Predicting the Future

[xxxx]

In our conscious life, to what extent can we predict the future?

Carl Jung has told that our dreams can predict the future. I would like to know your stance on this. Has anyone experienced something similar? 

Also, what are the other tools through which we could do the same, if something of this sort is possible, at all? 

.

An excerpt from Man and his Symbols by Carl Jung for reference:

"I myself dreamed of a motif over several years, in which I would ‘discover’ a part of my house that I did not know existed. Sometimes it was the quarters where my long-dead parents lived, in which my father, to my surprise, had a laboratory where he studied the comparative anatomy of fish and my mother ran a hotel for ghostly visitors. Usually this unfamiliar guest wing was an ancient historical building, long forgotten, yet my inherited property. It contained interesting antique furniture and toward the end of this series of dreams I discovered an old library whose books were unknown to me. Finally, in the last dream, I opened one of the books and found in it a profusion of the most marvelous symbolic pictures. When I awoke, my heart was palpitating with excitement.

Some time before I had this particular last dream of the series, I had placed an order with an antiquarian bookseller for one of the classic compilations of medieval alchemists. I had found a quotation in literature that I thought might have some connection with early Byzantine alchemy, and I wished to check it. Several weeks after I had had the dream of the unknown book, a parcel arrived from the bookseller. Inside was a parchment volume dating from the 16th century. It was illustrated by fascinating symbolic pictures that instantly reminded me of those I had seen in my dream. As the rediscovery of the principles of alchemy came to be an important part of my work as a pioneer of psychology, the motif of my recurring dream can easily be understood. The house, of course, was a symbol of my personality and its conscious field of interests; and the unknown annex represented the anticipation of a new field of interest and research of which my conscious mind was at that time unaware. From that moment, 30 years ago, I never had the dream again.”

Edited December 15, 2020 by xxxx

[Someone here]

1 hour ago, xxxx said:

In our conscious life, to what extent can we predict the future?

It can vary from zero to infinity. I mean the ability to predict.  Do you Believe in cause and effect? You can predict with 100 %certainty that the sun will shine tomorrow exactly at 6 am. The more scientists figure out reality we will reach a point of total prediction of the infinite future. Only then to realize that cause and effect and consistency is just a dream. The sun doesn't have to shine to tomorrow at all or to exist for one more second. 

[aurum]

@xxxx

In my Theta Healing training, we were taught how to do future readings for clients. I've also had several readings done for me and the results have been very interesting.

My belief is that we can see the future. However, it's not as solid as you might imagine. When I do a future reading, I'm just seeing a possible outcome for the client. That outcome can be changed.

So there is value to it but it's not set in stone.

1 hour ago, xxxx said:

Also, what are the other tools through which we could do the same, if something of this sort is possible, at all? 

Tarot and crystal gazing comes to mind. However, these are just tools to tap into your intuition and aren't actually necessary.

The way I personally do it is just ask.

[kbone]

@xxxx

Prediction is mostly about probabilities of events unfolding, so in essence it is the ability to see patterns developing in progress. I do believe some peeps have greater degrees of sensitivities to these patterns and the contexts in which they are developing, so sure.

I would not go as far as to say that peeps can "tell the future". There is a difference.

Even the siddhis, the special powers that arise during "spiritual development", talk a bit about predictive abilities or reading minds. Sometimes they can be quite powerful, but even then, the greater teachers will tell one to pay them no attention (or that they can become traps) when on the quest for Truth.

 

[JosephKnecht]

4 hours ago, xxxx said:

In our conscious life, to what extent can we predict the future?

You can predict the future to the extent that you understand the past that led to your present. 

4 hours ago, xxxx said:

Carl Jung has told that our dreams can predict the future. I would like to know your stance on this. Has anyone experienced something similar? 

Dreams do contain visions of the future. I know several people that have predicted 1 in a billion chance events based on their dreams. 

[Preety_India]

I don't think we can predict the future. 

 

[Megan Alecia]

@xxxx To the extent that we can detect bullshit. 

[PurpleTree]

i've laid tarot cards for some people (just for fun and with the help of the internet as i don't know the meaning of most cards)

and some told me that it was pretty accurate

and also at least once i had a dream which came totally true

[LastThursday]

There is no future. But in that case what's left?

From the book Supernature by Lyall Watson - the last sentence is key:

Quote

 

The old distinction between space and time is based on the fact that space seems to be presented to us in one piece, whereas time comes to us bit by bit. The future seems to be hidden, the past is dimly visible through memory and its aids, and only the present is revealed directly. It is as though we sat in a railway carriage looking out sideways at the present as time flows by. But as it becomes possible to measure the passage of time in smaller units, it becomes increasingly difficult to decide just what the present is and when it starts and stops. No matter how fast the train is going, we can see at a single glance everything outlined by the window.

The fellow in the seat opposite us has his blind partly drawn and sees less. But at the same instant, someone in a carriage nearer the engine looks out his window and sees a slightly different view. While, riding illegally up on the roof, is someone else, whose vision is not at all restricted by the size of the carriage windows and, while looking out sideways in the same way as all the paying passengers, he sees a much wider field including the line a little way ahead. Which person is seeing the present? The answer seems to be that all are and that the differences in their views of it are imposed only by the limitations of their viewpoint. The rider on the roof is not looking into the future; he just has a better view of the present and is using his sense system more fully.

 

In short if we want to see the future, we need to have a wider view of the present. To do that you would need to expand your level of awareness.

 

Another way of seeing the future outside of time is to employ Jung's idea of motifs. Instead of seeing events or things that happen (a motif) as a short continuous block of stuff - for example playing a game of chess - we instead see events as being discontinous and spread over time.  So say we make only one chess move a day. The motifs in this case are "moving a chess piece", and these repeat at various semi-random intervals. We can "see the future" because we know via the rules of chess, what may happen in the game. 

But notice how the game is no longer one event, but many smaller events linked only in the mind of the players. That's crucial. Predicting the future is simply linking in the mind a motif in the present with one held in the mind of the past.

Edited December 15, 2020 by LastThursday

[Soulbass]

Future is predictable if you continue in the same direction, but you have the ability to write history each second.

Free will is 100% total.

Each second is not related with the previous or the next one.

[mandyjw]

Predicting the future implies that there is a real linear time line which is not the case, which is exactly why people can sometimes predicts the future. The future creates the past as much as past creates future. 

In the case of the dreams Carl Jung mentions, I've had those same recurrent dreams about an unexplored area of my house. I also in real life I bought an old house and gutted a wall where I found a sealed off section and a newspaper so I always wondered if it had to do with the house renovations. I think that our desires predict the future and future discoveries if the desires are somewhat selfless and we allow them. Sometimes dreams show desires to us. 

[seeking_brilliance]

Perhaps prediction and creation is not mutually exclusive 

[lmfao]

I've met people who were really good at predicting how various complex and uncertain situations would turn out. My friend kinda freaked me out that way. 

This isn't something which can be forced though, and I'm not sure making the goal "predict the future" is the right mindset, even if getting better at predicting the future may be a byproduct of you developing observation and awareness. 

The problem would be that you get attached or occupy yourself with predicting the future. The better thing is to just react as things occur. Don't get attached to or aim for it, imo. 

--

Yeah, dreaming of things before they happen is a phenomena. I know people who have had this happen to them. E. G. Dreaming of a car crash the night before their son getting in a car accident 

I've had it as well in a way, where the very first time I dreamed of a person, I woke up to find that they sent me a message after not replying for weeks. 

Edited December 16, 2020 by lmfao

[kbone]

Yes, as one goes deeper and deeper into the Realization, it is very clearly seen why the dream metaphor is so useful in understanding what many call reality.

When any self is seen as the illusion that they are, things do take on a very dreamy feel. The first taste can be quite destabilizing, to be sure, but you get the knack for it.

The Jungian studies of dreams can help one look into this very similar phenomenon. He also did some very interesting work with Tibetan Tantricism and spiritual transformation which might be useful to some. As always, I say to just go for it if it strikes your interest. Let some light in, but stay devoted to Truth Realization. Only Truth will set one free.

 

Any idea of self  is realized to be a bird in an empty cage.