Paranormality: Why we see what isn't there (28 page)

One of the most striking experiences was submitted by the parents of a ten-year-old child who perished in the tragedy. The day before the landslide their daughter described dreaming about trying to go to school, but said that there was ‘no school there’ because ‘something black had come down all over it’. In another example, Mrs M. H., a 54-year-old woman from Barnstable, said that the night before the tragedy she had dreamed that a group of children were trapped in a rectangular room. In her dream, the end of the room was blocked by several wooden bars and the children were trying to climb over the bars. Mrs M.H. was sufficiently worried by the dream to telephone her son and daughter-in-law, and tell them to take special care of their two small daughters. Another respondent, Mrs G.E. from Sidcup, said that a week before the landslide she had dreamed about a group of screaming children being covered by an avalanche of coal, and two months before the tragedy Mrs S.B. from London had dreamed about a school on a hillside, an avalanche and children losing their lives. And so the list went on.

Barker was impressed with his findings and in 1966 set up the British Premonitions Bureau. The public were asked to submit their alleged premonitions to the Bureau in the hope that Barker would be able to predict, and possibly avert, future tragedies. Unfortunately, his idea didn’t catch on. Although his Bureau received about a thousand predictions, the bulk of them came from just six people
¹¹²
.
 
Perhaps the strangest story to emerge from the project came from one of these alleged ‘precogs’, a
 
44-year-old night telephone operator named Alan Hencher. Hencher usually specialized in predicting air crashes and other major accidents, however, in 1967 he contacted the Bureau to register a far more personal premonition. In what must have been one of the more difficult conversations in the history of parapsychology, Hencher informed Bureau Chief John Barker that Barker would soon die. His comments proved uncannily accurate, with Barker suddenly passing away the following year, aged just 44. To add irony to injury, Barker had previously written a book entitled
Scared To Death
, in which he argued that hearing a premonition of your own demise may induce a deep-seated fear that affects the body’s immune system and could result in death. The British Premonitions Bureau closed a few years later due to lack of funds. Apparently, neither Hencher nor any of the other expert precogs foresaw the closure .

Believing that you have seen the future in a dream is surprisingly common, with recent surveys suggesting that around a third of the population experience this phenomenon at some point in their lives. Beliefs like these have been recorded throughout history. The Bible famously describes how Pharaoh dreamed of seven lean cows coming out of a river and eating seven fat cows, and how Joseph interpreted this as the coming of seven years of abundance followed by seven years of famine. The ancient Roman statesman and philosopher Cicero reported having a dream in which he saw ‘a noble-looking youth, let down on a chain of gold from the skies’. When he entered the Capitol the following day he saw Octavius and recognized him as the noble-looking youth from his dreams. Octavius later went on to succeed Caesar as Emperor of Rome. In more recent times, Abraham Lincoln reportedly dreamed about an assassination two weeks before being shot dead, Mark Twain described a dream in which he saw his brother's corpse lying in a coffin just a few weeks before his brother was killed in an explosion, and Charles Dickens dreamed of a woman dressed in red called Miss Napier shortly before being visited by a girl wearing a red shawl and introducing herself as Miss Napier.

What could explain these remarkable events? Are people really getting a glimpse of things to come? Can the human psyche really play havoc with the very fabric of time? Is it possible to see tomorrow today?
 

Throughout history, these questions have taxed the minds of many of the world’s greatest thinkers. For example, in about 350 B.C. the classical Greek philosopher Aristotle penned a short text entitled
On Prophesying by Dreams
.
Aristotle’s two-part argument was as simple as it was strange. Having thought about the issue for some time, the great philosopher concluded that only God would be able to send prophetic dreams. However, Aristotle had observed that those reporting the dreams did not appear to be especially upstanding citizens, and often turned out to be rather ‘commonplace persons’. Figuring that God wouldn’t waste time casting his pearls of wisdom among swine like that, Aristotle concluded that prophetic dreams could be safely dismissed as coincidences. It is an interesting argument, albeit one that is likely to be disputed by both modern scientists and Mrs M. H. from Barnstable. However, despite over 2,000 years of interest in the mystery of prophetic dreaming, it is only in the last century or so that researchers have managed to solve the puzzle.
 

Before reading further you might like to make yourself a hot mug of cocoa and snuggle under the covers. We are about to enter the strange world of sleep science.

However, before we begin, let’s have a quick memory test. Take a look at the following list of words and try to remember them.

Lamp
      
      

Rock
      
      

Apple
      
      

Worm
      
      

Clock

Baby
      
      

Horse
      
      

Sword
      
      

Bird
      
      

Desk

Many thanks, more about this later. Let’s start.

Spread Betting

Chapter Five described how the pioneering work of Eugene Aserinsky helped pave the way for a new science of dreaming. Aserinsky showed that waking up a person after they have spent some time in the REM state is very likely to result in them reporting a dream. In doing so, he kick-started decades of research into the nature of nod. Much of the work involved inviting people to spend the night in special sleep laboratories, monitoring them as they sleep, waking them up after they emerge from REM state, and asking them to describe their dream
¹¹³
.
 
The work has yielded many important insights into dreaming. Almost everyone dreams in colour. Those who are blind from birth do not ‘see’ in their dreams, but experience many more smells, tastes and sounds. Although some dreams are bizarre, many involve everyday chores such as doing the washing-up, filling in tax forms, or vacuuming. If you creep up on someone who is dreaming and quietly play some music, shine a light onto their face or spray them with water, they are very likely to incorporate the stimuli into their dreams. However, perhaps the most important revelation was that you have many more dreams than you might think.
 

Sleep scientists quickly discovered that you have an average of about four dreams each night. They take place every 90 minutes or so, and each one lasts around 20 minutes. You then forget the vast majority of these episodes when you wake up, leaving you with the impression that you dream far less than is actually the case. The only exception to this rule occurs when you happen to wake up during a dream, perhaps because your alarm clock goes off in the morning or you are disturbed during the night. When this happens you will usually remember the general gist of the dream and perhaps some specific fragments but, unless it is especially striking, you will soon forget all about it. There is, however, a rather unusual set of circumstances that can greatly increase the likelihood of you remembering these dreams.
 

Earlier in this chapter I presented you with a list of ten words and asked you to try to commit them to memory. Now I would like you to attempt to remember all ten words. To help you, here are five words that are associated with a few of the words in the original list.

Light
      
      

Fruit
      
      

Time
      
      

Gallop
      
 
      

Wings

Please get a pen and a piece of paper and try to remember the original list. Don’t turn over the page until you have done your best to remember all of the words.

All done? Here is the list of the words again:

Lamp
      
      

Rock
      
      

Apple
      
      

Worm
      
      

Clock

Baby
      
      

Horse
      
      

Sword
      
      

Bird
      
      

Desk

How did you do? My prediction is that you will have been especially likely to remember the words ‘lamp’, ‘apple’, ‘clock’, ‘horse’ and ‘bird’. Why? Because the associated words ‘light’, ‘fruit’, ‘time, ‘gallop’ and ‘wings’ will have acted as cues. It wasn’t that you had forgotten these words, but rather that they were lurking in your unconscious and just required a little help to emerge. A similar principle applies to your memory for dreams. In the same way that the associated words helped you remember words you couldn’t instantly recall from the original list, so an event that happens to you when you are awake can trigger the memory of a dream. To discover the relationship between this effect and the gift of prophesy, let’s imagine three nights of disturbed dreaming.
 

On day one you go to bed after a hard day at work. You shut your eyes and slowly lose consciousness. Throughout the night you drift through the various stages of sleep and experience several dreams. At ten past seven your brain once again bursts into action and presents you with another entirely fictitious episode. For the next 20 minutes you find yourself visiting an ice cream factory, falling into a huge vat of raspberry ripple, and attempting to eat your way out. Just when you can take no more, your alarm clock sounds and you wake up with fragments of the factory and raspberry ripple ice cream drifting through your mind.

On day two the same series of events unfold. You go to bed, drift to sleep and have several dreams. At two o’clock in the morning you are right in the middle of a rather sinister dream in which you are driving along a dark country lane. Eric Chuggers, your all-time favourite rock star is sitting in the passenger seat, and the two of you are chatting easily. Suddenly a giant purple frog jumps out in front of the car, you swerve to avoid the frog but go off the road and hit a tree. However, tonight your cat feels a tad peckish and decides to come and pester you for food. As she jumps onto the bed you wake up from the dream with a vague memory of Eric Chuggers, a giant purple frog, a tree and impending death.

On the third night you again fall asleep. At four o’clock in the morning you experience a rather traumatic dream. It is a surreal affair, with you being forced to audition for the part of an Oompa
-
Loompa in a new film version of
Charlie
and the Chocolate Factory
. Although successful, you subsequently discover that the orange makeup and green hair dye used in the audition is permanent. You suddenly wake up feeling very stressed, remember the audition and spend the next 20 minutes trying to figure out the symbolic meaning of the dream. You then go back to sleep for the rest of the night.
 

In the morning you wake up, turn on the radio and are shocked to discover that Eric Chuggers was killed in a car accident during the night.
 

According to the news report, Chuggers was driving through the city, swerved to avoid another car that had drifted onto the wrong side of the road, and collided with a lamppost. Bingo. In the same way that the words ‘time’ and ‘gallop’ helped you remember the words ‘clock’ and ‘horse’, so the news report acts as a trigger, and the dream about the car accident jumps into your mind. You forget about consuming copious amounts of raspberry ripple ice cream, and the stressful Oompa
-
Loompa audition. Instead, you remember the one dream that appears to match events in the real world and so become convinced that you may well possess the power of prophesy.

And it doesn’t stop there. Soon after convincing yourself that you had a glimpse of the future while fast asleep, a ‘let’s make this experience as spooky as possible’ part of your mind gets to work. Because dreams tend to be somewhat surreal they have the potential to be twisted to match the events that actually transpired. In reality, Eric Chuggers was not driving along a country lane, did not hit a tree and the accident didn’t involve a giant purple frog. However, a country lane is similar to a city road, and a lamppost looks a bit like a tree. And what about the giant purple frog? Well, maybe that symbolized something unexpected, such as the car that drifted onto the wrong side of the road. Or maybe it turns out that Chuggers was on hallucinogenic drugs and so might have thought that the oncoming car was indeed a giant purple frog. Or maybe you see a photograph from the scene of the accident and discover that Chuggers’ car had a purple mascot on the dashboard. Or maybe an advertising billboard close to the accident contains an image of a giant frog. Or maybe Chuggers’ next album was going to have a frog on the cover. Or maybe Chuggers was wearing a purple shirt at the time of the collision. You get the point. Provided that you are creative and want to believe that you have a psychic link with the recently deceased Mr Chuggers, the possibilities for matches are limited only by your imagination.
 

So far we have focused on your dream about Chuggers because it resembled events that happened a few days later. But let’s imagine that instead of Chuggers dying, you went out to a supermarket and were offered an especially gorgeous sample of raspberry ripple ice cream? Under those circumstances you may well have forgotten about the dreams involving Chuggers and the Oompa-Loompas, and been tempted to tell your friends and family about how your dream seemed to have predicted the unexpected encounter with raspberry ripple ice cream. Or let’s imagine that a few days later the company that you work for promotes you, and your new position involves wearing a garish uniform. Suddenly the deep symbolism involved in the dream about the Oompa-Loompas would seem obvious, and the dreams about Chuggers and the raspberry ripple ice cream would remain buried in your unconsciousness.