Abraham Lincoln predicted own death?

[thaiboxerken]

http://www.civil-liberties.com/factoids/abevision.htm

I have checked through this website but they don't disclose when and where Lincoln supposedly made this statement. Even if he did, however, wasn't Lincoln assassinated outside of the White House?

[prewitt81]

Here's an article on that topic from Joe Nickell of Skeptical Inquirer:

http://www.findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m2843/is_3_23/ai_54600088

[Complexity]

I hereby predict my own death.

Sucks that I won't be able to get any credit for being right when I could still use it.

[thaiboxerken]

Thanks, prewitt. That article brings to light facts that make the dreams seem much less prophetic and more a product of the circumstances at the time.

[Rodney]

Thanks, prewitt. That article brings to light facts that make the dreams seem much less prophetic and more a product of the circumstances at the time.
Not necessarily. The problem with Joe Nickell's analysis of the two dreams is that it doesn't take into account their timing nor explore how often President Lincoln discussed (or even remembered) his dreams. The "mysterious voyage" dream took place the very night before Lincoln's assassination and the "death of the President" dream took place just a short time prior to that. Now, if throughout his life Lincoln routinely discussed his dreams and those dreams ran the gamut of topics from A to Z (including dreams of voyages and death), Nickell's analysis would have more validity. However, if it was very unusual for Lincoln to discuss his dreams and he had never previously discussed dreams of voyages and death, that would largly invalidate Nickell's analysis. So, I would suggest that Nickell needs to get hold of a few biographies of Lincoln and see what he can turn up in this area.

[Tompet]

http://www.civil-liberties.com/factoids/abevision.htm
Even if he did, however, wasn't Lincoln assassinated outside of the White House?

He WAS assassinated outside the White House, but laid in state in the East Room of White House for a period of days after the assassination.

[thaiboxerken]

Lincoln recieved death threats and several assassination attempts. I think that is why he dreamed of death. There is no need to invoke the supernatural in this case.

[writerdd]

I don't think it was too difficult for Lincoln to predict that he'd be assassinated.

[bjb]

So he dreamed about being assassinated, but he still went out to Ford's Theater? Lincoln didn't appear to believe his own prediction, so why should we? It's interesting that Martin Luther King made statements about his own mortality but no one accuses him of having supernatural powers.

[Admiral]

I remember once hearing a story about Caesar's wife dreaming he'd be assassinated the night before he was killed. I'm not sure how true it was...

People's memories are often distorted with regard to significant events, especially when they spend a lot of time talking about them. I can imagine that some of Lincoln's colleagues and friends were at a party years later, and in the interest of telling a good story exaggerated Lincoln's account of the dream. After all, stories about prophetic dreams are interesting- which is what makes them so common.

[Rodney]

So he dreamed about being assassinated, but he still went out to Ford's Theater? Lincoln didn't appear to believe his own prediction, so why should we?. . .
First, neither of Lincoln's dreams involved Ford's Theater, and so there was no specific reason for him not to go there. He might have avoided all public appearances for some period of time, but that would have been awkward and how would he have known when it was safe to go out again?

Second, the amount of credence Lincoln placed in his two dreams is not the relevant issue. Rather, the relevant issue is: What are the odds that Lincoln would have those two dreams right before his death?

[thaiboxerken]

What does odds have to do with anything? What are the odds that someone will win the lottery?

[Rodney]

What does odds have to do with anything? What are the odds that someone will win the lottery?

The odds have everything to do with making an informed judgment as to the likelihood of Lincoln having those two dreams right before his death. Again, if during his life he frequently remembered and discussed dreams, including dreams of voyages and death, it would not be that improbable that he would have discussed dreams of a voyage and death right before he died. If, on the other hand, he rarely if ever discussed dreams and never previously discussed any dream of a voyage or death, it would be highly improbable that he would have discussed dreams on those subjects right before he died.

Now, regarding winning a lottery, if all of the lottery combinations are sold, someone has to win, so there is nothing mysterious there. What would be mysterious is if someone who had never previously dreamed of lottery numbers dreamed of say, six numbers, and the next day those numbers proved to be the lottery jackpot winning combination.

[thaiboxerken]

Ok, how would you calculate the odds?

How are you calculating your odds for the claims you've made above?

Why would it be mysterious if someone "dreamed" of lottery numbers, played them and won? Don't people often come up with numbers and play them?

I have to think that the paranormalists would hail Lincoln's dreams of death if he was assassinated 4 years after he dreamed them let alone a few days after. After all, woos still think revelations is going to come true, even though it's about 2000 years late.

[bjb]

Martin Luther King's last speech alluded to the likelyhood that he would be assassinated:

http://www.afscme.org/about/kingspch.htm

The next day, he was assassinated. The odds against this happening must have been very high, so am I to believe this must have been a supernatural event?

[JohnboyMN]

Martin Luther King's last speech alluded to the likelyhood that he would be assassinated:

The next day, he was assassinated. The odds against this happening must have been very high, so am I to believe this must have been a supernatural event?

From the speech:
And then I got to Memphis. And some began to say the threats, or talk about the threats that were out.

Someone was making death threats. MLK heard about the threats. MLK acknowledged the threats. Someone carried out the threats.

Not much supernatural there.

ETA: I think a big difference is that many of us were alive at the same time as MLK. Many people had heard the threats. Given the social climate at the time, it was not unexpected that one idiot with a gun would carry out the threats.

[Rodney]

Ok, how would you calculate the odds?
How are you calculating your odds for the claims you've made above??
To make even a rough estimate of the odds of Lincoln having those two dreams shortly before his death, an examination of his life is required. Specifically, what is required is determining whether it was common or uncommon for Lincoln to discuss his dreams and, if so, how often those dreams involved voyages or death. If a careful examination of Lincoln's life reveals that it was common for him to discuss his dreams and a good number of those dreams involved voyages and death, then it would not be shocking that he discussed a dream of a voyage and a dream of the death of the President shortly before he died. If, on the other hand, there is no evidence that Lincoln ever discussed a single dream of his prior to the two dreams in question, then it would be shocking that he would decide to discuss those two dreams shortly before his death. As to the exact odds, they cannot be calculated because we do not have perfect knowledge of the number or nature of all dreams Lincoln may have discussed in his life. But that's not that big of a deal because we need be concerned only with rough orders of magnitude. And, with all that's been written about Lincoln's life, it should be possible to at least pin down whether he was in the habit of discussing his dreams. Joe Nickell didn't even attempt to resolve this issue.

Why would it be mysterious if someone "dreamed" of lottery numbers, played them and won? Don't people often come up with numbers and play them
This is a little tricky because, if, for example, 100 million people are playing "their" lucky numbers -- all of which differ from everyone else's "lucky numbers" -- and there are only 100 million combinations in the lottery, someone has to win. However, as I stated previously, it would be mysterious for someone who had never previously dreamed of lottery numbers to dream of the winning (1 in 100 million) combination the night before the lottery drawing.

[Rodney]

From the speech:


Someone was making death threats. MLK heard about the threats. MLK acknowledged the threats. Someone carried out the threats.

Not much supernatural there.

ETA: I think a big difference is that many of us were alive at the same time as MLK. Many people had heard the threats. Given the social climate at the time, it was not unexpected that one idiot with a gun would carry out the threats.
The analysis here would be similar to the analysis of Lincoln's dreams. Did MLK frequently mention in speeches the possibility of his early demise? If so, the fact that he mentioned that possibility in his last speech would not be surprising; if not, it would be surprising.

[thaiboxerken]

However, as I stated previously, it would be mysterious for someone who had never previously dreamed of lottery numbers to dream of the winning (1 in 100 million) combination the night before the lottery drawing.


I don't agree at all. No matter how common or uncommon their "dreams" of picking numbers comes, the odds of them winning the lottery are the same. This is true with Lincoln's assassination, whether Lincolned dreamed often of his death or not, it didn't change the odds of it happening. There is nothing mysterious about his dreams, it's a trivial coincidence and nothing more. People often dream of things that don't happen, do you find that mysterious?

[Rodney]

People often dream of things that don't happen, do you find that mysterious?
No, but that's exactly what we DON'T know about Lincoln because Nickell's analysis was so superficial. Did Lincoln frequently remember his dreams and discuss them with friends and family? If so, did most of his dreams not come true? We don't know the answer to either question.

[thaiboxerken]

If Lincoln never dreamed of death until these two incidences, it still doesn't make them any more mysterious.

[Rodney]

If Lincoln never dreamed of death until these two incidences, it still doesn't make them any more mysterious.
What, then, would it take to convince you that there could be such a thing as a prophetic dream?

[thaiboxerken]

If the dream was actually written down and declared prophetic BEFORE the prophecied event happens. And if it was actually accurate.

[Tirdun]

Two problems with all "prophetic dreams":

1: They are entirely hit-biased. There is no measurement of misses, or of how accurate the "hit" is. If I dream of wrecking my car and I never wreck my car, I'll likely never remember having that dream. If I -almost- wreck my car, if I see a car wreck, if someone at work tells me he wrecked his car, etc then suddenly the memory is triggered and I've had a prophetic dream. I may even misremember the dream to inflate the similarity to what really happened.

2: Assuming the possibility even exists, the well has already been poisoned by frauds. If there are "dreamers" out there with some kind of power, they're so far in the minority compared to the liars that they cannot be trusted to simply state that they have the power. Every fake tempers the iron cladding around the requirements for proof.

[Rodney]

If the dream was actually written down and declared prophetic BEFORE the prophecied event happens. And if it was actually accurate.

What does declaring a dream prophetic beforehand have to do with anything? Suppose you give a friend a ride to the airport. On the way, (s)he says to you: "I'm glad I'm a skeptic. Otherwise, I'd take seriously a dream I had last night about the plane I'm on today crashing." Then the plane crashes. Would you say: "That doesn't count as a prophetic dream because my (late) friend didn't declare it prophetic?"

[thaiboxerken]

What does declaring a dream prophetic beforehand have to do with anything?

Good point. However, it would still need to be documented BEFORE the event happened.

Suppose you give a friend a ride to the airport. On the way, (s)he says to you: "I'm glad I'm a skeptic. Otherwise, I'd take seriously a dream I had last night about the plane I'm on today crashing." Then the plane crashes. Would you say: "That doesn't count as a prophetic dream because my (late) friend didn't declare it prophetic?"

Yes, yes I would. That is, unless he described to exact detail how the plane would crash. It would have to be such that interpretation isn't needed. Often, prophesies are vague. Lincoln's dream was vague as well and offered no details.

[Rodney]

Two problems with all "prophetic dreams":

1: They are entirely hit-biased. There is no measurement of misses, or of how accurate the "hit" is. If I dream of wrecking my car and I never wreck my car, I'll likely never remember having that dream. If I -almost- wreck my car, if I see a car wreck, if someone at work tells me he wrecked his car, etc then suddenly the memory is triggered and I've had a prophetic dream. I may even misremember the dream to inflate the similarity to what really happened.
Your analogy isn't relevant to Lincoln's two dreams because he discussed those dreams with others shortly after he had them. Did he also discuss other dreams that didn't come true? Nickell apparently doesn't know because he doesn't tell us.

2: Assuming the possibility even exists, the well has already been poisoned by frauds. If there are "dreamers" out there with some kind of power, they're so far in the minority compared to the liars that they cannot be trusted to simply state that they have the power. Every fake tempers the iron cladding around the requirements for proof.
I agree that no one should simply be trusted to state that they have the power to dream prophetically. However, when you have verifiable accounts of seemingly prophetic dreams, they should be carefully examined, rather than sloughed off the way Nickell sloughs off Lincoln's two dreams.

[thaiboxerken]

Your analogy isn't relevant to Lincoln's two dreams because he discussed those dreams with others shortly after he had them.

So the story goes.

Did he also discuss other dreams that didn't come true? Nickell apparently doesn't know because he doesn't tell us.

Does it matter? I'm pretty sure Lincoln had plenty of dreams that didn't come true, like 100% of every other person that dreams.


I agree that no one should simply be trusted to state that they have the power to dream prophetically. However, when you have verifiable accounts of seemingly prophetic dreams, they should be carefully examined, rather than sloughed off the way Nickell sloughs off Lincoln's two dreams.

Those dreams can be simply dismissed because one of them isn't even close to what happened. It involves a boat ""sailing toward a dark and indefinite shore." This dream requires pure interpretation to come up with any semblance of prophecy.

The other dream is about a funeral in the White House and the President being dead. However, it mentions not the date or even how he was assassinated. Also, there is a sequal to this other dream that you've seemed to ignore or overlooked:


Once the President alluded to this terrible dream with some show of playful humor. "Hill," said he, "your apprehension of harm to me from some hidden enemy is downright foolishness. For a long time you have been trying to keep somebody - the Lord knows who - from killing me. Don't you see how it will turn out? In this dream it was not me, but some other fellow, that was killed. It seems that this ghostly assassin tried his hand on some one else." (Lamon 1895, 116-117)

[Rodney]

Yes, yes I would. That is, unless he described to exact detail how the plane would crash. It would have to be such that interpretation isn't needed. Often, prophesies are vague. Lincoln's dream was vague as well and offered no details.
I think you should reexamine your standards of evidence. Otherwise, you will fall into the Carl Sagan trap of declaring: "Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence" and then, even when the evidence is 99.9% conclusive regarding something (not necessarily the paranormal), finding that 99.9% conclusive isn't extraordinary enough.

[thaiboxerken]

Extraordinary claims DO require extraordinary evidence.

[Rodney]

Once the President alluded to this terrible dream with some show of playful humor. "Hill," said he, "your apprehension of harm to me from some hidden enemy is downright foolishness. For a long time you have been trying to keep somebody - the Lord knows who - from killing me. Don't you see how it will turn out? In this dream it was not me, but some other fellow, that was killed. It seems that this ghostly assassin tried his hand on some one else." (Lamon 1895, 116-117)
First of all, how do you know that Lincoln wasn't "whistling by the graveyard" -- the same way that some people do when they are given bad news by a doctor, such as that they have cancer? For example, a cancer patient may tell his family that there is nothing to worry about when he, in fact, is extremely worried.

Second, and more importantly, even if you assume that Lincoln genuinely thought that the dream was about "some other fellow" (a rather big stretch, since Lincoln dreamed about the President being assassinated and Lincoln, not "some other fellow", was the President!) the dream came true. To give you another analogy, let's suppose that the night before the Dow Jones Industrial Averages fell more than 20% on a single day in October 1987, a stock broker had a dream that exactly that would happen. The next day, on his way to work, he tells several friends about the content of the dream, but dismisses it as an impossibility. Would you argue that his dismissal of it invalidates it as a prophetic dream?

[thaiboxerken]

First of all, how do you know that Lincoln wasn't "whistling by the graveyard" -- the same way that some people do when they are given bad news by a doctor, such as that they have cancer?

Because he wasn't told anythign by any doctor or reliable source. However, I find it interesting that you'll place more value in his dreams than his opinions of the dream, why is that?


Second, and more importantly, even if you assume that Lincoln genuinely thought that the dream was about "some other fellow" (a rather big stretch, since Lincoln dreamed about the President being assassinated and Lincoln, not "some other fellow", was the President!) the dream came true.

It's sort of spooky, but not really. Dreams "come true" often. I dreamed I had to use the bathroom lastnight, I woke up. That dream came true right away.

To give you another analogy, let's suppose that the night before the Dow Jones Industrial Averages fell more than 20% on a single day in October 1987, a stock broker had a dream that exactly that would happen. The next day, on his way to work, he tells several friends about the content of the dream, but dismisses it as an impossibility. Would you argue that his dismissal of it invalidates it as a prophetic dream?

I would argue that it is one of several reasons to dismiss the dream as being prophetic.

[Rodney]

Because he wasn't told anythign by any doctor or reliable source. However, I find it interesting that you'll place more value in his dreams than his opinions of the dream, why is that?
Because Lincoln's "Death of the President" dream clearly came true and his "voyage" dream arguably came true. His opinion of the dreams doesn't mean a whole lot.


It's sort of spooky, but not really. Dreams "come true" often. I dreamed I had to use the bathroom last night, I woke up. That dream came true right away.
Profound. ;)

I would argue that it is one of several reasons to dismiss the dream as being prophetic.
Which leads me to argue that you belong in the Joe Nickell School of Superficial Investigative Journalism.

[SpartanWarrior]

Lincoln recieved death threats and several assassination attempts. I think that is why he dreamed of death. There is no need to invoke the supernatural in this case.


Yeah, and keep in mind the butchery of the times. Death upon more death upon more death.........the slaughterhouse that was the Civil War. It's a wonder he didn't dream about dying every night.....

[thaiboxerken]

Because Lincoln's "Death of the President" dream clearly came true and his "voyage" dream arguably came true. His opinion of the dreams doesn't mean a whole lot.

No, he had a dream about death. He died. This "voyage" dream didn't even come close to becoming true.



Which leads me to argue that you belong in the Joe Nickell School of Superficial Investigative Journalism.

You are simply being woo here. Dreams happen, sometimes they coincide with events that happen as well. That doesn't mean there is some prophecy going on. There is no scientific evidence that people can see the future.

[Tirdun]

"sailing toward a dark and indefinite shore." can be interpreted anyway you want. Any negative upcomming event, the death of someone he cared about, a stretch of ill health, a sudden economic problem... the list goes on. As president at the very end of the Civil War, Lincoln surely had a litany of potential pitfalls facing him. Shockingly, it could refer to actual travelling. Lincoln could have been planning to go to the South, or to Europe, or anywhere else a president might need to go. It is frustratingly vague.

As for Lincoln's interpretation, isn't that the point of your post above (#20?) that he was reporting his feeling from within the dream? If he saw a body in the white house and didn't think it was his own, surely that speaks volumes about the failure of this so-called prophetic dream.

[Rodney]

As for Lincoln's interpretation, isn't that the point of your post above (#20?) that he was reporting his feeling from within the dream? If he saw a body in the white house and didn't think it was his own, surely that speaks volumes about the failure of this so-called prophetic dream.
No, as described in Lincoln's below account, the face of the corpse was covered, so it couldn't be identified. However, his account states: "Who is dead in the White House?" I demanded of one of the soldiers. "The President," was his answer; "he was killed by an assassin!" So, it's quite clear that the dream referred to his assassination. His subsequent interpretation seems to be at attempt to spin the dream into something much less ominous. Here is Lincoln's own account of the dream:

About ten days ago, I retired very late. I had been up waiting for important dispatches from the front. I could not have been long in bed when I fell into a slumber, for I was weary. I soon began to dream. There seemed to be a death-like stillness about me. Then I heard subdued sobs, as if a number of people were weeping. I thought I left my bed and wandered downstairs. There the silence was broken by the same pitiful sobbing, but the mourners were invisible. . . . Determined to find the cause of a state of things so mysterious and so shocking, I kept on until I arrived at the East Room, which I entered. There I met with a sickening surprise. Before me was a catafalque, on which rested a corpse wrapped in funeral vestments. Around it were stationed soldiers who were acting as guards; and there was a throng of people, some gazing mournfully upon the corpse, whose face was covered, others weeping pitifully. "Who is dead in the White House?" I demanded of one of the soldiers. "The President," was his answer; "he was killed by an assassin!" Then came a loud burst of grief from the crowd, which awoke me from my dream. I slept no more that night; and although it was only a dream, I have been strangely annoyed by it ever since.

[thaiboxerken]

His prophesy failed. He did not wake up to find some other president dead in the White House.

[allanb]

... let's suppose that the night before the Dow Jones Industrial Averages fell more than 20% on a single day in October 1987, a stock broker had a dream that exactly that would happen. The next day, on his way to work, he tells several friends about the content of the dream, but dismisses it as an impossibility. Would you argue that his dismissal of it invalidates it as a prophetic dream?
Irrelevant, I think. It might have been a prophetic dream, and his dismissal of it might have been a mistake on his part.

[Garrette]

Not necessarily. The problem with Joe Nickell's analysis of the two dreams is that it doesn't take into account their timing nor explore how often President Lincoln discussed (or even remembered) his dreams. The "mysterious voyage" dream took place the very night before Lincoln's assassination and the "death of the President" dream took place just a short time prior to that. Now, if throughout his life Lincoln routinely discussed his dreams and those dreams ran the gamut of topics from A to Z (including dreams of voyages and death), Nickell's analysis would have more validity. However, if it was very unusual for Lincoln to discuss his dreams and he had never previously discussed dreams of voyages and death, that would largly invalidate Nickell's analysis. So, I would suggest that Nickell needs to get hold of a few biographies of Lincoln and see what he can turn up in this area.Good points, but as you criticize Nickell for incompleteness this is just as incomplete.

There are several populations you are leaving out in your own analysis.

What of all other presidents who were not assassinated but dreamed of it? Perhaps there were none, or perhaps presidents are not in habit of making such dreams public unless they have been emotionally worn down over several years by a brutal war and vicious personal attacks and the disapproval of much of their own party and the mental deterioration of their wife.

Then, too, there is no reason I can think of to limit the population to non-assassinated presidents. I should think it would be more honest to include all non-assassinated people and determine if they had dreams of assassination.

And, of course, we must consider other presidents who were assassinated. Did they have such dreams? If not, then how do we determined it to be statistically significant that this one did?

What would be mysterious is if someone who had never previously dreamed of lottery numbers dreamed of say, six numbers, and the next day those numbers proved to be the lottery jackpot winning combination.Another population problem, I think.

You would need to determine how many people who had never dreamed of lottery numbers dreamed of six numbers, played them, and lost.

First, neither of Lincoln's dreams involved Ford's Theater, and so there was no specific reason for him not to go there. He might have avoided all public appearances for some period of time, but that would have been awkward and how would he have known when it was safe to go out again?Bolding mine.

This, I think, demonstrates the primary weakness of your position.

The "prophetic dream" prophesized nothing of value. It did not say where it would happen and it did not say when.

It is of the same value as the yearly psychic predictions along the lines of "Trouble in the Middle East."


Finally, regardless how you spin it, the "Voyage" dream has nothing of prophecy about it.

[UrsulaV]

I know Rodney hates hearing this because he wants things to be declared psychic right NOW--but I don't think it's possible to determine that someone had psychic dreams that long after their death. There's no possibility of testing any predictions made by such dreams this long after the fact, little chance of firsthand interviews about Lincoln's history of sleep and dreaming, and so we're left with, at most, an interesting anecdote.

I'm forced to return to my standard position on historical woo--show me a real, live, testable one TODAY, that we can verify and learn about, and we may learn enough about prophets (or psychic healers, or whatever) to re-evaluate the historical data. But since at the moment, no one alive and testable has been proved to be a prophet, it is simply not possible to wring enough data from history to prove any psychic ability.

Extraordinary claims DO require extraordinary evidence--and the past is generally damn hard to get that evidence from. Once the claim is no longer extraordinary, once psychics are known and understood, THEN we no longer would require extraordinary evidence, and we might be able to say "Okay, Bob from (past era of choice) may well have been psychic."

But we really need a live one to prove stuff, first.

[Rodney]

I know Rodney hates hearing this because he wants things to be declared psychic right NOW--but I don't think it's possible to determine that someone had psychic dreams that long after their death. There's no possibility of testing any predictions made by such dreams this long after the fact, little chance of firsthand interviews about Lincoln's history of sleep and dreaming, and so we're left with, at most, an interesting anecdote.

I'm forced to return to my standard position on historical woo--show me a real, live, testable one TODAY, that we can verify and learn about, and we may learn enough about prophets (or psychic healers, or whatever) to re-evaluate the historical data. But since at the moment, no one alive and testable has been proved to be a prophet, it is simply not possible to wring enough data from history to prove any psychic ability.

Extraordinary claims DO require extraordinary evidence--and the past is generally damn hard to get that evidence from. Once the claim is no longer extraordinary, once psychics are known and understood, THEN we no longer would require extraordinary evidence, and we might be able to say "Okay, Bob from (past era of choice) may well have been psychic."

But we really need a live one to prove stuff, first.
Okay, here's a current one that bears further examination -- http://www.thedailyworld.com/articles/2006/04/27/local_news/01news.txt

[UrsulaV]

I'll agree it's worth examining further, sure. The guy claims to have visions that he can immediately determine are visions, which should make it easier to test. However, the anecdote as it stands is not proof of anything, merely an invitation to actual testing. It's also worth noting that for a prophecy, that was desperately imprecise--"a child trapped in the creek" is a bit of a difference from "older guy in a car accident in a completely different creek."

[bjb]

[Then they passed Milburn Creek. A three-foot section of guard rail was bent back on the opposite side of the road. Muddy tire tracks pointed toward the creek.

They kept driving. Accidents happen and are cleared away in the middle of the night all the time, he reasoned.

“Did you hear an ambulance last night,” Clifford remembers asking his son.

“No,” was the reply.

“We better go back,” the elder Foss decided.]

It seems to me these guys used their heads to figure out they should go back and investigate. On its own, the dream wasn't enough to make them search the creek. Without the dream, they might have noticed the broken guardrail and lack of ambulance and investigated anyway. Of course, the story is written to minimize make it seem like he relied on a vision, not his own deduction and logic. Why ruin a good story?

[ImOne]

All dreams are a conscious interpretation of some period of awareness. That period of awareness may be past, present, or future. It may be yours or another persons. And that period of awareness may be from objective reality or from imagination, yours or theirs.

[bjb]

OK, but what is your proof for these beliefs?

[NobbyNobbs]

I'd be willing to bet that most Presidents....especially those who served the office during a galvanized time....have had a dream about assassination. It's a danger of the job, even more so then than now, when there weren't so many security issues resovled.

Kind of like pilots who dreamabout crashing a plane. It probably happens more often to them than other folks. But they generlaly don't make a big deal of it, and inevitably one of them *will* crash a plane. That's just odds, not prophecy.

[ImOne]

OK, but what is your proof for these beliefs?
Personal experience.

[Rodney]

I'd be willing to bet that most Presidents....especially those who served the office during a galvanized time....have had a dream about assassination. It's a danger of the job, even more so then than now, when there weren't so many security issues resovled.

Kind of like pilots who dreamabout crashing a plane. It probably happens more often to them than other folks. But they generlaly don't make a big deal of it, and inevitably one of them *will* crash a plane. That's just odds, not prophecy.
Two problems with your analysis: (1) Lincoln's two dreams occurred very shortly before his assassination; (2) Lincoln mentioned those dreams to several others, and so a number of people knew about them before his assassination. To document your claim, you would have to produce evidence that other Presidents have told people about dreams they had regarding their assassinations, which then never materialized.

[NobbyNobbs]

Two problems with your analysis: (1) Lincoln's two dreams occurred very shortly before his assassination; (2) Lincoln mentioned those dreams to several others, and so a number of people knew about them before his assassination. To document your claim, you would have to produce evidence that other Presidents have told people about dreams they had regarding their assassinations, which then never materialized.

No, *you* are the one claiming that Lincoln had precognition, so *you* need to document your claim. I'm just showing falsifiability (I think). You'd have to come up with other dreams Lincoln had that were told to others, documented, and then came true.

[Rodney]

No, *you* are the one claiming that Lincoln had precognition, so *you* need to document your claim. I'm just showing falsifiability (I think). You'd have to come up with other dreams Lincoln had that were told to others, documented, and then came true.
(1) So you're saying that if Lincoln had only one or two dreams that came true, that doesn't count? (2) You stated: "I'd be willing to bet that most Presidents....especially those who served the office during a galvanized time....have had a dream about assassination." I'm merely asking you to provide evidence to support your speculation.

[thaiboxerken]

Lincoln didn't have superpowers, there is no evidence that he did.

[Meffy]

Lincoln didn't have superpowers, there is no evidence that he did.
So you're claiming that the "Dexter's Laboratory" episode in which Dexter and his nemesis Mandark create giant robotic versions of Lincoln and Washington, then engage in a titanic struggle for presidential domination, is completely based on fantasy? Hmmm.

[Rodney]

Lincoln didn't have superpowers, there is no evidence that he did.
According to my Webster's New World Dictionary, the term "non sequitur" means: 1) Logic -- a conclusion or inference which does not follow from the premises: abbrev. non seq. 2) a remark having no bearing on what has just been said.

[case sensitive]

“It’s like the Sasquatch. Who believes in that? I don’t,” said Clifford, who is divorced and out of work due to a disability. “But if you’ve seen it, it’s there.”

Maybe the answer for this unbelievable story is in that quote.

[thaiboxerken]

I wonder what it would be like to live as credulously as a Rodney or MayDay. I'd like to try, but I can't seem to stop this whole "critical thinking" thing.

[case sensitive]

I wonder what it would be like to live as credulously as a Rodney or MayDay. I'd like to try, but I can't seem to stop this whole "critical thinking" thing.

Come on! Try it!

I have special powers! They are so special I can't even prove them. Now that's special! It's true! :)

(Now you go: wow...)

[c4ts]

Lincoln recieved death threats and several assassination attempts. I think that is why he dreamed of death. There is no need to invoke the supernatural in this case.
Also depression, the Civil War, and the fact that he was the most hated president at the time.