Difficult question
Posted by Gremlin on 12 February 1999 at 16:16:53:
In Reply to: Re: I already answered that. posted by Utahraptor on 12 February 1999 at 08:30:49:
: So if you dream soemhtign ahppens, and it does, but not exactlyas you dreamt it 9Most main poitns coem true), do you consider that being psychic, albeit slightly?
In a word: no. Following a few factors...
If someone could dream of a future event, fully document it prior to its proper chronological occurrence, and do it all over with a few more events, I'd accept that they were oneirokinetic, which isn't precisely psychic, but could be called psychokinetic. If it were just one event, however precisely documented, there would be a margin for error, since, though the statistical probability of utterly predicting a complex future event is low it's not impossible. By complex, I mean the event would have to have a number of unusual factors. Simply dreaming that you'd wake up when the alarm went off isn't a psychokinetic feat. Dreaming that X happens at noon on 13th July 2004 because Y reacted against Z, and having it happen could be a psychokinetic event, but could also be a matter of chance. A fair number might be ten complete predictions. The precognitive documentation would also have to be handled correctly. Annouce the experiment in advance, publish the documetation in a semipublic place [if it were fully public, it could become a self-fulfilling prophesy] and make sure there's nothing up their sleeves. That sort of thing. If it could be proved that the events were successfully predicted repetitively, and if the proof could be proved to have not been tampered with, the theory that a homosapien can oneironautically travel into the future and return to the present might well become a proven fact.
--Gremlin