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Tuesday, March 1, 2011

Response Precognitive dreaming should not be dismissed as coincidence | Comment is free | The Guardian

Response Precognitive dreaming should not be dismissed as coincidence| The Guardian: "It's fair for Professor Richard Wiseman to propose psychological explanations for the mystery of prophetic dreams (Can dreams predict the future?, G2, 22 February). However, for all its fantastical nature, many parapsychologists argue that precognition is a real phenomenon – along with telepathy, clairvoyance and some other paranormal phenomena.

Wiseman elaborates on the 'coincidence' theory that has been used to explain away precognitive dreams. We dream much more than we think, he points out, thus generating a jumble of different images. These are mostly forgotten, but one may be triggered by something we experience in the following days, leading us to suppose it 'magically predicted the future'. In reality it is just the laws of probability at work.

Dreams that foretell assassinations, accidents and earthquakes may be influenced by personal anxieties, Wiseman argues. If there is no record of the dream taking place before the event, the dreamers 'could have inadvertently twisted the dream to better fit the unfortunate events that transpired'."

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