The Untold History of Precognition (Future Sight)

In recent times, science fiction media has popularized the phenomenon of future sight.  The fact is, future sight also called precognition has a long, documented history throughout the years of human civilization.  This is the untold history of precognition.

Future sight has always been considered a psychic ability to see events in the future.  Despite the lack of scientific evidence on the topic, many people still believe it to be real.  Many know the name Nostradamus as being the most well-known allegedly predictor of future events, but there are also many others, who are well documented for having a mysterious ability to predict the future.
One such person of note was Baba Vanga.  A Bulgarian woman who was blind, but was believed to have had the uncanny ability to see future events.  Her predictions were so believed by her followers that they even believed she prophesied her own death.

The ability to see and reveal future events, date as far back as Antiquity.  As precognition has been associated with trance and dream states, with most recorded instances manifesting in the form of dreams.  The problem with these predictions, being that many critics hold the belief that they are the seeds of cause.  That, the prediction is guided into coming through because the idea envisioned is an unavoidable inevitability.  In other words, a self-fulfilling prophecy – knowledge of what is supposed to happen will lead to a change in behavior, causing the events prediction to happen.
The term itself “precognition” didn’t become common use until the 17th century, with a particularly cited case being written records left behind by a French Missionary to African in 1883.  The missionary documented an encounter he had with a witch-doctor with whom he did not trust.  In order to test the witch-doctor and possibly expose him as being a fraud, the missionary then wrote a question directed towards to witch-doctor and keep it concealed.  However, contrary to his expectations, the witch-doctor was able to give the correct answer without ever having heard the question. 

Moving into the 20th century, a notable case of testing human’s ability to accurately have precognitive dreams involved the case of a man called Charles Lindbergh.  In 1932 the Lindbergh's infant son went missing and was feared kidnapped.   Psychologists Henry Murray and D. R. Wheeler used the opportunity to test the possibility validity of precognitive dreams by inviting the public to report any dreams they might have had about the child. A total of 1,300 dreams were reported.  Sadly, the child was later found deceased and buried among some trees.  Only five percent accurately envisioned the fate of the child and only 4 of the 1,300 envisioned the location of the grave as among trees. The number was no better than chance.