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The Premonitions Bureau
Sam Knight
Faber and Faber 2022
Hb, 256pp, £14.99, ISBN 9780571357567
Dreaming Ahead of Time
Experiences with Precognitive Dreams, Synchronicity and Coincidence
Gary Lachman
Floris Books 2022
Pb, 208pp, £20, ISBN 9781782507864
Two new books on dream premonitions: one an historical account, the other a personal account. Of the two, The Premonitions Bureau is the one that is getting all the acclaim in the popular press. For forteans, the starting point is a familiar one – premonitions of the Aberfan disaster of 1966 (Welsh colliery spoil tip collapses killing 144; premonitions abound). The book follows the work of psychiatrist John Barker and journalist Peter Fairley, both interested in, and open minded about, paranormal ideas. In the aftermath of the Aberfan disaster, Barker visited after hearing of a child who had died of shock a couple of days after. The visit was for a book Barker was working on about people who had scared themselves to death. While in Aberfan he heard stories of individuals claiming to have seen the disaster in advance. Fascinated by these ideas, he teamed up with London journalist Fairley to ask people to report their dreams, which could then be checked against subsequent disasters – the idea being that the dreams could then be used as an early warning system to avoid future disasters.
During its existence the Premonitions Bureau received over 700 predictions, of which 18 were deemed to have subsequently come true. Of these 18, 12 were from the same two individuals, Barker’s star performers. That’s a 2.5% success rate in total. How useful is that in preventing disaster? Some dreams, and events, are always going to happen – for example, some time in the next week there will be a plane crash and the plane will feature red
