In Chapter 8 of The Secret of Secrets, Katherine Solomon describes a startling experiment: a subject’s brain reacts before a computer even chooses which image to display. It sounds incredible, but it is based on actual scientific research.
At the Institute of Noetic Sciences (IONS), we and our collaborators have conducted these types of experiments, known as presentiment studies. Using sensitive physiological measures, researchers have shown that people’s bodies can respond to future events hundreds of milliseconds or even seconds before they occur. Heart rate, skin conductance, pupil dilation, and brain activity often shift in advance of emotional stimuli, selected at random from a pool of possible stimuli, by a truly random process.
Everyday Examples
This isn’t only something that happens in the lab. Many of us have had moments when our bodies seemed to know before our minds. One person recalled sitting at a red light with their infant daughter asleep in the back seat. When the light turned green, everything suddenly felt wrong. They hesitated, and another car sped through the intersection, colliding with the vehicle that had pulled forward. Their pause, guided not by conscious thought but by a physical feeling, may have saved their lives.
The Science of Prefeeling
In the laboratory, these subtle anticipatory effects are called presentiment, literally, a “prefeeling.” Unlike precognition, which refers to consciously knowing about the future, presentiment involves unconscious bodily responses or sensations before an event unfolds in linear time.
Over three decades of research, dozens of experiments have shown that emotionally charged images, such as erotic or negative ones, produce stronger anticipatory responses than neutral pictures. IONS has done many of these studies, including a recent one on presentiment effects in Twitter/X posts (Radin, 2023). Meta-analyses and reviews (Mossbridge, Tressoldi, & Utts, 2012; Mossbridge et al., 2014; Mossbridge & Radin, 2017) conclude that presentiment is a genuine and repeatable phenomenon.
Why It Matters
In Western culture, we are often trained to trust the rational mind and ignore the signals of the body. Yet presentiment research suggests that our physiology holds valuable, perhaps even lifesaving, information. Cultivating awareness of these subtle cues could help us make better decisions, strengthen our intuition, and deepen our connection to the world around us. As with other types of noetic faculties, presentiment is often used in practice, under various other labels, by high performing humans such as martial artists or elite athletes. Some people think athletic feats such as hitting a 100 mph baseball pitch or returning a 150 mph tennis service might involve some presentiment.
Reflection
Have you ever noticed your body giving you information before your mind caught up? Did you listen? The more we practice tuning into these prefeelings, the more we may discover about the untapped wisdom within us.
Learn more about presentiment research:
Radin, D.I. (1997). Unconscious perception of future emotions: An experiment in presentiment. Journal of Scientific Exploration, 11, 163-180.
Radin, D.I. (2004). Electrodermal presentiments of future emotions. Journal of Scientific Exploraion, 18(2), 253-273.
Radin, D. I. & Lobach, E. (2007). Toward understanding the placebo effect: Investigating a possible retrocausal factor. Journal of Alternative and Complementary Medicine. 13, 733–739.
Radin, D. I. & Borges, A. (2009). Intuition through time: What does the seer see? Explore. 5 (4), 200–211.
Radin, D. I., Vieten, C., Michel, L., & Delorme, A. (2011). Electrocortical activity prior to unpredictable stimuli in meditators and non-meditators. Explore, 7, 286-299.
Radin, D. I. (2023). Sentiment and Presentiment in Twitter: Do Trends in Collective Mood “Feel the Future”? World Futures: The Journal of New Paradigm Research.
Mossbridge, J., & Radin, D. (2018). Precognition as a form of prospection: A review of the evidence. Psychology of Consciousness: Theory, Research, and Practice, 5(1), 78–93.
Mossbridge, J., Tressoldi, P., & Utts, J. (2012). Predictive physiological anticipation preceding seemingly unpredictable stimuli: A meta-analysis. Frontiers in Psychology, 3.
Mossbridge, J., Tressoldi, P., Utts, J., Ives, J., Radin, D., & Jonas, W. (2014). Predicting the unpredictable: Critical analysis and practical implications of predictive anticipatory activity. Frontiers in Human Neuroscience, 8, 146.
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