By Rosemary Ellen Guiley
Copyright Visionary Living, Inc.
An interesting phenomenon occurred in the aftermath of the terrorist plane attacks that destroyed the World Trade Center and damaged the Pentagon on September 11, 2001: numerous of people came forward with reports of vivid dreams they’d had of these disasters in advance. The dreams were filled with imagery that later took place: planes crashing into buildings, planes crashing on the ground, tall buildings collapsing, flames shooting out of buildings, people running covered in gray ash, and feelings of panic, mass death and war. These nightmarish dreams were so realistic that many people awoke from them in terror and sweat.
The volume of precognitive dreams which possibly reaches into the thousands demonstrates in a dramatic way how we can perceive future events, and how linked we are in a global pool of consciousness.
The first question raised about the terrorist precognitive dreams is, if so many people dreamed in advance of these disasters, why could nothing be done to prevent them?
Most people who have precognitive dreams only realize it after the events have taken place, and they see how their dreams matched the events. Other dreamers, especially those who have periodic or frequent precognitive dreams usually do not dream enough specific details to know exactly what is going to happen, where, and when. Some may only have a sense of dread that “something terrible” is going to happen, usually soon. A dream that a tall building is collapsing would not have sparked the immediate connection that terrorists were going to fly planes into the World Trade Center on the morning of September 11, 2001.
Nonetheless, there are important things we can learn from 9-11 about dreams, the unfolding of events in time, and the nature of consciousness and its impact on events. First, let’s look at the nature of precognitive dreaming.
Psi in dreams
Parapsychological research into dreams has been going on for more than a century. Studies of psi experiences in general show that we are more likely to experience psi — including precognition — in dreams than in waking experiences. In the 1960s, researcher Louisa B. Rhine said that dreams may be the most efficient carriers of psi messages, because in sleep the barriers to the conscious mind seem to be lower.
Controlled laboratory experiments, such as those at the Dream Laboratory of the Maimonides Medical Center in Brooklyn, New York, in the 1960s, demonstrated that it is possible to transmit information and images telepathically to someone who is dreaming. This wasn’t new ancient rituals exist for “dream sending” but validating the experience scientifically was important.
Precognitive dreaming is difficult for controlled experiments, but it can be documented. People are most likely to pay attention to dreams that prove to be precognitive when they involve disasters. Perhaps the intensity of emotion makes more of an impression. Actually, we have “little precognitions” all the time in dreams, concerning places we will visit and people we will encounter in the course of ordinary daily life. But unless we are paying attention to dreams and working with them, these dreams will not impress us as unusual.
Researchers who have collected dreams around major events have discovered that numerous people “tune in” to a future event in their dreams. Some may dream the actual event, while others dream significant elements of it, or perhaps the overall “tone” of an event.
One of the most significant studies was of the Aberfan coal slide disaster on October 21, 1966. A landslide of coal came down a mountain in Aberfan, Wales and buried a school. Twenty-eight adults and 116 children were killed. Up to two weeks beforehand, at least 200 persons experienced premonitions about the disaster, both in waking consciousness and in dreams. They included depression, a feeling that “something bad” was about to happen (some persons accurately pinpointed the day), sensations of choking and gasping for breath, uneasiness, and impressions of coal dust, billowing black clouds, and children running and screaming.
Similar phenomena were reported in advance of 9-11, especially in the early morning hours just ahead of the disasters. Although I had no precognitive dream of the events themselves, I did awaken that morning feel strangely uneasy with a sense of foreboding, a feeling quite the opposite of what I should have felt on that clear, sunny day.
Reports of dreams that seemed to have been precognitive began coming in on the internet. Most were clustered close to the events, within a few days or up to a week or two prior. Clearly, something involving the coalescing of forces in motion were picked up by the dreaming mind, which is not bound by time and space.
Many of the people who had these dreams had no intimate personal connection to the events. That is, they did not work at the disaster sites, or know people who did, or even live in the nearby areas. That a disparate collection of people could have the same or similar dreams in the same time frame points to the existence of a global net of consciousness that everyone participates in.
After 9-11, internet websites and discussion lists were established for the reporting of precognitive tips. Similar efforts were made after the Aberfan disaster. But those premonitions bureaus were a failure and soon closed. Many tips were vague and others proved to be wrong. The same thing is likely to happen to the post-9-11 efforts.
Many people ask, what is the point of precognition if it can’t be used to change the course of events?
What is “the future”?
The future is not set in stone. The future is not predestined.
The future is a probable outcome based on present forces in motion. Those present forces are thoughts, intent, words and actions. When focused and sustained, they gather enough momentum to bring about “a future.” Any significant change in the course of the forces in motion will change the outcome.
A precognition is a preview of an outcome of forces in motion. If forces change after a precognition is experienced, then the precognition will not be accurate. There is a point of no return with forces in motion: the momentum toward a probability gains sufficient strength to become a certainty. This may account for the clustering of precognitions close to the actual event.
The forces may be those of an individual or the collective forces of a group. Large-scale events involve forces in motion on a large scale: global mind, a field consciousness.
Field consciousness
Field consciousness provides an integrative view of the universe. It addresses the underlying unity of all things — fields held together and unbounded by space and time. These fields have the ability to organize matter on a large scale — a collective PK. “Global consciousness” and “group mind” are other ways of describing aspects of field consciousness.
Like the paranormal nature of dreams, field consciousness is not a new idea. The concept of an underlying unity of all things is part of our most ancient mystical philosophies. In quantum mechanics the universe is held together by fields of probabilities that do not exist in space and time, but keep all things interconnected in such a way that a change in one place instantly affects another place without any exchange of energy. Thus, the consciousness of a group can affect physical matter, even at a distance.
The Maharishi MaheshYogi, the founder of Transcendental Meditation, was among the first to demonstrate this idea to a modern audience. In the 1980s his people tested his hypothesis that if a sufficient number of people did TM at the same time, group consciousness would be raised to a higher level and there would be a decrease in crime, accidents, medical emergencies, armed conflict and other problems. TM researchers say they have replicated results affirming this hypothesis in at least 42 studies. Sociologists, however, criticize the results, saying that variables are too difficult to control.
Meanwhile, scientific evidence is now pointing to the existence of a global mind. The Global Consciousness Project (GCP), an international effort launched in 1998, collects random events generator (REG) data from 40 continuously running monitors around the world. The random events generators (also sometimes referred to as random numbers generators) produce a steady stream of unpredictable bits — sort of like electronic coin-flipping. The resulting data is measured against chance.
The working premise of GCP is that if a sufficient number of individual consciousnesses combine, they can produce a global presence. If so, then the REG data will deviate from expected random behavior. Their results do show that group consciousness seems to produce nonlocal fields. For example, major events that engage the attention of millions of people around the world such as the death and funeral of Princess Diana, the Olympics, and even the trial of O.J. Simpson produced unusual data.
According to the GCP, science hasn’t yet proved the existence of a global mind; however, data collected after the terrorist disasters showed that “if there is such a thing as a global consciousness…it was moved by the events of September 11, 2001.”
Interestingly, the shift in the REG data began before the attacks. This phenomenon has been observed in some other cases, as well. The GCP, however, cautions that not enough is known about this effect in order to use the data for such practical applications as early warnings.
I think this pre-event coherence of global mind also manifests in mass precognitive dreams and other premonitions, as individual consciousnesses tune in to forces in motion.
A new worldview
It’s only a matter of time before science acknowledges what mysticism has long known: there is a global mind, and we all participate in it through our thoughts, intent, will, words, actions and dreams. Dean Radin, one of the leading scientists participating in the GCP, as well as similar research at Princeton University, states in his book The Conscious Universe:
“These studies… suggest that a previously unsuspected cause of global violence and aggression may literally be the chaotic, malevolent thoughts of large numbers of people around the world. For example, the idea of a jihad, a holy war against infidels, which is fervently maintained by millions throughout the world, may not only directly (e.g., through terrorist acts) but also indirectly disrupt the social order around the world. By contrast, peaceful protests such as those embodied by Gandhi and Martin Luther King, which fostered noble intentions among groups, may have been successful not only for psychological reasons, but also for physical reasons that we are only now beginning to glimpse.â€
If an event can affect global mind, then global mind can affect events. The GCP and other studies have significant ramifications for the responsibility each of us has about the state of our consciousness. Tomorrow’s world is the direct result of today’s consciousness. We see and receive what we expect. Individual thoughts collect in pools and take on momentum. Our dreams reveal the likely outcomes of the forces in motion.
What’s the real lesson?
Our precognitions may be hard to recognize and often not entirely on target because there is too much chaos and dissonance on the global mind level.
Instead of trying to use precognition to identify and react to early warnings which may or may not be on target we should shift our attention to a pro-active use of global consciousness. If each person truly practiced the moral precepts of the world’s religions, and engaged in daily prayer and meditation, we would create a more enlightened global mind that would have no room for fear, hate and violence.
Increasing global mind unity also might significantly change our ability to accurately anticipate the future, through premonitions, precognitive dreams and intuition.
The experiments of the GCP are made possible largely because global media especially television can connect people around the planet quickly and simultaneously. High tech will continue to build global mind field consciousness. It’s happening and it’s up to each of us whether global mind will be used for good or for ill.
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