Famous Artist School

When I was 11-years old, I applied to the Famous Artists School, to learn to be a cartoonist by mail. Here’s the application.

And here’s a page from the test, so you can see how much talent I had at that age. (Not much.)

In the end, I was rejected by the Famous Artists School because I was too young. The cutoff was 12-years old.

The interesting thing to me is why I still have the test. I didn’t save many things from early childhood. It’s as if I knew this would have some significance in the future. At that age, I was quite certain I would someday be a famous cartoonist for newspapers. I imagined it quite clearly. And when my career later took a turn toward cubicles, I woke up surprised every day that I wasn’t already a well-known cartoonist. (That is literally true.)

At various points in my life I’ve had what could best be described as glimpses of my future. For example, one day in college, I woke up in the middle of the night with a strong feeling I would someday be living in San Francisco. It wasn’t a dream, just a feeling, extremely vivid.

I didn’t know anyone who lived in San Francisco. I didn’t know much of anything about the place except that it was in California, plus something about Rice-a-Roni. A few years later, an ex-girlfriend moved there. After college, I was visiting my brother, who lived near Los Angeles, and took a side trip to see my ex in San Francisco. I ended up staying, and have lived in the area my entire adult life.

I had a similar feeling the day my coworker, Mike, suggested a name for the bespectacled character I often doodled on my whiteboard at work. The first time I heard the name Dilbert, it felt like being pulled down a long tube toward the future, getting a quick peek, then being yanked back to the present. I felt that something special had just happened.

In high school, I had a similar feeling about my future, seeing myself standing in front of large crowds of people while they listened to me speak about something. After Dilbert hit it big, I became a speaker for large events, with audiences up to 15,000 people. I did that for over ten years.

I have a few other unfulfilled glimpses of my future. One involves some sort of invention or notable innovation. The other involves serving in some sort of advisory role at an advanced age. I could be more specific about both, but I prefer not.

Has your future ever seemed to reveal itself to you?

[Note: I understand the concept of selective memory, and consider it the most likely explanation. That doesn't make it any less interesting.]

Comments

[Bryan Eyberg]

Yes. My plan was always to live in Boston. I always knew somehow I would end up here. Whenever I read about classical musicians who lived in Boston, I always knew I would live here. I also predicted that I would live in Ann Arbor Michigan. I grew up in a tiny town in Iowa. When I was 23 I moved to ann arbor, to start grad school, and when I was 29 I moved to Boston. I have been here for 6 years now. I even wanted to be a musician in Boston, a classical pianist. Now, at the age of 35, I study piano with a noted teacher in Boston, and perform in recitals in the Boston area. Kind of strange how I predicted it. I guess you could say that I wanted it to happen so I made it happen. But I wanted many other things in my life to happen too, and those things never happened. So, I guess its interesting.

[Paul C]

Hi Scott

I've had similar dreams: I knew, because I'd seen it in dreams, that one day in the future I'd be living in an entirely different part of the British Isles from the one I was brought up in. (Around age twelve, I dreamt, in vivid detail, the walk home from the pub in the Norfolk coastal town where I'd live in my late twenties. Around age twenty-eight, I was walking home from the pub one night, remembered the dream seventeen years earlier, and thought "hey, wait a minute...")

But I don't think it's a given that ALL prophetic dreams come true - all they are showing you are dreams of what MIGHT come to be if the circumstances are right. Reason? About age eighteen, I dreamt my own death, a vivid episode where I went out for takeaway food, but never got "home", because I was jumped by a gang, chased down an alley and beaten to death. There was enough incidental detail for me to recognise the street where it happened when I came to live there twenty years later. OK, this didn't stop me going to that particular takeaway (EXACTLY as and where I dreamt it, btw). But I remembered the dream, I never felt 100% safe and secure in that area, and I was really glad when (without incident) we moved on after living there for a couple of years. Goodness knows, out of bravado, I made myself stop and stand for as long as I could bear it, in the exact spot where I was cornered and murdered by the gang in that dream - and I KNEW this was the place where I'd dreamt of being slain. But vivid and exact though the dream had been, nothing ever happened.

So I wonder if these are dreams of POSSIBLE futures, and sometimes enough elements coincide for them to be truly memorable? In this case, everything (except the killing) co-incided. Oh, and there have been several beatings and stabbings in this street - although not in the spot where I dreamt it would happen - since we left. So the thought remains - did I get somebosy else's warning dream by mistake?

[levent]

wish i was a child its very late now :(

[Katrina]

Perhaps the reason that all of your dreams came true (pardon the cheesey sounding phrasing) is because you followed what you saw, and not because you saw what you would become!!! Perhaps you were more comfortable with packing up and moving to San Francisco because you had a feeling that you belong there due to a long held feeling that you would end up there.

Personally, I have had dreams that have come true, but they are different. Unlike Mr Adams', mine are nor recurring, they are just a one time dream, not necessarily of an event, just a place and a feeling associated with an activity- the time between having the dream to it actually occurring is generally months to years. I wish mine were showing me what I wanted to do, but they don't. These are more than just a feeling of having been there, or de javu. I will have dreams that have an impact on me when I wake up, as if they are somehow very important, but they will fade into my mind until all I remember is just small details (rooms or people mostly... occassionally events). The most recent one that came true was a dream I had about working in a store- There was something that happened in the store that scared me (I don't know the exact event but in the dream, I remember feeling ill at ease). When I woke, I had an uneasy feeling about the dream that I just shrugged off. I wasn't too concerned with it, since I didn't recognize the store or any of the people- it seemed random at the time. A couple of years later, I am in the military (Marines), on a ship and got sent to go work at the ship's store for a few weeks, one day I was unpacking a box and remembered the dream and realized that it was the store from that dream- I was sure of it. A couple days later, there was an incident that occurred leaving me with the same ill at ease feeling I had in the dream. This is not the first time this has happened either, it will happen once or twice a year. I don't generally remember any of my dreams; only one every few months or so. I wish I wrote these things down so that I could prove that I am not crazy and I actually did dream these things.
Here is the most recent dream that I have had that gave me an odd feeling: I am in an auditorium, the edge there is a railing held up by very nice spindles (I know there is a better word, but it is 4am and I can't think of it right now). I don't remember seeing any seats. The room was a dark red, the lighting was dim, but not dark. I had a feeling of falling. I did not look down below the balcony, but I had a feeling that I wanted to get out (I don't think it was fear, I think I just didn't want to be at whatever was going on). The building that I was in had a stairway leading directly up to the balcony from the outside. I didn't recognize the room or the building and have no clues where it was.
There, now you all can see it... if it happens, I can varifiably say that I did dream it! Too bad I have no way of knowing if or when this will happen.
I often wonder if anyone else has these kinds of dreams?!!!
Ok, I think I have rambled on quite long enough! Nobody should have to endure my craziness anymore!

[Dick]

Scott,
I have never experienced this but my wife has. While attending my sisters wedding, my wife told me that we would be moving to that town. Being a sceptical engineer, I laughed and told her we did not even have an office there. A merger happened and within a year we moved there! There have been others, but this one was very pronounced and documented, she usually keeps these things to herself.

[placebo]

Selective memory always seemed to me like a cop-out. It's kind of an Occam's Razor solution to a problem that has no solid answer just yet.

It's also unscientific because it fails to explain the phenomenon of precognition (or clairvoyance) in its entirety: What about recorded evidence of precognition like the works of Nostradamus and other acclaimed "prophets".

I don't believe in precognition because the thought of someone or something communicating itself backwards through time into my head seems surreal. I can't discredit the evidence though and indeed I myself have had moments of perceived precognition.

Someday our scientists or psychics or both will be smart enough to explain this evidence to me but until then I consider you, Mr. Adams, myself and anyone else presenting evidence of precognition utter nutjobs at best, knvaish hacks at worst.

Take your pick! :)

[Cessair]

I had to comment to add my "me too":

I have had three very vivid, very clear, images of myself. Like looking at a photo of myself doing something, only not something I'd ever done before. The first two have come true, years later, and I've had that "hey! this is what I saw when I was eight!" feeling.

I'm now waiting on tenterhooks for the third one to come true, because if it does, it means I get to have children :-)

[Dan Quixote]

Good post. Hopefully it'll prompt people to pay attention to the premonitions, heeding the ill omens, while pursuing what is seen in the positive glimpses.

I've gotten these throughout my life, with significant strength and vividness. Call it selective memory, God, self-delusion, intuition, whatever. I like to call it Something. I've always regretted not heeding the ones that seemed like 'warnings' or 'instructions', and have always been really happy about the outcomes of pursuing the positive visions, glimpses, or leadings.

For example - I've known since I was 8 that I would be the engineer that I am now, with the large family that I have now. It came in repeated glimpses and visions. But those dreams I actually wished for myself which weren't in those visions never came to be (career in music, any real success in powerlifting past the state level).

[Bruce Harrison]

Yes, twice. But I can only tell you about one of them, although they both involved the same woman (see where MY priorities are).

Both times, the situation came as a flash of absolute certainty. Suddenly a complete calm came over me, as though I was communing with an ultimate truth so powerful that there was no emotional component to it. It just "was," the way one's existence "is."

Just absolute certainty. I don't know if that's an adequate description of the feeling, or thought, or whatever it was, but both times it happened I knew without a doubt that I was somehow perceiving absolute truth.

The second time (the one I can tell you about) was the last time I saw a woman with whom I had an intense relationship. I didn't know at the time that it would be the last time; I didn't have any reason at all to think that.

I was saying goodbye to her at the Norfolk International Airport. She was flying back to Omaha. As I saw her plane lift off the ground, this calm feeling came over me, and I had the thought, "I'm never going to see her again." It wasn't a thought that came fearfully, nor was it something that once I thought it, I started to say to myself that it was my fears talking -- I just new, without the slightest doubt, that I literally would never lay eyes on her again.

That was more than twenty years ago, and even as I sit her and write this, I know that there is no possibility that I will ever see her again. It's hard to explain the feeling, or how I know, but I just do. The thought was totally specific -- it wasn't that we wouldn't be together as a couple; it wasn't that one or the other of us was about to die; it was just that I knew absolutely that I would never set eyes on her again.

Strange, but true.

[Sarah R]

Though not what Scott, or many others, have been talking about, I'm interested in the many posts about people experiencing deja vu. I experience this phenonmenon regularly, and have been interested in some of the as yet imperfect scientific theories surrounding the concept. Wikipedia has a basic overview of them, primarily related to the brain processing information from some receptors faster than others (one eye marginally faster than the other, for example) which creates a "memory" of the event just prior to full consciousness of the experience. While this theory is still in the works - for example, the blind and individuals with a single eye report deja vu to the same extent as sighted people with both eyes - the concept of some neural information being transmitted to the memory part of the brain faster than those neurons which serve cognition could account for a lot of deja vu. It doesn't, however, explain anything about precognition in the terms many here have posted, i.e., remembering/discussing a dream/vision with others and being conscious of its importance before it actually happens.

[Caroline]

When you realized someday you would be a cartoonist, you were using The Secret. This was when The Secret was still called "The Power of Positive Thinking". It's not so much clairvoyance, but rather the ability to envision your future and think positively about it to achieve the best possible outcome to your advantage.

We use The Secret to get good parking spaces at Wal-Mart or get the first sleeve of a fresh batch of fries when we have burgers. *ommmm*

[AJ]

The thing is i am very intuitive now this isn't the same thing as seeing the future verbatim but quite often i get very strong feelings about people things all that when it involves other people i an pinpoint it usually i knew when friends would hook up what was happening with others things like that. now intuition is about 20% what you know about a person/situation 60% signals your body picks up on that are too subtle for you to recognize (unless you have studied about this like Derran Brown and 20% something else entirely (i have known songs that were coming on the radio my record was 6 in a row (there were not all currently released pop records some of them were 20 years old etc so it wasn't just guessing what's in the charts)

the problem i have is that when its to do with others i can pin point things and say exact situations but when its me i only get vague feelings really like ominous doom etc because i don't have the perspective (you know cant see the wood for the trees sort of thing)
i believe our lives are mostly random but guided by way points there are things that will happen whatever unless you know to change or avoid them but its hard to do like landmarks the journey can be done many ways and the decisions are yours to make but the landmarks guide you along a basic path what happens between them is up to you though.

i also believe that there are people who can tap into this more then others or can train themselves to but there are also a lot of fraudsters out there and its so hard to tell the difference

[Bruce Edwards]

Wow - I have to admit some of this feedback is eerily familiar. (No, I didn't prophesise it - it's just some people have had experiences similar to my own).

Every now and then - once every few years - I will have an oddly vivid dream where I am somewhere, doing something, but it will be completely out of context. Such as sitting somewhere eating a sandwich while halfway through a conversation. I usually spend the better half of a day trying to make sense of it all - it's amazing how a scene with no context can be utterly puzzling.

Then, eventually, I find myself in that *exact same situation*. When it happens it is the most unusual experience, like the piece of the puzzle has fallen into place. Usually it is preceded by a series of 'ah-ha!' moments. Like 'That guy is familiar', 'This place is familiar ...'

Of course, this could just be some selective memory or right-brain-left-brain shenanigans, but I like to believe I can foresee my own future. And it involves eating sandwiches in unfamiliar surrounds.

[skilut]

I couldn't help notice that all your letters are connected when you write. I write the same way too. I don't think I know of anyone else who writes this way.

[Beenish]

Hi Scott,

I think this is amazing. Here in my country (Pakistan) they say that 'Poot kay paon palnye mein nazar aajatye hain' (A kids capabilities can be seen in early childhood days.)

Your drawing was good but your filled form was quite nicely filled. If at the age of eleven you knew that you want to be a cartoonist , then you really did deserved to be one. This is probably the definition of a successfull life that you achieve what you want.

By the way, I do see myself as the writer of an internationally famed book.

Thanks,
Beenish

[Zesty Pete]

Is your real name Billy Pilgrim?

[zAKI]

Scott , this is god .. keep it down would you .. I'm trying to get some sleep...

[Floda Reltih]

I woke up this morning and it suddenly came to me; I realised at last what I should do with my life: be a Fascist Dictator. Now, where's the downloadable application form?

[morry]

At least twice I've moved to a new city and job, and after awhile there I get a feeling of deja vu. But the deja vu isn't for a time I'd been there before, but a time I've dreamed of this exact setting. Well before I knew I was coming. The sensation is quite intense. Now that I know this happens, I've watched for it and it hasn't happened since. I'd like a small predictor of the future.

[Matthew Carlin]

Sort of.

Periodically I have emotional moments where it feels like other versions of me in the future are reaching back through time to comfort me or tell me it will all be okay. They seem pretty satisfied.

Since I realized I was feeling this, I've taken to periodically imagining myself at some point in the past and telling me it will be okay.

Eh, it's stupid but it's interesting.

[sayantan]

u make me think

[candice]

That drawing looks uncannily like my childhood dog, Freddy, only he never looked so sad. I used to give him hair cuts and stuff. Once or twice a year, he'd freak out and rip my sock off my foot, and run away with it and bury it under the bushes. I was helpless with laughture when he did this, and to this day, I have no idea what possessed him.

[Sara M E E]

Good afternoon, Scott and everyone.

I had a flash of insight this spring, “A better tomorrow equals a better today”. I had a really hard time explaining this to my husband, but maybe some of you will get it.

When I was a child I knew I would be involved in a science or math-related career. In the 6th grade, we had one of the first Apple IIe machines I had ever seen in the corner of the classroom. My hands ached to be on the keyboard, to feel and hear the sounds of my fingers striking the keys. Even though I couldn't touch-type, I could literally feel the reality of being a touch-typist in my hands and it almost hurt to hold a pencil in my hand instead.

I’m a computer programmer, and a female one at that. I type wickedly fast.

When I was deciding if I should fall in love with my husband or not, I had a dream that showed me the house I’d live in if I married him. I was standing at the top of a tall staircase, my hands on the rail overlooking a foyer with a big chandelier. To my eyes, it was a mansion. At the time, I lived in a 600 square foot bungalow made out of concrete blocks.

It is 7 years later. Guess what I live in now? (I didn’t have it built that way – we bought the developers’ model home)

That’s not the only time it has happened, but for the life of me I can’t lay my finger on any of those memories right now… I feel sick and weird, like my vision is messed up a little.. My equilibrium is all off, I think maybe my head cold has made it into my ears.

Anyway, my ideas aren’t that far from Rubel and Andy’s, but for my whole life, I have felt like I'm going to end up just fine. This has been a great and unending source of anxiety for me. What if what I feel is wrong? What if it is a fantasy I cooked up to make myself worry less (if so, that certainly backfired)? Everyone has that feeling of being particularly special. All my successes have been terrible fights. Only recently have I been diagnosed with ADD. Being a successful female ADD-er in an industry dominated by men, in which success hinges so much on intellectual ability has been tough.

This stuff isn’t, strictly speaking, that far out there, though. I’m sure many of you know that it doesn’t take a lot of study of quantum mechanics before you start to run into stories that confuse our way of looking at causality.

I HAVE A REALLY BAD HEADACHE NOW.

A personal note: I LOVE the doggie, although it makes me feel a little sad. Scott, where can I send you a thank you note for the levity and community you’ve brought to my life all these years? Do you have an agent or someone who handles these things? And yeah, you have my money; I bought the books.

Thanks,
S

p.s. my new saying is “crash hot”

[augustus]

I always had the feeling I was going to be something great and powerful, such as Emperor of the Universe, or something like that. Failing the Emperor position I would like to be a lobbyist who works for the biggest and most popular company. After all the effect is the same.

[Me]

Guillermo P. Mogorron:

Are you sure that your last name isn't "moron"?