The amount of information transmitted in [psychic] dreams is generally much more profuse than that in intuitive experiences. Since dreams then bring more information, one might expect them to be more convincing. The opposite is true. Dream experiences only rarely carry strong conviction. Why should that be the case? Let us examine some and see what the situation is.

Of course, one can say that common sense alone would assign no credence to a dream of trivial matters. For example, one would not expect a dream like this one to be taken seriously:

A Colorado man, recuperating from an operation and spending some time with his grandmother in the country, dreamed one night that she came in from gathering eggs and showed him one three times as large as usual, and longer in proportion. He mentioned the dream at breakfast and they laughed at the oddities of dreams. But later that morning, as he says, "She came in with that crazy egg!"

EDITOR'S NOTE

I know the feeling. Psychic dreams aren't all grim warnings. They can be about anything striking. I've had predictive dreams of comedians in my toilet, satanic chickens, land-lobsters and a goddess stuck on the wall (yes, in one dream!)

But are we doomed to dismiss psychic dreams as silly? I think Rhine's wrong here. Ignorant people misinterpret dreams, psychic or not; dreamwork sharpens insight. I at least have learned to distinguish a surreal dream with a metaphorical point and a bizarre dream element that feels...external. Your recognition of ESP, like your sense of pitch or color, can improve. Perfect pitch? Maybe not. But you can up the odds you'll sense whether your dream egg is a fertility symbol or a future.

The interpretation of dreams improves with practice. But dreams, too, can get better at telling you whether they're about inner states, other people or things to come. They may be able to flag themselves as pyschic.

May? This is the World Dream Bank. So let's start a list: self-flagging dreams.

SOURCE: Hidden Channels of the Mind by Louisa E. Rhine, 1961, p.79. Account untitled, author's name witheld; title & byline added to aid searching & indexing.

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