Through the centuries and across the various cultures of the world there is much anecdotal evidence that sometimes dreams can predict the future
BY Chris Menon
This singular phenomenon is often referred to as a precognitive dream. According to the American Psychological Association, a precognitive dream is defined as: “a dream that seemingly includes knowledge about the future which cannot be inferred from actually available information.”
In various religions it is widely believed that precognitive dreams are possible. For instance, in the Bible (Book of Daniel), Daniel had prophetic dreams from God, while in Islam it is believed that sometimes a dream is based on the truth and foreshadows a coming event. Similarly, in Buddhism and Hinduism precognitive dreams are accepted.
There are numerous examples of prophetic dreams throughout history. Caesar’s wife Calpurnia is said to have dreamed that something terrible was going to befall her husband, and begged him to stay home. He ignored her warnings and later ended up being stabbed to death by members of the Senate.
Abraham Lincoln’s dream
In 1865 US President Abraham Lincoln had a premonition that foreshadowed his assassination a few days later on April 18. We know this because he confided the nightmare to his former law partner and friend Ward Hill Lamon, who later published what Lincoln had related:
“I could not have been long in bed when I fell into a slumber, for I wasweary. I soon began to dream. There seemed to be a death-like stillness about me. Then I heard subdued sobs, as if a number of people were weeping. I thought I left my bed and wandered downstairs. There the silence was broken by the same pitiful sobbing, but the mourners were invisible. I went from room to room… Determined to find the cause of a state of things so mysterious and so shocking, I kept on until I arrived at the East Room, which I entered. There I met with a sickening surprise. Before me was a catafalque, on which rested a corpse wrapped in funeral vestments. Around it were stationed soldiers who were acting as guards; and there was a throng of people, some gazing mournfully upon the corpse, whose face was covered, others weeping pitifully. ‘Who is dead in the White House?’ I demanded of one of the soldiers. ‘The President,’ was his answer; ‘he was killed by an assassin!’ Then came a loud burst of grief from the crowd, which awoke me from my dream. I slept no more that night; and although it was only a drea
