Premonitions?

[Ultima22689]

What exactly is a premonition? I have always had them since I was a little kid however in the past couple of years I have one almost every day. I clearly remember dreaming the future since that is where it comes from, my dreaming or if I space out during the day. I've even consciously remembered them from time to time and acted on them once or twice with positive results, for example, I dreamed the lottery numbers. I told my dad what to play, we won ten thousands bucks. I've never really understood them, anyone here able to offer a scientific explanation?

[Thom Phelps]

I would say there's no science to premonitions, though plenty of science fiction, and a whole lot of coincidence. Most people can cite their own first or second-hand experience with a perceived precognitive event, but often times it can be explained away. There's a great book about our brains (I mention it often) called, "Stumbling On Happiness" by Daniel Gilbert that gives some insight into how our brains work, and how they work at tricking us. Especially when it comes to memory.

Congrats on those lottery numbers! If you care to test your skills on tomorrow's Powerball numbers for me I would be most appreciative.  

[Ultima22689]

I would say there's no science to premonitions, though plenty of science fiction, and a whole lot of coincidence. Most people can cite their own first or second-hand experience with a perceived precognitive event, but often times it can be explained away. There's a great book about our brains (I mention it often) called, "Stumbling On Happiness" by Daniel Gilbert that gives some insight into how our brains work, and how they work at tricking us. Especially when it comes to memory.

Congrats on those lottery numbers! If you care to test your skills on tomorrow's Powerball numbers for me I would be most appreciative.  lol, I see, I will have to check that book out. If I'm ever fortunate enough to remember lottery numbers again I do hope it's the power ball. I have premonitions 4-7 times a week but it's hard to consciously act on them.  If I do by some lucky experience do that i'll be sure to hook you up.

[Heretical Rants]

I sometimes dream the future accurately.

I figure I'm just some kind of genius  

[Kylyssa]

Premonitions are coincidences or perhaps sometimes the unconscious processing of data which might cause one to make a better than average guess as to an outcome.

[Ultima22689]

Premonitions are coincidences or perhaps sometimes the unconscious processing of data which might cause one to make a better than average guess as to an outcome.

Is there any explanation for the frequency of them? It happens multiple times a week.

[Heretical Rants]

Premonitions are coincidences or perhaps sometimes the unconscious processing of data which might cause one to make a better than average guess as to an outcome.

Is there any explanation for the frequency of them? It happens multiple times a week.

You're just finding patterns in events.   Our brains are remarkably good at finding connections between things, especially the things that you think about as you go to sleep.  The more attentive you are about the world around you and the more thought you put into it, the more patterns you will find and the better you will be at predicting events.  Most people disregard the vast majority of information that comes their way, so they don't have so much to work with when it comes to extrapolating events into the future.  It is possible that you are at a genius level in this regard.

In the case of the lottery, I'm going to have to go with coincidence( you don't have enough information to go on in regard to the drawing).  If enough people dream enough lottery numbers, some are sure to be right.  Plus, the positive reinforcement is at a very high level, and they are likely to forget the hundred times that they got the wrong tickets.

[AlP]

You could do an experiment. This is what I would do...

Whenever you have a premonition make a note of what you think will happen and when. When sufficient time has passed record whether your premonition was correct or incorrect. Then you can see how well your premonitions predict reality.

For the purposes of this experiment, you wouldn't count instances where something happens and you recollect having a premonition. That would be the logical fallacy of hindsight bias. You would strictly limit it to premonitions that you have confidence in at the time of the premonition, or at least significantly prior to the event happening.

[Ultima22689]

Premonitions are coincidences or perhaps sometimes the unconscious processing of data which might cause one to make a better than average guess as to an outcome.

Is there any explanation for the frequency of them? It happens multiple times a week.

You're just finding patterns in events.   Our brains are remarkably good at finding connections between things, especially the things that you think about as you go to sleep.  The more attentive you are about the world around you and the more thought you put into it, the more patterns you will find and the better you will be at predicting events.  Most people disregard the vast majority of information that comes their way, so they don't have so much to work with when it comes to extrapolating events into the future.  It is possible that you are at a genius level in this regard.

In the case of the lottery, I'm going to have to go with coincidence( you don't have enough information to go on in regard to the drawing).  If enough people dream enough lottery numbers, some are sure to be right.  Plus, the positive reinforcement is at a very high level, and they are likely to forget the hundred times that they got the wrong tickets.

My ego! It feeds! Oddly enough that isn't the first time I've heard comments akin to an above average intellect.

You could do an experiment. This is what I would do...

Whenever you have a premonition make a note of what you think will happen and when. When sufficient time has passed record whether your premonition was correct or incorrect. Then you can see how well your premonitions predict reality.

For the purposes of this experiment, you wouldn't count instances where something happens and you recollect having a premonition. That would be the logical fallacy of hindsight bias. You would strictly limit it to premonitions that you have confidence in at the time of the premonition, or at least significantly prior to the event happening.

I think I will do this, I wonder if the fact that I am actively trying to remember them now will affect the outcome.

[Heretical Rants]

My ego! It feeds! Oddly enough that isn't the first time I've heard comments akin to an above average intellect.

Haha, just remember that it's only your subconscious* mind I'm calling smart

*I don't want to have this argument.  If it pleases you better, you can call it the semiconscious mind.

[Ultima22689]

My ego! It feeds! Oddly enough that isn't the first time I've heard comments akin to an above average intellect.

Haha, just remember that it's only your subconscious* mind I'm calling smart

*I don't want to have this argument.  If it pleases you better, you can call it the semiconscious mind.

There be an argument here? I didn't see one. What i'd like to know is if there is a way to measure the capabilities of sub/semiconscious mind? It just occurred to me they can't all be the same.

[iNow]

What exactly is a premonition? I have always had them since I was a little kid however in the past couple of years I have one almost every day.
<...
I've never really understood them, anyone here able to offer a scientific explanation?

Two main possibilities as best I can tell.  One, there is a glitch in memory.  We experience an event, and the neural architecture involved in encoding that event was itself reorganized in the recent past, such as during the dream process... After all, sleep is just one big process of cortical restructuring... solidifying more active areas and trimming less active areas.  The idea is that your new experience ties in very closely to on the amygdala and hippocampus (areas strongly associated with memory) and you essentially have a "glitch" whereby the chronological order of the event is encoded incorrectly... sort of like putting page 4 prior to page 2 in a textbook... it was merely misplaced.  In essence, you encode the event as happening before it actually did, and part of the reason for this is how the neural connections are constantly being pruned, trimmed, and grown in new areas.  Our nervous system and our brains are very "plastic," and this plasticity sometimes results in glitches in memory... what I have described above as an encoding error.

The other possibility is that we don't truly understand the passage of time.  It's possible that we exist in some sort of multi-verse, where the many-worlds interpretation of quantum mechanics is valid (in short, everything that could possibly happen does happen, and each branch or decision point creates a new universe).  That's an extreme oversimplification, but you get the idea.  So, in essence, while asleep and dreaming, I suppose it's possible to connect with one of those other (proposed) universes and encode to memory something which has not yet happened in our own reality/universe.

Both ideas are intriguing, but in terms of empirical support and evidence, at present, the single most likely explanation is that this is a glitch in memory.



EDIT:  Is it possible you've been smoking pot?  That has been repeatedly implicated in memory issues, and would lend credence to the first idea expressed above.

[Ultima22689]

What exactly is a premonition? I have always had them since I was a little kid however in the past couple of years I have one almost every day.
<...
I've never really understood them, anyone here able to offer a scientific explanation?

Two main possibilities as best I can tell.  One, there is a glitch in memory.  We experience an event, and the neural architecture involved in encoding that event was itself reorganized in the recent past, such as during the dream process... After all, sleep is just one big process of cortical restructuring... solidifying more active areas and trimming less active areas.  The idea is that your new experience ties in very closely to on the amygdala and hippocampus (areas strongly associated with memory) and you essentially have a "glitch" whereby the chronological order of the event is encoded incorrectly... sort of like putting page 4 prior to page 2 in a textbook... it was merely misplaced.  In essence, you encode the event as happening before it actually did, and part of the reason for this is how the neural connections are constantly being pruned, trimmed, and grown in new areas.  Our nervous system and our brains are very "plastic," and this plasticity sometimes results in glitches in memory... what I have described above as an encoding error.

The other possibility is that we don't truly understand the passage of time.  It's possible that we exist in some sort of multi-verse, where the many-worlds interpretation of quantum mechanics is valid (in short, everything that could possibly happen does happen, and each branch or decision point creates a new universe).  That's an extreme oversimplification, but you get the idea.  So, in essence, while asleep and dreaming, I suppose it's possible to connect with one of those other (proposed) universes and encode to memory something which has not yet happened in our own reality/universe.

Both ideas are intriguing, but in terms of empirical support and evidence, at present, the single most likely explanation is that this is a glitch in memory.



EDIT:  Is it possible you've been smoking pot?  That has been repeatedly implicated in memory issues, and would lend credence to the first idea expressed above.

Well I supposed You could say i'm a stoner. I DID just smoke several bowls of some afghan.

[SSY]

More than likely, I would imagine that you have lots of thoughts about what may happen, and only remember these premonitions when they turn out to be true.

AIP's experiment is perfect in this regard as it stops you slectivley rembering the ones that happen to be right only.

[Ninteen45]

Damn interesting had an article on some Coin tossing machine that found Mathmatical patterens happening before World events...