My Life as a Hologram

I don’t tell this story often, because no one believes it.

It was 1979, my senior year at Hartwick College, in Oneonta NY. One early morning I woke up from a dead sleep and had what could best be described as a vision of my future. In this vision, I would move to San Francisco, and create something that would make me famous. And I saw myself standing on stage in front of a huge audience. At the time, I knew no one who lived in San Francisco. I didn’t even know anyone who had visited. It seemed entirely random. I was majoring in economics so I could become a banker in New York City, not a stage performer in San Francisco.

After graduating, I traded my beat-up Datsun 510 to my sister for a one-way ticket to Los Angeles, where my brother had moved a few years earlier. I slept in a sleeping bag on his couch and applied for banking jobs. I had two offers, and was planning to pick one of them.

Meanwhile, sometime after my so-called vision, an ex girlfriend dropped out of college and moved to San Francisco. While I was in LA, she invited me up for the weekend. I went. She convinced me that San Francisco was a much nicer place than LA, and I should move there. I said I’d stay if I could find a job on Monday. I was almost out of money. Otherwise, I would return to LA and accept one of the offers there.

On Monday morning, I walked into a branch of Crocker National Bank in San Francisco, asked for a job, and got one, as a teller. I’ve lived in the San Francisco area ever since. This is where I created Dilbert. And I have stood on stage in front of huge audiences a few hundred times, just as I saw it in the vision.

I’ve had several of these so-called visions. Most of them happened just the way I saw them. A few haven’t happened yet, but could. So how do I explain it?

The obvious explanation is that I remember the alleged visions that come true and forget the ones that don’t. I can’t rule that out. Another possibility is that I have some weird psychic ability. That seems unlikely. If people had that sort of ability it would have been measured in a lab by now.

Perhaps my subconscious makes all my decisions, and creates all of my so-called visions. Then it does its best to make me do the things that would make the visions come true. That seems like a perfectly good theory.

But my favorite theory is that I’m nothing but a hologram in a computer program built by my ancient self, before the planet was destroyed by some disaster. The reason I can glimpse my future is that I have all of the qualities of the real me who wrote my program. In other words, I can accurately imagine my future because it is playing out much like I would have authored it myself.

The great thing about this theory is that I can find all sorts of clues to validate it. For example, when I come up with a “new” idea only to discover that others have had the same thought, this fits my theory too. The reason other people have my same thoughts is because they were programmed by my ancient self, who only had a finite number of thoughts to build into the program. This reality is bound to have repeats.

Then there is all the science I don’t understand. One explanation is that it’s over my head. But I prefer the explanation that it is nothing but gibberish programmed into the system. The reason I don’t understand string theory, for example, is that there are no real scientists, only holograms programmed by my ancient self. And since my ancient self didn’t know string theory, he concealed that fact by making it seem as though it is just too complicated to understand.

That’s how I would have programmed it.

Comments

[Ger]

I simply believe that ideas, dreams that I get are simply

ways that my subconcsience rids of certain fears.

This is a much healthier way.

[Ger]

I simply say that ideas like that, dreams that I get are

things that don't, won't happen to me. They are things that

come out of my subconscience that I probably feared and

is rid of in a healthier way.

[Ger]

I simply say that dreams or ideas that I get are things

that don't, won't happen. It's a fear or whatever that

eraces from my mind, my subconcsience through a dream etc.

Healthier this way.

[Ger]

I simply say that dreams or ideas that I get are things

that don't, won't happen. It's a fear or whatever that

eraces from my mind, my subconcsience through a dream etc.

Healthier this way.

[Alex]

You should check out the movie The Nines. Similar concept. www.lookforthenines.com

[Thomas]

"The Holographic Universe"
By Michael Talbot
Reviewed by Michael Kisor

The Holographic Universe is a "must read" for anyone with an open, inquiring mind and a curiosity about the cosmos in which we reside. You are likely to find the material presented here to be nothing short of astounding. The ramifications for humanity are staggering as this book seriously challenges the basis for our cultural view of reality: materialism. After reading The Holographic Universe, you will understand why so many people are starting to say that a paradigm shift in our science and culture is at hand.

Science's orthodoxy still resists abandoning materialism, but the scientific handwriting has been on the wall ever since 1905 when Einstein delivered his papers on Special Relativity and The Photovoltaic Effect. Subsequent research in Quantum Mechanics (sub-atomic physics) continues to usher us away from materialism and toward something far more interesting. History has shown us that radically new advances in worldviews almost never occur with the blessing of the Old Guard; it invariably takes fresh new minds to accept change of such magnitude. So it is with our society. As we move into the next millennium, concepts similar to those presented by Talbot will become mainstream and commonplace. As a result, our society will also be transformed.

The concepts presented in this book are a cornerstone of Quanta-Gaia -- the quest to better understand the cosmos and our role in it. After reading this book, you will either dismiss it as fantasy, like so many dismissed Einstein's papers in 1905, or you will be impressed by the magnitude of change which is at hand.
Other comments on The Holographic Universe:
Lyall Watson, author of Supernature writes: "For a while now, science has been converging with common sense, catching up at last with experience, confirming a widespread suspicion that things are far more connected than traditional physics ever allowed. The Holographic Universe is an elegant affirmation of this process, a lifeline that helps to bridge the artificial gap that has opened up between mind and matter, between us and the rest of the cosmos."

Larry Dossey, M.D., author of Space, Time & Medicine writes: Today nearly everyone is familiar with holograms, three-dimensional images projected into space with the aid of a laser. Now, two of the world's most eminent thinkers -- University of London physicist David Bohm, a former protege of Einstein's and one of the world's most respected quantum physicists, and Stanford neurophysiologist Karl Pribram, one of the architects of our modern understanding-of-the brain -- believe that the universe itself may be a giant hologram, quite literally a kind of image or construct created, at least in part, by the human mind. This remarkable new way of looking at the universe explains not only many of the unsolved puzzles of physics, but also such mysterious occurrences as telepathy, out-of-body and near-death experiences, "lucid" dreams, and even religious and mystical experiences such as feelings of cosmic unity and miraculous healings.

"We desperately need new models of reality to fire the imagination of what is possible and to give us new visions of our place in the cosmos. Michael Talbot's The Holographic Universe does this. It is a wake-up call to wonder, an adventure in ideas. If you need to maintain your idea that science has proved that 'It's all mechanical,' that there is no room in the universe for consciousness, soul, and spirit, don't read this book."

Fred Alan Wolf, Ph.D., author of Taking the Quantum Leap writes: "The concept of the universe as a giant hologram containing both matter and consciousness as a single field will, I am sure, excite anyone who has asked the question, 'What is reality?' This book may answer that question once and for all."
Author's Introduction to The Holographic Universe:
In the movie Star Wars, Luke Skywalker's adventure begins when a beam of light shoots out of the robot Artoo Detoo and projects a miniature three-dimensional image of Princess Leia. Luke watches spellbound as the ghostly sculpture of light begs for someone named Obi-wan Kenobi to come to her assistance. The image is a hologram, a three-dimensional picture made with the aid of a laser, and the technological magic required to make such images is remarkable. But what is even more astounding is that some scientists are beginning to believe the universe itself is a kind of giant hologram, a splendidly detailed illusion no more or less real than the image of Princess Leia that starts Luke on his quest.

Put another way, there is evidence to suggest that our world and everything in it -- from snowflakes to maple trees to falling stars and spinning electrons -- are also only ghostly images, projections from a level of reality so beyond our own it is literally beyond both space and time.

The main architects of this astonishing idea are two of the world's most eminent thinkers: University of London physicist David Bohm, a protege of Einstein's and one of the world's most respected quantum physicists; and Karl Pribram, a neurophysiologist at Stanford University and author of the classic neuropsychological textbook Languages of the Brain. Intriguingly, Bohm and Pribram arrived at their conclusions independently and while working from two very different directions. Bohm became convinced of the universe's holographic nature only after years of dissatisfaction with standard theories' inability to explain all of the phenomena encountered in quantum physics. Pribram became convinced because of the failure of standard theories of the brain to explain various neurophysiological puzzles.

However, after arriving at their views, Bohm and Pribram quickly realized the holographic model explained a number of other mysteries as well, including the apparent inability of any theory, no matter how comprehensive, ever to account for all the phenomena encountered in nature; the ability of individuals with- hearing in only one ear to determine the direction from which a sound originates; and our ability to recognize the face of someone we have not seen for many years even if that person has changed considerably in the interim.

But the most staggering thing about the holographic model was that it suddenly made sense of a wide range of phenomena so elusive they generally have been categorized outside the province of scientific understanding. These include telepathy, precognition, mystical feelings of oneness with the universe, and even psychokinesis, or the ability of the mind to move physical objects without anyone touching them.

Indeed, it quickly became apparent to the ever growing number of scientists who came to embrace the holographic model that it helped explain virtually all paranormal and mystical experiences, and in the last half-dozen years or so it has continued to galvanize researchers and shed light on an increasing number of previously inexplicable phenomena. For example:

# In 1980 University of Connecticut psychologist Dr. Kenneth Ring proposed that near-death experiences could be explained by the holographic model. Ring, who is president of the International Association for Near-Death Studies, believes such experiences, as well as death itself, are really nothing more than the shifting of a person's consciousness from one level of the hologram of reality to another.
# In 1985 Dr. Stanislav Grof, chief of psychiatric research at the Maryland Psychiatric Research Center and an assistant professor of psychiatry at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, published a book in which he concluded that existing neurophysiological models of the brain are inadequate and only a holographic model can explain such things as archetypal experiences, encounters with the collective unconscious, and other unusual phenomena experienced during altered states of consciousness.
# At the 1987 annual meeting of the Association for the Study of Dreams held in Washington, D.C., physicist Fred Alan Wolf delivered a talk in which he asserted that the holographic model explains lucid dreams (unusually vivid dreams in which the dreamer realizes he or she is awake). Wolf believes such dreams are actually visits to parallel realities, and the holographic model will ultimately allow us to develop a "physics of consciousness" which will enable us to begin to explore more fully these other-dimensional levels of existence.
# In his 1987 book entitled Synchronicity: The Bridge Between Matter and Mind, Dr. F. David Peat, a physicist at Queen's University in Canada, asserted that synchronicities (coincidences that are so unusual and so psychologically meaningful they don't seem to be the result of chance alone) can be explained by the holographic model. Peat believes such coincidences are actually "flaws in the fabric of reality." They reveal that our thought processes are much more intimately connected to the physical world than has been hitherto suspected.

These are only a few of the thought-provoking ideas that will be explored in this book. Many of these ideas are extremely controversial. Indeed, the holographic model itself is highly controversial and is by no means accepted by a majority of scientists. Nonetheless, and as we shall see, many important and impressive thinkers do support it and believe it may be the most accurate picture of reality we have to date.

The holographic model has also received some dramatic experimental support. In the field of neurophysiology numerous studies have corroborated Pribram's various predictions about the holographic nature of memory and perception. Similarly, in 1982 a landmark experiment performed by a research team led by physicist Alain Aspect at the Institute of Theoretical and Applied Optics, in Paris, demonstrated that the web of subatomic particles that compose our physical universe -- the very fabric of reality itself -- possesses what appears to be an undeniable "holographic" property. These findings will also be discussed in the book.

In addition to the experimental evidence, several other things add weight to the holographic hypothesis. Perhaps the most important considerations are the character and achievements of the two men who originated the idea. Early in their careers, and before the holographic model was even a glimmer in their thoughts, each amassed accomplishments that would inspire most researchers to spend the rest of their academic lives resting on their laurels. In the 1940s Pribram did pioneering work on the limbic system, a region of the brain involved in emotions and behavior. Bohm's work in plasma physics in the 1950s is also considered landmark.

But even more significantly, each has distinguished himself in another way. It is a way even the most accomplished men and women can seldom call their own, for it is measured not by mere intelligence or even talent. It is measured by courage, the tremendous resolve it takes to stand up for one's convictions even in the face of overwhelming opposition. While he was a graduate student, Bohm did doctoral work with Robert Oppenheimer. Later, in 1951, when Oppenheimer came under the perilous scrutiny of Senator Joseph McCarthy's Committee on Un-American Activities, Bohm was called to testify against him and refused. As a result he lost his job at Princeton and never again taught in the Umted States, moving first to Brazil and then to London.

Early in his career Pribram faced a similar test of mettle. In 1935 a Portuguese neurologist named Egas Moniz devised what he believed was the perfect treatment for mental illness. He discovered that by boring into an individual's skull with a surgical pick and severing the prefrontal cortex from the rest of the brain he could make the most troublesome patients docile. He called the procedure a prefrontal lobotomy, and by the 1940s it had become such a popular medical technique that Moniz was awarded the Nobel Prize. In the 1950s the procedure's popularity continued and it became a tool, like the McCarthy hearings, to stamp out cultural undesirables. So accepted was its use for this purpose that the surgeon Walter Freeman, the most outspoken advocate for the procedure in the United States, wrote unashamedly that lobotomies "made good American citizens" out of society's misfits, "schizophrenics, homosexuals, and radicals."

During this time Pribram came on the medical scene. However unlike many of his peers, Pribram felt it was wrong to tamper so recklessly with the brain of another. So deep were his convictions that while working as a young neurosurgeon in Jacksonville, Florida, he opposed the accepted medical wisdom of the day and refused to allow any lobotomies to be performed in the ward he was overseeing. Later at Yale he maintained his controversial stance, and his then radical views very nearly lost him his job.

Bohm and Pribram's commitment to stand up for what they believe in, regardless of the consequences, is also evident in the holographic model. As we shall see, placing their not inconsiderable reputations behind such a controversial idea is not the easiest path either could have taken. Both their courage and the vision they have demonstrated in the past again add weight to the holographic idea.

One final piece of evidence in favor of the holographic model is the paranormal itself. This is no small point, for in the last several decades a remarkable body of evidence has accrued suggesting that our current understanding of reality, the solid and comforting sticks-and stones picture of the world we all learned about in high-school science class, is wrong. Because these findings cannot be explained by any of our standard scientific models, science has in the main ignored them. However, the volume of evidence has reached the point where this is no longer a tenable situation.

To give just one example, in 1987, physicist Robert G. Jahn and clinical psychologist Brenda J. Dunne, both at Princeton University, announced that after a decade of rigorous experimentation by their Princeton Engineering Anomalies Research Laboratory, they had accumulated unequivocal evidence that the mind can psychically interact with physical reality. More specifically, Jahn and Dunne found that through mental concentration alone, human beings are able to affect the way certain kinds of machines operate. This is an astounding finding and one that cannot be accounted for in terms of our standard picture of reality.

It can be explained by the holographic view, however. Conversely, because paranormal events cannot be accounted for by our current scientific understandings, they cry out for a new way of looking at the universe, a new scientific paradigm. In addition to showing how the holographic model can account for the paranormal, the book will also examine how mounting evidence in favor of the paranormal in turn actually seems to necessitate the existence of such a model.

The fact that the paranormal cannot be explained by our current scientific worldview is only one of the reasons it remains so controversial. Another is that psychic functioning is often very difficult to pin down in the lab, and this has caused many scientists to conclude it therefore does not exist. This apparent elusiveness will also be discussed in the book.

An even more important reason is that contrary to what many of us have come to believe, science is not prejudice-free. I first learned this a number of years ago when I asked a well-known physicist what he thought about a particular parapsychological experiment. The physicist (who had a reputation for being skeptical of the paranormal) looked at me and with great authority said the results revealed "no evidence of any psychic functioning whatsoever." I had not yet seen the results, but because I respected the physicist's intelligence and reputation, I accepted his judgment without question. Later when I examined the results for myself, I was stunned to discover the experiment had produced very striking evidence of psychic ability. I realized then that even well-known scientists can possess biases and blind spots.

Unfortunately this is a situation that occurs often in the investigation of the paranormal. In a recent article inAmerican Psychologist, Yale psychologist Irvin L. Child examined how a well-known series of ESP dream experiments conducted at the Maimonides Medical Center in Brooklyn, New York, had been treated by the scientific establishment. Despite the dramatic evidence supportive of ESP uncovered by the experimenters, Child found their work had been almost completely ignored by the scientific community. Even more distressing, in the handful of scientific publications that had bothered to comment on the experiments, he found the research had been so "severely distorted" its importance was completely obscured.

How is this possible? One reason is science is not always as objective as we would like to believe. We view scientists with a bit of awe, and when they tell us something we are convinced it must be true We forget they are only human and subject to the same religious, philosophical, and cultural prejudices as the rest of us. This is unfortunate for as this book will show, there is a great deal of evidence that the universe encompasses considerably more than our current worldview allows.

But why is science so resistant to the paranormal in particular? This is a more difficult question. In commenting on the resistance he experienced to his own unorthodox views on health, Yale surgeon Dr. Bernie S. Siegel, author of the best-selling book Love, Medicine, and Miracles, asserts that it is because people are addicted to their beliefs. Siegel says this is why when you try to change someone's belief they act like an addict.

There seems to be a good deal of truth to Siegel's observation, which perhaps is why so many of civilization's greatest insights and advances have at first been greeted with such passionate denial. We are addicted to our beliefs and we do act like addicts when someone tries to wrest from us the powerful opium of our dogmas. And since Western science has devoted several centuries to not believing in the paranormal, it is not going to surrender its addiction lightly.

I am lucky. I have always known there was more to the world than is generally accepted. I grew up in a psychic family, and from an early age I experienced firsthand many of the phenomena that will be talked about in this book. Occasionally, and when it is relevant to the topic being discussed, I will relate a few of my own experiences. Although they can only be viewed as anecedotal evidence, for me they have provided the most compelling proof of all that we live in a universe we are only just beginning to fathom, and I include them because of the insight they offer.

Lastly, because the holographic concept is still very much an idea in the making and is a mosaic of many different points of view and pieces of evidence, some have argued that it should not be called a model or theory until these disparate points of view are integrated into a more unified whole. As a result, some researchers refer to the ideas as the holographic paradigm. Others prefer holographic analogy, holographic metaphor, and so on. In this book and for the sake of diversity I have employed all of these expressions, including holographic model and holographic theory, but do not mean to imply that the holographic idea has achieved the status of a model or theory in the strictest sense of these terms.

In this same vein it is important to note that although Bohm and Pribram are the originators of the holographic idea, they do not embrace all of the views and conclusions put forward in this book. Rather, this is a book that looks not only at Bohm and Pribram's theories, but at the ideas and conclusions of numerous researchers who have been influenced by the holographic model and who have interpreted it in their own sometimes controversial ways.

Throughout this book I also discuss various ideas from quantum physics, the branch of physics that studies subatomic particles (electrons, protons, and so on). Because I have written on this subject before, I am aware that some people are intimidated by the term quantum physics and are afraid they will not be able to understand its concepts. My experience has taught me that even those who do not know any mathematics are able to understand the kinds of ideas from physics that are touched upon in this book. You do not even need a background in science. All you need is an open mind if you happen to glance at a page and see a scientific term you do not know. I have kept such terms down to a minimum, and on those occasions when it was necessary to use one, I always explain it before continuing on with the text.

So don't be afraid. Once you have overcome your "fear of the water," I think you'll find swimming among quantum physics' strange and fascinating ideas much easier than you thought. I think you'll also find that pondering a few of these ideas might even change the way you look at the world. In fact, it is my hope that the ideas contained in the following chapters will change the way you look at the world. It is with this humble desire that I offer this book.

[Matt M]

You should have brought the Datsun 510 out west to San Fran. :^)

[Scruffy Dan]

According to the NYTimes you might be right

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/08/14/science/14tier.html?ex=1188619200&en=22b54f406ca9fd07&ei=5070

[Bob]

My hologram moment happened in middle school. I dreamed an entire day realistic enough that I did not realize it was a dream until I referred to things that had happened that no one else remembered.

I wrote it off as just an odd dream until three months later when my classmates had entire conversations from that dream, word for word as far as I could remember them.

I never dreamed anything important, but I always have an odd sense about things. I got layed off in june, but instinctively knew it wasn't a problem. I sent out only two resumes, and got offered a job with better hours and better pay, that was twice as close to my house as before.

[David Nesting]

I've had the invention problem for years also. I'll think up some great idea, and someone will invariably point out that someone just commercialized it.

I think what's happening (at least in my case) is that I really did invent all of these things, and became insanely rich and powerful. At some point in the future, I REALLY pissed someone off (or maybe I became oppressive or controlled too many of the world's resources and pissed a lot of people off), and they set about inventing or procuring time travel technology, went back in time and sold off my inventions some weeks or months before I thought them up. This would no doubt serve to be intensely amusing, knowing that each time I came up with my ideas, I'd discover someone else came up with it just before I did. (I suppose there might be a better reason to time the release of the inventions in this way: to ensure that nothing was invented "too early", with the standard consequences any truly scifi story would enumerate.)

[Laura]

Actually, Scott, it HAS been measured in a laboratory. The "distance viewing" seems related to your experiences, particularly since time was not a factor in accuracy. Take a look:

http://www.princeton.edu/~pear/

[Tony]

I have had the same experiences where i dream of things which have not yet happened.

Some time later, the things happen.

The only explanation I am able to come up is

"Life is the projection/protrusion of an entity outside the space time continuum into the space time continuum".

To put into simple words, if you imagine the whole of space and time as you know to be a big circle, then your life is just a thread which cuts across it.

It enters the circle at some point and leaves it at some point.

of course this says that life does not end once you leave the space time, but it is just that you cant see it.

Now if this is so, then you have connection with the outside entity, which can look at events in the past/future and let you know about it.

But all this still does not explain why events just does not happen exactly the way you dream it but is some variation of it. Maybe the uncertainty principle has some role.

[TomB]

This entry, on you being a hologram programmed by a prior real version of you, is fascinating principally because it is a way of arriving at the "Man Creates God" theory of things. You've basically imagined a prior you who created the current you in his image and who created (fathered, if you will) everyone else and everything else.

And you said that with a straight face. That's impressive.

[Rich]

I agree with the theory *Perhaps my subconscious makes all my decisions, and creates all of my so-called visions. Then it does its best to make me do the things that would make the visions come true. That seems like a perfectly good theory.*

I've just begun writing fiction and I am constantly amazed at how I'll have ideas flash into my mind like visions or when I free-write. The act of creating is sublime and transcends what society has *programmed* what reality should be.

As to your favorite theory, I wonder what Philip K. Dick would of had to say about it. Maybe it was his ancient self that programmed you!

[Jennifer]

I would have to second this post:
http://dilbertblog.typepad.com/the_dilbert_blog/2007/08/my-life-as-a-ho.html#comment-80596947

I'm a logical person, but I've had weird things happen to me that I can't explain and science can't explain- and sometimes they happened to more than one person besides me at the same time. It wasn't just my lone crazy.

Now, if science can come up with an explanation for it, I'd love to hear it, because I've been looking since grade school. But so far...there doesn't seem to be. Which makes me think...well, tree-hugging hippie crap is more likely to explain it than science. I can't come up with any logical explanation for knowing 4 years in advance at what age my father would become ill (and I am not observant, to the point of not noticing the signs when he did become ill and had to have them pointed out to me), but I did. Said illness wasn't something that would have been easily guessed or predicted via logic either, as it's rare and doesn't run in the family.

I have a sneaking suspicion that you're more "tree-hugging hippie" (or at least, more alternative thinking, really) than you might acknowledge. Just a thought.

Anyway, this is a very cool story to hear!

[Gab]

HEY...!!! That's my idea already...!!!

[schelf]

Thanks for 060806 but the 3 weeks with a catheter was a bit much don't you thnik?

[schelf]

Thanks for 060806 but the 3 weeks with a catheter was a bit much don't you thnik?

[Yuriy]

So, Scott, when will you be learning holographic AI programming?

[Mike Peter Reed]

many hear the calling. few make the journey. even less arrive.

[Aashish Gupta]

I agree with your theory, except that I think everything is a hologram programmed by *my* ancient self, not your's.

[Anne]

When I was in Europe last summer, I ended up at a bar in Lucerne where the floor was covered with sand. I had never ever been there, but the place was familiar, and I knew exactly where the washrooms were (they were not clearly marked). I dreamt about that bar, years and years before I ever set foot in it.

I'm going to have to start writing my dreams down, because I have a feeling this is where deja vu comes from. I suspect I have lived this life before, or at least am living it in other dimensions too, a little faster or a little slower maybe.

[jaime]

I partially believe in your theory as I have had similar experiences. Just the other night, I had a dream I was sniping in Iraq next to an abandoned building. My colleague urged me to enter the building and he would take out the two remaining folks a few hundred yards away. I went into the building and waited. Soon after, the two men we were sniping came into the room and motioned me to bend over a metal bedframe as if I were getting arrested - hands on bedframe, legs spread. I thought oh well this is it - execution or you know, other stuff. Then I felt one of the Iraqi men touch my lower spine with his finger and rub in a circular motion. before I even had time to think he stuck me with a large needle right in the middle of my back. I instantly awoke from my dream and I was in a pretty good amount of pain from where the needle "in my dream" pierced me. I am a mother of three and have had three epidurals during childbirth. My only logical theory is that my brain summoned that memory of the needle and the pain and used it as a prop in my dream. Or maybe, like Scott's theory, part of my program malfunctioned. If we were puter programs, wouldn't sleep be the hardest thing to program?

[it's me]

Sometimes I have premonitions where I know exactly what people are going to say in a conversation. Not just "I know he's going to say 'yes' in response" but I know the whole sentence they are going to say and who's going to speak next, and what they're going to say. Of course this only happens right before I black out and have a petit-mal seizure, so I think my mind is just playing tricks on me. Or, maybe I really do have psychic powers! Yes, that explanation is much more fun!!

[it's me]

No, this is all just because we're in the beta version of the matrix

[Jerry McLellan]

Scott obviously has more control over his life than I do. Ever since I was a kid, I've always wondered if I was the only human in a world full of robots, and that I was just there to amuse someone. I had this idea even before I ever saw an episode of the Twilight Zone, or the Matrix had been dreamed up. I'm thinking that Scott Adams, and heck this whole internet thing, is just another situation set up by the technicians to see how this rat will behave. Scott is lucky, he gets to be God in his world. I'm just a rat.

[Phil]

What about the possibility that you dreamt of moving to San Francisco, becoming famous and speaking in front of thousands of people AFTER it actually happened. Then, due to a malfunction in your brain, you only think that it is a memory of a dream from 1979, when the dream actually occurred last night.

The "visions" which haven't come true, those are just dreams. The "visions" which have come true are nothing more than false memories.

[HALiverpool]

and people wonder where megalomaniacs come from.

[Andrew]

You know, I have another theory about your invention problem you keep running into.
Marketing has gotten to the point these days that advertising has nothing to do with the product they are selling, yet at the end you feel like you need that product.
I would suggest that perhaps all your inventions were created after you had unknowingly seen some form of advertisement for a product. You subconsciously feel the need to have something that does bla, since you can’t think of anything that does bla, you invent it; and because of the marketing technique your invention is identical to what they are selling. It’s kinda like that trick where my wife makes me to do something by convincing me that it was my idea in the first place…

[Paul R]

This sort of speculative thinking has been around for a long time. It even has a name - solipsism.

[Diana W]

You keep mentioning the programming was done by your 'ancient' self. Ever consider that you were an 8 or 9 year old boy at the time the earth was being destroyed and you wrote the program? That could explain why you wrote yourself to be a professional cartoonist, put off getting married so long, any why the world is so screwed up. A young kid might consider a program where terrorists fly planes into buildings as 'cool'. I could forgive an 8 year old for writing this mess, but if you were ancient, then you were either senile or one morose, twisted son of a bitch.

[Mike]

I was going to comment on how freaked out I was by your post, namely because I have had the same thoughts before.... (Did your ancient self perhaps create more than just 'you'.. did he make others... am i a distant 'relation' then of you, some how?)

.. but i cant, because I am laughing too much at what this post's direct URL says...
Look at it: http://dilbertblog.typepad.com/the_dilbert_blog/2007/08/my-life-as-a-ho.html

I think its rather hillarious myself... :P

[karan]

Call me crazy, but I get something like this sometimes right at the edge of sleep - but more limited I guess. It's like snippet of a conversaation, sometimes with people i've not met before, or maybe just a few seconds of me walking somewhere I've never been before.

I've written it down once and it came around 6 months later, but I've never "controlled" it or even been able to see how to get to that point - I'm a skeptic myself, but I can't explain it.

Sounds like from the other comments here I'm not the only one :)

[Lulu]

This is why people should keep a dream book. If a dream is vivid enought to remember when awake, you should write it down. I think people would be surprised at what comes true if they did this. I know that I have had several dreams that have come true and some that I think were premonitions. I live in New Orleans and when we were leaving to evacuate for Katrina, I KNEW the city was going to be destroyed. It felt totally different this time. I had dreamed this whole scenario years before, and at the time I was dreaming this, I told people my dream in detail. If you write your dreams down, you have a reference and maybe in the future can be prepared.

I do think everyone has this ability. And, as far as being a hologram, in times past and in the future, people will give this ability whatever name fits current culture.

People need to be aware of their inner self. It is always trying to lead you to a better place.

[Rich T.]

[Scott wrote: But my favorite theory is that I’m nothing but a hologram in a computer program built by my ancient self, before the planet was destroyed by some disaster. The reason I can glimpse my future is that I have all of the qualities of the real me who wrote my program. In other words, I can accurately imagine my future because it is playing out much like I would have authored it myself.]

Not that anyone is going to pay any attention to this, but another explanation is the LDS (Mormon) one: that your life began in a premortal state, with Heavenly Parents, and you lived as a spirit there until you chose a to come to Earth at an appointed time, to grow and be tested in different ways, with a veil of forgetfulness, which at times is thin enough for you to glimpse certain things, including some of what you helped author for your time here on Earth - just not as a literal computer programmer.

[Wayne]

I'm having trouble reconciling what Scott says about psychic phenomena not ever having been demonstrated "in a lab" with his apparent review of a book entitled "The Counscious Universe," which posits that psychic, or "psi" phenomena have been demonstrated time and time again by rigorous, scientific methods, and that it's just a matter of time before the scientific community accepts them. The review is as follows:

"I loved it. It made my head spin for days.

Scott Adams, cartoonist and author of The Dilbert Future, The Dilbert Principles, and many other books."

And it can be found at http://www.deanradin.com/book.html , where the first chapter can also be read (http://www.deanradin.com/Chapter1.html , link previously provided by commenter "C4 Chaos").

[Geo B]

Scott, I too have had dreams where later I saw what I had seen - but they are only brief situations that I remember, like sitting with someone in a certain place. Weirds me out when I realize I'm there.

[Dilbert's Rabbi]

...makes my faith in God seem rather elementary...

[Scott (Not Adams)]

Did you document the vision at the time it occurred? Or could your memory be false?

If nothing else, it makes picking the proper verb conjugation a bear. "Now remembering having previously foreseen what was just done." Ick.

[ET]

It's one of those things that's been "discovered" before:

http://www.amazon.com/Darwinia-Robert-Charles-Wilson/dp/0765319055/ref=pd_bbs_sr_7/103-9164687-5125402?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1188219414&sr=8-7

Stop borrowing other people's ideas! :P

[Jim Fuller]

Scott,

I think you need a brainiologist to find a medical explanation or something. At least they can give you some medicine so you won't remember anymore...

[Frank]

So rather than believing the simple explanation, you prefer to think the world revolves around you. Anything you don't understand is bogus, anything you don't see doesn't really happen. That seems more than a little ego-centric, don't you think?
I agree with a previous post that the visions never really happened, you probably had the "visions" after the fact. Or at least they were so vague that you just filled in the details after they happened. For example, how did you know where you were in your "vision?" Was there a sign in the room where you were giving your presentation "Welcome to San Francisco?"

[Tom]

My first guess was that your initial vision made it easier for you to make the choices that lead you there. For example, in weighing the decision to go west, you were already leaning that way, at least subconsciously, because of your vision. Seems self-fulfillilng.

[Charlie]

A friend forwarded me a link to your blog entry because of a conversation we had. Interestingly, I often have the exact same fantasy. I wonder how many of us there are.

[moi]

Pfff, i don't like the idea that we're all a part in a program that was created by your ancient self. I'd rather be created by MY ancient self. That would mean that you owe your succes to me, well, the ancient me. You can repay the digital me whenever you feel like it. I prefer cash or a super computer.

[Himanshu]

Your theory of human programming goes real deep...it kinda makes me think if this could be true...

Anyways was the 10 year old boy who wrote to you real or was it a hoax?

We are anxious to know

[Tormod]

You also have another possibility.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=befugtgikMg

Derren Brown, in this clip, EXPECTS his subject to have a vivid memory of something false. A retrospectively rewritten memory.

As he expects this, then obviously there are somebody who knows of this a great deal better than I am. Just watch the clip and see.

As I'm learning more and more about how memory, I'm flabbergasted that they never taught this in school. But, as Mr Adams would happily point out, I cannot be sure that they didn't..... hehe

[wolfizzi]

Let's see now. There are billions of people on this planet, and every one of them has an average of three dreams each day (or night for the non-undead). When people dream, their mind concocts a plot around details generated from random thought/images. These thought/images happen as electric impulses flash across the brain as it reboots itself during sleep.

Hitchcock said that there are only twenty plots; the rest is just details. It makes perfect sense that people will randomly get precognitive dreams.

Commentors have suggested that Scott's "vision" may have lead him to move to San Francisco and perform on stage. This theory can't be completely discounted. Others have suggested that Scott's memory of the vision developed over time, to conform to his present day situation.

If you haven't guessed from past comments, I'm an attorney. As such, I am no stranger to the fact that people's memories are nearly always tainted with their perception of the way they want things to be. I routinely see witnesses recount completely different, oftentimes conflicting, versions of the same event. Interestingly, each witness's version is usually favorable to the witness. Allowing for some intentional fabrication by witnesses, I am still convinced that most people remember things the way they want them remembered.

Getting back to that rebooting brain. Each night (for you day-walkers) while sleeping, your brain has little to do but to go over memories. In essence your brain is remembering remembrances. If you accept that people remember things favorably for themselves, each review of the memory will be remembered in a way that is incrementally more favorable to the rememberer.

If Scott had an image of San Francisco pass through his brain at 2:15 a.m., then had an image of some generic performer on a stage at 4:47, his mind could develop a plot in which he was the performer, and he was in San Francisco. After thousands of "dreams," this one random dream is an acceptable occurrence. Later Scott goes to L.A. because his brother is there. No mystery there. Ex-girlfriend invites him to S.F; I would have gone, too.

At some point Scott begins to remember the dream - only more favorably than in it's original form. Now, he is receiving accolades on stage in San Francisco. The recollection of the dream may cause him to focus his attention on "getting famous" so that the dream comes true. With the passage of more time, and as additional good things happen in Scott's life he remembers the dream, but each time the dream is changed (usually Scott will be portrayed a little better in each remembrance).

I don't rule out the possibility of precognition. I can't, and won't as I have had some pretty weird stuff happen to me, too. But, I do know that, in fact, memory supplementation does happen. And when it does, it tends to support people's beliefs and belief systems.

On the subject of dream precognition, someday I will get around to writing about a dream I had, and the subsequent events that mirrored my dream, but it scares the shit out of me each time I try to write about it. Right now, the hairs on the back of my neck are sicking straight out, and my spine is tingling, so I have to quit. The toilet's calling me, maybe I'm just full of ...

[Julian]

I am just going to get "it's only humour" response, but I have to say your theory is absurdly narcissistic.

[bradhapa]

Excellent! My program is executing exactly as designed.

You see, you were right about this being some type of virtual existence that was created with certain predetermined outcomes. These dreams you have really have been pre-programmed to turn into "reality." But you were off on one detail; your earlier self didn't program it, mine did.

It's quite a twist of fate, I realize. But that's the way it goes.

The good news for "me" is that you are about to have a dream where, after waking, you will feel compelled to share your fortune and glory with me in a significant way.

[Bill]

>I’ve had several of these so-called visions. Most of them happened just the way I saw them. A few haven’t happened yet, but could.

Please tell us you've had a vision of the US pulling its troops out of the Crusades and returning to the 21st Century...

[tyler]

I've read this theory (or a similar theory) before. I think you linked to it recently?

This has got to be one of the DUMBEST fucking ideas I've ever heard. I cannot believe "scientists" are spending time, money, and other valuable resources and crap like this.

It's useless information anyways. If we do happen to discover we're just an expirement from some higher being, or we're computer programs writtin by children's children's children...what does that gain us? A sense of uselessness?

The Buddha preached a path to enlightenment. He said "these are the steps you must take to find inner peace". When people asked him why, or how the world was created, or how we came to exist, what the big picture was; he would respond "it doesn't matter. Regardless of why, we are here, and this is what we can do."

He had the right idea.

[Maurs]

Man, if we are subcomponents of a computer simulation I hope it's running Linux.

[JHB]

You *do realize* now that you've gone down this road a bit, it can only end in cringing, gibbering and pooping in the diapers they make you wear?

[S]

meh, I get those sometimes, my range only goes up to a few days in advance and its nearly always trivial. the only part I've enjoyed about it so far is saying the things other people say right after in my dream and watch their faces

[Gryphon]

Why would a lab have measured it by now?

What if all researchers trying to discover if psychic ability exists don't believe that it could exist?

What if we just don't have the equipment that can measure it yet?

Until the Geiger counter was invented, we couldn't measure radiation, either. Didn't mean that it couldn't affect people.

Not saying I'm a believer, just that you can't put too much faith in the guys in lab coats, either.

[Bill]

>I don’t tell this story often, because no one believes it.

What? No, we ALL believe it. We're just horribly bitter that you got to be the uber-rich cartoonist while we got stuck doing the real work.

(Of course, no other American in the 1970s had a ream that they moved to California and got rich. Unless they had watched TV or seen a movie...)

[dave]

"The obvious explanation is that I remember the alleged visions that come true and forget the ones that don’t"

How about the visions never actually occurred, but you invented 'memories' of having these visions that fit the facts. It would be like a version of deja vu, and seems more likely than having to have so many visions that some of them must come true by chance.

I'm convinced I do this all the time, but because I have no way of telling whether my memories are real or inventions it's hard to test, without some second-party evidence.

[Kent]

You are one wierd dude!

[truetool]

so there we have it.....
from Scott's bogus journey
to Scott's excellent adventure!
Keep up the EXCELLENT stuff dude

[Cesar Gomez]

The world of dreams is greater than most people give credit today. We are at the edge of discovering a new ability and new worlds. Dreams are could be seen as infinite possiblities: Premonitions (time travel), cientific discoveries (insights to impossible problems), communication (telepathy here and with other dimensions). Call me crazy if you would like. That's what I've seen in my 5 years of writing my dream log.

[sunflower]

Sounds like you prefer satirical chatter to "explain" your ability to truly see the web of life. Some call that psychic. Fact is, all of us have the ability. We are born with it. Most of us simply choose to ignore it and let our worldly desires drown out our sight. My husband was mentored by a native American who showed him how everything has already happened, we are just here to discover the reasons why...again...and again...
What a trip!

[D. Mented]

Decades ago, some friends and I were very into psychic phenomena; one of the things we would do is have one of us talk about something he or she hadn't mentioned before - not because of strong emotions, but because it hadn't come up or was trivial. Everyone would speak up with impressions they got that hadn't been said. For example, one talked of the living room in the house she grew up in...Another said "Curtains! Ceiling to floor!" There was a whole wall of windows, curtains almost always closed. The person whose home that was hadn't mentioned the curtains, yet the knowlege only one of us had to start with appeared in another's head. This was so common, and everybody who tried it got some of these unspoken impressions, that we decided that there's a lot more communication going on unspoken than most people would believe. We also came to the conclusion that this kind of stuff isn't important and is almost never useful, so we stopped obsessing over it and got day jobs.
I do not believe in the supernatural.
I do believe there are still a few things in the natural world that science hasn't got a handle on.
Yet.
D. Mented

[John]

See you are lucky either way--whether this is a result of your being a hologram or if you can see the future--because if it works, it works far in advance. I, on the other hand, have the same deal, but it only works about an hour out, which sucks.

[ash]

did you develop the theory before watching matrix or afterwards? Unless you regularly have a steamy wild hot session with every playmate of the month, you havent programmed this life for yourself. ;)

[Chief of the Cubicle Police]

Please e-mail me when it's time to laugh.

Make us laugh, monkey boy, make us laugh.

[Gabe]

I have that. Sometimes I see what may happen in the future, and then I try as hard as possible to avoid it happening, but it happens anyway. You can;t trick your own mind easily. It may be possible you don;t remember the ones which don't happen, but then again, maybe they just haven't happened yet. Perhaps they'll happen in a few weeks and you'll remember them. If you start writing them down after you have them, you may be able to see how many come true without purposefully trying to make it happen. I predcit T.V shows. Just last week I dreamed of a simpsons episode. I didn;t look at my Tivo box for a week, and today it is on the box. How's that for psychic ability?

[Miguel]

What kind of evidence would falsify your theory?

If nothing can falsify your theory then it can explain *anything*, and is totally uselles.

See http://www.overcomingbias.com/2007/07/making-beliefs-.html#more
and http://www.overcomingbias.com/2007/08/mysterious-answ.html#more

[Arturo]

You're not _supposed_ to understand string theory.

Understanding something means having no more questions along the lines of "but why does...?"

String theory is nowhere near answering all the questions yet, all it has is a bunch of equations which happen to match what we observe. The major problem with this is that what we observe is very incomplete - like a jigsaw with half the pieces missing. A best a string theory book can only give a sort of fuzzy overview.

String theory could easily turn out to be a total waste of time (eg. November 26 when they switch on the LHC...?)

[Sondra]

A tragic character of Greek mythology, Cassandra was admired by the god, Apollo. He mentored her and gave her the gift of prophecy. But he was angered because she accepted him only as a teacher, and not as a lover. So, he tortured her in a way drove her mad. He caused her not to be believed.

[JPats]

More likely: you did not have that vision at all. You created it after the fact and decided that you remembered having it before you became famous. Psychologically, people do things like that all of the time. I'm fairly certain it is a much simpler explanation that positing some giant hologram system, which you have no actual evidence for except that you think you recall envisioning something once that came true. Hardly scientific; hardly even logical.

Did you document it at the time? Are there witnesses to whom you told the vision who could corroborate the tale? Without any proof but "I SERIOUSLY remember this!" I am going to have to say, yes, it is really a bit too hard to believe.

[Neighbor Dave]

I dreamed I hit the lotto.

I played the numbers for 6 weeks every draw.

12,13,14,15,25,31

Odd set of numbers.

3 weeks after deciding that it was stupid
12,13,14,15,24,31
Hit on a 56 million dollar pot.

I figured that whatever gave me the dream changed the one number to keep me from harming myself.

[Sam]

I have one problem with your theory. I believe your past self would have programmed himself better looking, wouldn't you?

[Sean]

Another possibility is that you aren't correctly remembering your vision; that over time your memory has changed to match your reality.

[Reegan Milne]

We use occam's razor and this is all over.

Looks pretty though.

[George Lane]

Scott,

I read your blog every day. I find that I agree with you on almost everything you write. It's amazing. You are the only other person I know that thinks the same way I do. The great part is, you are the one writing... I don't have to convince you. You just write how you feel, and I find it's usually exactly the same as the way I feel.

However, I do disagree with this particular post in one way. I do think that you could decide that you wanted to spend a few years and master enough physics and whatever other things with the goal of understanding string theory. Don't you agree?

I know that I certainly feel that way. That leads me to believe the programming thing isn't true.

Now, of course, I DON'T WANT to believe that I'm programmed by someone (although I don't believe in free will, something deep inside me wants to believe I'm creating something new and original). Therefore, I look for a way to poke holes in the theory.

Anyway, maybe I'll start posting more often. But I personally think that free will is a complete load of hogwash. I think that the first thing that pointed me in that direction was one of Orson Scott Card's books (I don't remember which).

[jerry w.]

This idea of yours really creeps me out, much like how I felt after reading "Sirens of Titan" by Kurt Vonnegut.

We're all part of some process that makes us nothing more than simple tools, moist or otherwise, in some long term plan that would have us deliver some item or thought to someone that we know nothing about, but who was / is / always will be waiting for our contribution to help further their situation along.

Think of it like this: We're all a bunch of idiot pawns in a chess game that we can't see happening, much less even know we're in.

http://boskolives.wordpress.com/

[Icomey]

I like the url for this page.

http://dilbertblog.typepad.com/the_dilbert_blog/2007/08/my-life-as-a-ho.html

[LA Clay]

I am a practical, no nonsense, sort of person. I don't "believe" in ghosts, vision or other mumbo jumbo. However, In my own life I have experienced things that defy scientific explanation and could only fall into the relm of "supernatural/spiritual".

As a computer nerd I would love to believe your theory, but are we than all different programs competing to take over the world? Your idea has flaws in that we then had murderers and thugs, who had enough knowledge to program themselves into a virtual world, but couldn't get a job. What about babies? programs by the parent? Wouldn't that make the children duplicates of the parents?

I am desperately trying to find a way to have your world be true, but alas, it's still the same grind every day. Even for you, you may have a well oiled grind, but still a grind.

[LA Clay]

I liked Crocker bank.

[Zarna]

Just so you feel old your senior year at College was 5 years before I was born ;p

I had a dream when I was 7 and in my dream I saw a straight long road lined with big gum trees (I'm an aussie) and there was a yellow car smashed up against one of the trees, it was as if I was floating somewhere just above the treeline. I had this feeling that my grandparents were dead or in lots and lots of trouble.
I then woke up really scared and afraid. I was at the age where I decided I was too old to call out for my parents when I had a bad dream and didn't tell anyone about my dream.
About 3-6 months later my grandparents (who drove a yellow car) had a serious car accident killing my nanny and seriously injuring my poppy. For something to do with the police reports and inquiries etc that go on after a serious car accident, my dad and uncle had to go to the site of the accident (after the car had been towed away) I asked to come, at the time I didn't know why but just really felt like I had to go and my parents reluctantly agreed.
When we got there it was the exact road from my dream and the exact tree. At the time I knew it was from my dream but because my parents were the most upset I'd ever seen them I didn't feel it was the moment to tell them and kind of just locked that dream away as an image that will stay with me forever. A couple of years ago I was talking to mum about Nanny and told her about my dream and how I wish now I'd said something at the time. Apparently she had a similar dream - not of the road but that something was going to happen and she wouldn't be able to talk to her mother anymore and that she really needed to ring her. She rang her mother the next day and it was the last time she ever spoke to her.
It's the only psychic moment I've ever had, but I think that in our particular case it was God ( You can call it he universe, the cosmos, buddha, allah - whoever but I think it's God) preparing me for what would be a traumatic experience and getting my mum to make a decision that she would have regretted not making. Maybe in your case it meant that you didn't rule out the San Francisco move period, but instead kept an open mind when you were confronted with the choice.
I don't know maybe there's not as much in it as that but it's what I like to think.

[Tony]

I dream every night without fail. In fact each night I go to sleep hoping that this night will be different. Some mornings I wake up more tired than I went to bed!!!

[^Mo^]

This, once again, proves there's no such thing as free will ;-)

[Kira]

Heh, Slaughterhouse Five.

This one time I was in a hotel lobby (I live in Las Vegas) and some guy stopped me and said I was going to do something important.

Years later I recognized the guy as one of the people who contributed to the whole The Secret thing.

So, creepy.

I still haven't done anything important, though.

[kranthi]

another possibility you haven't considered, Scot, is the power of intuition. it's not like you saw that very stage and those very faces in your dream anyway. it's just a sense of things that you can relate back to when it actually happens. that's hardly paranormal even if it isn't entirely normal. i'll vouch for the fact that you're still sane :)

[Someone]

Scott, and I guess commenters, although this is a day late...

It probably makes me look stupid plugging this, but at least try some of the stuff on the site.

www.psipog.net

it was archived awhile ago, the author went onto another project akin to it. It covers precognition, among many other things.

[Kenpachi]

what if someone programmed your ancient self to program you huh? what if someTHING programmed that self? something like SQUIRRELS WITH FLAMINGS NUTS!! :) You like squirrel analogies don't you.

It is good to speculate/ fantasize only within limits of discovered and/or proven reality. Yes, that sentence has some meaning in it! :)

[Mike]

I've had the same thing several times before, too. But the visions stopped for my future-self of post-high-school. Now I'm a college grad and haven't had one.

Which is a good thing, though. Because all of them were freak-accidents (car collision, etc.) where people just ended up getting injured. Kind of like the Final-Destination movies.

[SJ]

My ancient self needs an ass-kicking. What have I ever done to him.

[Scott]

"When I was a teenager, sometimes I saw quick images that came true. None of them were ever important."
Same thing for me. I've had a couple dozen visions of completely random, pointless moments, which then happened a couple months later, in exact detail. Now if I could have a vision of something useful...

[Dwight Schrute]

Actually, your self really IS a projection of who you think you are. You only live in the "now" for an infinitely small amount of time, before it becomes your past. Every notion of love and understanding of the universe you've ever had has been stored in your brain and is nothing more than electric impulses that fire in a certain sequence. Even the "now" is interpreted by the brain as brain waves. And we know how reliable brains are and how much free will they have.

[Jason]

Its far more likely that Scott Adams is serving as a Ouija Board for Douglas Adams.

The Vogons will probably be attacking soon. Its been prophesied in books, on television, on the radio and at the movies.

[Jason]

Actually, I created the universe and everything in it about 2 hours ago. Every memory that every person has was created by me. Creating memories for 6 billion people was complicated, so I put some deja vu in there to save time. You didn't even write the blog entry; I just wrote it and made you think you did.

Prove me wrong.

[yes]

"But my favorite theory is that I’m nothing but a hologram in a computer program built by my ancient self, before the planet was destroyed by some disaster. The reason I can glimpse my future is that I have all of the qualities of the real me who wrote my program. In other words, I can accurately imagine my future because it is playing out much like I would have authored it myself."

For a skeptic, you certainly have some interesting beliefs.

[JJ Saenz]

For some explanation of this from another culture, get (from Amazon.com, for example) "Dream Yoga and the Practice of Natural Light". In that culture it is called simply "clarity" or "the clarity of the mind", and may manifest in dreams or anytime.

But how can we reconcile such far out stuff with science? it takes a very patient and respectful approach, as in "Sleeping, Dreaming and Dying" (Amazon again!). Amazing book: talking with a sophisticated member of a non-western culture is as interesting as taking to an extraterrestial would be.

Good luck.

[Jez]

Wow, my BioWii2020 game about the multi-billionaire sex god who codes a computer program that guides his past and therefore alters his future will work right down to the vague-self-awareness module! Thanks for posting this, past-future Scott! (Note to players: time to save your progress and activate the Jez-finishes-program and gets rich feature.)

[William of Urbana]

You just mean the non-theists don't believe it. Maybe if you are to the point of inventing a genius programmer to avoid theism, you better check the batteries on your Occam's Razor. You clearly recognize the intelligence behind these communications; ask him who he is. Better not ask him what he wants. :-)

By the way, your theory has the whimsical possibility that you will soon loop back for the first of, um, many repeat performances, in the Scott Adams production of Neo Meets Groundhog Day.

[SpongeJim]

"Authored"? I would think you'd have authored yourself better looking and less of a dweeb.

[Real Live Girl]

Sounds like a movie. I'll buy a ticket to that.

I dream almost everynight and remember them in the morning. Some of them seemed really odd and unlikely, and then played out in my waking life.

I've come to believe that some of my dreams are true desires that make themselves known, and then subconsciously manuver towards fulfillment. It's one of the possible explanations for some of the weird wonderful things that have happened in my life.

Maybe I should cut to the chase and dream about winning the lottery now.

[Chris Honkala]

Probably the subconsious working to make your visions a reality would be the most simple and likely scenario.

The hologram theory is more interesting though.

[DML]

Why didn't your future self program you to be a handsome billionaire playboy who cures diseases and invents faster-than-light travel while dating models on the side? Your real self has(had?) zero imagination! :)

[Joe Canuck]

Hmmm. Solipsism with a twist.

[John]

I love that line from Shakespeare "There are more things in heaven and earth than are dreamt of in your philosophy" (apologies if I misquote, I am sure that some one will correct me but the sense is correct)

I have a friend who has had a number of similar dreams where and every one has come true. So nothing really surprises me. What I find laughable is scientists who dismiss the so called "supernatural" because they cannot explain it as if they were some sort of god.

[Taxi guy]

Quote:
"But my favorite theory is that I’m nothing but a hologram in a computer program built by my ancient self, before the planet was destroyed by some disaster. The reason I can glimpse my future is that I have all of the qualities of the real me who wrote my program. In other words, I can accurately imagine my future because it is playing out much like I would have authored it myself."

So you are saying you have a creator. And your creator made you in his likeness. And you are destined to discover this truth, because you are the creator's son. And you and your creator are one.

Sounds familiar.

[Luke]

I would say you're probably taking notice of particularly appealing dreams and somewhat working towards them, then when they eventuate you feel like you predicted it.

This reminds me of when i was a kid. i had a theory that everyone on the planet was basically watching my life. when i wasnt in the classroom the blackboard would turn into a giant tv screen and everyone would watch what was happening thru my eyes and hear my thoughts, and when i was nearly in the room it would change back and everyone would act as normal. this is how i explained coincidences, and also how i explained the way lots of people look like other people. theyre just the same person altered to be a different person.

hows that for self-absorbed

[Robby]

Of all the possible explanations for these so-called visions, this is possibly the stupidest and certainly the most narcissistic. I knew that being rich made people feel self-important, but to claim to be God is a little beyond the ordinary. You should hit yourself very hard in the head and hope it knocks some sense back into you.

[Cherrie]

So your programming self programmed the programmed you to figure this whole programming process out?

Why would you want to know? How does that help you?

Or, like any other program, is your programming self expecting his program (you) to return something useful?

[My programming self put more variables into the program than he could predict how they would work. He didn't think I'd figure it out. -- Scott]

[Irving]

It is part of the ancient Self, but not in the way you think. What connects us to each other and the past and future is what some call the soul, the real Self, of which our ego is the conscious part of being born in this human body. We each have a part of the universal soul, the divine whole which is called God and why we can catch glimpses of the future, and sometimes of another soul's past. Nothing is lost, nothing really dies, it lives on in the eternal now. Time is an illusion, a man made mental frame of reference. I have had many such dreams and visions, and all of them came true. The ones that you can't remember, or barely recall, are what is now called deja vu.

And the more open your mind is, the more you experience it.

It is a gift :) Be thankful, brother.

Peace and Blessings!

[Rob]

I think I have seriously NEVER had anything I dreamed come true. In fact, when something good happens to me in a dream, I get sad becuase it probably _won't_ happen.

[le Big MAC]

Mr Adams,
you wrote about affirmations and how writing-essentially, visualizing your [wife]sorry, life the way you want it to be, is essential to making the dreams come true. You concentrated so much on the way you wanted your life to be, it came true in spite of yourself.
Your subconscious mind (stop with the "moist robot" stuff already) that is, the 90% of your mind you don't actively use and aren't actively aware of, keeps you on the right track just like everyone else. Call it instinct or god or behavioral traits or whatever you want. It wanted you to draw and be funny because that's who you are.
So you have something in common with Uma Thurman! She was interviewed about being a teenager in love with John Travolta, and dreaming of dancing with him one day. 17 years later-"Pulp Fiction"! Her dream came true in spite of herself.
So do dreams come true? I bet they do for you. And Uma.

As for me, I want to slap my programmer. I'm going to be 39 in a week or so, and everything I've dreamed about doing in my life, not to mention what I'm doing with it now, is getting inventoried as to where my passions truly are, and who I want to be as real manhood approaches. Maybe I need to just let my subconscious figure it out for me.

[DWH]

I have pretty intense dreams,every so often, of living in a whole other alternate life.In the dream I talk to and know people that, in that life, I have known for 20+ years.Then I wake up and realize that I do not know anyone like that;never met them in this life.What's up with that!?

[bcammack]

I find precognition to be one of the reasons I stay humble about us not knowing much at all about the universe, really, and why organized religions blathering about how they've got a handle on what the heck is actually going on irritate the crap out of me.

I don't know why that, on occasion, I've looked at someone and just known that they were going to die in the very near future. Of course they did, too. One died in a plane crash 72 hours after I looked at his picture in the school newspaper and thought, "Poor bastard, he's a gonner...", with utter certainty like I'd just said "the sky is blue".

I think there is such at thing as being at right angles to our space-time continuum. Sometimes things come from those places and intrude upon us from "else-where/when". Sometimes you just have to accept it.

[JPop]

The kernel of your idea looks almost exactly like the one proposed here:

http://www.simulation-argument.com/

Only they argue that we are in ancestor simulations run by the people of the future. Actually, I'd say that their argument sounds more plausible.

For all we know, we might be dangling off a keychain of some future teenager in his future version of a Tamagotchi. Let's just hope that the global warming is not simply his version of burning ants with magnifying glass.

[Eric]

I can actually control the future. For example, in my comment on your previous post, I included a reference to bunches of extra dimensions, with a link to Wikipedia. The article referenced is all about string theory. I figured that you wouldn't be able to resist clicking on it, and then making a comment about string theory in your next post. BWAHAHAHAHAHA. Next, you will give me a position of leadership in DNRC (with a yearly stipend, of course).

[rd]

in my world people with visions are called shamans
and they altruistically and very usefully predict other people's futures
may be it's your native american blood, no? :)
if your future self invented (will invent?) your hologram and it's more like an ongoing experiment, that would be like so much more optimistic theory
instead of that global ancient crash and ancient yourself already like dead
the post reminded me the BI strip about time travel and hair amputation, ssssooooo funny

'If people had that sort of ability it would have been measured in a lab by now. '
here
http://news.yahoo.com/s/hsn/experimentsgetclosetooutofbodyexperience;_ylt=AqaRMEjM.dEXhvHCH8zACkfq188F
not exactly future visions, but still

[Steve]

The reason you don't understand String Theory is because you haven't spent enough time trying to understand it.

String Theory is not a theory at all. It should be called String Endeavor. Physicists are trying to come up with an equation that describes the world as we see it. The hope is that if they do that then they can look at the equation and make predictions in areas that the equation goes that we haven't looked at yet.

It is basically a big curve fit to the universe. The strings are 10e-35 meters long and they vibrate in 9 or 10 dimensions. How a string vibrates determines how we see it. In one case it may look like an electron. If it vibrates at a different frequency it might look like a quark, etc.

If you really want to understand it then go back to school and major in physics. I predict that if you do that then you will understand string theory, which violates your hologram theory that states that you cannot understand string theory.

[George]

I think "premonitions" of the personal nature must be to an extent an exploration of something you long for which you are too busy to think about in everyday life. Thus dreams become a popular vent. But unlike yourself most people just long for the next hot date, next concert, maybe a new car or something equally banal. The more ambitious you are the more dramatic the premonition I suppose.

Why even try to explain it, I can't and don't try to explain some of my visions and experiences, I try to understand them the best I can is all.

As an omnipresent being I don't expect to understand some things for a few hundred more years.
Billy B