Response: Lack of Information

In response to Katie Emerson's post "Dreams and Determinism" (March 25, 2012):

I think the idea that dreams use our subconscious minds to guess at future events is very interesting, and there may indeed be a grain of truth in it.  However, I do not think that dreams can predict everything, because human beings do not have access to all possible knowledge.  The Universe is incredibly huge, if not infinite in size, so all the variables contained within (which determine future events) are too many in number for the human mind to comprehend.  Even if our mental capacities are much greater than they may seem to our conscious minds (and there is evidence that this is true), it is virtually impossible that they are great enough to comprehend the nature of the entire universe.

That said, we can predict some events with relative certainty, even by using only our conscious minds.  For example, if I drop my pen from three feet up over my bed, I can predict with virtual certainty that it will fall through the air and land upon the bed.  The primary variables involved are relatively few in number, and thus predicting the event is simple.  Thus, it is possible that our subconscious minds can take even more variables into account than our conscious minds, and as a result can predict more complex events.  However, as it is currently impossible to know which dreams may be indicative of future happenings and which are random brain firings, repressed memories or desires, or simple reruns of things that have happened to us recently, it is not practical to base future activities off what we witness in dreams.