According to various sources, from a quarter to half of the population of Europe believes in prophetic dreams. Moreover, many argue that they have experienced the relevant experience at least once in their lives. Scientists attribute this to various objective and subjective reasons. Is it possible to see the future in a dream.
Somewhere I've already seen it
Teenagers rode bicycles in the city. At some point, on the way to the house, one of the boys suddenly realized that now they would turn the corner and see their friend parked in the yard. There was a feeling that he had watched the picture of the future last night in a dream. He wanted to tell everyone about it right there, but restrained himself for fear of interfering with the plot of the prediction.
This is how Arthur Frankheuser, a psychologist from Switzerland, described his own experience in 1983. He suggested that some part of prophetic dreams is associated with the effect of déjà vu - when a person realizes that he saw the place where he was before, although he had never been there. According to the scientist, déjà vu and prophetic dreams are activated in adolescence, during the formation of the psyche.
In 2002, Japanese researcher Kazuhiko Fukuda from the University of Fukushima undertook to test this hypothesis. He interviewed 122 students and found that 40 percent of them had a prophetic dream at least once, although the majority did not believe in what was predicted. Those of the respondents who had never seen the future in a dream were less likely to encounter déjà vu. According to Fukuda, people simply confuse the two effects.
The world is giving signs
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Prophetic dreams are mentioned in the earliest literary monuments. Aristotle dedicated to them a treatise "On predictions in a dream", where he noted that it is impossible to find a rational explanation of the phenomenon, but it is also wrong to take their word for it. The philosopher solved the paradox in the way familiar to the ancient Greeks - he declared the prophetic dream a gift of the gods.
Most people can remember a couple of prophetic dreams - their own or told by others. Often they relate to negative events, such as the death of a relative. Scientists believe that a person unconsciously sees changes in the appearance of his loved one, indicating a bad state. This information provokes a nightmare of death. And when a relative dies, the dream is perceived as prophetic.
We perceive a lot of information unconsciously, remember it, although we do not strive for it. All this can come up in dreams. The scientific community believes that sleep in its rapid phase, just when we dream, facilitates the assimilation of information, memorization. Sleep is also thought to be helpful in solving difficult problems.
In 2014, Milan Valyashek and Caroline Watt from the University of Edinburgh (UK) tested the implicit information processing hypothesis. They proceeded from the fact that those who see prophetic dreams tend to unconsciously seek and analyze hidden signs around them. By the way, this idea was first expressed by Aristotle. Conversely, those who consciously pay attention to omens do not see prophetic dreams. As a result, none of the assumptions was confirmed, which means that prophetic dreams and belief in a world full of secret clues are in no way connected.
Who most often sees prophetic dreams
A year later, researchers led by Valyashek studied the relationship between belief in prophetic dreams, the presence of the experience of prophetic dreams, and demographic factors: gender, age, education.
According to the questionnaires of 672 people of different ages and sex, the scientists made the following conclusions. The more educated are less likely to believe in prophetic dreams. The hypothesis that women are prone to this has been confirmed. Older people were more likely to describe the experience of prophetic dreams. Ragged sleep also contributed to this.
A connection with medicines was found. A healthy person dreams several times during the night during the fast phases, but never remembers them. However, some sleeping pills can alter sleep patterns and retain memories upon waking.
There are other explanations as well. For example, a person fell asleep next to a television broadcasting news, and his brain creatively woven it into the fabric of the dream. The next morning, having heard the same thing again, it is not surprising to decide that I had a prophetic dream.
Attempts to apply the theory of probability are also interesting. For example, earthquakes are not so rare in many regions of the world, therefore, there is a non-zero chance of having a dream about it before the disaster. The nervous environment and anxiety of the last days can inspire nightmares that come true.
Often a person declares a dream to be prophetic after the fact: first an event occurs, and then he “remembers” that he had a dream about it. In fact, the “fortuneteller” could well unconsciously push back into the past the date of the dream that he dreamed after the event.
Dream Factory
Why do we need dreams? Leading Russian researcher Vladimir Kovalzon from the Institute of Ecology and Evolution. Severtsov RAS in the book "Fundamentals of Somnology" writes that they arose as a by-product on the evolutionary path, when thinking and complex four-dimensional visual images were formed.
Researchers from the United States and the United Kingdom have compared the brain to a virtual reality generator that refines our model of the world, formed during wakefulness, in sleep. In dreams, the brain makes predictions about the surrounding reality, which are to be verified.
We experience four to six 90-minute sleep cycles per night. Dreams come during fast phases - this is the name for a state when the brain is very active, but does not perceive external stimuli and does not send signals to the muscles. In this state, the child stays in the womb for most of the day and in the first weeks of life. Thus, sleep plays an important role in the formation of the central nervous system. Why dreams for an adult remains unclear.
Tatiana Pichugina