Prophecy vs. Precognition

I thought this might make an interesting discussion...

I started with the premise: All prophetic dreams are precognitive, but not all precognitive dreams are prophetic.

I think generally the measure of a true prophecy is that it must come true. If it does not come true, it wasn't prophecy. Prophecy is something that is destined to happen, and therefore cannot be changed. This is why religious texts often speak of false prophets.

Precognition, on the other hand, is a vision of something that will occur if everything stays on the current track. Situations on which precognitive dreams are based therefore have the potential to be changed if someone tries to change the outcome. For instance, if I see myself in a car accident in a vision or dream, and I recognize the street and note the details like weather and other vehicles involved, then later find myself in that place and situation, I can potentially avoid the accident. I've known people who have actually done this.

I am wondering if larger events though are predestined as part of a lesson for humanity at large. Maybe individuals within that situation, like say a plane crash, can change their personal outcome (take another flight or a train), but maybe it cannot be changed for the plane as a whole, because there are too many life lessons involved in the situation that affect too many other people.

The point for me is that if I try to change situations that are based on prophecy, then I am wasting my time. If I try to change situations based on precognition, I have a good chance of accomplishing that. The question then becomes one of learning how to recognize the difference. I wonder if there is a difference in feeling, detail, etc. between true prophetic dreams and precognitive dreams.

I think all the dreams so many people had prior to 9/11 were true prophetic dreams. I don't think that was a changeable situation, as there were lessons to be learned from it for so many people. It was a necessary situation; it had to be completed.

Now, remember, my original premise: "All prophetic dreams are precognitive, but not all precognitive dreams are prophetic." A prophetic dream is both. But a precognitive dream of an event that can be changed is not prophetic. It is not destined to happen; it can be changed.

I think perhaps that if I'm meant to change the situation, I will be given enough detail to enable me to do so if I'm paying attention. I change little things in my life all the time based on precognitive dreams. But it seems as if when it's world events, or deaths of people I know, I never get enough detail, or the detail is such that it is only recognized in hindsight, after the event occurs.

The difficulty with this is to see which are prophetic and which merely precognitive.
Have you read Asimov's Foundation series? There is a similarity there...
In foundation Psychology was used to determine the "outcome" and events of the human race and it could only do so large-scale, meaning that it did not factor in change at in individual level, only the mass level.
So maybe prophetic is mass level and precognitive is individual level.