Re: PSI: Skeptics Opinions Needed.

David Lubkin (lubkin@unreasonable.com)
Thu, 05 Aug 1999 23:30:31 -0400

>The second is merely a case of post-hoc pattern hunting.
>Post-hoc analyses are always flawed, because every neuron in your
>brain is designed to look for patterns and will find them whether they
>are there or not.

I have had moments similar to deja vu when I was convinced not that the events had occurred before but that I had had a premonitory dream anticipating the events.

As a good skeptic, it occurred to me that my memory of the dream could have been some form of delay loop, feeding back my sensory input and thoughts through my memory. In other words, if you'd asked me about the dream just before the moment, I wouldn't have had the memory yet.

I decided that I needed some objective evidence. Since then, whenever I remember my dreams, I try to write them down. So if that premonitory feeling ever recurred, I could check the dream log.

As you might predict, I've never validated a feeling of having foreseen events. But I have gotten great story material.

I love most of my dreams, which are often sf. I don't know if I dream in color. I have dreamed in four different languages and, while in the dream, read material written in two languages. I can read page after page of books I've never read. Some part of my brain conjures up grammatical (but boring) prose. I had a brief sequence once during an intense software development period when I dreamed in C++. That was weird....

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