Difference Between Premonition and Precognition

Premonition and Precognition - Two words with distinct meaning but do you really know the difference between premonition and precognition? And what does it matter anyway?

Easily confused and not helped by authors and experts using the two words interchangeably, within the field of psychic studies, they are two distinct and different abilities. 

However, they are both part of clairvoyance, with both terms with roots within the Latin language and both refer to an event ‘not yet experienced’; likewise they can both occur in the state of waking, as well as sleeping. 

You can see now why they are two terms that are confused, and yet there is still a difference between premonition and precognition.

Precognition
However you choose to define it, precognition is concerned with the ‘before’; the event has not yet occurred or happened and is associated with a dreaming state, although not exclusively so.

Neither does it need to be an exact vision, as many people would assume. It can be abstract or symbolic.

For example, you may dream of a terrible ending, waking to feel something is not right but then the feeling will disappear; a few days later, you may be told you are being made redundant and these same feelings re-emerge. You will connect the two and feel that you received the ‘warning’ in the form of a dream, a form of precognition.

Premonitions
Needing a certain level of clairvoyance skill, premonitions deals with the emotional realm and gives the person forewarning regarding something that is happening. And that is it. There is no vision, no connection.

And this is the difference between premonition and precognition; precognition gives more of an idea, if you like, as it implies that there is knowledge within this ‘vision’. Premonition, on the other hand, is devoid of such knowledge and offers a simple warning.

Going back to our earlier example, you may have a feeling that something is not right; you have no dream and no vision. The phone may ring and you are told of a death or something catastrophic changing. You had the forewarning, but not the foreknowledge of what it could possibly have been.

Premonitions are more common during waking hours and is linked to a heightened state of emotion. It is something that you hear people commonly say. “I knew something would happen…”, and “I just had this feeling…” are two common phrases that people say when they realised they had received a warning. Spontaneous in their arrival, people tend to not to try and explain a premonition, just putting it down to a strong emotion.

Precognition, for the uninitiated, can be more difficult to rationalise. They feel the fore warning was so strong that they cannot escape its warning but, as the world and society of a sceptical place, people who experience this who are not professional and accepted psychics or mediums, tend to stay quiet. 

As a matetr of fact, Hollywood and the entertainment industry have not always been kind in their depiction of people who see aspects of the future, especially those events where loss of life will occur.

Both of these abilities, along with the distinct yet subtle difference between premonition and precognition can give you, the seeker a whole raft of information regarding your life and how spirits are keeping you safe.