PREMONITION, an impression relating to a future event. In modern times the best attested premonitions are those relat ing to events about to occur in the subject's own organism. The power of prediction possessed by the subject in such cases may be explained in two ways: (I) As due to an abnormal power of perception possessed by certain persons, when in the hypnotic trance, of the working of their own pathological processes; or (2) more probably, as the result of self-suggestion.
Apart from these cases there are two types of alleged pre monitions. (I) The future event may be foreshadowed by a symbol. Amongst the best known of these symbolic impressions are banshees, corpse lights, phantom funeral processions, ominous animals or sounds and symbolic dreams (e.g., of teeth falling out). Of all such cases it is enough to say that it is impossible for the serious inquirer to establish any causal connection be tween the omen and the event which it is presumed to fore shadow. (2) There are many instances, recorded by educated
witnesses, of dreams, visions, warning voices, etc., giving precise information as to coming events. In some of these cases, where the dream, etc., has been put on record before its "fulfilment" is known, chance is sufficient to explain the coincidence, as in the recorded cases of dreams foretelling the winner of the Derby or the death of a crowned head. In cases where such an explanation is precluded by the nature of the details foreshadowed, contem poraneous documentary evidence is usually lacking. The per sistent belief on the part of the narrators in the genuineness of their previsions indicates that in some cases there may be a hallucination of memory, analogous to the well known feeling of "false recognition."