Reviewed by Nemo C. Mörck
Gary Lachman is an author and has written a number of interesting books. He has previously written about people such as Madame Blavatsky, Aleister Crowley, C. G. Jung, and Emanuel Swedenborg. Dreaming Ahead of Time is one of his most recent books. It is of some interest to parapsychologists since it concerns precognitive dreams and synchronicity – rather provocative phenomena for different reasons. The former makes one wonder whether the future is already determined and if the future can affect the present (retrocausality). Precognitive experiences seem deeply perplexing even if one has not tried to figure out how they might actually come about. Synchronicities, meaningful coincidences, are frustrating for other reasons – what is the point of them? Do they occur naturally or are we or some outside agency involved? Some would argue that, although these experiences are common, this kind of questions are unwarranted since it has not been proven that there is something truly paranormal to explain.
I gather that people that have had precognitive dreams tend to find the sceptics’ attempts to explain the phenomena utterly unconvincing. A friend of mine once related that she had dreamt that her dog stole a sandwich from a table and the same day it really did. A sceptic would argue that this was bound to happen at some point and that unlikely coincidences are bound to occur now and then. However, as the number of experiences start to stack up for one person the normal explanations gradually start to seem less and less convincing.
Lachman has kept journals of his dreams since the 1980s and relates several. After having read the classic An Experiment with Time, by J. W. Dunne, he started to notice that he also had precognitive dreams. Lachman refers to Dunne a number of times, and has also read Dunne’s much less known Intrusions, published after his death. I do not envy writers that attempt to explain Dunne’s Serialism, but Lachman does not shy away from the challenge.
Lachman notes that most of his own precognitive experiences concerns events that will occur shortly after the dream. However, the precognitive dream that he finds most convincing is one that he recorded in 1990. It seemed to relate to a movie that he saw, years later, in 1994. To me this just highlights how little we understand about precognitive dreams. Lachman speculates about why that movie might have been of interest to his unconscious. However, I come to think about another story that Lachman relates. Apparently, Charles Dickens once had a precognitive dream about a woman, ‘Miss Napier’, that he later met in passing. Dickens got annoyed. Why had he had a precognitive dream about her – she had no impact on his life.
Parapsychologists may be disappointed by finding that Lachman refers to Hans Eysenck as a ”critic of parapsychology” (p. 97), the Maimonides Dream Laboratory is mentioned just once, in passing, and the research on precognitive dreams directed by Caroline Watt is not mentioned (see Watt, 2015). However, I think that the book’s value comes from the fact that Lachman cites literature that parapsychologists are aware of, but not too familiar with. Among others, he cites Stan Gooch (largely ignored by parapsychologists), C. G. Jung, Arthur Koestler, T. C. Lethbridge, J. B. Priestley, and Colin Wilson.
Lachman reminds me of Wilson, having read widely and being eager to share what he has learned. At times I almost forgot that I was reading a book about precognitive dreams and synchronicity. Lachman notes: “It seems that talking about coincidences, or synchronicities, attracts them, so if you start collecting them, you will soon have quite a few on your hands” (p. 172). Naturally, he also provides several examples of synchronicities. Unfortunately, after having read his book synchronicities and precognitive dreams remain about as mysterious as they were before, but this is certainly no fault of the author!
Reference
Watt, C. (2015). In the eye of the beholder? An investigation into precognitive dreaming. Final Report