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I am going to use my own life experience as an example. I had a dream where I was in a hallway and fire was surrounding me. Eventually, the fire kept creeping in and I woke up.

About 30 seconds after I woke up, the fire alarm in my building went off. To my knowledge, I had never even been in a fire alarm situation for many, many years. In other words, this was the first time in a very long time.

The nature of these events felt spooky. It almost at first glance seemed like evidence for some sort of mysterious spirit working behind the scenes connecting these events.

Is it evidence? On the one hand, events like these can seem too improbable to have occurred by chance. On the other hand, the very existence of some mysterious spirit or other world or god or something supernatural also seems improbable. How does one evaluate the difference between these two?

More importantly, how does one come up with a measure to decide whether or not it is now rational to believe in something supernatural. If I had a couple more of these dreams, would this be enough?

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  • This question is a re-working of: How do you measure the probability of something not known? - yet another question about evidence/probability with subtext about God/supernatural beings. If you believe it’s different, please edit the question, make it clear how it’s different and/or how the answers on that question are not helpful for your problem.
    – user6527
    Commented Jul 4 at 15:44
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    As usual, use Bayes rule. The likelihood function expresses how evidence is measured, where you specify the probability of the observations had they come from some particular model of how they might have been generated. In the old question " What is the probability of god existing " in the new question "decide whether or not it is now rational to believe in something supernatural.".
    – user6527
    Commented Jul 4 at 15:48
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    en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Synchronicity - Synchronicity is a concept introduced by analytical psychologist Carl Jung "to describe circumstances that appear meaningfully related yet lack a causal connection". One morning I dreamed there was a bird stuck in the empty bedroom fluttering its wings trying to escape. Later I went into the basement and a bird made fluttering noises in the clutter below my bedroom (I probably heard it in my sleep). Another time bird in the basement I had no dream. If the mind contemplates a butterfly and a butterfly appears in reality that is synchronicity.
    – SystemTheory
    Commented Jul 4 at 16:21
  • I'd consider this fairly strong evidence for a mysterious respiration: that is, your unreliable but nonetheless powerful ability to unconsciously recognize signals indicative of danger (in this case, the faint scent fire in previously clear air) and generate a nervous and endocrine response which will hopefully wake you up.
    – g s
    Commented Jul 4 at 17:12
  • This question can be answered with iep.utm.edu/evidentialism
    – J D
    Commented Jul 4 at 18:53

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I had a "spooky" period where on many different nights within the previous month I would awaken, exactly at midnight.

I don't mean "midnight-ish"... I mean Midnight = 12:00:00 on the dot.

It was puzzling. How could this be??

Old clock

Then one night, I was awake, already at midnight... I had an eye on my clock, wanting to experience the world awake at the exact 12:00:00 hour. to see if my periodic awakenings were externally sourced?

When it was 11:59:59... my clock hesitated its progression...

When 12:00:00 arrives, the stupid clock had to flip all the tabs at once, and it strained the little motor which kicked up a momentary fuss, then...

CLICK... a slightly delayed arrival of 12:00:00, With a tiny noise, you wouldn't notice, would normally be "background noise" if you weren't listening for it at that moment.

The clock was the culprit, waking me up.

Do we know the entirety of information about the events of the night? Could there have been something smelt or heard or vibration-felt.

Stuff does get "in" while sleeping, and dreams can "conform" or "include" those external sensings.

I had a vivid dream one night. In my dream, with some buddies, we had gotten up to some no good. Innocent reckless no good. (again, thats in the dream). In the dream, I am hunched over working on something, then get tapped on the shoulder by a cop. In the dream.

Which makes me jump. My whole body twitched. In real life, my body twitched.

There was a nurse tapping me on the shoulder to wake me to check my temperature. She didn't want to wake me, but I hadn't been laying still enough for her to check in my ear while asleep.

We had a good laugh, which hurt my new stitches.

But the point is... reality entered my dream... became the cause of the plotline.

My overall point... when "asleep"... we are asleep. Resting. Not completely "unconscious".

We know we are "hearing" while asleep, because sounds can be loud enough to break through and take our attention. But continually, we are hearing sounds, and dismissing them as ":less important". Exceptions?? Yelling moms, and alarm clocks (hopefully when set to do their job).

To be "evidence" all information would have to be known. There may be unknown information. To be "proof" external sources, and coincidence would have to both be ruled out conclusively.

You suggest you had "long long ago" been in a fire alarm situation.

A question to ask would be "On how many other nights have you dreamt of being in a fire alarm situation or scenarios, and not woken up to a fire alarm scenario?"... If that number is in the hundreds, then having one occur on a night when there is a fire, becomes much more likely.

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