What is precognition?

by Anthony Peake

Today I want to discuss the reality of precognition; an awareness regarding something that has yet to take place. According to skeptics and for most materialist-reductionist scientists and philosophers this is impossible. The future does not exist yet so therefore it cannot be perceived in advance. For them any vaguely accurate description of the future given by somebody in the last is simply coincidence, misinterpretation, dishonesty (aka lying) or confirmation bias.

However, over the centuries, millions of people have experienced precognition of one sort are another. The vast majority of these individuals have been convinced by the evidence of their own senses and experience that the event that came to pass was the one pre-cognised. For these people such “explanations” are not only ridiculous but also insulting, suggesting that in some way they are stupid and incapable of telling the difference between a coincidence and a real example of pre-sentience. What is of significance, however, is that I know of nobody who has doubted that a precognition is exactly what it is, when they have experienced the sensation for themselves. Over the years a handful of hardened skeptics have reported to me their “conversion” been after they experience presents itself. This is because unlike other “extra-sensory” experiences, precognition is irrefutably proven to be correct with regards to the perceiver when the precognised event or circumstances comes to pass as foreseen. Sadly in most cases the experience and subsequent confirmation are totally subjective and personal perceptions. They can never be corroborated by others.

Unfortunately the vast majority of precognitive perceptions do not announce themselves as such. It is only when the precognition comes to pass that the person realises what it was. Effectively a precognition is only known to be such when the pre-conceived events happen. Indeed in some cases it is the actual events taking place that stimulates the sublimated memory of the precognitive perception itself. Of course the skeptics will argue that in such cases it is a matter of “paramnesia” or double perception; the argument that different parts of the brain process the in-coming visual or aural information. This is a fair analysis, however it must also be stated that normal memory works this way as well. How many times do we see something, for example a movie, and realise that we have seen it before? We have “forgotten” that we have seen it but the memory is re-stimulated by the events on screen. I think it unlikely that most people would interpret such a sensation using the “paramnesia” argument and will,naturally, conclude that they have seen the movie before sometime in their past and, in the vast majority of cases they will be right. I argue that this is the case for most precognitions … they are subliminal memories of a forgotten precognition.

A few years ago my friend Dr. Art Funkhouser wrote a paper outlining what he called the “Dream Theory of Déjà vu.” He argued that Deja sensations are actually evidence of precognitive dreaming. When somebody has a Deja sensation in which the present circumstances seem familiar this is because they are subliminally remembering the contents of a recent dream in which the present perceptions were precognised. This theory has, as its central premise, that some dreams contain precognitive elements that are subsequently experienced in “waking reality.”

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