i believe it occurs because of small pieces of information you take into your subconcious during your waking hours. during sleep i think your brain
automatically tries to organise and give structure to that which you didnt have time to consciously process during the day and that this is the
substance of dreams.
for example, before ravenstar's dream she may have already caught a glimpse of the man who was in the fire just passing him in a hallway of the
hospital. if she knows the layout of the building she could subconsciously know who might be in danger were a fire to occur. and finally, she could
have seen somebody smoking in the hospital in an area where it was prohibited.
think of how many people and events you walk past everyday and don't take any notice of or simply don't have time to process, especially in such a
busy environment as a hostpital. but you see thousands of people, faces, objects and situations, then where in your mind does that image go once
you've chosen to focus your attention elsewhere? does it just leak outta you brain? i don't think so. an example of how this works would be how
familiar some people look but you don't recall ever meeting them before.
so, occasionally your dreams restructure the information from your subconcious in a way that is close to reality forming the perception of ESP, and in
a way it is a kind of extra sensory perception. it is similar to conscious perception/intuition/predictions but its little more than hit and miss,
nowhere near as effective to the average individual. i believe that it totally relates to your activities, experiences and interactions during waking
hours. thats why one day you'll dream about something that will occur in the future, or if you've been watching cartoons then pink bunny rabbits
might start falling out of the sun. and most often you won't remember you dreamt about a situation until it actually happens because the dreams
havent been realistic enough for you to rely on them in the past.
this all relates to why we need to sleep because it gives us a chance to process the immense amount of information that has slipped to the back of our
minds during our waking hours. i believe that REM is a tool that helps to create images, and allows us to experience the processing of the information
in the way we are most likely to make sense of it, in a very similar manner to our waking experience.
to me sleep still remains an enigma and i'm sure the questions i have will remain unanswered and these theories will remain unproven for some time(or
will be disproven). i am not suggesting that this is an explanation for what occurs during all ESP, remote viewing or astral projection, nor am i
trying to disprove such claims. i am simply offering an explanation as to why so many people have strange dream experiences of future
events/occurences. but with training in lucid dreaming and other such techniques i believe it is possible to advance the experience and the power of
our minds in and out of the dreaming state to become much more in tune with situations which may eventually transpire. but i get too much enjoyment
out of my dreams to start tampering.
BTW, for those interested in the different levels/states of consciousness aswell as the science and philosophy involved may i recommend richard
linklater's 'waking life' as being a most excellent movie!
[Edited on 19/3/2003 by bottledchips]