Visions of the Future

I was in Quito, Ecuador, sitting in a garden with friends who were farewelling me after a year of living the high life in the Andes. We had packed up our house and despatched our furniture to Australia where we planned to live for the next three years. One of the women asked me how my family back in the UK were. "Dad's in hospital, but he's okay now," I replied quickly. I didn't hear the next part of the conversation. I was too shocked. I had no idea why I had said that because it just wasn't true! Suddenly I realised someone was asking me why my father had gone into hospital. How do you answer a question like that when you've just heard yourself tell a lie? I muttered something like "I don't really know" and changed the subject as quickly as I could.

At the time it didn't even occur to me that Dad might have been ill. We left South America within the week, spent a few days in San Francisco and then flew on to Australia. The letter from my mother was waiting for us there. Dad had had a minor heart attack and had been hospitalised for a few days, but he was okay. She hadn't sent word to Ecuador because she didn't want me to be worried or to fly to Britain before going to Australia. I didn't ever discover which came first: the heart attack or my announcement of it. I suspect the attack came first and someone did send a message to me, though not in the form of a letter. It was probably a case of a telepathic message received while awake and inadvertently spoken aloud. I don't recall any visual component befitting the common notion of precognitive visions.

In the previous chapter on precognitive dreaming, many dream senses were employed in capturing the future events: the sight of Anna's decapitated cat, the voice on my dream answering machine and the pain of being hit on the head, for example. Other senses such as taste, smell and 'knowing' come into dreams, although with less frequency. However, all the dream messages or experiences are perceived silently, in sleep. In comparing stories of waking precognitive experiences, I immediately noticed how much emphasis people put on the senses they use to receive or deliver the information. Automatic verbal deliveries, like mine, were quite common.

Kelly is completely aware that she is being given a message although she has no control over the contents she speaks. She is comfortable with this, feeling the messages are delivered through her for a specific purpose, as in this case.

"I was enjoying a moment at an old familiar country pub when a man I vaguely knew walked in with his lady friend. We exchanged greetings and I was introduced to his companion. She would have been in her forties, and I took an immediate liking to her. When she said she was going home to Europe to visit her mother in roughly three months time, I began to have a fuzzy vision. I replied, 'Too late, too late, she's dead!'

"Taken aback, she told me her mother was not dead, but I told her I could see her in bed near death, and that she was not frightened of death, only the dying part. I relayed that her two brothers were at her bedside, both with brown hair, one noticeably taller than the other and that she was not terribly close to them. Also, that the brothers did not get on very well either. I described the room where there was much dark wood and I pushed the seriousness of the matter, telling her to go before it was too late. The final part of the vision, before I was interrupted, was of a small fountain with golden water spraying from it. I told her that it would end well, that there was good feeling surrounding everything. I was not completely aware of what I had relayed until the lady repeated the message after I had finished. In less than two weeks she was with her mother and they talked about many things. She died four or five days later."

Harry's ability to foresee or foretell the future surfaced at the age of nine and has continued unabated throughout his life. Now into his seventies, he described his experience of the 'automatic voice':

"Each incident seems to occur suddenly and without forethought. From time to time an involuntary thought enters my mind and occasionally I give expression to it, to my own surprise."

As a child in the early 1930s, Harry expressed his precognitive visions through art. Once, for example, he drew pictures of four lane highways with stop and go lights at the intersections.

"Red for stop and green for go. When my brother and his friend insisted on seeing what I was drawing, it was pointed out to me that an accident could occur between vehicles while the lights were changing from one colour to another. I immediately said I would include an intermediary light, the exact colour not then decided upon. My interjectors said there would never be enough traffic on the road to warrant traffic lights. In those days we were lucky to see half a dozen cars on the roads in a week."

Frequently Harry’s precognitions took the shape of visions.

"Unfortunately for me at age nine, one vision concerned two of my primary school mates. Without duly causing any show of alarm I desperately tried to guide each of them from danger. Each of them on separate occasions chose not to accept my suggestions. Ivan died in a car accident by acting irresponsibly the next year. Geoff, who had a badly lacerated knee one Friday after school, refused my plea to bathe it. Two other boys present had earlier spoken out against me in this regard. Realising there was nothing more I could do and that my prediction for Geoff seemed inevitable, I slowly walked the mile home with a heavy heart. Geoff died of a tetanus disease the following week."

As with many of the precognitive dream experiences, death and sickness visions seemed to dominate in this survey. Heather's vision remains vividly in her memory fifty years after the event. She was nineteen at the time.

"I was on night duty in a Sydney hospital. At about 3 am I became very drowsy so left the ward to prepare coffee. As I proceeded to the day room, I glanced along the hall way and saw an elderly patient 'walk through the outside wall of the building'. Since the patient's door was locked, because of the habit of wandering at night, I decided that I was 'seeing things'.

"After having the coffee, I returned to the ward, but couldn't shake off the feeling that I should check the patient's room. I would have done so on my normal 4 am rounds, but felt compelled to go immediately, which I did. I found that the patient had died, and since her body was still warm, I must have seen her at the moment she was leaving her body."

Anna's vision gave her sufficient warning, not to change the predicted death, but to make the necessary preparations.

"I was sitting on my bed, awake, when all at once I saw my sister, who died ten years ago, in front of me. I asked 'What is it really like, Jenny, where you are?' She answered 'You think you can't know, so I can't tell you!' I did not take this up at the time because her appearance so much surprised me. She went on to say she was waiting for my Dad, saying 'It won't be long', then vanished. Dad had been sick, but not that sick.

The next month I made sure I flew down and stayed with him even though my mother kept saying he was okay. He became ill and died while I was there."

The questions raised by most of the examples given in this chapter are identical to those posed in Chapter 1, so I will not repeat them here. They will be addressed at a later stage. What is important here is to demonstrate the evidence for waking precognition and to note the circumstances under which they occur, the nature of the predicted events and the senses used in receiving the messages.

Some visions occur moments before the event. Cheryl was bushwalking whilst on a camp.

"In my head I saw a girlfriend bouncing down a small waterfall. I turned around to see where she was. Suddenly she lost her footing and slipped and came bouncing down a small waterfall."

Other predictions can be many years ahead, yet equally as detailed. At the age of nine, Harry accurately described his own future as a young adult:

"I predicted that I would be 'called up' for army service and would go the States of WA, QLD and NT, in that order, and that, despite all my attempts, I would not leave Australia. I determined that this would not be so.

"At age seventeen I sought enlistment in the Australian Navy, but for some unaccountable reason was rejected. I next applied for the Ground Staff in the Air Force and was accepted as a fighter pilot, but this acceptance arrived eight days too late. I had been inducted by a 'call up' from the Army and was already in training with that organisation.

"On arrival in Western Australia in 1942 I eventually managed to join the Australian Imperial Force with the intention of going overseas. However after qualifying as a signals instrument mechanic at the Perth Technical College, I eventually arrived in North Queensland. It was while I was stationed within three miles of the tip of Cape York Peninsula that I was advised that I should attend another signals school."

While here,Harry was heard to make a further prediction.

"When the instructing Lieutenant at Jacky Jacky stated that we were to embark by boat to Horn Island and from there be flown by plane direct to Townsville, I involuntarily said, in a quiet voice, that the plane would come down about half way. After being roundly criticised, I said it would not be serious. This evoked further criticism from the Lieutenant who said if it was his choice I wouldn't be going!

"The plane, a Douglas DC 3, piloted by two Americans for some reason made what I believe was an unscheduled stop at Cooktown. An attempt was made to leave the Cooktown airport an hour or two later but one of the two engines failed to start. A DC 3 plane from Townsville delivered another starter motor for the failed one. However it was a different model, not designed for the plane we were in. After being accommodated in Cooktown for the night a further DC3 from Townsville finally carried us to our destination."

A frequently expressed concern is that the predicted future is caused by the visions or verbal deliverances which define them. The Aboriginal 'pointing of the bone' is oft quoted in evidence. While the argument initially seems logical, I noticed how often statements such asHarry's "I determined that this would not be so" came up. In many cases we can act on a precognitive insight to change an envisioned outcome, but other foretold details, such as Harry's future career travels, seem to occur despite all conscious intention to divert the course of the future away from the predicted path.

Although Harry has such a store of precognitive experiences to share, he finds he has little control over the process, an observation made by several people in this survey.

Cynthia: "I can't predict the future or lotteries or tell people what is going to happen, neither do I want to. These things happen usually in crystal clear dreams or appear in my head during my waking hours. I can't tell when they will happen."

Neither do visions necessarily relate to the future. Cynthia said,

"I always was able to see a room that I was very familiar with. On describing the room to my mother, it was the room that I was born in."

Was Cynthia able to access the past? Was this a visual memory of the room she saw at birth, or was it an impression gained through telepathy with her mother?

On another occasion she apparently experienced the room from the perceptual angle of a second person. Although this is less verifiable in the sense that there was no definite outcome to suggest the vision was accurate and not imagined, Cynthia describes the sensation convincingly.

"My aunty had a sudden heart attack when I visited her in hospital. She was hooked up to all kinds of machines. I had my four month old daughter over my shoulder when a strange thing happened that I can't explain. I had a view from my aunty's eyes of the back of my jacket as I was walking out of the room. I saw my baby smiling at aunty and I saw the pattern that was only on the back of my jacket. I didn't see aunty alive again."

Most people can probably relate to Diwata's precognitive experience, which can perhaps be explained by telepathy.

"All of a sudden I pictured the face of a man I knew four years ago. All sorts of questions came to mind. How did he look now? Where was he now? The next day I went to lunch with my friend and someone opened the doors of the cafeteria for us. Believe it or not, he was the man on my mind the previous day. I was shocked!"

Anna's case is less clear cut.

"I was awake but thinking of my father who was asleep as he worked night shift at the airport on security. I kept seeing this huge engine exploding and knew my father was in danger as this was a plane engine. That was it.

"I felt very panicky but rang my mother to make sure Dad was asleep. He wasn't. He had been called back to work because someone was ill. I was then frantic as he would have been near the hangers.

"My mother rang the airport and my dad, forewarned, checked the hangers for planes taking off or being overhauled. Eventually he rang to tell me to relax. It had happened. An engine had exploded as they wheeled the aeroplane onto the tarmac, but he had stood well back. He wasn't injured and neither were the mechanics, thank God."

Over the years I have experimented with giving readings for people. When relaxed, I found it easy to 'see' visions in my mind that often related to the person's life. On occasions I could build an awareness of another person, or an object as if it were in front of me, though I couldn't actually see anything in the usual visual way. In most cases these 'visions' confirmed some degree of telepathy, as in, for example, being able to describe the house the person lived in, objects they worked with or plans they had been discussing. Occasionally, however, these visions related more to the person's future.

According to the dictionary, clairvoyance is 'the supposed faculty of perceiving things or events in the future or beyond normal sensual contact'. In other words, clairvoyance, by definition, is not necessarily visual and does not relate specifically to future events, despite common usage which generally embraces a notion of prediction.

Many psychic readers hear voices and then relay the messages. Unlike the automatic speech described at the beginning of this chapter, the spoken words are heard and then consciously repeated. This is known as clairaudience, defined by the dictionary as 'the supposed faculty of perceiving, as if by hearing, what is inaudible.' Although commonly reported by professional psychics, not one of the precognitive experiences sent to me for this survey described this. Since hearing voices is commonly associated with schizophrenia, it may be that people held back from describing the phenomenon. In my own case, as with visual clairvoyance, my experience in readings was of feeling the shape of the words in my head, rather than hearing any audible tones. In that way I found I was often able to feed back particular phrases or catchwords either used by the person I was attempting to read, or by people close to them in a meaningful way.

Clairsentience is a term used by many people to describe a third sense modality for tuning in on a telepathic or, perhaps, precognitive basis to another person. People on the survey described clairsentience variously as 'a knowing', 'intuition' or 'a sensing'. Some described it in the way that I understood it. For me, during that period of reading, this was the easiest and most identifiable sensation associated with linking up in either a past, present or future way, with the mind of the person with me. I would feel either a sharp pain or a tingling in an area of my body that related to the other person. I found that pain often related to pain the person had experienced in the past on a physical level, while tingling tended to indicate an underuse either of that part of the body or of skills or emotions symbolically connected with the body part in dream symbolism. Occasionally I would feel the numbness of a past stroke (while not visible on the physical level) or muscular tension which I could directly interpret according to where the tension was held. I'm not aware that I used these senses to accurately predict the future health or wellbeing of the people I was reading at the time, but I suspect my current knowledge of symbolism would equip me to do that, if I wished. But I do not wish.

The clairsentience aspect of precognitive visions was reported in this survey.

Julie often feels the body pain of another person. She felt pain, for example, when her friend went into hospital.

"He had an operation on his right shoulder and hardly experienced any pain at all. I told him it was because I had most of it! My pain began when he had his operation and I even lost sleep over it. He only spent a couple of days in hospital and when I saw him the following day, he looked great.

I had made a card to give him and on this card I drew an operating theatre with doctors working on his shoulder. I also drew, (in the same card), them operating on his left leg. I had no idea why I drew that part at the time, but I thought I'd leave it there anyway.

My friend hadn't noticed this at first, but the next time I saw him, he took me aside and asked me, 'How did you know that they operated on my left leg at the same time I as my shoulder?' No-one knew about that part of his operation."

Rebekah's clairsentience is a blend of the physical and the emotional.

"In 1989 I was building sandcastles with our grandchildren at our local beach when suddenly I felt as if somebody had pulled out the plug. I was totally drained of energy, so much so that I had to tell the children to go ahead across the park to the house. I then literally had to crawl home. I sat, too weak to move, for over an hour. Soon after I had a telephone call from another city that my mother had died at that exact time. She and I had always been very close. I knew she was afraid of death, and am sure she would have been calling on me at that time."

At other times it is a 'compulsion', as Rebekah explained:"One night I had a compulsion to go to the neighbour’s over the road, even though I had not met her. She was going to commit suicide."

Paddie describes her precognitive clairsentient sense as 'sadness'.

"My father warns me of death. Usually I get a very sad feeling about my Dad, often while showering. No matter how I feel prior to getting into the shower, my mind will think about my Dad. I become so sad, extremely rueful. It usually isn't family, but the death of the relative of a close friend. This has happened on numerous occasions."

Coming out as a person who experiences precognitive visions takes courage. Friends, colleagues and acquaintances quickly shuffle themselves into distinct groups. Some feel relieved to find someone with whom they can confide their own experiences. Some can't wait to ask you for personal predictions. Some will ask you caring questions to check your stress level and psychological stability. Some will disappear from your life, either because, in their eyes, you have lost credibility, or because they feel the fear of the unknown. The most vociferous may well be those with fundamentalist religious beliefs who are taught that precognition, despite the many instances cited in the Bible, is the work of the devil. Harry, a devout Christian, describes his experience of this.

"In the early 1950's, while at a Workers' Club Dance, four cards representing four suits were placed face down on the dance floor during a Monte Carlo dance. Each time the music stopped the cards on the floor were replaced by four other suits, or, on one or more occasions, rearranged. By some means that I do not understand, I found myself able to see not only which suit was represented on each of the four cards, but also what number or picture was indicated.

"On each occasion I communicated this knowledge to my girl partner. At first she asked me if it was some trick. I assured her it was not. When I continued to do it for eight or more times, she became alarmed and claimed I was an agent of the devil. She then backed away from me saying, with a look of horror in her face, 'No you are Satan himself' and wanted nothing more to do with me."

Since physical manifestations of precognition were a common occurrence in Harry's life, he couldn't deny their existence. However, he did feel a need to turn his head in the other direction and look not at the end product, the predicted event itself, but towards it's source. He firmly believed each manifestation had a source outside himself and so, in 1963, in silent prayer, he consulted God.

"I was standing on the pavement in silent prayer to God, and I asked whether the source of the numerous predictions of future events was from that deity. In my prayer I wished to know by a manner other than a physical manifestation which I could explain away. I was fully prepared that nothing untoward would happen but nevertheless debated with myself whether God in His wisdom would give some sort of reply. God's action was totally beyond my greatest expectation."

There followed what Harry believed to be his greatest experience to date: a resplendent vision of Heaven. It could be argued, because this place has not yet manifested in physical form for Harry, (unlike the outcome of many of his prior predictive visions), that the experience was a convincing imaginative delight whipped up from years of religious devotion and in retaliation to his 'work of Satan' critics. In this way it could have been a perfect example of a hypnopompic hallucination in which a visual perception, such as a dream image normally located in the brain, is perceived to be at a location outside the head and is therefore superimposed on the surrounding environment. It could also be argued, though, that Harry's vision was indeed the answer to his prayer.

In fact all sorts of arguments could be made from this point, and this may be one of the many jumping off places for some readers where credibility is exhausted. It is important to remember, however, that Harry shares an ability, apparently common to many others, to accurately envision the future and, according to his reports, the outcomes of his predictive visions have been witnessed by other people on numerous occasions.

Harry's logical questioning of his experience endorses his objectivity.

"Even though I looked away to see the traffic in the avenue, the vision was maintained. There was no sign of any sort of photographic projection in the vicinity to account for the vision and I felt perfectly normal. That was, until I became intensely afraid when I became conscious that my mind or soul was moving through space to a point behind St Andrews Presbyterian Church. The fear I experienced only lasted a split second before a great calmness settled over my mind. Somehow I was still enabled to perceive the earlier vision but from a different angle."

He finally encapsulated his understanding of this experience.

"There was an exhilarating sense of freedom as I came to understand that I was one with space and time, although neither space or time seemed to exist. This may seem a contradiction but at this juncture I am unable to express myself otherwise. I saw God as a radiance where it is impossible for evil to exist. I seemed to have retained my individuality, personality and character and could see with my mind or soul as if I had eyes."

Harry felt that, for a moment, he had a clear option. He could stay in this heaven, or 'fourth dimension' as he also referred to it, or he could return.

"Even though the exceedingly beautiful heaven enthralled me, I felt a sense of responsibility to return to the physical world of earth and await my future there. It was at this juncture that a voice I recognised said from behind me: 'What are you staring at Harry?' With a mild sense of dismay I was fully aware I was no longer in Heaven."

Harry maintains an active interest in the Church, but his experiences have shaped his beliefs away from some of the more mainstream views, and vehemently against the fundamentalist line.

"Since my retirement I have come into contact with Ministers or Pastors and Lay members of differing religious denominations. I became, in the absence of another word, annoyed at what I perceive as undue emphasis on Satan, the Devil and Demons, none of which I have any credence for. If people have free will, then they have the opportunity to follow the path enunciated by Jesus Christ, or be separated from God, even to deny Him, and go their own way."

Harry's belief in free will was shared by most of the contributors to this research. Not only has this belief survived despite the precognitive experience, but paradoxically, in most cases, it has been strengthened.

And so this chapter has gathered along its journey an appreciation of the sensual components of waking precognition, which brings us to the borderline where apparently involuntary visions cross into the territory of conscious formal prediction: the land of the professional psychic. Which is where we head next.

Most of the evidence summarised for Chapter 1 also applies here, substituting 'vision for dream in each case. Additional evidence from this chapter includes:

• 2/1 Senses receiving or relaying the precognitive information are:

            automatic speech

            thought

            vision

            pain

            emotions/ feelings

            hearing

            knowing/ intuition

• 2/2 People accustomed to experiencing precognitive visions, but who are not working as professional clairvoyants, are generally unable to control the visions or produce them at will. E.g. Cynthia.

• 2/3 The time scale between the vision and the event seems variable, accuracy being observed in both short- and long-term predictions. E.g. short-term: Cheryl's waterfall trip; long-term: Harry's future career travels.

• 2/4 Along with the precognitive dreamers, most contributors to this research expressed a belief in free will, either because of or despite their precognitive experiences. E.g. Harry.