I dream that I am in a car with my family driving north towards the coast. We are driving through steep hills and winding roads. Suddenly, the car goes out of control and crashes into the side of a mountain. The back door flies open and my sister and I are thrown out of the car with no harm. My parents remain inside the car and within moments they are killed.

On the way to the coast, his relatives collided head on with a truck and the parents died immediately. Their son and daughter, however, survived the horrible car accident.

Robert was not aware that his dream was precognitive, but he did tell his dreamworker that the dream had an unusual sense to it and disturbed him. He did not make a connection between his relatives' trip to the coast and his dream until after the accident.

Once a person recognizes a precognitive dream that is tragic in nature, it may sometimes be possible to prevent the event from occurring in waking life. Precognitive dreams can be literal or metaphorical. A plane crash may simply be a metaphor for a sudden change, or a breakthrough into a major problem or issue. To prevent the events from an ominous precognitive dream from really occurring, it is important to study the dream very carefully from every possible perspective. In addition, it is extremely important to examine the possible events in one's waking life that might correspond to the dream content.

If Robert had sensed that his dream was precognitive, then he could have shared the content of his dream and his concern with his relatives before they embarked on their trip. In other words, if the driver had been aware of a possible car accident, he might have driven more defensively or he may have decided to take a different route.

SOURCE: Extraordinary Dreams and How to Work with Them by Stanley Krippner, Fariba Bogzaran and André Percia de Carvalho, 2002, p.124.

EDITOR'S NOTE

Krippner's advice is inconsistent. "Once a person recognizes a precognitive dream..." but how? Like Robert, we can't be sure till after the predicted event, when it's too late to "prevent the event from occurring in waking life." And any dream can be "literal or metaphorical." How does the dreamer know? Robert felt "the dream had an unusual sense to it and disturbed him." You can learn to trust your sense that some dreams aren't mulling over inner issues, but possible external warnings. But it's fallible--like all dream interpretation.

Still, Sally Rhine-Feather's book The Gift explored statisically what happens when dreamers do act on warnings that feel predictive. Two-thirds of the time, the danger was either mitigated or totally avoided. Tentative, flawed, intuitive action still paid off--on average. So rather than agonize "Is this a metaphor? What feelings could the dream symbolize?" I (like Ann Faraday half a century ago) default first to "Is this literal? Do I want to take a road trip to the coast after dreaming this?"

Krippner claims a fatal crash can be an image of a positive breakthrough. But is it likely to? On average, dreams of disaster mean... dreams of disaster. Straining for metaphor is only justified after you've eliminated literalism--and here, a coastal road trip was planned. Yes, most nightmares do just express feelings; dreams exaggerate and symbolize. But defaulting to symbolism, mistaking literal warnings for psychological metaphors, can get you killed.

--Chris Wayan

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