Precognition

Introduction

"Can information come to us from a future, either one that is predetermined or one that is probable? Can anything, whether it be information or objects or people travel from the future to the present, or the present to the past ? We usually think in terms of cause and effect with regard to things happening, where the event (the cause) brings about a particular happening or outcome (the effect). With precognition, it is suggested that the effect precedes the cause (the predicted event in the future). Is this possible?" - p.159, Psychic Dreaming, a Parapsychologist's Handbook, by Loyd Auerbach.

Dreaming of the future

Is it possible to dream of a future event? Let's take a look at an example. Someone, to whom we will refer as 'Person A', dreams one night that they enrolled on a course on Psychology. This dream seems very real - they see and, presumably, interact with, the other people on the course. It takes place in a room, with which Person A is familiar (perhaps it is a room of their own house, or another building they visit sometimes). Anyway, the dream seems rather brief and in places vague, but the person knows what it was about (a course on Psychology). When Person A wakes up, they have an unexplainable "knowing" that that is what they have got to do - to enrol onto a Psychology course.

      This, as usual, raises some important questions:

• If Person A follows their intuitive feeling, and consequently, they enrol onto an actual Psychology course, this could mean that their dream was a precognitive dream, because it was based on an event which was to occur in the future (enrolment onto a Psychology course).
• Consequently, Person A is likely to remember the dream as either a prcognitive dream, or as a dream which had a precognitive quality
• If Person A does not follow their intuitive feeling, and so does NOT actually enrol onto a Psychology course, it would mean that the dream was NOT precognitive, because the event it "predicted" did not happen. 
• Therefore, Person A would be unlikely to perceive or interpret the dream as being precognitive, since it did not happen as they did not act on it (i.e. they did not enrol themselves onto a Psychology course). Perhaps Person A would even forget about the dream as a result.

Does this mean that interpretation is the key to whether a dream is considered to be precognitive or not? The content of one's dreams is subjective, so they are also subject to subjectivity. Even if an individual unintentionally makes the event the dream apparently predicted come true through their belief that the dream was precognitive, so therefore they act on it even subconsciously, it does not mean that the dream was foretelling of a future event, because the circumstances or individual may not have necessarily allowed for the actual event to happen. Perhaps the dream was not precognitive in any way, and was 'just' a dream due to the person's imagination, but that the dreamer had wrongly assumed that the dream was precognitive and so had taken the initiative to act on its perceived message.
    The future is not substantial and its possibilities are always in motion. Constantly, the individual is changing their own future unconsciously through the alteration of their beliefs, attitudes, psychology, behaviour and values or opinions, or certain unexpected events. One day they may have a desire to be an author, then, sometime later, an event or change in their person psychology may force them to desire something else.