Should I believe this?

[Rilly]

Last night my cousin told me that she saw the events of Black Saturday one week before it happened in a dream. The problem is that I don't really believe in this stuff though. I gave her the benefit of the doubt but this is still troubling me. So I have two questions. Do you believe that it is possible? And should I believe her?

[Dthoughts]

Would she lie to you? Does she have a reason to lie? If you believe her or not, would that change anything?

[nina]

What exactly was her dream about, what were the details? If she had a dream about a bushfire, and you believe that she had such a dream, then it is open to interpretation whether or not you or her believe the bushfire in the dream was the same as the Black Saturday fires or just a coincidence. I assume bushfires are pretty common where you live? Do I believe it is possible? Most likely. Should you believe her? That's entirely up to you. I've seen people distort details of a story so many times to better match something that happened...and they generally do so unknowingly, so they aren't necessarily deliberately trying to be dishonest. However I've also read lots of unexplainable situations and strange phenomena, such as dreams, surrounding large natural disasters/terrorist attacks/etc. I find it's best to be generally open minded about such things, but to also approach them with a healthy dose of skepticism, and use critical thinking to form your own conclusions. Check out this website from Princeton researchers: Global Consciousness Project -- consciousness, group consciousness, mind

[shadowofwind]

I've dreamed of disasters before they happened, usually just a few hours beforehand, but longer would be possible. There have also been disasters that I didn't feel coming at all. So if she seems truthful I wouldn't disbelieve her, its definitely possible. But I agree that a lot of people lie about this sort of thing or fool themselves also.

[neuronex]

What I've noticed sometimes happen is this: On one night I'll have a dream where, lets say, I'm walking through a purple corridor looking at mannequins. Then, a few weeks or months later I'll dream that I'm at a restaurant having dinner with purple mannequins. There is a tendency to confuse when the second dream occurred, because of its similarity and sense of continuity to the first dream. I might well say that the dream in the restaurant occurred at the same time as the first dream - because its difficult, one year later - to separate those two dreams and place them appropriately on a time-line.