Prophetic dreams: signs, coincidence or something else?

What people mean by a prophetic dream

Almost everyone has had the eerie experience: you dream of a friend you have not seen in years, and the next day they call. You dream of a car accident, and a week later someone you know has a minor crash. A dream seems to have known something before you did. People call these prophetic, precognitive or premonition dreams, and they have been reported in every culture and every century.

The term covers several different things. Some prophetic dreams are about the dreamer's own life, a pregnancy, a new job, a breakup. Some are warnings about danger. In religious traditions, prophetic dreams are messages from God, sometimes about one person and sometimes about a whole people. It helps to tell these apart, because they invite very different responses.

Prophetic dreams in the Bible and other faiths

Dreams carry divine messages throughout the Bible. Jacob dreams of a ladder reaching to heaven. Joseph dreams of his brothers' sheaves bowing to his, and later reads Pharaoh's dreams of seven fat and seven thin cows as seven years of plenty followed by seven years of famine. Daniel interprets Nebuchadnezzar's dream of a great statue. In the Gospel of Matthew, Joseph is warned in a dream to take Mary and the child to Egypt.

Islamic tradition holds that a true dream, a ru'ya, can come from God, and distinguishes it from troubling dreams and from the ordinary chatter of the self. Many Indigenous traditions, ancient Greek temple practices and folk beliefs around the world also treat certain dreams as guidance from beyond. What these traditions share is caution: they teach that most dreams are not prophetic, and that discerning which ones are takes wisdom, prayer or a trusted interpreter.

Why some dreams about the future seem to come true

Science has not found reliable evidence that dreams can predict events, and attempts to test precognitive dreams in controlled experiments have not produced results that hold up. That does not make the experience imaginary. There are good explanations for why dreams about the future sometimes seem to hit.

Dreamed that something bad will happen?

If you woke from a dream of someone dying, a crash or a disaster and cannot shake the fear, start here: these are some of the most common dreams people have, and they almost always reflect fear and love, not foresight. A dream that a parent dies often comes when you are worried about them, or when your relationship with them is changing. Our guides to dreams of someone dying and a car crash explain what they usually mean.

If the dream points at something you can sensibly check, check it: call the person, get the brakes looked at, book the appointment you have been putting off. That is not superstition. It is listening to the part of you that noticed something. Then let the dream go. Living in fear of a dream does more harm than the dream ever could.

How to test your own prophetic dreams

If you believe some of your dreams foretell things, the only honest way to find out is to keep records.

1. 1.Write every dream down on waking, with the date, before anything happens. A dream journal is ideal.
2. 2.Mark the ones that feel prophetic at the time, not afterward.
3. 3.Note specific details: names, places, numbers, times.
4. 4.Check back regularly and count the misses as well as the hits.
5. 5.Notice whether the hits are about things you were already worried about.

A spiritual reading of prophetic dreams

If you hold a faith in which God or spirit can speak through dreams, you do not have to give that up to read your dreams wisely. Many spiritual teachers suggest the same tests: a true message brings peace and clarity rather than panic, is consistent with your deepest values, and invites you to act with love. A dream that leaves you terrified and urges you to do something harmful or rash is better read as fear speaking. For more, see our guide to the spiritual meaning of dreams.

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