If you are ever at all interested in mediums or those who claim to be clairvoyant, you’ll definitely come across these terms sooner or later.
Premonitions are one of the oldest recorded forms of paranormal experience. Many cultures and belief systems have a name for them like prophetic dreams, second sight, déjà vu or inner warnings. And while many tend to think of it as coincidence, pattern recognition, or anxiety, people continue to report these experiences with some intriguing detail.
From the reports I’ve come across, they tend to start where a person has a dream that feels different from their usual ones. They seem clearer, sharper and can have a strong emotional feeling. Or they have a sudden physical reaction: a chill, a tightening in the chest, an image flashing through the mind so real that it stays with them long after.
And then, days, weeks later or sometimes years later an event occurs that mirrors that impression.
Not always perfectly, not always dramatically, but enough for that the person to not be able to shake the sense that they had seen something ahead of time.
Now, as investigators, the challenge isn’t just to document the event — it’s to understand these predictions.
Are they symbolic?
Are they literal?
Are they the subconscious picking up on some sort of pattern before the conscious mind catches up?
Or is there some sort of intuition that sits outside of what we know as time.
Premonitions tend to be spontaneous too. You don’t often hear of people trying to summon them. They aren’t consciously reaching out and yet this information happens and sometimes when a person doesn’t want it to.
And if you’ve ever spoken with someone who had a premonition that came true, you’ll know that there can be a heaviness in their voice or sometimes a discomfort. Because these experiences rarely feel like “gifts”. Premonitions can feel like warnings.
Now predictions are the positive version of premonitions. These can be dreams of births, reunions, recoveries, meaningful moments that eventually end up happening in real life. They can also be about danger or loss, where a person becomes aware in a way that is trying to prepare them.
So how do we, as seasoned investigators, approach this?
First, with respect. People who come forward about premonitions are often afraid of being dismissed or ridiculed. We can help them feel comfortable and know that their experiences are taken seriously, where they feel safe to explore what happened.
Second, we document carefully. The details matter — timing, emotions, symbolism, and especially whether the person shared the premonition before the event occurred. That’s where patterns begin to emerge.
Third, we consider other reasons for the experience. Could the mind be picking up subtle cues, any type of symbolic dreams, or maybe it’s a possible theory of the unconscious mind going beyond our physical bodies. And sometimes, the experience doesn’t fit with a possible explanation straight away. And that’s okay. That’s where investigation begins, not ends.
One of the most interesting things about predictions and premonitions is that they can make us think about how maybe consciousness might not be as linear (like time). That somehow, we can tap into information that isn’t happening right now. If somehow through intuition or something we just haven’t discovered yet.
But there is one thing to remember. Premonitions mean a lot to the people who experience them. They can make a person look back (reflect), think forward (encourage preparedness), or even help someone feel like thy are a part of something more than life as we know it.
And for us, as investigators, they offer a chance to learn more about how we perceive information as humans.
So maybe the next time someone says, “I had a feeling,” or “I dreamt this before it happened,” pull up a chair and ask them more about it. It’s a fascinating subject to learn more about how the human mind works.
