Poll: Do you think Dreams can predict the future.

[babinro]

No.

Dreams may subconsciously have an impact on your actions and lead you in a certain direction.

As I understand it, people have several different dreams a night. Which probably adds up to about 1000 different dreams in a year. It seems as though some of those dreams are bound to match something in reality at some point just from sheer chance.

 

[Soviet Steve]

Law of large numbers, vague memory and a desire to see patterns even when none exist mean that it is very likely for dreams to coincide with later events.

So in other words no.

 

[Pebkio]

Dreams can predict the future in the same way that clairvoyance can. The brain is a very powerful tool; the subconscious: doubly so. While not a 100% accurate prediction, a dream can contain some very strong insight into what might happen in your near future.

That's for broader situations about situations and reactions outside of your direct control. If it's about yourself, you might as well call it a "self-fulfilling prophecy" and sleep for another hour.

 

[MetalMagpie]

It's easy to point out dreams that came true whilst ignoring all the dreams that didn't. I see no way that dreams could actually predict the future beyond the normal way that you can predict the future. (I.e. You dream about seeing your grandparents because it's something you plan on doing.)

But deja vu is an interesting phenomenon. After going through a period of suffering from it almost every week, I looked up a few of the theories about why it happens. My favourite is that it's caused by what we programmers call a race condition.

These are the steps (the article writer claimed - I'm not sure on their science here) the brain takes when you experience something:
1. Store experience in short-term memory.
2. Check if anything in long-term memory matches what is in short-term memory.
3. Store experience in long-term memory.

The argument was that step 3 can sometimes happen before step 2, leading the brain to encounter a perfectly matching memory for what was just experienced. This explains the feeling that I've had the same conversation before, but not being able to remember where or when.

Even if not true, it's an interesting idea.

 

[AngloDoom]

No?

I mean, maybe I've got a weird way of looking at things but which of these two is more likely:

A: All events in the world are pre-determined and cannot be changed?
B: You dream a lot of events, so if something resembles one of those events, your behaviour changes to suit your dream- like how you sometimes tell someone-else's joke without remembering hearing it?

 

[Arakasi]

The future is set (determinism) however I doubt our brains are complicated enough to do more than make wild guesses about the future.

 

[teqrevisited]

I seriously doubt it. I have had some that absolutely feel as if they'd genuinely happened though.

The dream I remember the most that I thought might happen was to do with what I think was a man on his deathbed in what could be the highest room in the tower of the old city hospital with only myself and a handful of my family there. I know the view from the window and remember the decor even though I know I've never been up there and neither has anyone that I've met. Just one of those strange things.

 

[Moonlight Butterfly]

I have had it happen to me with games, lately I was doing the new londo ruins in dark souls and I specifically remembered a dream I had with a very similar if not identical place.

It freaks me out a bit sometimes I think it's the way your brain works. Your survival instinct comes up with a similar instance that it can remember to help you with your situation. Which is why your life flashes before your eyes before you die. It's your brain trying to come up with a way out.

 

[Korak the Mad]

Yes.

Happens on a regular basis to me. How do you also get all dialogue within that situation that you have predicted in your dream correct too? I doubt it's just coincidence.

To the pit all non-believers!

Same goes for me. I will have a dream about doing something, and talking about a certain subject in a certain area and suddenly have a feeling of deja vu.

I've had dreams in which didn't fulfill themselves until years later, and I completely forgot about them until it happened.

 

[Dark2003]

ABSOLUTELY NOT, from personally experience no warning was given about my current situation

 

[Asclepion]

I guess it should also be noted I don't believe in time as a thing that can be altered. When people talk about time travel and things of that nature I think it is a little silly to take seriously I mean time is not recorded it is a free flowing thing that comes and goes and when it is gone it is gone forever. The idea of going or seeing the future doesn't make sense since it hasn't happened anything can happen so there is no answer to what it is. I am also the one who thinks if by some random wtf time travel was invented going back in time would simply create a loop where the person would go back in time and literally be who he was at that time and place so therefore live exactly the same only to repeat everything exactly the same and there for keep going back and forth in time in a loop.

That makes perfect sense, but our current understand of science suggests that it is wrong. Relativity states that the past and future are both real. The past is not gone. The future already exists.

 

[Panorama]

No, because that would be silly.

This!

But yeah, i don't believe there is any way to predict the future, there is just luck guess work.

 

[StBishop]

No. Not even close.

It seems like a fucking retarded silly idea.

 

[thePyro_13]

Time doesn't work like that.

I've experienced the sensation you describe before, one or twice. I'll admit it's very convincing.

But the universe doesn't follow a script, their's no way to peak ahead or to replay past events. Our brains are honed to find patterns and we do it very well. This is just another illusion created by our brains attempting to link previous memories to current events.

 

[Phasmal]

My dreams are far too crazy to be predicting anything, unless my future is to get my drink spiked with bad acid or something. =P
My dreams dont make any kind of sense. My nightmares make more sense, but the dreams I have are just plain weird.

 

[Evil Smurf]

Spoiler: is this even a question? Man you made my day

 

[bojackx]

HAHAHAHA!

...oh you're serious. No, no I don't.

 

[KishinZero]

I know people who have had psycic dreams before and I have experianced one before as well. I don't think it can predict the future so much as giving a good guess based on your memories and other information about it. This stuff does happen but I doubt its actually a vision of the future.

 

[Hawk of Battle]

Last night I had a dream where I rescued a cute redhead and some alien type people from... someone, possibly other aliens I'm not sure, then me and the redhead hooked up (naturally). I forget the specifics now and I'm pretty sure I had the same dream twice with different elements each time.

Pretty sure that's never going to happen and is probably just because I've recently become slightly obsessed with W.I.T.C.H. anyway.

So no, dreams as prophecies is bullshit.

 

[TehCookie]

Sometimes I'll reenact things that happen in my dreams, but that's because it was a great idea. Usually that happens when I dream about food.

But what if you dream about sausages, raspberry ice cream and gherkins?

That would be a very disturbing breakfast.

That doesn't sound like a great idea to me. My usual dream breakfast is waffles, since I can't be arsed to make them any other time. Cooking takes to long unless I really really want it.