How does one begin to explain the unexplainable? The problem with the human mind is that every mind has small differences. Oh sure we can say that the structure is mostly the same, that neurons still form connections with one another, that synapses still fire in the same ways, but deep inside those small differences between common man can form a gulf insurmountable. There are many theories as to what purpose dreams serve, is it a mechanism for mental repair, is it a way to remove emotion from a memory or experience? Do dreams serve any purpose at all? When we dream is it always a figment of some imagined place, or perhaps is there an element of reality contained within?
There have been murmurings of the existence of precognitive dreams for centuries. Prophets in ages past foretold their visions of futures that may or may not have come to pass. Psychologists and pseudo-scientists gave their theories and the phenomena became mixed up in pseudo-science and mysticism. For those who experience precognitive dreams, a liar is obvious to spot, but it can be hard to explain why that is so. Why does the liar stick out so to those who actually see? I will thusly try to explain the mechanics behind a precognitive experience and my worries and fears, but remember that all brains have differences and my experiences will not speak for all.
Firstly, I must say that Déjà vu is not the same as a precognitive experience, although sometimes the terms can find themselves overlapping. I’ve experienced Déjà vu and it’s quite different and very obviously not connected with precognition. If anything a precognitive experience is most similar to Déjà rêvé, which means “already dreamed”, but I find the term is insufficient to properly explain the experience in its entirety. A precognitive dream actually informs the dreamer of nothing when it is dreamed, it’s incomprehensible because of how the information is ‘sent back’ or perhaps ‘sent fowards’. Both the dream and the moment it represents are two points in time. It is not actually a dream, it’s more of an overlapping of the present mind, which is dreaming, with the future mind, which is awake. For the sake of simplicity I will call it a dream here. I will give an example of the general situation and structure of a dream.
Often the dream will be something impossible to predict and mundane, such as sitting in a location, reading a book, or looking at something on a computer. I will then think something like “Oh, I remember this, now it makes sense what I was doing.” The dreamer me will not understand what it has seen or thought, but nonetheless the experience will still impress itself upon my mind. Once I wake I wont remember what I have dreamed, but somewhere the mind makes a note and remembers subconsciously. Now we go to the future version of myself that will share the experience. The terrifying thing is that because it is both ‘minds’ synchronized, it becomes a paradox in a way. It seems to be impossible to go against what I did in the dream, to do anything different from what one ‘already’ did. I find myself held hostage by the situation and can only follow through my lines until the moment has passed. When I feel that sensation of precognition, I will remember the moment in the dream exactly as it happened, but now in the future my mind can make sense of it. So I’m both experiencing it for the first time, but also experiencing it again, and have also experienced it multiple times at once. I will have context, I will know where I am and why I was here, hence the thought of “Now it makes sense what I was doing.” Then the moment will pass, and I’ll be left wondering why such situations are happening, and when the next one will come.
I’m not sure if this made sense, it’s already hard enough for me to understand, let alone try to explain it to someone who hasn’t experienced it. I actually had a precognitive experience while writing this explanation. I feel recently as if I’ve been having more precognitive dreams and it fills me with dread. They used to be something that might happen every few months, but now they seem to be happening more often. Or maybe they’ve always happened this often. After all I only just realized I can try to keep track of them. I’ve had them for as long as I can remember, but as I get older the feeling feels more nebulous. When I was a child the precognitive dream would have a sort of hard line as to where it began and ended. Now I seem to stumble into it, and I can’t quite get a grasp on when the experience ends. Maybe they’ll go away as I gain in years, although this idea also horrifies me. Will my brain change in such a way as to make me stop having them? Their increase in number makes me nervous, as if I’m building up towards something. It must have been a noticeable increase for me to realize I was having more of them.
Every time I have one a pit opens up inside me. I know that time travel of information is possible in some way, that all this has happened, or will happen, or is happening. It is impossible for it to tell one anything. Anyone who says their precognitive dreams told them something is lying. It is possible to interpret them to mean something or the other, but one cannot remember they had a precognitive dream at all until the moment it showed actually happens, and as one cannot remember, they cannot say it told them anything and cannot ‘foretell’ the future. Time is not so much a line as it is a crumpled ball, and precognitive dreams show how messy it all can be. All experiences happening twice or more at once, having happened and will happen and are happening. It is comforting in a way, however, to know that it has all happened and the future is still connected with the past in an intrinsic way. But still it leaves me with unease. Why am I having more? Why now? The future itself doesn’t scare me, it’s both knowing and not knowing it that scares me.