Precognition or Dream Lagging?

People have reported dreaming about future events since the beginning of dream reports which incidentally, is nearly since the beginning of human life. One question remains: Are people dreaming about future events or does this just appear to be so due to the dream lag effect?

The dream lag effect is a well-known phenomenon where a dream occurs about a waking day event 3 or 4 nights after the event. For example, if a woman travels on business on a Monday then she may dream about those events on Thursday or Friday night. Could this be responsible for dreaming about future events?

For example, a woman goes to yoga class every Thursday evening. She dreams about the class on Monday evening and perceives this as a precognitive dream about the upcoming class on Thursday. Has she dreamt about the previous class or the upcoming class? Is this dream precognitive or just a dream lag?

The research seems to provide support for both of these events. People can certainly dream about events before they occur. This has been shown to occur in the lab with subjects dreaming about an upcoming event or object that they could not have known about previously. Furthermore, the dream lag effect appears to be a common theme as well and people certainly dream about events several nights after a waking day event has occurred. Precognition and dream lag appear to be two events that occur for some dreamers. When can a dreamer tell if a dream is precognitive or a dream lag?

Precognitive dreams appear to occur in approximately 15% of dreams and predict very specific events. Dream lags can be pinned directly to past waking day events and can be very helpful for problem-solving. The key is for the dreamer to become acquainted with their own dream imagery and to come to know which of these circumstances are in fact occurring for them. In either case, precognition and dream lagging appear to be helpful for dreamers in many ways.

Return after a long delay.......

I am back on my blog after a delay of several months. The reason I have been away is that I have been writing, writing, and writing which makes coming to the blog that much harder. I have submitted several research articles which I believe are important for dream research. One is an article on the dreams of women with breast cancer, another is an article that has been accepted for publication for April/2010, which is the relationship among dreams and waking day infidelity. I am also working on an article comparing the dreams and discovery of Italians and Canadians-both students and therapy participants. Other interesting work has included collaborations with colleagues in the United Arab Emerits examining religious/spiritual content in dreams between UAM and Canadians.

The research has continued to flourish over the past months in preparation for the IASD conference in July. Here I will be presenting research with my colleagues on dreams and anxiety, dreams and relationships, dreams across cultures...and others. The research field is growing and I have had the pleasure of working with several teams around the world in preparation for IASD.

So, I have not been at my blog because of my writing in other areas. I feel ready to come back to it now to share the new and exciting findings that are coming up for dream work.