You enter a dimly lit tent and take a seat across a wrinkled, mysterious-looking gypsy lady.
She’s a fortune-teller, of sorts; she claims to have the gift of precognition. She even has the precognition definition written on the outside of her tent:
Ability to see into the future.
As you excitedly anticipate your apparent fate, she reaches into her pouch and pulls out a crystal ball, a stack of tarot cards, and the eye of a newt. She rubs the crystal, proclaiming, “I see in your future, something… A white horse, a rocky shore… Something… Astounding! ”
Could it be true?
Precognition through extrasensory perception (ESP) has long been shrugged off the shoulders of society (largely due to it’s scientifically unexplainable nature), yet modern science has begun to find evidence of this strange phenomenon.
But this mysterious power isn’t just limited to witches and conjurers well-versed in mystical arcane practices.
Precognitive abilities also go by the name of intuition — insight or knowledge that comes from an irrational or illogical source, outside of the 5 senses.
And actually, everyone has the ability to tap into it and access these intuitive powers.
For a more thorough understanding of intuition and ESP, what exactly it is, and how to tap into it like a pro, check out our guide on all things intuition.
Before we dive into how precognition works, however, we will be exploring the precognition definition in psychology.
What Is Precognition In Psychology?
Is “precognition” a deliberate term used in psychology?
Actually, yes.
As psychology sees views it, “precognition is the supernormal knowledge of future events.” The emphasis is not upon causing events to occur; but rather, just predicting their occurrence. While telepathy and clairvoyance are more thoroughly studied in psychology, precognition is also a form of extrasensory perception.
In fact, there are even specific schools set up for the research of various forms of ESP, the first of which being the the Society for Psychical Research in London (beginning in 1882). As well, you can now study Parapsychology at many universities around the world, including the University of Edinburgh, the University of California, Atlantic University, University of Gothenburg, the University of Greenwich, and many others.
What is a person who can see the future called?
While the most common answer to this question is “psychic,” there are many different terms one could use depending on each unique circumstance and connotation.
Here are a few more popular terms one might use:
Augur — Someone who predicts future events based on omens (think Paulo Coelho’s best selling book, The Alchemist)
Doomsayer— Someone who routinely predicts the future, but in the form of disaster.
Fortune-teller — Someone who tells the future, but generally to a specific client regarding that their personal life.
Futurist — Someone who offers insights about the future based on their study of past/present events, trends, and circumstances (see implicit learning below).
Oracle/Seer — A person who serves as a type of medium for a spirit/deity.
Prophet — One who reveals future event through divine inspiration or messages received directly from God. A Sibyl is a female prophet from the ancient world.
What is a precognitive empath?
An empath is someone who is extremely sensitive to energy around them, and they often can unconsciously receive information that others can’t.
If you marry the concept of an “empath” to the idea of “precognition,” you’ll have someone who is very sensitive in their precognitive abilities. Their premonitions manifest in the form of emotional or physical sensations, but sometimes they manifest in the dream realm.
What is a precognitive dream?
Precognitive dreams are dreams that seem to predict future events. These dreams can be regarding personal life events or events about the future of friends, family, famous people, or even world events.
Many people with precognitive abilities say that their visions of the future came to them within a dream. In fact, even people who don’t claim to have special precognitive abilities have these types of dreams.
In a famous instance, just two weeks before his assassination, Abraham Lincoln had a dream about his death. Within his dream, he went to a funeral at the white house. When he asked who was in the coffin, he was then given the dreary answer, “the president of the United States.”
While this concept is indeed intriguing, it is often said to be a matter of coincidence. It is said that, given the amount of dreams we have every night, some of them are bound to happen in real life.
What do you think of these types of dreams? Have you ever experienced one for yourself?
If you’d like to experiment with this concept of “precognition” in order to come to your own understandings and conclusions, this next section may help you along your path. It will be dissecting the precognition definition by breaking this ability down into it’s 3 different mechanisms.
The 3 Types Of Precognition
Precognition comes in 3 flavors:
- Implicit learning
- Energetic communication
- Nonlocal intuition
Each different type has a unique mechanism (or pathway) for expressing the intuition that is innately within every one of us.
1. Implicit learning (Implicit knowledge)
Implicit learning refers to the pattern recognizing function of your brain.
Your brain looks for patterns to explain reality. It pulls from an extensive database of past experience. Every memory, emotion, and sensory experience you have had is stored deep within your subconscious mind.
In regard to the precognition definition, your subconscious mind immediately creates a pattern that accurately explains what is about to happen (before it happens).
And you’ve likely experienced this phenomenon while listening to music. Although you may not be able recall the lyrics to a song, once someone starts to sing the first few words, the rest seem to unexplainably, unconsciously flow out of you.
2. Energetic communication
Almost every living organism is receptive to energetic communication — the ability to detect environmental signals, like electromagnetic frequencies.
In humans and mammals, energetic communication is received through the nervous system, and is particularly sensitive to changes in the Earth’s magnetic field (geomagnetic activity).
As an example of the precognition definition, some people (and animals) are able to predict or intuit earthquakes.
They receive these changes in geomagnetism, without consciously processing the information, and produce an unexplainable feeling about an impending earthquake.
Another example of energetic communication is the intuitive feeling of being stared at.
3. Nonlocal intuition
Nonlocal intuition, or nonlocal communication, is perhaps the most complex and mystifying of all.
How can siblings immediately tell when something happens to the other despite being across the country? How do parents have a similar precognitive sense with their children?
The answer lies in the fundamental structure of the universe — the interconnectedness of everything, across time and space.
Quantum mechanics has observed the phenomenon of nonlocal communication (communication without regard to time or space). Essentially, nonlocal communication is quantum entanglement on a level of consciousness.
Quantum entanglement observes that one particle can react instantaneously to changes between an entangled particle (or particles) across the world — or even across the Universe. It is a mechanism that transcends our conceptions of both time and space.
Scientists are now hypothesizing that this phenomenon is applicable to us at a biological level. That, some part of our mind or spirit is able to escape the confines of time and space and access information beyond our sensory capabilities.
Wow.
Have you ever experienced any of these types of precognition? Share with us in a comment below!
