Enjoy this excerpt from Dreaming of Your Future, written by Theresa Cheung. The book shows you how to harness your precognitive abilities while you sleep, which will give you a heads up for tomorrow.
Introduction
You are, always have been, and always will be a precognitive being.
You may not know it (yet), but it is a truth universally unacknowledged that precognition is a natural-born ability hidden deep within everyone, including you. Sixth sense is hardwired into your DNA. You already can sense what is way ahead of your time. You just haven’t been noticing it. This book will show you how your sleeping precognitive ability is always waiting for you to wake up to its visionary presence in your very own dream time. The overwhelming majority of precognitions occur in the nocturnal dream state. This doesn’t mean waking precognition isn’t possible. It most certainly is, and you’ll learn how you can sense your future with your eyes wide open too. But by far the swiftest, simplest, safest, and sweetest way to see your future first is in your dreams, a.k.a. your night vision.
It’s Your Dream Time
The mindfulness movement preaches that fulfilment can only be found by focusing all your attention on the present moment—the power of your now. Given the undeniable truth of this, you may wonder why I’m suggesting that you consider diverting some of your precious attention to what hasn’t happened yet in real time.
I’m suggesting it because the meaning of your life may well depend on it.
To reference Viktor E. Frankl, psychiatrist, Holocaust survivor, and multi-million-selling author of the enduring masterpiece of survival literature, Man’s Search for Meaning, the inability to see the future is linked to “dangerous giving up.” With “loss of belief in the future,” you risk losing your mental, physical, and spiritual “hold.”¹
Trusting in the hope of your tomorrow matters. It brings you meaning.
This may sound like a direct contradiction to the mindfulness mantra until you start to experience the life-changing power of conscious precognition for yourself. And when you do experience it, you realise that it doesn’t contradict being mindful at all. Rather, it complements and enhances it, because you understand how your future is always being created by your present.
This book will help you directly experience the life-enhancing power of precognition. Your direct personal experience is the game changer.
To paraphrase a quote commonly attributed to the ancient Chinese sage Confucius, what you hear, you forget, and what you see, you remember, but what you do, you understand. That’s why this book has been designed to be as practical as possible, offering things you can do immediately to help you not just see and believe in the future but also lovingly hold onto it. It will show you that your future is already alive and bringing infinite reassurance and meaning to your present. And although it is possible to glimpse your future ahead of time when you are awake, most typically your future will reveal itself to you first while you are sleeping.
Dreams Really Can Come True
You have likely experienced the elements of a nocturnal dream mysteriously playing out in your waking life a few days later so that you have that sensational moment of déjà rêvé, or a dream remembered (literally “already dreamed”). For instance, you dream about someone you have not heard from in years and then a day or so later you get a surprise text message from them. But despite the normality of déjà rêvé, it is only recently that scientists and psychologists stopped dismissing predictive night visions as random.
I was born into a family of dream-loving psychics and spiritualists and from an early age was encouraged to explore the futuristic potential of my dreams. My passion for dream power led to my career as a dream author, and for decades I have been writing best-selling dream titles informed by my own dreams and research and the countless dreams sent to me by my readers. I’m grounded in academia, having studied theology and English for my bachelor’s degree at King’s College, Cambridge University. But I’m not a scientist, and in my university days I swiftly discovered that precognitive dreamwork was considered unscientific. I gave up on the science of precognitive dreamwork being out there, but my belief in and passion for precognition never diminished.
You can imagine my elation when, about a decade ago, I discovered there was ongoing credible research into the very real possibility of dreams being predictive. There were visionary scientists willing to take an active interest in the precognitive dreams of people all over the world, which I have devoted my writing career to collating. These scientists were studying these dreams as the data they are, and I began to collaborate with them to create books, blogs, podcasts, and presentations. Forgive the pun (the dreaming mind loves puns, as you will learn later), but it was a dream come true! From that moment on, I have referred my readers not just to the future they can glimpse in their dreams and waking hunches but also to the science.
And the science is revealing that there is convincing statistical evidence to suggest that precognition—the ability to know the future before it happens—is real. It is an innate ability within us all, but one most of us have lost touch with and faith in.
Dreams foreshadowing the future, a.k.a. precognitive dreams, have been reported throughout time in every culture and belief system. Precognition can certainly happen when you are awake (and this book will explore that, too, and what you can do to increase the chances of it happening more often), but it is most likely to occur when you are deep in slumber. Indeed, I’m taking a giant leap of faith and proposing to you here, for the first time in my career as a dreamwork author, that every dream has (seriously overlooked) precognitive themes foreshadowing a potential future for you.
That is why the second, larger portion of this book is a directory of the most common dream threads and how to start interpreting them as premonitions. It draws on the latest science as well as my own precognitive dreams and those sent to me by my readers over the last three decades. It also encapsulates my decades of research into the very real possibility that the future can be glimpsed night after night, and time and time again, in our dreams.
I want this book to wake you up so that you can fall asleep and dream bigger. Like a vividly recalled precognitive dream, I want this book to surprise you in every possible way. In hindsight, I can see now that this is a book my future has always wanted me to write. I just needed to catch up with that future and believe in it.
Dream Directions
Since childhood, my dreams have repeatedly revealed glimpses of my future to me. I could write an entire book about those precognitive dreams, but I will restrict myself to the following two examples, as this book is hopelessly devoted to you. This is because by far the best way for you to understand the precognitive power of your dreams is not to read about the dreams of others, however precognitively accurate they may be, but to directly experience your own dream power. I am simply sharing these two personal stories because I believe they can help set the dream scene for you.
The first example happened many moons ago when I was just starting out in my writing career. I woke up one morning with the memory of the voice of my departed mother speaking loud and clear to me. In my dream, I was in a magical forest and unsure of which direction to take, and she told me to take the right path. I heard her say it in the dream. I did not ponder the meaning of the dream too deeply upon waking. I simply thought it meant “follow your heart,” as that is what my mother always told me to do when she was alive, and I really needed to be reminded. At the time, my heart was calling me towards a career in spiritual writing, but my pocketbook was calling me to return to school teaching.
That same day, I was driving towards a busy junction intending to turn left to get to a radio interview. But then I spontaneously recalled the clear and present directive from my dream to “turn right,” and without understanding why, I instinctively obeyed. Later, I discovered that if I had turned left as originally planned, I almost certainly would have been involved in a fatal pileup.
Had a precognitive dream warning saved my life?
Whether it did or not cannot be proved. But it proved to me that listening to my dreams could open the door to my future in a way I had not fully experienced before.
My dreams also protect and prepare me in less dramatic but always empowering ways. Indeed, the inception of this book was appropriately marked by a clear vision in a dream.
In the final days of 2023, although I didn’t realise it at the time, my inner precognitive revealed itself loud and clear. As is often the case, it surfaced first in my dreams and then in my intuitive waking response to a memory of those dreams.
Over the course of several nights, I had a series of vivid dreams featuring images of cherry blossoms, the national flower of Japan. I had recently been teaching precognitive dreamwork to an online Japanese spiritual growth company, so this was unsurprising. The deeper meanings behind sacred symbols of Japanese culture, such as the cherry blossom, had already found a welcoming home in my heart.
With New Year’s 2024 a few days away, I assumed that my dreaming mind was drawing upon the beautiful symbol of the cherry blossom to aptly remind me of the fragility of life and the poetic potential for rebirth and new beginnings that can be found in every ending.
As I believe my dreams are a richer, more alive, and more creative version of myself, living out the wisdom of my night vision and proactively incorporating elements of a dream into my waking life (if safe to do so) is something I instinctively do. Cherry blossoms featured strongly in my dreams, so I felt called from within to promote to my readers and podcast listeners the intriguing Japanese tradition of hatsuyume.
Hatsuyume
Hatsuyume is the Japanese term for the first dream recalled in the new year. In Japanese culture, it is traditionally believed that your hatsuyume is strikingly precognitive and can often foretell your luck in the ensuing year.
I felt that referencing hatsuyume would be an enchanting way to motivate my readers and listeners to make dream journaling a New Year’s resolution and to consider their dreams as potentially precognitive.
As January approached, I drew on the metaphor of hatsuyume to remind anyone willing to listen to me of the life-changing significance of writing down and reflecting on the meaning of their new year dreams.
Then, in the early days of 2024, Japan was uncharacteristically and for distressing reasons dominating the news cycle. The country was hit without warning by an earthquake and then an air disaster.
Given that I had so heavily promoted hatsuyume a few days before tragedy struck Japan, I found myself invited out of the blue to discuss hatsuyume and the meaning of new year dreams on major media channels.
This unexpected media spotlight encouraged more people than I could have dreamed of not only to learn something fascinating about Japanese culture and send loving prayers to Japan during a time of need, but also to reflect on the precognitive potential of the first dream they recalled in the new year.
There are some who would call all of this random, down to chance, but I believe otherwise. For me, it is a “meaningful coincidence,” or what Swiss psychiatrist and psychoanalyst Carl Jung, the godfather of psycho-psychic dream interpretation, termed synchronicity.²
I believe that precognition, whether it manifests personally, for others, or in global events, is synchronicity in disguise.
After what felt like a striking vote of confidence from my precognitive mind to write this book, the words flowed through me in the weeks and months that followed. I channelled without hesitation, doubt, or fear my lifetime of precognitive dream research into the pages that follow.
My aim throughout is to help you notice, decode, and fully experience the precognitive potential of your dreams and waking hunches for yourself, but most important of all, to empower you to practise simple precognition-boosting techniques that will—if applied daily—ignite your natural-born precognitive ability, when your eyes are shut tight and wide open.
What Lies Ahead?
To help you clearly see what lies ahead in this book, here’s a heads-up on what to expect.
Part 1 sets the timeless dream scene for you. You’ll be immediately introduced to your essential precognition-boosting action plan.
To get the most out of this book, you are strongly advised from the onset to start incorporating these simple, effective precognition-boosting actions into your daily routine. They are the essential foundation stones that will ignite all of your future visions. Don’t overthink. Just start doing them, and let the understanding and validation of them emerge in the days and weeks that follow. Aim to consciously do them every single day, so that over time they become unconscious and feel like a natural expression of who you are.
Following your precognition-boosting daily plan, which firmly lays down the solid foundations needed to process and progress to the time-travelling revelations that lie ahead, the rest of part 1 will jump right back into your future. You will dip into the scientific theories of time, discover the likely personality traits of visionaries, and explore optimal methods of precognitive dreamwork. You will also be encouraged to experiment with a series of supplemental exercises designed to enhance the precognition-boosting action plan set out in chapter 1.
All of the techniques shared here have just one clear vision: to dramatically increase your chances of accurately reading your future, in both your waking life and your dream life.
Part 2 is your ahead-of-time dream decoding directory, featuring the most common precognitive dreaming threads. For easy reference, there is also a handy index in the back of the book listing the most common symbols to appear within those dream threads. This dream symbol directory differs from other dream-decoding resources available both in book form and online because all of the themes and symbols are interpreted not just from a psychological, self-help perspective but also primarily precognitively.
Using this directory on a daily basis will help you effortlessly interpret the future-forward meanings of the most common dream threads—the dreams that research shows you are most likely to have. The word thread is used here deliberately, as every dream is like a thread connecting it to all of the other night visions used by your precognitive mind.
From now on, you can immediately refer to this precognitive dream directory when a dream memory surfaces upon waking, whether you have read part 1 or not. Just make sure you have started to incorporate into your daily routine the precognition-boosting action plan set out in chapter 1.
Repeatedly interpreting your dreams precognitively will absolutely kick-start, train, and strengthen your future vision. I foresee that after reading this book, applying the techniques suggested, and using the dream directory frequently, you will never lose sight of your lifesaving future again and the sense of meaning it can bring you. In your own dream time, you will prove to yourself time and again that your dreams offer you guidance, clarity, and purpose because they know your future direction long before you do.
You will never again say or think “it was just a dream,” because you will have fallen deeply in love with the infinite time-travelling potential of your very own dream time. Falling asleep will become the greatest adventure and waking up the greatest joy.
Ah, what future-forward dreams, what revelations and infinite eureka moments, are coming your way
Chapter 1
The issue with mainstreaming the reality that we all have precognitive ability is that we are so indoctrinated in the belief that time is linear. This book will dramatically challenge that belief and help you rethink your own perception of time in a radical new light.
The science of precognition, and trying to explain how the future can dip into the present, is a head crash, but the science matters and the coming chapters will not shy away from presenting some of it and key findings for you to reflect on. However, I’m fully aware as you begin reading this book that when it comes to processing the reality of precognition, the theory feels abstract—impractical and impersonal. There is nothing as convincing or real as your own direct personal experience, so from this moment on you are strongly urged to start gathering your own proof that you are a precognitive being and do all of the suggested exercises in this book.
Your future is ready and waiting for you to catch up with it. There’s no better time to begin dreaming your future-forward life than right now. Let’s dive right in.
Your Daily Precognition-Boosting Action Plan
Precognition, like life itself, can only be understood or recognised as the miracle it is backwards, or in hindsight. But it must be fully experienced and lived forwards. The more attention you pay in the present moment to your waking hunches and night visions and the future they are constantly pointing you towards, the more you will learn not just to “see” the future of your dreams but also to attract or manifest it.
Start incorporating the following precognition boosters into your life every single day. In time, perhaps even before you finish reading this book, these simple techniques, if you repeat them daily and consistently, might just prove to you once and for all that your dreams really can and do come true. Make sure you have this precognition action plan marked for handy reference, as it is going to be your future-forward catalyst from this moment on. Don’t worry if it feels like a lot to immediately take on board. Let me reassure you that all of the suggested actions are far easier to incorporate into your daily life than you might initially think. And even if you start to practise only one of the recommended actions, rest assured that you will still be seriously sharpening your future vision. Part 1 will revisit these techniques and offer more detailed insights and targeted ways to overcome common roadblocks to sticking with them in the long term, but for now you are encouraged without hesitation to leap right into the unknown.
Remember Your Nocturnal Dreams
The first rule of empowering your precognition is to recall and write down your dreams upon waking. The second rule is to recall and write down your dreams upon waking. If the only thing you take from this book is to remember and write down more of your dreams so that you can consider in hindsight how much they have foreshadowed a future event, situation, or mindset, your time travel adventure will have begun in earnest.
Recalling your dreams is crucial because most of your dreams contain precognitive themes, whether that be in showcasing potential future events, emotional reactions, situations, or mindsets. If you have ever experienced déjà rêvé (a dream remembered) on the day after a memorable dream or a few days, weeks, months, or even years later, and you had the foresight to write it down, then you already have your personal proof that you are a precognitive being. This is the perfect moment to stop dismissing this experience as random and to shine a light directly on it. The only way to do that is to make recalling and writing down your dreams a top priority every time you wake up from a sleep or nap.
Prove Yourself
Be sure to keep a written and date-stamped record every time you notice something in your waking life that you have experienced previously in a dream. This could be an object, event, situation, symbol, person, or location or even a feeling, reaction, or mindset. It’s your personal proof—the scientific data you need—that you really are a dream oracle. One thing I’ve learned from collaborating with scientists over the last few years is the importance of collecting evidence that can be verified. After-the-event anecdotes are compelling, but their impact is weakened if there is no proof that you recorded your precognition before it happened.
Note: Be mindful that your precognitive dreams showcase potential futures, so never fear recording them. If you don’t like the future foreshadowed in your dreams, remember that you have free will and can change that potential future by the choices you make in the present. Your future is out there, but it is also always hiding in your own hands and endlessly being created by you in the present. (More about dreams as powerful manifesting tools in chapter 4.)
Live Your Dream
As your dreaming mind transcends the laws of everyday life, logic, and reason, your dreams can show glimpses of your future. This entire book is designed to help you to fall in love with the precognitive (psychic) potential of your dreaming mind, encouraging you to consciously seek out déjà rêvé in your waking life so your future is constantly guided and inspired by the feelings of your own dreams and the flash forwards they are revealing to you every single night.
To reassure your dreaming mind that you really are taking it seriously as a precognitive asset and that you want to live its wisdom, upon waking when you recall a dream, choose a colour, object, sound, or any other safe/everyday symbol that featured in it. Then during the day, actively notice, seek out, or follow the associations you make with that symbol, as I did for my cherry blossom dreams. Create your own déjà rêvé synchronicity until you don’t have to anymore. For example, if you dreamt of a bicycle and own one, go for a ride on it. If you don’t own one, notice bicycles more during the day or search online for a video of one to see what associations it triggers in you. If you noticed the colour blue in your dream, wear something blue the next day or make sure the pen you write with has blue ink and so on. If you were walking up some stairs in your dream, then every time you climb stairs during the day, take your mind right back to your dream staircase.
This “live your dream” exercise is super helpful because your precognitive mind has got used to being ignored over the years. It needs reassurance not just through your intention to recall and record your dreams upon waking but also through your actions—just as you learn to trust others because of their actions and not their words. You need to show, not just tell, your dreaming mind that you are authentic, that you want to connect to it and live its wisdom in your waking life. Observe how actively connecting to your dream symbol and bringing it to life (consciously seeking out déjà rêvé) makes you feel, and what sacred/creative associations are triggered by that feeling of familiarity and interconnection between your inner and outer worlds.
Trust in You
Believing something is possible is key. Nothing illustrates this better than that watershed moment for human potential on 6 May 1954 when British runner Roger Bannister smashed the four-minute mile barrier. Knowing the four-minute mile was no longer impossible inspired other athletes to do the same. The key to their success was believing that what was previously deemed impossible was now possible. The power of collective belief is strong. It illustrates how interconnected we all are on an energetic level.
In much the same way, belief in your own precognitive potential is the single most important factor when it comes to precognitive experiences. Repeat this affirmation daily out loud or in your thoughts: “I am a precognitive being. I see the future I am attracting clearly in my dreams and in my waking hunches.” Your belief that precognition happens and is real will inspire others to smash through doubt and fear and awaken precognitively too. Your belief will change not just your life but the lives of others as well.
Meditate
Most of us have experienced a hunch that proved to be correct or had a dream that played out. This is normal and not exceptional, but if you are in the minority and feel you have never had a precognitive experience, a daily course of meditation could very well do the trick. Meditation can stimulate the parts of your brain associated with empathy, intuition, and creativity—all doors to unlocking your innate precognitive potential. That’s why just a few minutes of daily meditation (or, if you struggle with meditation, some calm alone time to simply clear your mind and notice your thoughts but not interact with them) is highly recommended for every budding precognitive.
Let Your Body Talk
Although precognition is most likely to occur in the dream state, it can happen when you are awake as well. When it does happen, precognitive signals tend to be experienced first in your body, most especially in your gut and your heart rate. The term used for physical foreshadowing is presentiment. Notice what your gut and your heart tell you immediately upon waking and throughout the day, especially when you meet someone new or visit a place for the first time. Let your body do the sensing.
Daily and Consistent Practice
Keep repeating the precognition-boosting techniques in this chapter every day until they feel entirely natural. A positive sign that you are heading in the right direction with your precognition training is how much you enjoy or look forward to doing these exercises and how excited they make you feel about your own precognition. Notice how the shift in perspective they offer raises your vibration and reminds you that whatever is happening in your life right now, you always can rise above it, see the bigger picture, and transcend time.
Everything, Everywhere, All at Once
Never lose sight of the fact that precognitive experiences and dreams happen, and when they do, they make a nonsense of the traditionally accepted concept that time is linear. They suggest that your past, present, and future might just be happening all at once and there is a part of you that is infinite.
Here’s another instantly vibration-raising thought for you to consider. It’s well known among psychologists that if people feel they are being observed, they instinctively perform better. This phenomenon is known as the “observer effect.” Well, you are being watched all the time. Your future self is here watching you, meaning it really is always the right time to go ahead and impress yourself! Your future self is already way ahead of you and eagerly absorbing this new insight. You may as well read on now and catch up with yourself ahead of time. Now that you have begun your future-forward life in earnest, it’s the perfect time to answer to some frequently asked questions that may well be running through your mind.
…Continue reading in Dreaming of Your Future: Unlock the Precognitive Secrets of Your Mind by Theresa Cheung.
