Premonitions

[classylady60]

Have you or do you have premonitions? I have since a child and they seem to be more prolific as I get older. Many times I've thought of something happening before the event and it's turned out exactly as I'd thought of it (does this indicate that the future is there already...?). I never take these "premonitions/thoughts" for granted and most times are shocked that they come about.

Some time ago one was awful as on the Saturday I mentioned to OH that someone we knew of but to do with our friend was going to pass away and it was so strong a feeling I wrote it in my diary. Didn't think too much about it but the following Thursday I had a phone call to say her sister had literally dropped down dead as she was walking to catch the bus. Her sister wasn't ill nor was there any concern for her health and she wasn't elderly either. This is one of many things that have come true that I've thought of prior to it happening over the years. Do you think it's coincidence or something that can't be explained?

[mibn2cweus]

The odds of something quite peculiar or seemingly unattributable to shear coincidence happening in ones lifetime are very good considering the astonishing range of all the possibilities. One might be equally justified in wondering how through all the seemingly random events that take place continuously around us we find the world comprehensible at all. What we choose to focus on and see as important and consequential makes a vast difference in how we each regard the seething world around us.

Call it premonitions or ghosts or what have you, I've always sought a deeper more profound understanding of my own experience and through seeking to learn what causal agents are involved, I have found the world to be, to an astonishing degree . . . comprehensible. In seeking a comprehensive understanding I have learned and discovered things I would never have believed possible had I not learned to understand the underlying causes responsible for its manifestation. I've found this understanding much more rewarding and fulfilling than any fear over the prospect of robbing myself of what once was a deep dark mystery. But I feel no need to share personal anecdotes for what anyone is capable of proving for themselves. Nothing is found to be merely coincidental or completely random so long as the complexity of the causal chain involved lies within the range of one's mind's grasp.

[KARL]

I can't say I know anything for certain about the matters alluded to in this post, but I know for certain of something that happened to me two years ago. We were travelling in Switzerland and planned to go and see a good friend of more than 30 years. She was a spinster who was around 80 years old and I deliberately did not let her know in advance that we were coming because she might fret (as before) if we were a bit late on our timing. She was not in when we arrived and after waiting a couple of hours we went to her niece's house in the same village to see if she was there (very likely). The niece, who also didn't know we were coming opened the door and seemed dumbstruck at seeing us and a moment later said her aunt had died the day before. The point is that three days or so earlier I had a sort of daydream like "vision" while passing an idle moment, of the niece saying more or less word for word the same thing to me at her door. The aunt was in fine health when I last spoke to her on the phone - I dismissed my "vision" as a ridiculously dark thought to have and wondered what on earth I was doing wondering down such a route. This is the most dramatic of "premonitions" I have had but from our earliest days together, my wife and I (I told her of my "tendency") came to take seriously my "feelings" as we refer to them - because they so often signalled something imminent that we would feel as a particularly abrupt and significant event or development. Mysterious ? Maybe, but at least an interesting trend or tendency.

[mibn2cweus]

I think most of us share a tendency to attach special significance to those 'premonitions' which ultimately correlate to actual events. Perhaps this is how we tune our intuition. However, I don't think it particularly wise to rely on either premonition or intuition in lieu of an actual verification of what they allude to whenever the time to do so presents itself. To whatever degree our premonitions and intuitions prove to be correct, it is the quality of the programming that informs these automated guidance systems that determines their reliability. Ideally, to the extent we are suitably pre-informed we would not have to resort to relying on them at all.

[classylady60]

@ mibn : You asked me to transcribe what I wrote down. I don’t see how I can present “evidence” even of the significant (to me) “thought” I had re the death. The entry in my diary said “have a feeling someone we know of but to do with _ _ _ _ (friend’s name) will pass away” that’s it. Told OH and we were both astounded when we rec’d the telephone call the following week. No indication of time scale or details but I just knew something would happen.

Another time many years ago, again relayed to my family by me BEFORE the event happened was a dream I had. The week previously an elderly friend of ours won the football pools and in those days it was a lot of money (he bought three houses with it at the time whereas now you wouldn’t get one). He shared his good news with us and said “I am going to give you £500 out of my winnings” which we thought was extremely generous of him. Just to fill in on the background, we lived miles apart and we always visited one another by car. We had never been in his car nor him in ours, there was no need to be at anytime.

Soon after he told us about his win and his offer to us I had a dream. In the dream, we were in our car and he and his daughter were in the back of the car. This was very strange to me because they would have no reason to be there. Then in the dream our friend said, “You know I mentioned the money I would give you, my solicitor had a word with me and has recommended that I only give you half of that I really hope you don’t mind”. In the dream we said “of course not, we didn’t want anything anyway it was good of you to think of us like you have”.

About 2 weeks later we visited our friend as he’d asked us there and just as we were parking the car he came out and said, “Would you be kind enough to take _ _ _(his daughter) to her club in the village please, I’ll come with you to show you the way”. So…there they both were in the back of our car just as in my dream. We dropped the daughter off, came back to his house and before the three of us got out of our car our friend said, “I’ve got something to tell you….” And he reeled off the words exactly as they were spoken by him in my dream!

I can only go by what I’ve seen, heard, dreamed, “been told”, or whatever else you would like to call it on this subject. The only evidence I had at the time was to tell my family about the dream BEFORE the event happened…then after it played out that evening I knew then that the dream had been a premonition (or whatever you would like to call it). Sorry if it doesn’t fit in with anyone's criteria but that’s how it happens for me and I can’t change things.

[mibn2cweus]

classylady60, I have no time to compose and offer my thoughts on this at the moment but thanks for supplying the requested details.

[mibn2cweus]

After some contemplation of the possibilities I'm afraid the best I can come up with is she must have had a peek in your diary and subsequently suffered a fatal guilt-attack . . . well, at least not without implicating you as a suspect. If something like this happened to me I'd most likely be too paranoid to share my experience and instead be tearing out a page from my diary and burning it.

But cweusly, I suppose you'll just have to chalk it up to a lack of information from which to assemble a reasonable explanation for what contributed to this remarkable coincidence. Stranger things have happened. I wouldn't classify your feeling, or anyone else's how ever strong, as knowledge though since what you felt was going to happen was only confirmed by the subsequent occurrence. If it had been certain knowledge you would most likely have acted much more aggressively to try to prevent the unfortunate outcome.

Nor could 'premonition' be a valid explanation until such time as the means by which a known mechanism producing the proposed phenomenon is itself explained and confirmed as a contributing cause, in which case it would no longer qualify as 'premonition' but rather a proven method for predicting future events.

But if nothing else, this thread confirms it makes for an interesting, if not controversial, topic for discussion.

One final thought to conclude this reply. I would imagine your friend in question knows a lot of people who are potential candidates for dying at any given moment. Certainly, the fact that it was her own sister and the way in which she died coupled with the urge to make note of it makes this a much more poignant event for you, but why your 'premonition' didn't specify exactly who the victim would be seems rather odd in the context of everything else one might accredit it with having foretold . . . or does it?

[classylady60]

mibn: How can anyone explain the unexplainable? Where do these thoughts come from, is anyone generating them, is there a time warp into the future where certain people pick up on events....a myriad of questions with no answers, we cannot answer them - even you. If we had this knowledge then we might be able to see ahead and prevent certain things happening IF they aren't pre-ordained anyway (another concept people think of). As for my friends sister passing away....I rarely saw or spoke with her....my friend hardly mentioned her so I couldn't have conjured anything up. As for the exact science of knowing who it could have been...well as my experience has shown over the years....these things aren't exact science, one can only go by what is "given" and often the whole story isn't included.

I notice you didn't mention the precognitive dream I had...precise details there in a dream....all explained here as it happened and the consequences after....so how do you explain that? Could I have dreamt it and forced it to happen?? Was it a peek in to the future? Why would our friend be in our car in the dream when he NEVER got into our car.... Now I'm not looking for answers because as I stated above...how does one explain the unexplained. But you are looking for answers...good luck at that, I've been searching for years and still not come up with the conclusion so just accept what happens and go with the flow.

You're right, it is an interesting subject and I found it so when reading what others' have experienced. However no one has come up with the answer as to why it happens and how....just the same as no one can prove or disprove a god....it all comes down to belief or non belief. Fascinating isn't it?

[chakka35]

classylady60, the reason that "no-one has come up with the answer as to why it happens" was given in my last post: no-one but you knows the facts and the circumstances, so all the rest of us have is an anecdote. Before we are under an obligation to explain why it happens we must be certain that it does.

[classylady60]

Understand that chakka....but then I haven't asked for an explanation of the happening but wondered if the future may exist because of premonitions rec'd by me and other experiencing them. I reiterate it one cannot explain the unexplainable....comment yes, guesses yes and debate as to whether the future is there that is tapped into....simples (hark at me...don't even watch the advert just seen that applied here at times LOLOL)

[mibn2cweus]

As I see it, the real danger with things we can't explain is to come to conclusions regarding what it 'must' be which only obscures the path of objectivity and any future hope of determining and fully understanding what it really is.

[chakka35]

classylady60, if I were tortured into producing an answer I would say that the experiences you relate can be put down to coincidence. Unlikely, you say, but when judging the improbable we must compare it with the improbability of the alternative.
The idea that future events are so pre-ordained as to be able to be seen in advance by some people is so improbable as to be preposterous. Compared with that astronomical improbability the unlikeliness of your experiences being just coincidence fades somewhat.
May suggest that you pick up a copy of Richard Dawkins' fascinating book "Unweaving the Rainbow" and read Chapter 7, "Unweaving the Uncanny"?
He gives some amusing examples of how we are always more impressed (or mystified) by coincidences than we need be.