. His Yorkshire background is reflected in much of his fiction, notably in ''The Good Compa ...
and
Olaf Stapledon William Olaf Stapledon (10 May 1886 – 6 September 1950) – known as Olaf Stapledon – was a British philosopher and author of science fiction.Andy Sawyer, " illiamOlaf Stapledon (1886-1950)", in Bould, Mark, et al, eds. ''Fifty Key Figures ...
.Stewart, V.; "J. W. Dunne and literary culture in the 1930s and 1940s", ''Literature and History'', Volume 17, Number 2, Autumn 2008, pp. 62–81, Manchester University Press.
Vladimir Nabokov Vladimir Vladimirovich Nabokov (russian: link=no, Владимир Владимирович Набоков ; 2 July 1977), also known by the pen name Vladimir Sirin (), was a Russian-American novelist, poet, translator, and entomologist. Bo ...
was also later influenced by Dunne. In 1932
Charles Lindbergh Charles Augustus Lindbergh (February 4, 1902 – August 26, 1974) was an American aviator, military officer, author, inventor, and activist. On May 20–21, 1927, Lindbergh made the first nonstop flight from New York City to Paris, a distance o ...
's infant son was kidnapped, murdered and buried among trees. Psychologists
Henry Murray Henry Alexander Murray (May 13, 1893 – June 23, 1988) was an American psychologist at Harvard University, where from 1959 to 1962 he conducted a series of psychologically damaging and purposefully abusive experiments on minors and under ...
and D. R. Wheeler used the event to test for dream precognition, by inviting the public to report any dreams of the child. A total of 1,300 dreams were reported. Only five percent envisioned the child dead and only 4 of the 1,300 envisioned the location of the grave as amongst trees. The first ongoing and organised research program on precognition was instituted by husband-and-wife team
Joseph Banks Rhine Joseph Banks Rhine (September 29, 1895 – February 20, 1980), usually known as J. B. Rhine, was an American botanist who founded parapsychology as a branch of psychology, founding the parapsychology lab at Duke University, the ''Journ ...
and
Louisa E. Rhine Louisa Ella Rhine (née Weckesser November 9, 1891 – March 17, 1983) was an American doctor of botany and is known for her work in parapsychology. At the time of her death, she was recognized as the foremost researcher of spontaneous ...
in the 1930s at
Duke University Duke University is a private research university in Durham, North Carolina. Founded by Methodists and Quakers in the present-day city of Trinity in 1838, the school moved to Durham in 1892. In 1924, tobacco and electric power industrialist James ...
's Parapsychology Laboratory. J. B. Rhine used a method of forced-choice matching in which participants guessed the order of a deck of 25 cards, each five of which bore one of five geometrical symbols. Although his results were positive and gained some academic acceptance, his methods were later shown to be badly flawed and subsequent researchers using more rigorous procedures were unable to reproduce his results. His mathematics was sometimes flawed, the experiments were not double-blinded or even necessarily single-blinded and some of the cards to be guessed were so thin that the symbol could be seen through the backing. Samuel G. Soal, another leading member of the SPR, was described by Rhine as one of his harshest critics, running many similar experiments with wholly negative results. However, from around 1940 he ran forced-choice ESP experiments in which a subject attempted to identify which of five animal pictures a subject in another room was looking at. Their performance on this task was at chance, but when the scores were matched with the card that came ''after'' the target card, three of the thirteen subjects showed a very high hit rate; Rhine now described Soal's work as "a milestone in the field". However analyses of Soal's findings, conducted several years later, concluded that the positive results were more likely the result of deliberate fraud.Hyman (2007). The controversy continued for many years more. In 1978 the statistician and parapsychology researcher Betty Markwick, while seeking to vindicate Soal, discovered that he had tampered with his data. The untainted experimental results showed no evidence of precognition.


Late 20th century

As more modern technology became available, more automated techniques of experimentation were developed that did not rely on hand-scoring of equivalence between targets and guesses, and in which the targets could be more reliably and readily tested at random. In 1969
Helmut Schmidt Helmut Heinrich Waldemar Schmidt (; 23 December 1918 – 10 November 2015) was a German politician and member of the Social Democratic Party of Germany (SPD), who served as the chancellor of West Germany from 1974 to 1982. Before becoming Cha ...
introduced the use of high-speed random event generators (REG) for precognition testing, and experiments were also conducted at the
Princeton Engineering Anomalies Research Lab The Princeton Engineering Anomalies Research (PEAR) was a research program at Princeton University that studied parapsychology. Established in 1979 by then Dean of Engineering Robert G. Jahn, PEAR conducted formal studies on two primary subject ...
. Once again, flaws were found in all of Schmidt's experiments, when the psychologist C. E. M. Hansel found that several necessary precautions were not taken. SF writer
Philip K Dick Philip Kindred Dick (December 16, 1928March 2, 1982), often referred to by his initials PKD, was an American science fiction writer. He wrote 44 novels and about 121 short stories, most of which appeared in science fiction magazines during his l ...
believed that he had precognitive experiences and used the idea in some of his novels, especially as a central plot element in his 1956 science fiction short story
The Minority Report "The Minority Report" is a 1956 science fiction novella by American writer Philip K. Dick, first published in ''Fantastic Universe''. In a future society, three mutants foresee all crime before it occurs. Plugged into a great machine, these " p ...
and in his 1956 novel ''
The World Jones Made ''The World Jones Made'' is a 1956 science fiction novel by American writer Philip K. Dick, examining notions of precognition, humanity, and politics. It was first published by Ace Books as one half of Ace Double D-150, bound dos-à-dos with ''A ...
''. In 1963 the
BBC #REDIRECT BBC #REDIRECT BBC Here i going to introduce about the best teacher of my life b BALAJI sir. He is the precious gift that I got befor 2yrs . How has helped and thought all the concept and made my success in the 10th board exam. ...
...
television programme ''Monitor'' broadcast an appeal by the writer
J.B. Priestley John Boynton Priestley (; 13 September 1894 – 14 August 1984) was an English novelist, playwright, screenwriter, broadcaster and social commentator. His Yorkshire background is reflected in much of his fiction, notably in ''The Good Compa ...
for experiences which challenged our understanding of Time. He received hundreds of letters in reply and believed that many of them described genuine precognitive dreams.Priestley (1964). In 2014 the BBC Radio 4 broadcaster
Francis Spufford Francis Spufford FRSL (born 1964) is an English author and teacher of writing whose career has seen him shift gradually from non-fiction to fiction. His first novel ''Golden Hill'' received critical acclaim and numerous prizes including the Costa ...
revisited Priestley's work and its relation to the ideas of J.W. Dunne. In 1965 G. W. Lambert, a former Council member of the SPR, proposed five criteria that needed to be met before an account of a precognitive dream could be regarded as credible: #The dream should be reported to a credible witness before the event. #The time interval between the dream and the event should be short. #The event should be unexpected at the time of the dream. #The description should be of an event destined literally, and not symbolically, to happen. #The details of dream and event should tally. David Ryback, a psychologist in
Atlanta Atlanta ( ) is the capital and most populous city of the U.S. state of Georgia. It is the seat of Fulton County, the most populous county in Georgia, but its territory falls in both Fulton and DeKalb counties. With a population of 498,715 ...
, used a questionnaire survey approach to investigate precognitive dreaming in college students. His survey of over 433 participants showed that 290 or 66.9 percent reported some form of paranormal dream. He rejected many of these reports, but claimed that 8.8 percent of the population was having actual precognitive dreams.


21st century

In 2011 the psychologist
Daryl Bem Daryl J. Bem (born June 10, 1938) is a social psychologist and professor emeritus at Cornell University. He is the originator of the self-perception theory of attitude formation and change. He has also researched psi phenomena, group decision ...
, a Professor Emeritus at
Cornell University Cornell University is a private statutory land-grant research university based in Ithaca, New York. It is a member of the Ivy League. Founded in 1865 by Ezra Cornell and Andrew Dickson White, Cornell was founded with the intention to teach an ...
, published findings showing statistical evidence for precognition in the '' Journal of Personality and Social Psychology''. The paper was heavily criticised and the criticism widened to include the journal itself and the validity of the
peer review Peer review is the evaluation of work by one or more people with similar competencies as the producers of the work (peers). It functions as a form of self-regulation by qualified members of a profession within the relevant field. Peer review ...
process. In 2012, an independent attempt to reproduce Bem's results was published, but it failed to do so. The widespread controversy led to calls for improvements in practice and for more research.


Scientific reception

Claims of precognition are, like any other claims, open to scientific criticism. However the nature of the criticism must adapt to the nature of the claim.Hyman (2007), page217.


Pseudoscience

Claims of precognition are criticised on three main grounds: *There is no known scientific mechanism which would allow precognition. It breaks temporal causality, in that the precognised event causes an effect in the subject prior to the event itself. *The large body of experimental work has produced no accepted scientific evidence that precognition exists. *The large body of anecdotal evidence can be explained by alternative psychological mechanisms. Consequently, precognition is widely considered to be
pseudoscience Pseudoscience consists of statements, beliefs, or practices that claim to be both scientific and factual but are incompatible with the scientific method. Pseudoscience is often characterized by contradictory, exaggerated or falsifiability, unfa ...
. Alcock, James. (1981). ''Parapsychology-Science Or Magic?: A Psychological Perspective'' Pergamon Press. pp. 3–6.


Violation of causality

Precognition would violate the principle of antecedence (
causality Causality (also referred to as causation, or cause and effect) is influence by which one event, process, state, or object (''a'' ''cause'') contributes to the production of another event, process, state, or object (an ''effect'') where the cau ...
), that an effect does not happen before its cause. Information passing backwards in time (
retrocausality Retrocausality, or backwards causation, is a concept of cause and effect in which an effect precedes its cause in time and so a later event affects an earlier one. In quantum physics, the distinction between cause and effect is not made at the most ...
) would need to be carried by physical particles doing the same. Experimental evidence from high-energy physics suggests that this cannot happen. There is therefore no direct justification for precognition from physics. Taylor, John. (1980). ''Science and the Supernatural: An Investigation of Paranormal Phenomena Including Psychic Healing, Clairvoyance, Telepathy, and Precognition by a Distinguished Physicist and Mathematician''. Temple Smith. p. 83. . Precognition would therefore also contradict "most of the neuroscience and psychology literature, from electrophysiology and neuroimaging to temporal effects found in psychophysical research."


Lack of evidence

A great deal of evidence for precognition has been put forward, both as witnessed anecdotes and as experimental results, but none has been accepted as rigorous scientific proof of the phenomenon. Even the most prominent pieces of evidence have been repeatedly rejected due to errors in those experiments as well as follow-on studies contradicting the original evidence. This suggests that the evidence was not valid in the first place.


Alternative explanations

Various known psychological processes have been put forward to explain experiences of apparent precognition. These include: *
Coincidence A coincidence is a remarkable concurrence of events or circumstances that have no apparent causal connection with one another. The perception of remarkable coincidences may lead to supernatural, occult, or paranormal claims, or it may lead t ...
, where apparent instances of precognition in fact arise from the law of large numbers. * Self-fulfilling prophecy and unconscious enactment, where people unconsciously bring about events which they have previously imagined. * Unconscious perception, where people unconsciously infer, from data they have unconsciously learned, that a certain event will probably happen in a certain context. When the event occurs, the former knowledge appears to have been acquired without the aid of recognised channels of information. *
Retrofitting Retrofitting is the addition of new technology or features to older systems. Retrofits can happen for a number of reasons, for example with big capital expenditures like naval vessels, military equipment or manufacturing plants, businesses or go ...
, which involves the false interpretation of a past record of a dream or vision, in order to match it to a recent event. Retrofitting provides an explanation for the supposed accuracy of
Nostradamus Michel de Nostredame (December 1503 – July 1566), usually Latinised as Nostradamus, was a French astrologer, apothecary, physician, and reputed seer, who is best known for his book ''Les Prophéties'' (published in 1555), a collection o ...
's vague predictions. For example, quatrain I:60 states "A ruler born near Italy...He's less a prince than a butcher." The phrase "near Italy" can be construed as covering a very broad range of geography, while no details are provided by Nostradamus regarding the era when this ruler will live. Because of this vagueness, and the flexibility of retrofitting, this quatrain has been interpreted by some as referring to Napoleon, but by others as referring to the Holy Roman Emperor Ferdinand II, and by others still as a reference to Hitler. *False memories, such as Identifying paramnesia and
Memory biases Memory is the faculty of the mind by which data or information is encoded, stored, and retrieved when needed. It is the retention of information over time for the purpose of influencing future action. If past events could not be remembered, ...
, where the memory of a non-existent precognitive event is formed after the real event has occurred.Hines (2003). Where subjects in a dream experiment have been asked to write down their dreams in a diary, this can prevent selective memory effects such that the dreams no longer seem accurate about the future. *
Déjà vu ''Déjà vu'' ( , ; "already seen") is a French loanword for the phenomenon of feeling as though one has lived through the present situation before.Schnider, Armin. (2008). ''The Confabulating Mind: How the Brain Creates Reality''. Oxford Univers ...
, where people experience a false feeling that an identical event has occurred previously. Some recent authors have suggested that déjà vu and identifying paramnesia are the same thing. This view is not universally held, with others instead treating them as distinct phenomena.Herman N. Sno (1991);
The deja vu experience: Remembrance of things past?
, ''American Journal of Psychiatry'' 147(12):1587-95. DOI:10.1176/ajp.147.12.1587
Psychological explanations have also been proposed for belief in precognition.
Psychologist A psychologist is a professional who practices psychology and studies mental states, perceptual, cognitive, emotional, and social processes and behavior. Their work often involves the experimentation, observation, and interpretation of how indi ...
s have conducted experiments which are claimed to show that people who feel loss of control in their lives will turn to belief in precognition, because it gives them a sense of regaining control.


See also

* Inner eye *
Third eye The third eye (also called the mind's eye or inner eye) is a mystical invisible eye, usually depicted as located on the forehead, which provides perception beyond ordinary sight. In Hinduism, the third eye refers to the ajna (or brow) chakra. In ...
*
Oneiromancy Oneiromancy (from the , and ) is a form of divination based upon dreams, and also uses dreams to predict the future. Oneirogen plants may also be used to produce or enhance dream-like states of consciousness. Occasionally, the dreamer feels as if ...
(Veridical dreaming) *
Retrocognition Retrocognition (also known as postcognition or hindsight ), from the Latin ''retro'' meaning "backward, behind" and ''cognition'' meaning "knowing", describes "knowledge of a past event which could not have been learned or inferred by normal means" ...
*
List of topics characterized as pseudoscience This is a list of topics that have, either currently or in the past, been characterized as pseudoscience by academics or researchers. Detailed discussion of these topics may be found on their main pages. These characterizations were made in the ...
*
Dream A dream is a succession of images, ideas, emotions, and sensations that usually occur involuntarily in the mind during certain stages of sleep. Humans spend about two hours dreaming per night, and each dream lasts around 5 to 20 minutes, althou ...


References


Notes


Bibliography

* * Flieger, Verlyn; ''A Question of Time: JRR Tolkien's Road to Faërie'', Kent State University Press, 1997. * * * Inglis, Brian. (1986). ''The Paranormal: An Encyclopedia of Psychic Phenomena''. Paladin (Grafton) 1986. (1st Edition Granada 1985) * Priestley, J.B. ''Man and Time''. Aldus 1964, 2nd Edition Bloomsbury 1989. *Wynn, Charles M., and Wiggins, Arthur W. (2001). ''Quantum Leaps in the Wrong Direction: Where Real Science Ends...and Pseudoscience Begins''. Joseph Henry Press.


Further reading

*
Chris French Christopher Charles French (born 1956) is a British psychologist specialising in the psychology of paranormal beliefs and experiences, cognition and emotion. He is the head of the University of London's anomalistic Psychology Research Unit and ...
. (2012)
"Precognition Studies and the Curse of the Failed Replications"
''The Guardian''. *
David Marks David Lee Marks (born August 22, 1948) is an American guitarist who is best known for being an early member of the Beach Boys. While growing up in Hawthorne, California, Marks was a neighborhood friend of the original band members and was a freq ...
. (2000). '' The Psychology of the Psychic'' (2nd Edition). Prometheus Books. {{Parapsychology Paranormal terminology Parapsychology Prediction Psychic powers Pseudoscience Spiritual faculties