2014 Vol. 78(1) 115-125
Editor:
John A. Palmer, Ph.D.
Copyright:
Parapsychology Press
Citation
Watt, C. Article. (2014). Precognitive Dreaming: Investigating Anomalous Cognition and Psychological Factors. Journal of Parapsychology, 78(1), 115-125.
Article
Precognitive Dreaming: Investigating Anomalous Cognition and Psychological Factors
Caroline Watt
This online dream precognition study examined variables, both psychological and parapsychological, that have been proposed to contribute to precognitive dream experiences. 50 participants each contributed 4 trials, where the task was to dream about a video clip that they would later view. Independent judges were used to score the correspondence between dreams and the target pool. No support was found for the hypothesis that individuals who are intolerant of ambiguity would report greater correspondence between their dreams and subsequently viewed target video clips. A relationship was found between the participants’ prior confidence that their dreams would relate to the future target and actual perceived similarity between the target and dreams; however, there was no relationship between perceived similarity and judges’ actual hit rates or similarity ratings. The test of the precognition hypothesis obtained above-chance scoring (32% hit rate) on the planned direct hits measure. Obvious methodological artifacts are ruled out, and the discussion concludes with an exploration of whether the judges’ ratings also support the dream precognition hypothesis.
Keywords:
precognitive dreaming, precognition, precognitive dream experiences, ambiguity tolerance