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Intuition, premonition, and precognition are knowings about the future.

Intuition is a type of sixth sense that is integrated with our five sense awareness system and can be developed through mindfulness, attention, and intention.  Intuition is more about a now experience.  Intuition is an instinctive knowing, and provides guidance in decision-making and direction.

Premonition and precognition are a type of future knowledge either through sense awareness or actual information or cognition of a future event.  These are generally urgent and or negative, a feeling or knowing that something bad is going to happen.

I have written previously about intuition in my blog called instinctive knowing. I think of intuition as an instinctive knowing that gets our attention in subtle and nagging or persistent ways, pulling us back to situations to take action to avoid something that is a problem or needs our attention.

I have had several premonition experiences.

The first event was about 11 days before the 2001 September 11 attack on the World Trade Center, Pentagon, and attempted attack on the White House.  It was a profoundly painful and shocking experience, in which I was thrown out of my bed  from a deep sleep, by some unexplainable energy.  I received a blow to my left eye, requiring 14 stitches, and a head injury with memory loss for several months.

The second event occurred near the death of my dear friend.  I experienced this as her energy unlinking from my energy.  It was an intense pulling almost tearing or ripping from my energy field.  I fell to the ground and could not get up for several minutes.  It was quite terrifying as I was not sure of what was happening to me. The disorientation lasted about 30 minutes.  I had been providing energetic healing to my friend over the course of her illness for a year and a half.  I later discerned that this was the time that she actually died.  I was not with her, nor did I know that she had died at the time I experienced the event.  I learned of her passing about a week later, when I was informed by one of her family members of her memorial service.

A third event occurred about 13 days before the death of my father; I perceived it as his energy unlinking from mine.  I had been caring for him over the last 6 months of his disease.  I perceived this as the time wherein his spirit or soul had made the decision to leave the planet.  I was with him when he died about 2 weeks later.

The most recent event occurred several days before the recent assassination attempt of the Arizona Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords.  This was less painful than the previous three events, but lasted for a great deal longer.  It was intensely uncomfortable for 30 minutes but was disorienting and problematic for several hours.  Because of my earlier experiences I thought it might be indicative of something happening to someone close to me.  I called all my family members and all were ok.  Two days later the assassination event occurred.

In all events I felt an intense premonition with physical repercussions however I did not have a precognition of the events per se.  I was able to intuit the connection between the events and my friend’s and father’s deaths, but only made a guess that the other two events were related to the serious tragedies that followed.  A very intense dream predated the event related to the 9/11 attack and the assassination event.  These dreams held many archetypal images of evil which were uncommon in my typical dream processes.

My last three premonition events share a very specific physical experience that occurs directly in my brain and perceptual field.  It is as if part of my brain is not under my control, akin to how a muscle feels when it has fallen asleep and is beginning to get blood back to it – heavy, fuzzy and outside normal control. It is difficult to describe the feeling, but it has a quality of an intense dizziness, where I feel greatly disoriented, unable to stand up and I experience my head being heavy and pulled to the ground.  There is no precipitating event to explain the phenomenon.  It lasts from several minutes to several hours; my pulse and blood pressure are normal for me.

I have had other events where I felt that someone I love or care for was in a dangerous situation.  The most recent this past summer.  In each of these events I had an extremely uncomfortable feeling, almost irritating from a physical perspective of being bothered and worried.  This to me is more of an instinctive knowing or intuition and is usually related to a situation where I can make a change by paying attention or by being available to the person about whom I am worried.

Developing intuition through paying attention to your sensory awareness system and developing your mindfulness so that you can allow your perceptions to assist you in mediating between figure and ground are useful when being faced with premonitional experiences.

It is possible to utilize intuitive information to make changes in direction in your life course or to intervene in some situations.  I have not been able to effect any change as a result of my premonitional  experiences.  Through some precognitive dreams I have been able to initiate a course change for myself and others, and so have been able to utilize these in a positive growth-promoting way.

The idea of having a premonition of a negative event but not being able to effect any change as a result of this, is somewhat frustrating and disorienting.

I perceive that there are levels of possible futures, related to the way in which time and space unfold.  Many circumstances together create an event and as a result what outcome will be is part of a specific equation of a number of factors and actions.  Thus the theory of free will in many spiritual traditions.

However, a number of divinatory systems and individuals who perceive they have access to future information seem to see a picture of what is to come.  Events are set into place that once followed to their natural course result in specific event; any change in a person’s actions could bring about a different outcome.  Astrology, Tarot readings, the I Ching, and other divinatory systems check specific charts and meanings and many are based in mathematical equations.  However, there isn’t always agreement.

These premonitions may be a type of intuition from a collective unconscious archetypal energy perspective.  So that when there is a stronger chance of something happening, then those who are sensitive to this energy receive the information.

J. W. Dunne, a British aeronautics engineer, undertook the first systematic study of precognition in the early twentieth century. In 1927, he published the classic An Experiment with Time, which contained his findings and theories. Dunne’s study was based on his personal precognitive dreams, which involved both trivial incidents in his own life and major news events appearing in the press the day after the dream. When first realizing that he was seeing the future in his dreams, Dunne worried that he was “a freak.” His worries soon eased when discovering that precognitive dreams are common; he concluded, that many people have them without realizing it, perhaps because the do not recall the details or fail to properly interpret the dream symbols. Dunne’s Theory of Serial Time proposes that time exists in layers on dimensions, each of which may be viewed in different perspectives from different layers.

Dunne concluded with his Experiment With Time, that time was best observed as an “eternal now”, from The power of premonitions: How knowing the future can shape our lives, by Larry Dossey.

What is interesting about this is the concept that where we have the power to change is in the now.   What we are experiencing is always in the now, so when we have a premonition of the future the action we take now may actually have an effect on the future now.

Practicing meditation and mindfulness may open-you-up to increased information to guide your actions now, and effect outcomes in your future now.   Pretty cool side effect of increasing your centeredness, and relaxed, neutral state of being.

See you tomorrow.

Beth