In the Lucid Dream Exchange #14, I included a series of lucid dreams from the night of Jan. 3-4, 00. In the last lucid dream, I experimented with precognitive lucid dreaming. I wrote: "After a while, I see my brother Donald, and wonder what should I do in this lucid dream. Recalling some precognitive lucid dreams of Donald, I step up and ask him, "When I hear from you next, what will be the first words out of your mouth to me?" He looks me square in the face and replies, "Robert, you." I make a note to remember that. Then once again, I have this incredible surge of sound energy within me - like an inner explosion that realigns my cells." (I wake up tingling and a bit shocked.)

Almost five weeks later, the phone rings and my wife answers. She calls out, "Robert, it's Donald." I recalled the lucid dream and took the phone and said "Hello" while I waited for his response. Donald replied, "Robert, you are finally there!" - confirming my earlier lucid dream which predicted the first two words "Robert, you".

In another lucid dream a few years ago, I asked two questions of the same brother; the questions were, "A year from now, will you be married?" and "A year from now, where will you be living?" The responses given to both lucid dream questions were correct one year later.

While I do not intend to presume the validity of lucid dream precognition from these small samples, it is certainly suggestive of the possibility of lucid dream precognition. Other lucid dreamers have reported instances of lucid dream precognition which were later confirmed, according to their self reports. And in normal dreaming, there are thousands of reported instances of precognitive dreaming (while in our private dream journals alone, many of us could show hundreds of examples).

The value of lucidity however is that the lucid dreamer can direct the content of the dream towards some specific goal or task, such as a pre-determined precognitive task, under accepted scientific protocol. In standard dreams, however, precognition happens randomly and could not be subject to testing as easily or with high degrees of certainty. Also, standard precognitive dreams often are not evident until after the event takes place or they have symbolic content that is open to interpretation. In the book Dreamtime and Dreamwork edited by Stanley Krippner, Jon Tolaas has an excellent chapter on the common pitfalls of many reported psychic dreams from a scientific standpoint. Nonetheless, I am certain that an experiment could be structured and conducted to determine the validity of lucid precognitive dreaming.

I remember the first time I tried to have a precognitive lucid dream in response to a friend's challenge. In the subsequent lucid dream, I remembered my goal but then thought "How am I suppose to precognate when I am cognating now (in this dream)?" When I woke, a bit upset at this mini-philosophical crisis, it was quickly evident that I needed to project the precognition outward as if from another source like a character or object in the dream.

As far back as 1986, Ed Kellogg Ph.D. wrote in the Dream Network Bulletin (vol. 4) about developing a Lucid Dream Incubation Technique (LDIT) to seek answers to questions. In a lucid dream, Ed decided that the answer to his important question would appear on a note when he turned over a silver bowl. The answer on the dream note was later confirmed. Ed writes "The essential principle behind this technique involves first finding a medium for the materialization of the answer (such as a bowl, or closed drawer) asking the question, waiting a few seconds, and then reading the materialized answer (after turning over the bowl, or opening the drawer, etc.) I have found it most important to pick an appropriate medium in each dream for the LDIT (response)...."

In my experience, there may be two types of lucid precognitive dreams: active and ambient. Active lucid precognitive dreams are ones in which the lucid dreamer actively engages the dream objects or characters for a precognitive response. By contrast, ambient lucid precognitive dreams are ones in which the lucid dream report contains a precognitive element that was not actively sought by the dreamer (this being more of a mixture of lucid dreaming and standard precognitive dreaming). An example of ambient lucid precognitive dreaming occurred to me in a dream in which I was being chased by gangsters in a car in my hometown. When I passed 17th and Plum, I turned behind the Vickers gas station and became lucid when I saw a car wash there, because in waking physical reality, there was no car wash there - at least at that time! Probably five years later, a car wash was built in that exact same spot.

Obviously, evidence for lucid dream precognition calls into question many basic assumptions about the nature of time and space (basic assumptions that most physicists would invalidate, by the way) and the nature of the dream state.

What are your thoughts? I am curious about experiences of lucid dreamers who have experimented with precognitive lucid dreaming - positive and negative. Also, what would it take to prove lucid dream precognition to the scientific community? What test would be required to avoid the appellation of "lucky guess" or "pure coincidence"? I look forward to your experiences and comments. Dreambob@aol.com

Robert Waggoner is co-editor of the Lucid Dream Exchange and a long-time lucid dreamer.