REPORT ON THE FIRST GLOBAL PRECOGNITIVE DREAM EXPERIMENT

by

Cynthia Pearson

TARGET: Front page of USA TODAY of April 1, 1998

 

NOTE: I have added images from the USA TODAY Asia Pacific Edition of April 1, sent in by our participant in Japan, because some of the correspondences were so strong.

First, I want to thank everyone who participated in this, the first-ever precognitive dream experiment on this web site. Previous experiments were always confined to a relatively narrow geographical area. This experiment was international, with one dreamer corresponding from Japan. The Internet truly is making our world a global village, where we can recall our dreams with one another as if we were meeting at the town well.

In addition, this was the first time I could invite anyone who was interested to take part in the judging. Previously, I would solicit four volunteers to compare the content of the dreams submitted with the target newspaper. This time, I was able to post all the dreams and the target news , and ask anyone who wanted to participate to fill out a judging form. I received 30 dreams on time from 14 dreamers, and 9 people turned in judging forms. This, therefore, is the most complex amount of information I have had to analyze and report.

One thing stands out from past experiments-- there was no single dream that all 7 judged to contain a direct hit. However, there were 8 dreams that all judges felt contained either a direct or a partial hit, and there were also some surprising synchronicities. Two amusingly similar ones were reported by dreamers on opposite sides of the world.

THE GREATEST HITS

The most comment was provoked by, and the most direct hits attributed to, Dreams 14 and 15, both submitted by the same dreamer. In Dream 15, most judges were very impressed by the correspondence between the dreamer's helping her friend to send out her poems-- perhaps "enough for a chapbook"-- and the headline "POEMS TO GO," referring to a long story in the "Life" section about Andrew Carroll, who is traveling across the country giving away books of poetry.

In Dream 14, judges commented on correspondences between:

> "She'll go all the way home like that" and the photograph of the baseball player coming into home plate;
> the "man who'd been secretly sleeping in the basement overnight sneaks out of the back of the house to leave around the side so my husband cannot see him" and the item about Clinton's aides fretting over exposure of a relationship with a former Miss America;
>
"I am holding a pudgy baby boy of about six months and say to him, 'Well, that's two down and two more to go,'" and the four Teletubbies pictured; and,
>
"something about the Green Bay Packers and making the nation proud" and the opening day of baseball season. (The dreamer, a Wisconsin native who still mourns the loss of the Packers in last season's Super Bowl, felt it corresponded with the headline on Olympic "Dream teams. And the nightmares that ensue.")

BELLA AND HER HATS

 Dream 10 drew the attention of five of the judges. They noted that "… a man in a tan hat that resembles a cowboy hat … a young, white man wearing a scarf tied on his head… [and]… a middle age man wearing a low top hat" corresponded to news of the death of Bella Abzug, pictured wearing one of the hats she famously wore. This front page item refers readers to an inside feature including photos of Abzug in five different hats. Some judges felt this was only a partial hit because men were wearing the hats in the dream, although one judge pointed out that Abzug operated "in a man's world." In addition, an e-mail that arrived past the March 29 deadline but before April 1 contained this dream: "I was taking pictures ... of a largish woman wearing a kind of odd headdress."

Three judges pointed out that in Dream 3, there are two rooms numbered 7, which corresponds with "Abzug Dead at 77." Two judges noted that Dream 1 also seemed to have correspondences with Bella Abzug's obituary, noting the "dull, brass color" matched her hat; that "the chain has broken" suggests a death; and that "an elderly lady…insisting" was thematic.

OTHER HITS

Two people noted that Dream 2 begins "I have been riding West all day, cross-country," corresponding with Andrew Carrol's cross-country trip west, illustrated by a map on page 1-D.

Most judges noted that Clinton was mentioned in Dreams 25 and 26, but all graded this only a "partial hit" with the headline about Miss America Elizabeth Gracen's relationship with the President. As one judge noted, there has been "…so much Clinton stuff around" that it was hard to imagine this to be evidence of precognition.

There were two other dreams that impressed several judges. One, Dream 30, featured "beast kids," which three people felt corresponded with the odd looking "Teletubbies." The other was Dream 23, which several judges related to the photo of Martin Luther King, Jr. The dream describes one man who "stands out as being dark and tall, " and how a group of people begin picking up rocks and "throwing them at the tall man... I'm aware of how dumb it is to meet physical aggression with physical aggression but I feel a need to protect this man in our group…more than any other feeling is ...the senselessness of the whole thing. I think that instead of fighting, I should kiss the hands of those throwing the rocks…" For two judges, this was a direct hit, a compelling rendering of both the circumstances of King's death and of his legacy of nonviolence. (And perhaps this reflects the depths of what we are up to when we ask ourselves to "have a dream.")

SYNCHRONICITIES BEFORE...

There were two personal synchronicities in this experiment. One occurred when I read Dream 4, in which the dreamer is "helping one of the older students who is going to work with an autistic boy who is also there. " The day before receiving this dream, I had a long phone conversation with my older sister about her new job, working in a classroom with an autistic boy. She had known very little about autism before taking this on, and talked at length about learning as she works.

Another meaningful coincidence began on March 25, when a newcomer arrived at our regular Dream Workshop meeting with three large, beautiful, handmade books. In them she had not only written her dreams and journal entries, but also illustrated them with colorful drawings. I was very impressed, as I had recently been longing for and researching new ways to combine art and dream work. On March 29, I received Dream #15, in which the dreamer is reviewing her friend's poetry: "Some of her poems are decorated with colorful crayon drawings -- one has a landscape with trees and rolling countryside, fat purple polka-dots adorning a road or bridge-- and I feel regret that I've neglected that side of my own creativity because I always enjoyed drawing and painting so much."

...AND AFTER: PINK BUNNIES & GREEN FROGS

But even more impressive synchronicities were reported by two participants in this experiment. On April 1, a regular member of the Dream Workshop and the dreamer of #20,  "A large pink rabbit, sitting upright" called me. She had tried to buy a copy of our target "USA Today" outside her office building downtown, but the machine there was empty. So, instead of catching her bus at the accustomed stop, she walked several blocks out of her way to another "USA Today" box. She had better luck there, and then crossed the street with her paper to catch her bus. "And there, right in the middle of the sidewalk, stood a large pink rabbit-- a person dressed in a bunny costume outside a candy store!"

Three weeks later, I received a letter from the dreamer who had sent in the dream of three green frogs (#16), who wrote:

I bought a copy of USA TODAY (April 1, 1998 Asia Pacific Edition) at a newsstand in Tokyo, the city where I live. Because of my frog dream, I had hoped to see a photo of Kermit on the front page, but I saw no amphibian in the entire paper. Disappointed, I entered a nearby supermarket. Inside the store, I immediately noted a temporary stall selling toys and candy. I approached the stall, and right in front of me were dozens of plastic green frog toys! There were three different kinds of them… I purchased one frog which now stands on top of one of my PC speakers to commemorate my participation in a truly fascinating experiment. CURIOUSER AND CURIOUSER

Our Japanese correspondent also sent photocopies of the Asia Pacific edition of our target USA Today, which offers mostly different stories, all different pictures, and several provocative correspondences! I am posting several of the ones she has noted, so everyone can judge for themselves:
 


Page 1-B of the Asian edition of USA TODAY

DREAM # 24:

I am looking at a cluster of upright fat rods, a radiant white with a cast of pale blue--maybe gathered together at the center. I say aloud, "Mere."

As our correspondent, notes "... the word 'radiant' corresponds to the pale yellow, radial...shape..." and that "the players are wearing white uniforms... the word 'mere' looks and sounds similar to 'Mets' and 'Mariners'... the overall background is pale blue. I regard this dream as a direct hit... What is lacking...is a gestalt integrating all the elements."

And there was this, from the front page:
 


DREAM # 19:

...the picture showed some doctors with a patient.

The story with the photo is about laser eye surgery; the dreamer's headline concerned AIDS research. Our correspondent remarks, "The words 'AIDS' and 'eyes' sound alike... I believe this to be a direct hit with minor minsinterpretations."

Finally, there was on page 3B a large color photo of Marilyn Monroe with a milk mustache. Our correspondent sent only a quarter of this picture, but Marilyn does indeed have short blonde hair. Our correspondent felt this "matched very closely" the content of:

Dream 22: Face of a short-haired blond woman ...with ...spots/markings superimposed over it.

So, readers and dreamers, what do you think? I know from past experiments that sometimes people have sent in impressively precognitive dreams of a divergent target. Indeed, the most remarkable instance in my experience involved a different paper on a different day than the target, but was so full of detailed correspondences that the judges-- in whose community this news had occurred-- were astonished, and unanimous.

So, is there a "unifying gestalt" to this? Do you have theories and ideas about how/whether/why this works? I recall the quote from Jane Roberts' Seth book, Dreams, Evolution and Value Fulfillment: "There is an entire global dream network that goes quite unrecognized-- one of spectacular organization in which exchanges of information occur that give you the basis for the formation of recognized physical events." Or is it just that, as one dreamer wrote in, "I think the mind likes to be delighted"?

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