Poll: Do you think Dreams can predict the future.

[SadakoMoose]

I've had this happen to me a few times, wherein I will dream of scenarios and interactions that then happen to me with a degree of jarring accuracy months, or even years after the fact.
I have a few hypotheses about why this is.
1: A handful of the ones that took more than a few years may be false memories.
In this scenario, something happens to me in real life that is vaguely similar to something has happened to me in a dream before, resulting in me adding in details to the memory of my dream in order to make it seem more startling.
2: The Monkeys on typewriters scenario.
Wherein my dreams contain so many different elements that when thrown into the proverbial "paint mixer" or my mind that they cannot help but occasionally create experiences that will eventually come to be in real life.

Either way, it is not a use form of pre-cognosis, and I have since merely tucked it away as "something neato that sometimes happens to me..."

 

[ace_of_something]

I certainly hope not otherwise my 3rd grade teacher, Lil' Kim, and Walter Cronkite have a lot more to do with my future than is reasonable to expect.

 

[Evil Smurf]

Predicting the future? Really?

James. Randi. Educational. Foundation.

Prove it - and get a million fucking dollars - or shut up.

has he ever been proven wrong?

Who exactly are you talking about? One of the guys who are saying their dreams can predict the future, or James Randi?

James Randi

 

[Evil Smurf]

Predicting the future? Really?

James. Randi. Educational. Foundation.

Prove it - and get a million fucking dollars - or shut up.

has he ever been proven wrong?

Who exactly are you talking about? One of the guys who are saying their dreams can predict the future, or James Randi?

James Randi

And.. What exactly should he be proven wrong on?

has anyone won the million off him?

 

[Iron Criterion]

Nope, although it definitely feels that way sometimes. My understanding of deja vu is that certain parts of the brain that essentially tell your body that you've experienced this before are mistakenly activated, which leads to all sorts of confusion. Everyone's who's said that dreams can predict the future is really jumping to conclusions on this one...

You are pretty much correct. Deja Vu is when your mind confuses a short term memory (such as going to a new place for the first time) with a long term memory. This gives the feeling you've done or been somewhere before, but because you haven't and don't have a memory of it - your brain is left with this disturbed feeling of having done something but unable to recall it. There's a term for the exact opposite too (thinking you're doing something for the first time when you've done it before.)

 

[Tazzy da Devil]

At first I wanted to say no, I there was this time that I woke up from a dream, turned on the news and watched events that had just happened in my dream. Though there's was always the possibility that my parents were watching the news while I was asleep and I heard it subconsciously. So I dunno. I voted for maybe.

 

[C F]

Yeah, I get that sense of Déjà Vu, which is especially weird since I don't remember my dreams. So I have no clue whether I've dreamed about the future, or if it's my nervous system playing tricks on me. Whatever the case, it's weird being in a scenario I know I've never consciously experienced, and having my body telling me "This has happened before."

Cognitive memory misfile, actual prediction of the future, or just a fluke of the nervous system, I don't really care. All I know is it happens. The phenomenon has been happening to me since... the earliest can remember is the third grade. I'm a bit too jaded to join in the speculation at this point.

There's plenty of things science can't accurately explain yet. At this point, it's my policy to keep an open mind and just not care if this ends up being one of them. I must say, it's a pretty cool experience, though. If you're one of the people this hasn't happened to, you're missing out.

 

[theSteamSupported]

There is difference between believing that dreams can come true, and encountering something that makes you think of a dream you've had. That's the difference between horoscopes and weather forecasting.

There needs to be more research done about how we shape our dreams, and how our dreams shape us. I'm skeptic, but not dismissal.

 

[Zantos]

I don't think stuff that happens in real life is predicted by dreams, however I have dreamt something that's then happened as a result of it being a really good idea. Even if occasionally it hasn't turned out quite how it did in the dream.

 

[Loner Jo Jo]

I don't know about predicting the future, but I will say that I experience deja vu on a very regular basis. I've had similar experiences to you in which I will have a dream, and I can recall that dream in the morning. Then months, sometimes years later, the event will happen exactly as I dreamed. These dreams are very different from my normal dreams as my regular dreams are full stories seeming to last hours while the deja vu dreams are less than a minute long. Also, while my dreams never tend to get too weird, in most of my dreams I act as a fly on the wall or very neutral while in my deja vu dreams, I will act like I normally do. Hell, often times in the dreams as of late, I will actually say "Hey, deja vu!" in the dream.

When I was younger, they tended to be just images like if I had taken a picture of that moment. I remember a couple I had were seeing a certain book in the library or getting a new mattress. As I got older, the dreams became longer and while the earlier ones were silent, they know have sound, usually conversation. When I'm experiencing deja vu, I know what they're going to say before they actually say it. It's a very odd feeling. But they're never about anything important, but it's not events that are totally commonplace in my life. For instance, I've never gotten deja vu while eating toast, but maybe I'll be having a conversation with a friend, and I suddenly know the next three or four lines of dialogue.

I don't know what this implies about the future, but I will say I don't buy the memory processing theory. If it was true, why can I recall the dream when I wake up instead of only after I get the sensation of deja vu?

 

[TheSteeleStrap]

No. That would involve my subconcious being able to tell the future. It can't, as far as I know.

 

[Blobpie]

Last night i had a dream about watching a movie with Benny from new Vegas, while watching Gary from spongbob race his younger self upstairs..... while dodging bullets. What I am trying to say is that dreams can't predict the future.

 

[Zhadramekel]

I agree that deja vu does occur from stuff you experienced in dreams. But it's not the same as predicting the future.

The best way I can think of to say it is that predicting the future is conscious where as deja vu is unconcious. I don't know about other people but I tend to forget that I foreshadowed an event in my dreams until it happens in reality. And for me, deja vu only really occurs for fairly mundane events.

 

[theonlyblaze2]

Yes. I've had multiple dreams of the same variety you are describing. The only difference between you and me is that I would have the dream, remember it, and look for it in real life. I eventually started writing down a detailed description of my dreams. So now when I feel as if a moment of my life has lined up with something in my dream, I can look in the journal and see if it was true. So far I have put 12 life events to dreams that I had, with the event lining up perfectly with the dream.

Recently, I haven't had many of these dreams, and when I do, the ending of each moment is corrupted in the dream. Everything will line up perfectly with what happens in the real world, until about the last 2 minutes of the event. Then the dream takes on a creepy, nightmare-y feel.

 

[VeryOddGamer]

It has happened to me a few times. But, unless we find out that dreams are a form of time travel, I'm going to guess they've always been just coincidences.