Nov282009
Seeing the future in dreams
Filed under General by david brooks at 9:05 am
A couple of weeks ago I had a dream that included an editor who left the Telegraph about a decade ago. I don’t remember anything about the dream except that she was in the newsroom. The next morning I thought it was odd because I hadn’t thought about this editor for ages - no event or conversation at work had triggered her memory, that I could recall - and that was the end of it.
Then, on Wednesday, I looked up from my desk and there she was! She was visiting a relative in Massachusetts and decided to stop by her old stomping grounds for the first time in at least five or six years.
I know that “seeing the future” and precognition is bunk, but I admit that I was startled. No amount of logical explanations - about the inevitability of coincidence, or the myriad of weird dreams whose vague “predictions” don’t come true, etc. - could shake the creepy feeling that my dream had somehow told the future. This is just the sort of seemingly inexplicable event that turns people into unshakable believers. My skepticism began to waver …
I was saved by one small point: She had jet-black hair when I knew her and her hair was jet-black in the dream - but in reality it has become almost as jet-white* as Anderson Cooper’s. This was the hint I needed to hold onto the realization that my dream had repackaged the past rather than gazed into the future, and it’s also the sort of detail that believers never seem to mention.
It was a rare and marvelous coincidence, but nothing more.
Still, I must admit it was kind of creepy.
* I know that’s not a term, but I like it anyway
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