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Precognition

Precognition is the reported ability to perceive or know about a future event before it happens, examined in parapsychology and remote-viewing research through personal testimony, spontaneous premonitions, and laboratory studies of physiological anticipation.

Precognition is the term used in Remote Viewing (RV) for producing information about a target before that information actually exists in time and space, such as describing an event before it happens.1 According to Surviving Death, precognition more broadly involves an awareness of future events before they occur.2

The out-of-body researcher Robert Monroe first noticed a side effect during states of deep relaxation, before any separation from the body had begun.3 He initially attributed the resulting visions to material released from the unconscious mind, until a major event brought the phenomenon more strongly to his attention.4 The episodes were preceded by a hissing sound localised in the forebrain, followed by a sensation of a small rectangular door hinged at one end swinging down to about 45 degrees and exposing a round hole;5 Monroe retained full consciousness and sense awareness throughout, with the vision superimposed directly over outside stimuli so that he perceived both at once.6 He could not produce the effect at will - it happened, or was triggered, by some non-conscious mechanism.7 Monroe said the combination of the hissing sound and the valve-opening sensation reliably signalled a coming event,8 a formula he said had proved accurate on 22 occasions,9 and he recorded roughly a further eighteen precognitive incidents of varying significance that came to pass as previewed, allowing for minor errors of interpretation.10 He used the word “precognition” - the term current in the field - for the phenomenon,11 and believed that when the mind cannot truly identify something it has perceived, it substitutes the nearest equivalent drawn from its own experience.12

Graham Nichols had an out-of-body experience in 1999 during which he became convinced that a bombing was going to happen on Old Compton Street;13 the experience was also witnessed by five other people at the time.14 He learned of the 1999 Admiral Duncan pub bombing through television news coverage and only gradually realised that the coverage matched what he had perceived.15 A few days after the bombing, Nichols said he boarded a bus with a strong feeling about a friend he had not seen for around two years, and that same friend then boarded the bus a few stops later.16 Nichols said he considers emotional bond or emotional impact between participants a key factor in the success of psychic phenomena such as precognition and telepathy.17

Julia Mossbridge has carried out work in the study of psi (psychic functioning) and precognition.18 She treats some of her own dreams as data because they have been highly evidential for her in terms of precognition,19 while holding that not every dream is precognitive - any given dream, including one she had of a childhood counsellor, could instead be a psychological metaphor for how an experience felt.20 In her scheme, mental time travel covers precognition together with memory: knowing something about the future that cannot be known by other means.21 Informational time travel, by contrast, is information sent back to a person without the use of precognition, for example by a device.22 Mossbridge has studied precognition at two scales: unconscious physiological responses on the scale of 100 milliseconds to a few seconds, and conscious, deliberate Precognitive Remote Viewing on the scale of minutes, days and weeks.23 The physiological study of precognition in the body is called presentiment.24 In her measurements, photons emitted by a light source during a fixed on-period behaved as if the system already knew how long it would remain on, with both the switch-on and the future switch-off acting as boundary conditions shaping the group’s behaviour;25 examining only the first minute of a five-minute emission allowed the total duration to be predicted at a relatively high accuracy rate, even though the person holding the light source did not yet know when they would switch it off.26 Her startup is building technology that examines the first portion of a time period in order to predict what follows.27 She has also found that precognitive effects observed in remote viewing can occur over days, weeks or years, not only seconds or minutes.28 Daryl Bem conducted a series of precognition studies,29 none of which involved remote viewing;30 Mossbridge said a subsequent meta-analysis found that the faster, unconscious results replicated better than the slower studies with a longer gap between the information and its future presentation,31 and that although the work faced numerous critical takedowns, she accepts it contained some errors.32 Mossbridge describes herself as gifted at precognition, telepathy and remote viewing.33

At a public event, Mossbridge said an audience member identified only as Stan B. asked what causes a precognition of an event that then fails to occur once the warning has been acted upon.34 She said the conventional explanation is that the averted event feeds information back to the earlier moment and the person then moves onto a new timeline in which the event did not happen,35 but she said she dislikes this branching-timeline account, calling it ugly.36 She holds instead that in an averted precognition, the informational substrate already contains the intention behind the event, the giving of the warning, the fact that the person could foil the intention, and the fact that they will foil it, so that no timeline is actually changed;37 under this model, precognition works with a substrate aware of what needs to happen, rather than only with events that have reached physical manifestation in time,38 and acting on a precognition to prevent an event is therefore not a change to the timeline at all.39 Chris Ramsay suggested that if humankind has never, throughout history, been able to use the mind to perceive the past or future in a repeatable, measurable way, there must be some benefit to that inability.40

Precognition also features in specific case histories elsewhere in the corpus. Discussing Betty Hill’s report of having identified a recently-discovered star on her Betty Hill’s star map, the hypnotist Benjamin Simon said that if the claim and the map were both valid, the only explanation would be that she had precognition.41 The 2017 book Surviving Death also documents decades of apparition and haunting casework. Loyd Auerbach has investigated apparitions, haunting (place memory), and poltergeist phenomena for over thirty-five years,42 including an ongoing apparition case brought to him by Donna McCormick in 1985,43 in which, Auerbach said, Chris (Pat’s son) - the son of a woman referred to as Pat - reported that an apparition he called Lois had appeared to him daily since he first saw her and had begun communicating with him rather than disappearing.44 In a separate case, McCormick said the psychic Alex Tanous and two others, presented with several photographs including one of the grandfather, each independently identified the grandfather’s photograph and described him in ways matching what he had been like in life.45 According to Surviving Death, Erlendur Haraldsson found that apparition cases also contained a much higher percentage of appearances from those who had suffered a violent death, compared with the general population;46 Haraldsson said the same predominance of violent death also featured in cases of the reincarnation type and in mediumship, including both direct communicators and drop-ins.47 The book also traces the study of deathbed visions to Sir William Barrett, a physicist who made the first attempt at a systematic scientific study of deathbed apparitions,48 and records Peter Fenwick’s view that deathbed-vision cases in which the visitor is also seen by other people should be classed as apparitions rather than hallucinations.49 Hereward Carrington acknowledged that mediumship phenomena can sometimes manifest spontaneously, as with After-death communication (ADC) and apparitions.50 Auerbach has argued that perceptual insertion explains why only some people perceive a given apparition, since their perceptual processes are susceptible to telepathic projection,51 and why genuine photographs or video of ghosts are not obtained, since apparitions have no physical form to reflect light;52 he has said that, based on his investigations, he considers the evidence weighted heavily toward the survival hypothesis.53

  1. Definition of precognition as producing target information before it exists in time and space
    “PRECOGNITION: Producing information about a target prior to that information actually existing in time/space (e.g., describing an event before it actually happens).”
    Remote Viewing Secrets ch28:5901-6042
  2. Precognition defined as awareness of future events before they occur
    “Precognition involves an awareness of future events before they happen.”
    Surviving Death ch7:14403-14467
  3. Monroe's precognitive side effect first appeared during deep relaxation, prior to separation
    “Early in the experimentation, a side effect began to manifest itself. It was not an out-of-body activity as such, but took place in states of deep relaxation prior to any separation.”
    Journeys Out of the Body ch19:71-242
  4. Monroe initially attributed visions to release of unconscious material
    “At first, I paid no particular attention to the phenomenon, attributing the dream visions to release of material from the unconscious. A major event brought it strongly to my attention.”
    Journeys Out of the Body ch19:1007-1182
  5. Hissing sound and door/hole sensation preceding Monroe's visions
    “There would be a hissing sound, localized in the forebrain, and I would get the sensation of a small rectangular door, hinged at one end, swinging downward to an angle of about 45°. This exposed a perfectly round hole.”
    Journeys Out of the Body ch19:409-622
  6. Monroe retained full consciousness, vision superimposed over outside stimuli
    “Immediately thereafter, I would see and semiexperience an event or incident like a dream, except that I retained all of my consciousness and sense awareness. The dream would be superimposed directly over outside stimuli. I could perceive both quite readily.”
    Journeys Out of the Body ch19:628-877
  7. Monroe could not produce the effect at will
    “I could not and cannot produce the effect at will. It merely happened or was triggered by some non-conscious mechanism.”
    Journeys Out of the Body ch19:886-995
  8. Monroe's hissing-plus-valve pattern reliably signalled a coming event
    “To date, a pattern of consistency has been established: H (Hissing sound) + V (Valve-opening sensation) = F (Future event vision).”
    Journeys Out of the Body ch19:14102-14224
  9. Monroe said the formula had proved accurate 22 times
    “On the premise that this formula has been applicable and proved twenty-two times, what of the other cases listed in the notes where F has not yet taken place?”
    Journeys Out of the Body ch19:14234-14388
  10. Monroe recorded roughly eighteen further precognitive incidents
    “There are some eighteen more, all of which are personal incidents of varied magnitude, previewed via the valve and later coming to pass exactly as noted, allowing for minor errors in interpretation.”
    Journeys Out of the Body ch19:13902-14085
  11. Monroe used the term 'precognition' current in the field
    “It is evidently called in the trade “precognition.””
    Journeys Out of the Body ch19:254-291
  12. Monroe believed the mind substitutes the nearest equivalent when unable to identify something
    “The mind, when unable to identify truly, picks the nearest thing to it in the mind’s experience.”
    Journeys Out of the Body ch19:8911-8996
  13. Nichols's 1999 conviction of a coming bombing on Old Compton Street
    “I said that I felt that it was precognitive and I'd seen this bombing on Old Compton Street at the far right of the street and that, you know, I had this, I didn't know why, but I had this conviction that I felt that it was going to happen.”
    I LEFT MY BODY - The Gateway Experience (Part 3) 00:09:42.3-00:09:54.8
  14. Nichols's experience also witnessed by five other people
    “And this case of precognition was unique in that it was also witnessed by five other people.”
    I LEFT MY BODY - The Gateway Experience (Part 3) 00:06:32.4-00:06:37.5
  15. Nichols learned of the bombing via television news and realised the match
    “i believe that i saw it on just on the the television on on the news... it's slowly dawning on me that oh this is exactly what i saw”
    I LEFT MY BODY - The Gateway Experience (Part 3) 00:14:30.2-00:14:40.5
  16. Nichols's bus encounter with a friend a few days after the bombing
    “I got on a bus a few days after... I had a strong feeling of a friend who I'd known in the past and I hadn't seen for I think at least two years... he got onto the bus so that was a that was again like another sign”
    I LEFT MY BODY - The Gateway Experience (Part 3) 00:13:32.2-00:13:52.8
  17. Nichols on emotional bond as key to psychic phenomena
    “i tend to talk about it in terms of maybe emotional impact... when there's a strong bond between the two participants it tends to be more successful in terms of psychic research so I guess I tend to frame it in the sense of emotion or emotional impact”
    I LEFT MY BODY - The Gateway Experience (Part 3) 00:16:15.8-00:16:37.4
  18. Mossbridge's work in psi and precognition
    “You've done incredible work in the study of psi and the study of precognitive you know, precognition, all sorts of really interesting size stuff.”
    Non Human Intelligence, GATE Program and Psi Ability with Dr. Julia Mossbridge | ep. 99 00:03:23.5-00:03:33.4
  19. Mossbridge treats her own dreams as data due to evidential precognition
    “The reason I feel comfortable using dreams sometimes as data is because I know my own dreams have been highly evidential in terms of precognition”
    Non Human Intelligence, GATE Program and Psi Ability with Dr. Julia Mossbridge | ep. 99 00:37:39.5-00:37:49.4
  20. Not all dreams precognitive; some may be psychological metaphor
    “not all of them and so that's ... and so with each dream it's sort of like well maybe this is just my opinion this could be a psychological metaphor ... for how it felt but it's still it's describes how it might have felt”
    Non Human Intelligence, GATE Program and Psi Ability with Dr. Julia Mossbridge | ep. 99 00:38:03.3-00:38:14.2
  21. Mental time travel covers precognition and memory
    “Mental time travel is like precognition. And it's also like memory ... precognition is like mental time travel, knowing something about the future that you can't know through other means.”
    Non Human Intelligence, GATE Program and Psi Ability with Dr. Julia Mossbridge | ep. 99 01:07:59.6-01:08:08.3
  22. Informational time travel defined as information sent back without precognition
    “There's informational time travel, which is just getting information sent back to you in time. without using precognition. So like potentially using a device”
    Non Human Intelligence, GATE Program and Psi Ability with Dr. Julia Mossbridge | ep. 99 01:08:21.0-01:08:29.4
  23. Precognition studied at two scales: physiological and precognitive remote viewing
    “I've gone to the really unconscious physiological scale and doing things at the 100 milliseconds to seconds time scale. And then on the other end, the more conscious, more deliberate precognitive remote viewing, you know, minutes, days, weeks, et cetera, scale. So I've studied both of those.”
    Non Human Intelligence, GATE Program and Psi Ability with Dr. Julia Mossbridge | ep. 99 01:22:10.2-01:22:35.4
  24. Physiological study of precognition called presentiment
    “It's called pre-sentiment. ... It means pre-feeling.”
    Non Human Intelligence, GATE Program and Psi Ability with Dr. Julia Mossbridge | ep. 99 01:22:47.1-01:22:49.1
  25. Photon emission behaves as if it knows its future switch-off (boundary conditions)
    “they start to behave as if the system knows it's gonna be on for five minutes. So it's like for the photons, they know that they're in this group, it's called boundary conditions in physics, the boundary condition of the on and the boundary condition of the off and the future are both shaping this group's behavior.”
    Non Human Intelligence, GATE Program and Psi Ability with Dr. Julia Mossbridge | ep. 99 01:10:54.5-01:11:17.7
  26. First minute of emission predicts total duration at high accuracy
    “you can then look at the first minute of this five minutes and know that at a relatively high accuracy rate that it's going to be on for five minutes even if the person who's holding the flashlight doesn't know that in five minutes they're going to turn it off because it behaves differently than something that's going to be turned off in two minutes”
    Non Human Intelligence, GATE Program and Psi Ability with Dr. Julia Mossbridge | ep. 99 01:11:49.6-01:12:13.0
  27. Mossbridge's startup examines the first portion of a time period to predict the future
    “So that's my startup is we're creating technology that can then look at that first chunk of time to predict the future. Period.”
    Non Human Intelligence, GATE Program and Psi Ability with Dr. Julia Mossbridge | ep. 99 01:12:16.6-01:12:26.6
  28. Precognitive remote-viewing effects can occur over days, weeks or years
    “when you find it on the seconds or minutes time scale or with remote viewing precognitive remote viewing it could be days, weeks, years.”
    Non Human Intelligence, GATE Program and Psi Ability with Dr. Julia Mossbridge | ep. 99 01:21:43.5-01:21:50.9
  29. Daryl Bem conducted a series of precognition studies
    “Yeah, he did a bunch of precognition studies. He did a bunch of them.”
    Non Human Intelligence, GATE Program and Psi Ability with Dr. Julia Mossbridge | ep. 99 01:44:22.9-01:44:26.4
  30. None of Bem's studies involved remote viewing
    “None of them were remote viewing.”
    Non Human Intelligence, GATE Program and Psi Ability with Dr. Julia Mossbridge | ep. 99 01:44:56.3-01:44:57.2
  31. Meta-analysis found faster unconscious results replicated better
    “the real upshot at a meta-analysis that came after him is that the ones that were more replicable were the ones that were unconscious. So they were the ones that were fast, unconscious, not trying to do things. The slower ones that took more time in between the information and when it was given in the future, they did not replicate as well.”
    Non Human Intelligence, GATE Program and Psi Ability with Dr. Julia Mossbridge | ep. 99 01:44:29.5-01:44:52.6
  32. Bem's work faced critical takedowns; Mossbridge accepts some errors
    “And there's been a lot of takedowns of his work, and that's okay. I think there were some errors in there, and I think it's okay to criticize work.”
    Non Human Intelligence, GATE Program and Psi Ability with Dr. Julia Mossbridge | ep. 99 01:44:58.6-01:45:08.6
  33. Mossbridge describes herself as gifted at precognition, telepathy and remote viewing
    “as a person who's gifted at precognition and telepathy, remote viewing, that kind of stuff”
    Non Human Intelligence, GATE Program and Psi Ability with Dr. Julia Mossbridge | ep. 99 02:50:06.2-02:50:11.2
  34. Stan B.'s question on precognitions that fail to occur once acted upon
    “Stan B. Yesterday at 1:33. What causes precognition of an event that doesn't happen anymore after you acted upon the precognition?”
    Non Human Intelligence, GATE Program and Psi Ability with Dr. Julia Mossbridge | ep. 99 02:52:14.2-02:52:22.0
  35. Conventional branching-timeline explanation of averted precognition
    “So we usually think about that scenario as if this B, the missile launch that did happen in North Korea, feeds back to day 1A ... And now you're on a new timeline where that event B didn't happen. It's like it allows you to select a better timeline.”
    Non Human Intelligence, GATE Program and Psi Ability with Dr. Julia Mossbridge | ep. 99 02:54:25.4-02:54:46.7
  36. Mossbridge dislikes the branching-timeline account, calling it ugly
    “The way I like to think about it, because I hate this, is I just think it's ugly.”
    Non Human Intelligence, GATE Program and Psi Ability with Dr. Julia Mossbridge | ep. 99 02:54:52.3-02:55:00.0
  37. Informational substrate already contains the averted event's full sequence
    “the informational substrate knows that there's going to be this missile launch. It gives you this information at the football game. and you prepare to destroy the missile ... The knowledge that there's this intention for the missile launch ... and the knowledge that you will foil that intention.”
    Non Human Intelligence, GATE Program and Psi Ability with Dr. Julia Mossbridge | ep. 99 02:55:25.1-02:55:48.7
  38. Substrate model: precognition works with what needs to happen, not just physical manifestation
    “Where it's no longer that you have to work with the events in time that actually make it up to physical manifestation. You're working with this substrate that is actually aware, its mind, its universal mind is aware of what needs to happen.”
    Non Human Intelligence, GATE Program and Psi Ability with Dr. Julia Mossbridge | ep. 99 02:56:03.9-02:56:18.8
  39. Acting on a precognition to prevent an event is not a timeline change
    “Well, this was not a change. No, there's no. Your activity that made this missile test.”
    Non Human Intelligence, GATE Program and Psi Ability with Dr. Julia Mossbridge | ep. 99 02:56:53.6-02:56:58.3
  40. Ramsay suggests a benefit to humankind's inability to reliably perceive past/future
    “if we go if we look throughout history humankind has not been able to do that in a way that is uh repeatable or at all like measurable so there has to be a benefit to us not being able to do that”
    Non Human Intelligence, GATE Program and Psi Ability with Dr. Julia Mossbridge | ep. 99 00:55:10.0-00:55:24.2
  41. Benjamin Simon: if Hill's star claim and map are valid, only explanation is precognition
    “If that is true, of course, and if her map is valid, then the only thing she can claim is that she has precognition.”
    The Hypnotist Who Unlocked Betty & Barney Hill's Alien Memories | Dr. Benjamin Simon Speaks 00:25:11.4-00:25:17.9
  42. Auerbach's 35-plus years investigating apparitions, hauntings and poltergeists
    “He has been investigating cases of apparitions, hauntings, and poltergeists for over thirty-five years”
    Surviving Death ch31:1584-1681
  43. McCormick brought Auerbach an ongoing apparition case in 1985
    “In 1985, Donna McCormick, a knowledgeable and very careful researcher whom I worked with for a few years, provided me with an example of an interesting, ongoing apparition case.”
    Surviving Death ch31:10787-10959
  44. Chris's daily contact with the apparition Lois, per Auerbach
    “Chris reported to his family that she had appeared to him every day since the first time he saw her, when he waved back at the figure he saw. He said that the woman did not disappear once he waved at her, but rather approached him and began communicating.”
    Surviving Death ch31:17342-17583
  45. Tanous and two others independently identified the grandfather's photograph
    “We brought Alex in, and Ingrid, and Ann, and they all gave descriptions of the grandfather. She had a picture of him, so we put that among several others for the psychics to choose from, and each one picked the grandfather’s. They all gave good descriptions of what he was like in life, interactions that occurred, where the phenomena occurred, really an excellent case of everything being very clear-cut.”
    Surviving Death ch31:12009-12410
  46. Haraldsson found a higher proportion of violent-death appearances in apparition cases
    “In addition, after many years of research, Haraldsson found that apparition cases also contained a much higher percentage of appearances from those who had suffered a violent death, when compared with the general population.”
    Surviving Death ch30:11443-11656
  47. Haraldsson: violent death also predominant in reincarnation-type cases and mediumship
    “Persons suffering a violent death feature predominantly in cases of apparitions of the dead and in cases of the reincarnation type, as well as in mediumship, including both direct communicators and drop-ins.”
    Surviving Death ch30:11722-11925
  48. Barrett's first systematic scientific study of deathbed apparitions
    “The first attempt at a systematic scientific study of these apparitions was made by Sir William Barrett, a physicist”
    Surviving Death ch20:3490-3597
  49. Fenwick: deathbed visions seen by others should be classed as apparitions
    “The fact that the visitors are occasionally seen by other people automatically removes them from the category of hallucinations; we have to regard them rather as apparitions”
    Surviving Death ch20:9395-9557
  50. Carrington: mediumship phenomena can manifest spontaneously, as with ADC and apparitions
    “He does acknowledge, however, that sometimes the phenomena can manifest spontaneously; we have seen just that with regard to after-death communications and apparitions, for example.”
    Surviving Death ch37:31097-31270
  51. Auerbach: perceptual insertion explains why only some perceive an apparition
    “This explains why only some people might experience apparitions—their perceptual processes are susceptible to such insertion by telepathic projection.”
    Surviving Death ch31:25780-25919
  52. Auerbach: perceptual insertion explains the absence of genuine ghost photos/video
    “It also explains why one doesn’t expect to see genuine photos or videos of ghosts. They have no form to reflect light.”
    Surviving Death ch31:25931-26043
  53. Auerbach considers the evidence weighted toward the survival hypothesis
    “Based on my many years of investigations and experiences, I think the evidence is weighted heavily toward the survival hypothesis in explaining apparitions.”
    Surviving Death ch31:38907-39051

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