Friday, November 16, 2012

Paranormal Dreaming (replies accepted until Dec 10th)

Dreaming about the future, about other people accurately, or about events that are occuring that one cannot know about appear to be common occurances. Over the years people have reported these forms of dreams but because scientists could not explain them, they igorned them. More recently scientific studies have begun delving into this realm of consciousness and found that they do in fact occur. Why might humans have the ability of paranormal dreaming (which actually appears to be normal dreaming) and what would be the advantage of this evolutionary phenomena to persist in humans?

38 comments:

  1. I have always wondered this concept. For the longest time I always attributed it to knowing the possible outcomes of an event, dreaming of one of them, and then once that event actually happens attributing your knowledge of it to your dreams. My issue has always been that dreams are so general and can be interpreted so many different ways its likely that they will fit future events.

    However, if they are true premonitions then they give the human species a distinct advantage over other species because we can see events that have not happened yet. In those cases we can prepare for them if they're bad or anticipate them if they are good.

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    1. I think your point that dreams are general and can be interpreted so many ways that they will likely fit future events is really interesting. The topic of paranormal dreaming is something I have contemplated a lot in the past, and I never thought of it this way. I guess if you try hard enough and stretch things, you can make any dream relate to a lot of different situations. This makes a lot of sense, and it's a great logical way of looking at it!

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    2. that's a pretty interesting perspective on paranormal dreams, maybe it is possible. I imagine it would b more prevalent among people who are cautious and generally calculative in what they do compared to those who tend to "jump in" to any situation. I wonder if there would be a difference in paranormal dreams between these groups?
      I do agree that if these dreams do accurately predict what will happen next, we will have an even greater advantage. However, I do think that if it is an adaptation (like others our ancestors have gained) it will take a great deal of time before they come into a noticeable effect.

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  2. I have never doubted that importance of paranormal dreaming for I have had many of my own, as well as heard of them from friends and family. Just because science cannot explain paranormal dreaming does not mean that it does not occur. Humans are known and believed to have five senses - taste, touch, smell, audition and vision. However, people are also commonly aware of intuition, a sense that often guides people in waking day, but this has failed to be termed as a sixth sense in most cases because science cannot adequately define it. This however does not mean that intuition does not exist. More extreme variations of intuition can appear in what we call “psychics” - another topic of uncertainty. Psychic ability is believed by some to be an ability that everybody has; it's just that some are better at it than others. Just like how some are good at math, others need practice at it. Some people have great intuition. Others need practice at it. Perhaps in our dreams, some people are better at hearing themselves and gaining insight. Others just need more practice at the ability. The same could be said about paranormal dreaming – something that occurs more often in some than others – and perhaps an ability that could improve if one practiced their abilities in gaining insight. Perhaps it's a sense that has always been with us; it just so happens to not be scientifically accepted in most cases, which again, does not mean it is not real.
    Intuition may influence our dreams at a deeper subconscious level that we are not aware of during waking days. Dreams can possibly make our intuition or psychic abilities more clear, which can sometimes be clouded during waking day. The same can be said about emotional issues, conflicts or distress which often arise in dreams if not mended in waking day life.
    There is much still unknown about dreams, their functions, and their purposes. However, it has already been noted that dreams help us solve problems and they allow us to gain insight into ourselves that we sometimes have trouble gaining during our waking time. When we learn to properly listen to our dreams, they are even said to lead us onto our proper lifepath. Perhaps dreams that are intuitive, psychic, or precognitive are a greater extension of this need. Perhaps western society has underestimated the power of the mind for too long – too long that this natural ability has become unknown to us. Maybe it's a sense that people need to rebuild or practice on, simply due to the lack of practice and belief/acceptance of its existence in western culture.
    Another thought I’d like to add is centered around the concept of time. Science has an idea of what time is but the concept of time gets complicated when topics of space travel, teleportation or near death experiences occur. That is, we have a theory of what time is because it makes the most sense to us at this time. Theories are constantly disproven (for example, the Earth is no longer considered to be flat, or more related to this topic, scientists are beginning to question whether the mind and the brain are two separate entities as opposed to one). My point is time is another human, created concept, and perhaps dreams do not function within this limited framework of knowledge. Maybe dreams function at a different level of time, or in an avenue where past, present and future are all interlinked. Dreams then could serve as tools to guide us based on our past or based on our present, and again solve our problems, whether they stem in the past, present-life, or future.

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    1. Agreed! A million times, agreed! This is always such a contentious topic, as the scientific mindset has taken over much of our culture. How pompous it is, to believe that we are living in a time of perfect knowledge!

      I often think about what it would be like to live a thousand years ago. There are so many things that we know today that would have been impossible to know back then. Those people, from a thousand years ago, would have no way of conceiving what the world would end up like a thousand years later. I believe that our time is no more enlightened, and that we are susceptible to the same pitfalls in logic as they were.

      I admire the research that is going on about this topic. I also think that we could still be hundreds of years away from really being able to confirm or disconfirm phenomena like these.

      Well written, Katelyn!

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  3. Paranormal dreaming is something that I have always found very interesting, because it is something I have experienced on many occasions. There have been many times where I have dreamed about something that has ended up actually happening in the near future (People always tell me that I'm crazy for thinking this, so it's nice to know that scientific research is backing me up!)
    Plain and simple, humans could have the ability of paranormal dreaming for adaptation purposes. If we have experienced a situation (good or bad) in our dreams, we could be better equipped to handle the situation when it actually happens to us. This would be especially advantageous in negative or dangerous scenarios. If we have to encounter something dangerous in real life that we have already faced in our dreams, we could theoretically reflect on our dream experience to determine what worked (or didn't work) in dealing with the situation, and adjust our reaction accordingly. In theory, this could help increase survival (if the situation is dangerous) and could also help to reduce emotional trauma, because we would know how to deal with the negative situation more effectively.

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    1. I like how you brought about that paranormal dreaming allows us to better handle certain situations. I also believe strongly in this from experience that I have had in the past. My dream allowed me to better handle a certain situation that had occured in my dream it didn't end well so in real life I took a different route and it worked out just fine.

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  4. I find this topic very interesting, as you hear of these types of dreams, and many of us have had some of our own. Once a person has this type of dream, and the event then happens. As mentioned above, dreams may be interpreted in various different ways, and have different meaning for various people as we have discovered throughout our labs. I think this is a great topic for scientists to look into, but i can imagine it will be very difficult to discover the meaning of these dreams for the reason that dreams can be interpreted in so many ways, do we just piece things in our dream together that are frequently seen in our everyday life? I look forward to hearing the research on this topic!

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    1. I alos believe this could be hard to study because people may not completely remember the dream or the event that related to the dream. Their memories may fill in the gaps with more logical situations or descriptions that allow a better match between the dream and event.
      Also different cultures may have different points of view on such dreams. Some may refuse such ideas and limit the data to be found, while others may welcome it which could over-represent some cultures.

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    2. Thats a great point regarding different cultures and their views. It is hard to recall a dream in full detail, especially after time has passed since having that dream, like you had mentioned, memories fill the gaps. This could also mean that memories of waking events fill those gaps which then alters the dream.

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  5. Paranormal dreaming has always fascinated me. I have a hard time trying to convince myself if it is a real thing as science hasn’t proved much about it, but some of the stories I have heard from others seem too real to be fake. For example, my aunt had a dream about her husband and son driving up north with her husband’s sister and brother. She dreamt that all four were in a car accident and died. She had this dream one week before her husband and his brother and sister were supposed to go up north to visit their mother. My aunt wouldn’t let my uncle go because she said the dream seemed too real and she tried to convince his brother and sister to stay home. The brother and sister decided to travel up north and were killed in a car accident. Coincidence or not?

    Perhaps humans have the ability of paranormal dreaming because they are so relaxed and out of tune with reality when sleeping. This allows them to forget about their daily hassles and perhaps transcend into deeper thought which allows them to have dreams about the future or about visiting family/friends who are deceased. Perhaps the subconscious is giving humans an ‘alert’ or ‘warning’ of things to come so that we can plan and avoid dangers.

    From an evolutionary aspect, paranormal dreams could help us live longer. For example, if we have dreams about being killed in car accidents or having a heart attack, we can take preventative measures to make sure those don’t happen. We can purchase safer vehicles, make sure we are driving with caution, or go get annual checkups with our doctors for preventative screenings. If humans do in fact have paranormal dreams and can see into the future, it will help us make decisions about our life and the direction we want to go. We are able to see how choices and options have influenced our dreams and if there is a positive outcome, we can stick with the choices and options from our dreams while if there was a negative outcome, we can choose a different choice and perhaps have a better outcome than in our dreams.

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  6. I'm glad people have started looking into this topic more seriously, both in science and amongst average people. Many people I've met that have had a predictive dream tend to blow it off as a "coincidence" without thinking that the dream could be beneficial. It would be amazing if such forms of dreaming could become conditioned and trained. If this is an adaptation we could use such dreams as a form of clairvoyance. Maybe to escape from potential dangers that are going to happen or prepare for other situations. Considering regular dreams can teach so much about ourselves and our pasts and our present. I don't doubt the idea that dreams can have predictive qualities for our futures too.

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    1. I like how you brought to attention that most people don't pay attention to these dreams. The dreams as you mentioned could be beneficial in many actors and people should try to find the underlying message that is trying to be heard. Meanings from dreams as we know can be related to everyday waking life.

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  7. I believe that humans can have paranormal dreams because we often predict what may happen in certain situations. We often rationalize situations, it's apart of our nature. This is probably why we have these sort of dreams. So I completely agree with Katie, because these dreams would have the predictive qualities to tell us about our futures.


    Paranormal dreams are very important, because if we can see into the future, almost like a "vision" as Christians would say- its almost like giving us a warning before the event actually happens. This actually happened to me when I was in high school. I had a neighbor that had just moved in, who had a young boy that attended my school. Every day he would ride his bike to school, and because our area was not fully developed at the time, we had to walk on the edge of the road. The day before school, I had a "paranormal" dream that the boy fell off the bike and got hit by a car. The next day when we were coming from school, I seen him riding his bike, we were on opposite sides of the road. I thought about the dream I had but I ignored its content, I heard my inner self say, tell him to come off, but I ignored it. He was long time gone by then. About 5 minutes up the street at the intersection, I seen about 3 police cars, an ambulance and a fire truck. When I got closer, I seen that it was the SAME KID that I had the dream about, unconscious on the ground, and his bike destroyed. He got hit by a car that ran a red light.

    These type of dreams should be taken seriously, and more research should be done about their content. As you can see, I probably could have prevented the accident.

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  8. Humans could have the ability of paranormal dreaming as a sort of defense mechanism. During dreaming we don’t have our waking day thoughts, environment, and other people interrupting us, so during dreaming maybe our brains are free to do as they please (in a sense) and as we’ve learned dreams are highly correlated with our waking day. Dreaming about the future could, in a sense, pose the idea of protecting the person against things that they either seen but didn’t register or against things that may happen in the future given events that have already happened in a person’s life. Dreaming about the future and about events that a person couldn't possibly be aware of allows the individual to play through scenarios during dreaming in order to prepare them for the real thing possibly. This would then act as an advantage of paranormal dreaming: to allow individuals to play through things they may encounter in their current life.

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  9. Paranormal dreaming is a really fascinating event that I have experienced a few times. In a way it's frustrating when it happens because when you tell someone about it, they have a hard time believing you. So I'm happy that research is finally going into this topic.

    I think it is possible that throughout waking life, people may experience cues that they don't consciously register. These cues could be about basically anything including possible upcoming events. When asleep and the brain is sorting the events of the day, these cues could become present and the individual will experience them in the form of the dream. Then, when the event happens days or weeks later, the individual may feel like they predicted this event in their dream, when really it was information that was unconsciously registered. Whether this is a valid explanation, I'm not sure. There are probably many explanations for these paranormal dreams.

    To build on what Jade suggested, I think that paranormal dreams are somewhat of a defence mechanism. If an individual dreams of an event, they are able to experience some of the emotions that the event triggers. Perhaps if an event is dreamed about before it happens, it may reduce the severity of emotions when the event actually happens. This could reduce shock, and post-traumatic stress levels.

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  10. The ability to have paranormal dreams is so interesting. As we have discovered through this course, our dreams lead us to gain insight to our waking day lives. Paranormal dreams are possibly just preparing us for future events that may impact our waking day lives in various ways. Just because paranormal dreams cannot be scientifically proven because dreams are a subjective experience that nobody except the dreamer can see, does not mean that such dreams do not occur. Perhaps we have these dreams with future symbolic meaning so that when we get to a fork in the road in the future, we know which path we are supposed to take in lives. Perhaps it is advantageous that our subconscious mind can communicate with us to ensure we choose the path we are destined to take. I often have experiences of déjà vu. I swear that when I go to new places I have seen them before, or I am reliving moments that I have already encountered. However I never really come to fully conclude why it is that I felt I have been to those places before when I know that I haven’t in my waking life. It makes sense that I may have visited these places in my dreaming mind.

    It is so intriguing that humans have the ability to dream about the future. Personally I have experienced a dream that I consider to be somewhat paranormal. Although it may have been a coincidence, one night when I had got home from work I realized I was missing my phone. I ripped my car apart looking for it, drove back to work and retraced my steps. After an hour of searching for my phone I still could not find it. After giving up and feeling very disappointed and angry I went to bed. That night I had dreamed about being on my phone in my car. In my dream I was driving and all the sudden had to jolt to a stop. My phone went flying out of my hands and under the passenger seat. Although I do not remember the specific details of the dream (as I had not kept a dream journal at this point in my life) I suddenly woke up in my bed and knew exactly where my phone was. I ran out to my car and sure enough, my phone was exactly where I had dreamt it was, under the passenger seat. I had been sure I had checked there the night before and during my drive home from work that night, there had been no instances where I had to come to a quick stop like I had in my dream. Somehow my dream and mind communicated with me and showed me where my phone was. I must admit, it was pretty creepy at the time!

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    1. I agree with your statement that dreams help guide future events. I too believe that our subconscious is able to guide future decisions. These paranormal dreams resultantly are beneficial to our waking day life, as demonstrated in your own personal experience. It demonstrates that while our mind is free from distractions, it can process information not able to be understood during our waking life. In your case, your mind was free from the anger and frustration you faced when looking for your phone when you were in a dreaming state.

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  11. I feel that humans are able to have paranormal dreaming because it is like any other form of dreaming. We know that dreams are considered to be a guide to the waking day life. There is no difference in paranormal dreaming. I strongly believe in this form of dreaming because of Deja vu. When remembering something that occurs in a day but it has never happened can be related to Deja vu. I feel that this form of dreaming can relate to that. If a situation occured in a dream with a bad outcome, when it occurs in real life the situtation can be remembered and the outcome can possibly be changed. This can be for the better in that this dreaming allows for changes that are beneficial in relation to waking life, rather than a bad outcome occuring.

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  12. This is very interesting that we can have paranormal dreams, yet not surprising since our dreams pertained to our waking lives. I have also had many dreams that I should have looked and interpreted them more deeply to fully understand their meaning.
    As Anne discussed above, there are many times that the feeling and sensations of Deja-Vu has overcome me that made me want to investigate it further to gain more insight of where it pertains to my waking life.
    As discussed in many posts above, I believe that paranormal dreams need to be researched and not be ignored. These paranormal dreams have a purpose as our other dreams do. Dreams research, interpreting of dreams and configuring them into insights into our waking lives have come a long way throughout the years; it will be interesting to see the development in dream interpreters lives once we fully understand our paranormal dreams.
    I also agree with Thomas, dreams are general as seen in our past labs and can be interpreted so many different ways it’s likely that they will fit future events.

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  13. It was suggested that the conscious mind controls our brain only 5% of the day, where the rest of our thoughts occur subconsciously. We are subconsciously aware of our surroundings and what’s going on within our senses range, but all of this information is not consciously registered. We may have knowledge that we are aware of on a different level, but do not actually recall. In our dreams, we may see this information play out, and see it as a paranormal dream with information that was not known before. The possibility that “paranormal information” was actually known in the subconscious, prior to the dream suggests that the dream could be a result of unconscious useful knowledge that presents itself.

    Another idea that I’m just throwing out there, is that our mind may have the ability to take in information from the environment, and create a reality that could possibly result from certain situations. Our brains are so complicated, that I wouldn’t be surprised if it had the ability to foresee events that are about to happen (or happening). This would be useful for humans throughout evolution, as a warning about possible outcomes, and whether or not situations can turn out negatively.

    We have learned that dreams clearly vary in each individual, where meanings rely on waking day life and the individual’s memories. After browsing the internet on what I could find about paranormal dreams, it seems to be a lot more common than I thought. I came across some spiritual suggestions about the feeling of receiving messages from someone deceased. This reminded me of an amazing book I read not too long ago, where a prominent psychiatrist attempts to “cure” an untreatable patient named Catherine, who had so many unexplainable/ random fears (like drinking water, for example). The psychiatrist attempts many methods but finally decides to put her into a hypnosis, where she goes into a deep dream and recalls memories from past lives, and is able to communicate with spirits on a deeper spiritual level. In one of her past life memories, she recalls being in a city in Egypt, where everyone was dying due to an unknown disease. Her loved ones died from it and she turned very ill, when it was detected that their drinking water was contaminated. After recalling this in her hypnosis (which she does not consciously remember upon awakening), she no longer had a fear of drinking water. (It may sound a little out there but I highly recommend it! It’s one of those books that really make you think about life! “Many Lives, Many Masters” by Brian L. Weiss). A little off topic, but I think it expands the field of using dreams to foresee events, by looking back on past occurrences and how they may influence our future.

    About the mention of it persisting in humans, I wonder if this does occur in animals and we just don’t know it, since animals (especially dogs and cats) have a sense of what is about to happen right before it does. For example, my dog will start barking at the door before a car even pulls up in the driveway, but sure enough, someone always ends up coming to the house (as if they had told only our dog :P). I know it’s highly unlikely that this is because of a paranormal dream, but it’s an interesting start to premonitions and how animal sleep patterns vary in compared to our evolved brains.

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    1. Amanda, I absolutely love your blog. I always thought that we have abilities that we a) are not aware of, and or b) don’t know how to use. You mentioned not being able to readily access important information in our unconscious, and I think that is a really neat concept regarding paranormal dreaming…a relating example would be those who are unaware of dream analysis; they are missing a really important ability that can influence and even change their waking day life.

      I also had the same ideas about animals, their senses, and evolution. Personally, I don’t think you’re that far off. A long time ago I read an article on lions and the animal kingdom, researchers, psychologist ect. have demonstrated that there IS some evidence that animals do have intuition for survival reasons. You can Google it – also, you might like the link I posted in my blog – a tad off topic, but still relates and is pretty interesting.

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    2. Thanks Jenn:) Just checked out your link -- so interesting! I like the example of the dog finding his owner in the hospital, and especially the elephants. I've read about stuff like this before too! Where flocks of seagulls fly away from a rainstorm that's approaching. That would be a great area to study.

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  14. We know from previous lectures and readings that there is a strong connection between the body and the mind. The mind is able to sense bodily changes or conscious feelings of the individual. As with an individual’s physical health, the mind often precedes the body in detecting an illness. Humans may have this paranormal dream ability as the mind can sense bodily changes and conscious feelings before they occur. This may be a result of the individual being at rest during dreams and free from distractions normally occurring during an individual’s waking life. As the mind is free from distractions during this dreaming state, it can sense the information that occupies the dreamer’s mind and thus their waking life content (possibly at a subconscious level). This information is then transferred to the individual’s dream content where the information is viewed as paranormal.

    The advantage of these phenomena is that it is a survival factor and therefore passed on through evolution. This can be explained through natural selection in which traits beneficial to humans will be passed along to future generations. As this paranormal dreaming may forewarn individuals of detrimental events that are to occur or help them seek medical advice, this beneficial phenomena is passed on to future generations as it increases human survival. By dreaming of significant events before they occur in waking life, individuals are able to seek needed help (in cases of illness) or changing plans to avoid harm.

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  15. Paranormal dreaming is an intriguing concept that should be explored further as it seems that not much is known regarding this concept. I would think that paranormal dreaming occurs when people consciously think about possibilities of an event or scenario occurring during their waking lives. Subconsciously our minds are trying to tell us more about these possibilities and almost seeming like they are predicting details about the scenarios. Therefore it seems logical that paranormal dreaming contains consistent links between your conscious and subconscious levels.

    It is quite coincidental that this topic has been brought up at this time because I was thinking about this concept this past week. Because since I have been in this course I had a dream which seemed pretty far fetched and random yet the scenario actually occurred recently. I therefore was wondering if in a sense my dream recording had predicted and I had anticipated the event occurring.

    I believe that by delving deeper into these dreams they could potentially be considered as predictive based on my research and studies in this area. Our dreams are clearly related to waking day events, therefore subconsciously we could be more informed about certain scenarios which could become handy and beneficial.

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  16. Expanding on what Heather said, I believe that a possible reason for paranormal dreaming is indeed, due to the anticipation of life events. Just last night, I fell asleep after thinking about all the different possibilities of a job I had an interview for (whether or not I got it, what if I didnt, etc.)I then dreamed of this job and a specific scenario of having it. I woke up this morning with a voice mail saying I was offered the job. In the future it is possible that the scenario I dreamed of will arise in waking life. From that dream it is possible that I can change the outcome of the situation,to something different in waking life.
    Evolutionary advantages are clear, in the sense that we can be emotionally prepared for the situations that may arise in waking life. Being emotionally prepared allows for a clearer head in decision making and therefore, rational decision making. As emotional beings, we need an advantage for helping us cope with potential irrationality.

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  17. Many individuals had included the concept of "preparation" as reasoning for this phenomenon. I can certainly see that as a viable explanation for paranormal dreaming that relates to personal events. Whether or not the imagery directly parallels a current/waking future event, it certainly could evoke thoughts to better prepare an individual for something upcoming. Another key word I've noticed in the posts thus far is "possibility." Similar to the sensation that overcomes somebody when "something just isn't right..." the dreaming mind is an alternative means of setting up the body to react to something abnormal or unanticipated. It forces someone to consider the potential for obstacles. This consideration better enables one to think situations through, while creating plans and strategies if such situation did occur.

    Personally, I find paranormal dreams most prevalent in my “déjà vu” moments. When recognizing a moment I hadn’t experienced or witnessed before, I often trace back the recall to dream imagery. This momentary experience was only a fragment of the dream’s story; however, it was identifiable when it occurred in waking life. First off, it was all very familiar…I could anticipate the action & reaction. Secondly, it draws the individual’s attention to the significance of that instant. Whether that be a feeling induced, importance of a relationship/interaction, the handling of a stressful scenario, etc., I believe those paranormal moments have value and the unconscious mind plays a huge role in “setting the scene.”

    Keeping in mind all we have discussed in previous blog postings, I can certainly see the health benefits paranormal dreaming could have on an individual. Although I instinctively consider the preparations and possibilities to be an aid in negative, futuristic instances, one must also evaluate the alternative. Those who are ill or grieving could revive hope in their lives to come. For example, if a woman diagnosed with breast cancer sees herself overcoming the disease may discover a newfound optimism for the potential to heal. Despite remission not occurring to that point, the paranormal dream could play a huge role in guiding the mind to a healthier direction and turn the focus to the potential of a positive outcome.

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  18. i think people have this due to deja vu where people can have these sorts of dreams, i for one have dreams of this sort that cannot be explained and i just ignore it, but i think that there should be further research done on this, it maybe that people can see the future about people that they are close to. The advantage for this would be that if scientist figure it out, we can stop the bad events from happening.

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    1. I think that you have some interesting points and I agree that future research can provide examples as to why we have these dream. These dreams may relate to why it is an evolutionary advantage for people to have these kind of dreams.

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  19. I find this topic very interesting and I have wondered about these paranormal dreams. I think that people have these dreams. I think it is important when thinking about these dreams that we remember that dreams are a representation of peoples waking life. This may be an explanation as to why people have dreams that can be described as paranormal. An evolutionary advantage to this is to be conscious of our dreams and trust them so that if there is something in our dream that is bad or frightening then we should avoid it if we ever come into contact with it. It is a way for us to protect ourselves. I think that future research on this can lead to some very interesting results.

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  20. I believe that this idea of “paranormal dreaming” is not really paranormal at all. Many people hold personal dreams and aspirations for the future, and their wishes may come true in their dream and then again later in life. For example I have had dreams about having children, and in my dreams I always have a boy, later in life when I have children I may have a boy first, but that doesn’t mean I dreamt about the future. For short term paranormal dreaming like dreaming about seeing someone you haven’t seen in a while and then seeing them soon after or dreaming about a natural disaster, I believe that these incidents are either coincident or subconscious thinking or acting. Many people also may dream about something and try hard to achieve it, or think that they dreamt something when they really didn’t. I believe that there is always an explanation for things that people believe are paranormal.

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    1. As humans we may have the ability to engage in paranormal dreaming most likely due to survival and desire based reasons. As Sara mentioned, we all have hopes and dreams for the future that could be revealed through our dreams. Many of us have goals for the future whether long-term or short-term that could be expressed in my dreams. Eventually one may work toward and/or eventually obtain some of these goals. Mainly for survival reasons, paranormal dreaming can be beneficial. If one may be dreaming about future negative events could have the potential to be avoided. Overall I do not think that this phenomena could ever be fully explained nor should it need to be. Some things don't always need to explained...

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  21. Why might humans have the ability of paranormal dreaming?:
    There is some evidence that animals have intuition by means of keen senses. Animals may have this heightened senses/intuition for survival reasons. And over evolution, humans may have adopted some of this intuition by means of dreaming.

    What would be the advantage of this evolutionary phenomena to persist in humans?:
    In the jungle, if an animal knows what’s coming around the corner, they can protect themselves from other predators. I imagine it’s the same for humans, in terms of “watch out for danger,” so to speak. If humans do in fact hold this evolutionary phenomena, then that would mean that we have the advantage of protecting ourselves from danger as well as act accordingly to avoid or change certain circumstances. For example, if you dream you have lost your job, and feel as if it was a paranormal dream, perhaps you can start looking for a new one.

    I thought this was interesting, and related:

    http://abcnews.go.com/2020/video/sixth-sense-animal-premonitions-17577257

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  22. I think it is very interesting that science has decided to delve further into paranormal dreaming as it would be classified as a pseudo-science. It may be an very interesting area of findings to see how scientific theories will be applied to this very interesting and unknown phenomena.

    I think that humans might have the ability to have paranormal dreams due to various things that they may encounter in their waking day life. As we engage in conversations, watch television, or are even around another individuals conversation, we are taking in every aspect of our surroundings. We may hear something that we do not pay much attention to in our waking day life but when we enter into our dream life this things may come up to the surface. It could be possible that our dreaming minds are playing out a version of what the outcome could be and this is what would be interpreted as paranormal dreaming. The advantage of this phenomena could be more helpful insights for people into everyday life and things that are going on in the world. This phenomena could even possibly help someone to make a change in the world through inspiration from a dream that seemed like foresight.

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  23. Paranormal dreaming has always been something that fascinates me. Although scientists haven’t been able to prove it, I still believe that it is very possible. I know a woman who is a close friend to my family, and she has this ability. She is able to accurately predict events that are going to happen in the future. For example, she had a dream that one of her friends needed to go get a mammogram. She called her friend and told her about this dream. The friend listened to her and went to the doctor, where they discovered that she had breast cancer. They caught the cancer early enough, and were able to treat her. Some people may think that dreams like this are simply a coincidence, but I think that these dreams happen for a reason. Many people choose to ignore their dreams, no matter how real they seem. I think if people were to pay more attention to their dreams they will see that our dreams have more predictive qualities than we may realize.

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  24. Like many previous post, I too find this topic to be very, very, interesting. Off the bat it reminds me of that famous movie "Final Destination."

    I honestly do not know why paranormal dreaming occurs, nor do I have a direct explanation. I do however believe that dreams are in relation to one's waking life, as a result it can cause one to be "prepared" for what can be abnormal or even unanticipated IF taken seriously.

    I can understand why scientist first ignored these types of dreams because any one can wake up tomorrow and be like "hey, this is going to happen so watch out." However, dreams are very personal to the dreamer and can reveal a lot more than believed.

    Many previous post have spoken about themselves or other people in their lives who have actually had these types of dreams. I'm sure if they were taken into account, these types of dreams could maybe prevent certain things from happening.

    Overall, as it was previously stated, maybe this is something that can never be explained, nor something that should be!!

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  25. Paranormal dreaming is both a confusing but fascinating event that occurs to many people. I am glad that it is slowly being accepted and there is more research being conducted on such an unknown and puzzling topic.

    I am not really sure as to why humans might possess this ability to have paranormal dreams. It may be possible that everyone possesses this ability but might not realize it or it may also be possible that only certain people are able to have paranormal dreams. Whatever the case much more research is necessary so that we are able to better understand these types of dreams and why they occur.

    There would be numerous advantages for this phenomena to occur in humans. Being able to have dreams about the future would have the potential to allow us to be able to advance much quicker in many different fields of science, arts etc. There would also be the possibility of predicting future disasters and being able to prevent them or be more prepared. The opportunities that this evolutionary phenomena could offer are endless!

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  26. One of the most important things to do if you want to see if your dreams have anything to do with the future is to write all of them down each morning after you awaken and before you start your day. Then, if an event later in the day reminds you of the dream and you imagine that the event is a lot like the dream – you can check the details from your written report. Otherwise, you are likely to dismiss the event as just a coincidence. When you have had a number of written dreams that appear to precede a real life event, you will then have more confidence that this can really happen.
    I have been writing down my dreams for over 40 years. About 15% of them seem to be about future events, things that happened after I had written down the dream. I have recorded over 250 of these “dream – subsequent real life” events and have gained the confidence to utilize them in important life situations. I have also collected such “heads-up” (HU) dreams from 3 family members, and 10 other individuals to make a total of another 100 HU dreams. Neither my family nor most of my friends initially thought this possible. Fortunately, one can learn how to do this quite easily.
    I have done a statistical analysis of hundreds of these dreams compared to non-HU dreams. The HU dream tends to be much shorter than the others. They can be about very trivial daily events (running into an old friend) or quite important events (avoiding a car accident). Van de Castle analyses reveal marked differences in the kinds of content. HU dreams have very few scene changes and references to travel compared to other dreams. They have many more items pertaining to communication and there is a far greater emphasis on success, failure, good fortune and bad fortune. These results have been reported at the IASD conference in Berkeley, California in 2012.
    One good example of a carefully collected set of dreams is in a book written by J.W Dunne, entitled “An Experiment with Time”. The book was originally published in the late 1920’s. Dunne was an aeronautical engineer who carefully wrote down his dreams each day and discovered this interesting connection between some of his dreams and subsequent real life events.
    It seems very likely that while some dreamers will be better at this than others, everyone can do HU dreaming with a little practice. Many people have already had at least one life experience of this kind already. They just felt uncomfortable because traditional physics says it cannot happen. Fortunately, there is a revolution in physics going on and quantum theory can explain this apparent defiance of time and space rules. So feel free to do some HU dreaming!

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