google,
This particular case does not prove or disprove anything. However even if it happened again, I'm not sure how it would affect your "worldview". Could you elaborate on that?
Pole
i need some skeptic input... dreams that come true
by googlemagoogle 121 Replies latest jw friends
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Pole
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Mary
I've had dreams that have come true and it freaks me out when that happens. A couple of been significant, but the majority are mundane issues and that's what I can't figure out. For example, years ago when I was still a good Dub, we were out in Service one day and I had that bizarre feeling that I had had a dream about the exact situation I was in. I thought "..we're going to turn left at the light and an older woman will be crossing the road and when she sees us, she'll have to run..." When we turned the corner and I saw this "prediction" playing out in front of me, it really scared me as I haven't a clue what to make of it. Naturally being a Witness I never told anyone in the car cause they'd probably accuse me of being in league with Satan. Another time I was sitting at my desk and the same feeling came over me. I thought, "my boss is going to come out and ask me to make plane reservations to Colorado for him." Less than a minute later, he did. What was weird is that he had just started with the company two days previously and I had no idea he'd be travelling anywhere that soon. I have no idea what causes this but it's really freaky when it happens..............
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googlemagoogle
well, i don't believe in anything supernatural. but there's so much influence from my JW past (and pseudo JW present), urban legends and media, so after events like that you got a lot of "possibilities" to chose from.
for example when i read posts on this board about people experiencing crazy things while performing a ouija session, i sometimes really wonder what to think about it. you know, there's still that little demon the JWs planted in my head when i was a child. -
Pole
google,
The worst thing we can do is come up with complex theological/religious explanations for things we don't quite understand. This is where you may start wasting your life.
Although I can't say I have ever experienced anything impossible to explain, if I do, I guess I'll just admit I have no way of knowing exactly what it is, smile, say "oh jee", and move on with my life focussing on things that do carry some meaning.
Pole -
Jeffro
There are four main theories behind deja vu.
One is to do with the brain recognizes something as familiar before recognizing why it is familiar, giving the perception that they have encountered it before.
Many epileptics report a sensation of deja vu just before a seizure, which leads to another theory that suggests that a brief seizure (not necessarily epilepsy) may trigger activity in the part of the brain that relates to recognition, just as rogue activity in other parts of the brain can cause other problems such as hallucinations etc.
A very common cause of deja vu is simply that elements of a situation may seem familiar and the person fills in the gaps to convince themself that the entire scenario is familiar.
The fourth involves having not properly perceived something the first time it is encountered, but subconsciously recalling it on the next encounter.
Some would argue that none of these situations explains their experiences, and maybe they don't. However it is more likely that there is a rational explanation than the devil, time-travelling pixies, or some other spooky phenomenon implanting ideas in people's minds about events that are usually completely inconsequential. -
OldSoul
Jeffro: A very common cause of deja vu is simply that elements of a situation may seem familiar and the person fills in the gaps to convince themself that the entire scenario is familiar.
I subscribe to the Gestalt effect being the source of most dreams coming true. Our minds have an incredible and proven ability to fill in the gaps of information to make a completely fluid (harmonious, consonant) reality for us. Our brains automatically alter our perceptions and memories to something comfortable, forcing them into a framework that we can manage. We have to struggle daily to keep this knack from interfering in our ability to reason on uncomfortable things. When we are presented with reality distinctly outside a managable range, that is called trauma and can cause a psychological break.
Some of the most acutely perceptive among us have little ability to enjoy cartoons because they cannot suspend disbelief enough to "see" the fluid alternate reality that is presented.
Respectfully,
OldSoul -
Abaddon
The human brain reacts to stimulus.
At some level, when we hear of someone going on an aeroplane, we think of crashes, often not even high enough for our consciousness to register it. But sometimes we get that little 'flash' of something awful happening. It's caused by momentary awareness of a possible result of air travel our brain hits on due to the ay our brain stores information.
The bit of our head that knows about airtravel is connected to the bit that knows aeroplanes can crash. Just as the smell of strawberries can make you think of things other than strawberries, so to can the thought of Great Aunt Agatha going to San Remo make you think of a 737 hitting the ground in a ball of fire.
It happens in the minds of many people exposed to that stimulus everyday, and sometimes the person they are thinking of 'leaving on a jet plane' never comes back, as the plane really does crash.
Someone has died in an air crash and they thought of them dying whilst flying! Prophecy! Mind powers! Paranormal powers!
BOLLOCKS!
To say such a predictable situation is a result of precognition is like saying a 'flash' of ice-cream or roller-coasters at the mention of fun-fairs is caused by precognition.
It is actually an evolutionary adaption; those who analyse potential risks or benefits of a situation when a situation is mentioned or seen as a possibility and maybe even 'rehearse' at the back of their mind what they would do if x happened will have a better outcome than those that don't analyse potential risk/benefit similarly, if that risk or benefit factor actually comes to pass.
What parent doesn't 'see' risks to their child BEFORE they happen, often before they are possible to happen? Like a pan of cold water on a hob, that you automatically place handle-in before heating it so it can't be knocked or grabbed by passing kids... when the water is cold, the gas is not on, and the kids are at school. What parent doesn't 'see' their kid being hit by a car when the kid runs toward a busy road?
Thus imagining or dreaming an ill person in hospital dying is not particularly extraordinary, as ill people die in hospitals on a daily basis. If you had 1,000 people with someone they knew ill in hospital, they would all likely think, at some level, about them dying, and one of two of the people would find that the person did die, just as they dreamt/imagined/'saw'/daydreamed it. It's just the way the human mind works, probability and coincidence.
We have to realise we are only aware of the top level of what is happening in our head. There is no little man in there. There are thousands of threads or processes and our consciousness is a by-product of that, not something that exists independently. The offshoot of this is we have 'random' thoughts that sometimes come 'true', when they are neither 'random' nor clearly defined enough to be ascertained as ever coming 'true'.
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googlemagoogle
The worst thing we can do is come up with complex theological/religious explanations for things we don't quite understand. This is where you may start wasting your life.
this of course is true. there's just this automatic reflex, learned by indoctrination, that makes one connect pure coincidence with supernatural stories.
the first thing i thought was "what if there really are supernatural beings". this thought lasted for almost 3 seconds... scary. -
Crumpet
I dreamt that I got brutually tortured and murdered last night, so I hope that doesn't happen.
I have also experienced the de ja vu thing many times - its usually words - I can say a few seconds of the sentence someone is speaking to me whatever the topic - only I never get chance too interupt in time! Its probably ridiculous but I have long held the theory that maybe we do dream everything before it happens - however this makes more sense as an explanation.
One explanation I've heard for this is that sometimes one part of the brain perceives a situation a fraction of a second before other parts, and the other parts then interpret this information as a pre-existing memory.
My dreams are very vivid and I have serial dreams too - does anyone else have this? Where you go to sleep and wake up and when you get back to sleep a few minutes later or even the next night you pick up in the dream right where you left off! It's like having a nightly soap opera! -
Jeffro
only I never get chance too interupt in time
You've never once been able to beat them to it... Doesn't that suggest that it is just possible that your mind is playing tricks on you; that just maybe you're 'remembering' just after someone has said something that you thought it just before they said it, when really you are perhaps just remembering them say it a moment ago and your brain got its wires crossed.
Of course quite often people say things that are bleedingly obvious that you can say what they were going to say anyway... happens to me quite often but I haven't placed any ads as a psychic just yet - but I knew I was going to say that.