By KEN KORCZAK
A dream that shows future events is a natural ability that anyone can easily nurture and program to experience way more often
If you have ever wanted to experience a precognitive dream, I have some surprising news for you. You are experiencing this natural human ability right now every night, whether you know it or not.
If you believe you have never had a precognitive dream, or that you do not dream at all, or can’t remember your dreams, don’t worry. I’m going to fix this for you in this article.
Before I go further, let me define what a precognitive dream is for those who may not be familiar with this phenomenon.
A precognitive dream is simply a dream in which you experience or foresee a future event. This can be something that happens in your personal life, or it may be a major national or world news event. It’s a way to “see the future” much as a psychic might do, except this “vision of the future” leverages the dream environment.
Now, here is a vital aspect of precognitive dreaming I want you to be aware of:
The vast majority of your precognitive dreams will be of minor, mostly mundane, or seemingly insignificant future happenings in your life.
That latter fact is so important, I suggest you “stick a pin in it” or “underline it” because it will help you take command of your own ability to foster more precognitive dreams. This, in turn, will enable you to grow your ability to “trigger” precognitive dreams that may display more significant events more often.
So, before I go further, I’ll give you an example of a mundane type of precognitive dream I experience just about every night.
DREAM EXAMPLE 1
A couple of weeks ago, I awoke recalling a dream in which I was walking through a public place that was sort of a combination of a farmer’s market and a flea market. I was strolling through a large, spacious indoor auditorium-type venue hosting the event.
There were lots of people milling about, and the vibe among the crowds was light-hearted and happy. People were just out enjoying the event, shopping for trinkets and buying specialty foods, such as one table I noticed selling wonderful loaves of artisan-baked breads.
Suddenly, among the throngs of people, I noticed a woman who was accompanying four charming little girls of ages from about 8 to 12 years. As they walked toward me from the opposite direction, they suddenly seemed to recognize me, eliciting bright, beaming smiles from them all. Although they were strangers to me, they somehow knew who I was — as if I was their favorite celebrity or movie star, or rock star, or something (I am none of these, of course — even in the Dream World!).
Anyway, the girls stopped in their tracks and continued to stare at me with googly eyes. Presently, their mother approached me and said:
“Ken, would you kindly say hello to my four girls. Just say “hi” and maybe shake their hands. It would mean the world to them!”
This I did. The adorable little girls — adorned in what looked like their Sunday best dresses of adorable trim — lined up and stood at attention as I greeted each one, shook their hands, and said “hello!”
It was typical dream strangeness. Each little girl acted as if they had just received a favorite Christmas present at my greeting! After acknowledging each one, the mother thanked me and then — to my surprise —she embraced me with a warm hug. Then they all walked on, and I continued my way through the market.
That is where the dream ended.
WHAT MY DREAM FORETOLD
A couple of days after this dream, I went to a scheduled doctor’s appointment about an hour’s drive from my home. At the clinic, I was required to submit a routine blood panel. The phlebotomist drew four vials of blood from my arm. Later, after consulting with my doctor and reviewing the results, I made the hour-long drive back home.
Because I had been required to fast for 24 hours before my blood test, I began to feel light-headed on the long drive home. Thus, I decided to take a detour and visit an “old school” country grocery store I know about — it’s in an out-of-the-way small town of about 300 people here in my remote, sparsely populated region of far-northern Minnesota. I love this little store because it’s like something out of the 1930s or ’40s, although I don’t get there often.
Anyway, I planned to purchase a can of V8 vegetable juice to bolster my blood sugar. I parked in front of the tiny mom-and-pop store and walked in — and lo! Right inside the door, I encountered four girls of ages about 8 to 12, along with their mother, the proprietor of the store!
Yes! It was extremely similar to my dream of about two nights ago.
True, these youngsters didn’t look exactly like the girls in my dream — but close enough! All four girls smiled broadly and said hello. After I cheerfully returned their greeting, I walked to the back of the store and found a can of V8.
I returned to the checkout counter, and I was bemused to see that one of the girls, about 8 years old, was working the till. Her mom was standing behind her. It turns out she was using this as a “teaching moment” — an opportunity for her daughter to learn to count change.
The V8 was $1.29. I gave the little girl a $5 bill. Her enjoyment was palpable as she opened the till and fished out coins and bills and carefully counted them back to me. She obviously loved mastering the basic arithmetic of calculating change. Her mom looked on proudly and said: “Good job!”
All three of her sisters looked on with delight. They beamed at me, as if to say: “Isn’t our little sister smart!” Before I walked out the door, I thanked the little 8-year-old and added: “You sure are smart!”
Then, I was further impressed when one of the four little girls said, “Thanks for stopping by! Please come again, sir!” Wow! I was so charmed. It made me feel on top of the world! I’m sure that courteous send-off had been carefully coached by their mother, who was doing a fine job of shaping her brood of future entrepreneurs!
DIFFERENT, YET THE SAME
Notice that my precognitive dream was not an exact rendering of the real-life incident it foretold. For example, the dream version location was a crowded market in an urban setting. The girls and their mom looked different and were dressed casually compared with the formal attire of the dream girls. The mom didn’t offer me a hug at the country store like she did in the dream world— and so forth.
And yet, I think you will agree that the essence of the dream event and the real event were nearly identical. For example, in both cases, there were four girls and a mom. The little girls were glad to see me and to interact with me. The mom appreciated my kind interaction with them — and so forth. The most important elements — especially the “overall vibe” — of the dream vis-à-vis the real-life scenarios were identical.
Our dreaming “intellects” almost always interpret various aspects of events differently. Sometimes these differences are minor, and other times the discrepancies may be larger or more significant. Because of this, too many people dismiss some of their dreams as precognitive because they are not the same in every detail.
Notice how this precognitive dream was not something of “cosmic importance” in my life. It was just an ordinary event. From my experience, some 98.9% of my predictive dreams are of normal, mundane aspects of daily life. Thus, it’s easy to brush it all off and ignore what are, in reality, precognitive dreams.
On rare occasions, a precognitive dream does seem to be “a warning” or an “heads-up” on something that could have serious consequences. Here is an example from my dream file:
DREAM EXAMPLE 2: CHECK YOUR BRAKES!
One night, I was dreaming of driving along a county highway in my old car — a 24-year-old Buick. Even though I am obviously in my familiar Minnesota countryside, in my dream, I see not a deer but a ZEBRA ! in the ditch on the left side of the road, rather than the usual deer that routinely present themselves as road hazards in my woodsy region.
The zebra is getting ready to dash across the highway, so I apply my brakes to let it sprint over the road. To my dismay, when I press down on the brake pedal, I have no brakes at all!
Now the zebra is right in the middle of the road, and I’m careening uncontrollably toward a collision! I desperately stomp on the brakes with no effect — so I turn the steering wheel to the right, sending my car barreling into the ditch! I wake up just before I smash into a large tree!
WHAT THE DREAM FORETOLD
Upon awakening, I thought about the dream, and I convinced myself that it was a symbolic illustration of a writing project I was working on at the time for a client in the African nation of Zambia. The jarring imagery of a zebra rather than a deer tipped me off to an African connection. It seemed obvious to me.
In short, I was writing a white paper about a new kind of agricultural marketing strategy the company was developing that leveraged a new kind of food distribution app. My report would be used as part of the company’s pitch for investment capital.
In writing the paper, I uncovered what I believed was a major deficiency in their strategy. My clients had failed (in my view) to account for certain outcomes that I reasoned would result in significant future difficulties — I thought they were moving ahead without recognizing some critical communications issues that could cause confusion and make their plan drift “out of control.”
Thus, I felt my dream was advising me to tell my client to “put on the brakes” on a certain “Strategy X” or risk losing control of several possible contingencies or outcomes.
In other words, this was not a precognitive dream, but a dream that was providing me with an insight to help me do a better job for my client. I let it go as that. But then — about a week later — I was again driving along in my car. When I applied the brakes, I noticed that characteristic “grinding sound” that clearly indicated that I needed new brake pads!
So, the dream was clearly a literal precognitive warning that my brakes were about to fail, even though I noticed nothing wrong with my car at the time of the dream! In this case, my precognitive dream was trying to warn me: “Ken, take your car in for a routine maintenance check-up!”
The point is, many times we have precognitive dreams, but we misinterpret them and discount them as precognitive. At other times, we have a learned tendency to dismiss high-quality precognitive dreams as “just another random dream,” merely due to lack of awareness.
START BY BOLSTERING YOUR DREAM ACTIVITY
As I said, everyone dreams every night, whether they remember their dreams or not. If you believe that you don’t dream, then you are mistaken. Sleep research science tells us that, not only do we all dream every night, but that dreaming is essential for proper brain function.
Studies have been conducted in which volunteer subjects agree to let researchers disrupt their dreams for several nights in a row. For example, a technician wakes a person every time an EEG or sensors placed on the eyes indicate that the brain has entered the REM state, or Rapid Eye Movement. The onset of the REM state is when dreams commence.
When dreams are curtailed like this, a host of behavioral problems soon manifest in the subjects. Do it long enough, and serious mental illness –even psychosis — can result.
Suffice it to say that you are dreaming every night, but you may believe you don’t dream simply because you are not remembering them. The good news is that there is a simple way for anyone to start remembering more of their dreams, and to also significantly increase both the number and vividness of those dreams.
That method is to keep a dream journal. If you keep a notebook by your bed and endeavor to write down your dreams in the morning — or even as you awaken throughout the night — the result will be a huge increase in the number of dreams you experience.
In addition to writing down your dreams, I strongly recommend that you endeavor to draw pictures or make sketches inspired by the things you see in your dreams. Drawing pictures activates an additional area of your creative brain function, and this will have a dramatically powerful effect on your dream experiences. The picture below is an example from a sketch and writing from my own dream journal.

Again, you will not only remember more dreams, but dreaming journaling will make them much more vivid, textured, involved, interesting and meaningful. So, a key to developing the ability to have more precognitive dreams is to dream more, and to dream more, dreaming journaling will make it happen. I have never known anyone for whom this method failed to work.
Once you have more dreams to work with, you can start scanning them for incidents of precognition. My final tip for today to foster more precognitive dreams is:
PAY ATTENTION!
Buddhist monk Thích Nhất Hạnh is credited with popularizing a practice he called “Mindfulness,” even though this is not a new concept. Mindfulness is an updated English word for an ancient practice called “Sati.” This word is taken from Pali, a language closely related to Sanskrit.
The literal translation of Sati is “memory, recollection, or the capacity to remember.” However, in the Buddhist tradition, and the way Thích Nhất Hạnh suggested we understand it, is that Sati (Mindfulness) is maintaining a constant nonjudgmental awareness of what is happening in every present moment of your day.
It’s a simple, elegant concept. All that is required is that you observe what is happening in your experience “right now,” rather than being always lost in thoughts, such as daydreaming, or fretting about something that happened in the past, or worrying about something that may happen in the future.
It’s best to always be in a mode where you are simply being aware of what is happening right now. I could go on about this in greater detail, but I’ll leave it there for now.
However, the reason I bring Mindfulness into my discussion here is — and I can tell you from experience — that cultivating mindful awareness throughout your day will dramatically increase your ability to tally more precognitive dream events in your daily experience.
Furthermore, the practice of Mindfulness will also help you “notice” and remember more dreams as well. What you experience in your dreams at night is inextricably interlinked with what you think about and experience during the day. When you are more alert to what is happening to you moment-by-moment in the day, you will naturally start doing the same in your dream life.
Dreaming and waking modes of consciousness are far more interconnected and mutually interactive than you might imagine. Indeed, one is a smooth continuation of the other and vice versa.
Even that troublesome Sigmund Freud described something he called “day residue” in dreams. This refers to fragments of information, events, thoughts, and feelings from the day that show up in your dreams, albeit usually in a slightly distorted way.
But when the opposite of day residue happens — when something you dreamed shows up in your daily life — guess what? That, of course, is a precognitive dream!
It’s interesting to note that skeptics readily accept and acknowledge Freud’s day residue concept but then nitpick and reject what is obviously a directly opposite vertex of day residue — a precognitive dream.
SOME FINAL THOUGHTS
Most people probably think of a precognitive dream in terms of it happening in the context of a stunning or historic event. For example, many thousands of people reported a precognitive dream foretelling the 911 terrorist attacks in the World Trade Center Twin Towers in 2001.
We also very often hear about a case where a person has an unusually vivid dream of a plane crash, and so they decide to skip a scheduled flight they have the next day. Then it turns out the plane does crash, and it seems obvious that a precognitive dream saved the dreamer’s life.
Certainly, these kinds of “major event precognitive dreams” manifest for thousands of people from time to time. But the point I want to drive home in this article is that the overwhelming majority of precognitive dreams will be of mundane, ordinary, everyday events. Sometimes they are really ridiculously trivial.
For example, the other night I had a dream in which I was struggling to open a jar of pickles. Sure enough, the next day I had a bear of a time trying to get a pickle jar to open!
The good thing about this, however, is that it indicates that we have precognitive dreams all the time — probably every day — from the very minor and tedious details of life to the powerfully significant happenings. It’s a natural mode of our life experience.
If we adopt a Mindfulness mode of living and get to the point where we are always, naturally and effortlessly in a state of always being aware and “cognizant” of what is happening in the present moment — whether sleeping or awake — then precognitive dreams become a natural part of our landscape, so to speak, and we can gain the benefit of getting a head-ups on what the future might have in store for us.
But it’s not really about “knowing” or “predicting” the future, and especially not dwelling upon the future. Rather, it is the realization that the past and future are enfolded into the present moment, allowing us to navigate our reality in a natural way that is more meaningful as well as beneficial in terms of being more utilitarian and practical.
JOIN ME ON BLUESKY: KEN-ON-BLUESKY
NOTE: For more stories on dreaming and lucid dreaming, please see: KEN-ON-MEDIUM