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I think I can predict the future ??


Guest annaLC

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Guest annaLC

Hi everyone,

Ok so basically I know this is going to sounds really odd but I geuinely believe I can predict the future and whatI believed was part of my OCD I am now worried is not a mental disorder at all but actual 'super human' powers.

I am aged 19 and have suffered from OCD all of my life although more seriously since the age of 9 when I moved house and schools etc. I have had various forms (e.g.. having to touch ground every time a 'bad' word was said, germ OCD, having to have everything straight etc) but in the last 3 years I have developed what I think is known as magical OCD which has been getting worse and worse. This entails me getting a prediction in my mind of something happening, and an inkling that if it comes true something bad will happen. I can count to 8 a certain number of times to prevent this from happening - when I do the predictions rarely come true. When I don't count (usually because I believe the prediction to be very unlikely so I don't waste time counting asI get one every few secs) they quite often come true. I then count like crazy to try and 'undo' the damage.

Recently, the predictions have been more and more precise yet have been coming true more. I am now worried that I can actually predict the future.

As an example, when I was around 10 I got a prediction my nana would die at the weekend (I had no idea she was ill) and I didn't do my counting as I thought it would not happen - she died that weekend.

As a further example, tonight, I had a prediction that when I went out for a meal I would see my maths teacher from a levels. I didn't do my counting as I thought this was v. unlikely. When in the restaurant I then had another prediction that the next person walking past the restaurant would be someone I knew. I did;t have time to count and the next person that walked past was my maths teacher who came in! How unlikely is it that either of those would come true let alone both at the same time??

These are just a couple examples but predictions like these come true almost every minute at the moment and I am seriously scared.

I am supposed to be starting university in a month but do not see how I can meet people without coming across as a weirdo as Ihave to randomly stop what I am doing and zone out whilst counting every minute.

Please reassure me that I am not magical and this is OCD !!

Thanks, Anna xxxx

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Hi Anna,

This is typical of the magical thinking of OCD.

Nobody can predict the future and none of us can control or influence what happens in the world through our thoughts. Life is full of coincidences, so much so that it can sometimes feel there has to be more to it than chance, but there really isn't. There are a lot of con artists out there who make a living from fooling people into believing it's possible to predict the future or make things happen with their thoughts, but if you examine how they achieve this it always involves slight of hand magic or mind tricks around the power of suggestion. The 'magicians' wisely never fool themselves their powers are real, they only trick their audience.

Sadly, nobody has superpowers. I sense you know that deep down. Your brain is trying to look for explanations other than chance to support the idea we have some control over the world around us because its a scary thought to think how little of it we really have any power over. Having superpowers or being able to predict the future are just ideas, not a possible reality. If you let yourself be convinced it's real it will only reinforce the magical thinking and you'll end up wasting your life doing pointless rituals which have zero influence on the world. That will also make you frustrated when again and again life proves to you that magical thinking doesn't work far more often than your predictions seem to come true.

OCD warps our thinking in strange ways and can make us believe things we'd normally dismiss as ridiculous or untrue. When you are feeling less stressed and less spooked you'll see that, and hopefully you'll be able to laugh at having believed it possible even for a short time. :original:

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We shouldn't offer reassurance but you can relax you don't have special powers. If you did, you should be able to choose the winning lotto numbers several times in a row.

The thing you have to do is stop putting faith in these magical thoughts. Don't perform compulsions like counting. They only serve to reinforce the belief in magical thoughts.

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Hi Anna

I suffer from this too and it is very stressing. You constantly feel that you are walking on an edge and the slighest movement to one side will make bad Things happen, right? It is a constant feeling that you can inluence the future badly by just one wrong thought or prediction and the consequenses are overwhelming. It is a big responsibility to walk around feeling that the future is in ones hand.

You write it yourself in your post first that maybe it will sound strange and it is because Deep Down we know ocd is fooling with us. I am a very kind, intelligent and normal person and not many people would guess what supernatural thoughts and Things I am dealing with in my head and held hostage to believe. It is so difficult for our rational brain to win over the irrational ocd, and that is only because ocd is driven by anxiety and our rational brain is not. So to make sure and because we are overresponsible and caring we don't dare believe in the truth which is its a false message ocd is sendning us.

I often feel like I present myself like a crazy person on this forum and that other sufferes on here must think I am seriuosly mentally ill. So what I want to say is that you don't have to be crazy, seriously mentaly ill or anything to have the thoughts you are having. OCD can make normal persons believe the most magically and impossible Things. Its just ocd messing with us and it does a really good job.

I know exactly how you feel. You feel every move and step along the day is a big risk. You hope the thought will go away but they just keeps coming every second. You really feel you have super natural powers because you only cause attention when the predictions are right. And I actually think that some people with ocd are so hyperaware of there surroundings so we pick up every information and are really good at putting it together and therefore it seems like we can predict. But 80% of the times we are wrong, but ocd does not care. It does this to me too.

You need to really get help and try to start testing ocd. One good practise for you to start with is to take a pencil and place it on the table. Then take an object of any kind. Make a prdicting in your head like say "when I place the oblect on that side for the pencil my dog will have an heartatack right after" then place the object. Did anything happen? Then do all kinds of prdictions also good once like when I place it someone will knock on the door with ice cream and then make an supernatural one with I predict I will turn green. Then you teach yourself that nothing happens. You have to really feel which side of the pencil you must put the object for the prediction to come true. I will begin this excercise Again today because I just had a coincidence this morning that triggerd my superhuman ocd.

As you also will realize is that reassurance don't Work. I guess you read the lines of reassurance but it does not Work does it?

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It is not possible to stop things occurring by counting or using any other methods, but it is possible for some people to predict the future.

When precognition is mixed with magical thinking OCD, it's a nightmare. I saw many things before they occurred and I visited a vicar about it as I could not cope. He took me to see one of his colleagues who was experienced in such matters and he prayed the 'gift' would go (pity he couldn't pray for the 'gift' of OCD also to go).

I think what we need to focus on is the fact that no amount of compulsions can prevent something happening - good or bad. Anna, your nana would sadly have died when she did, even if you had spent the entire day counting.

Why don't you seek help from a religious leader who can help you?

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Hi

I would be very careful of using anything but logic to this kind of theme. Writing that some people can predict the future is also something to be very careful about (are they never wrong? I guess they are and the kind of Things they predict can be predicted by many people).

But I just found an article called "Q&A: Why Superstition and ‘Magical Thinking’ Have Real Benefits" which describe why magical thinking exist and how come some FEEL they can predict the future. The author is atheist and a logically thinker and not influenced by any religion. Here is some of it from the TIMEs:

What is magical thinking?
The technical definition I use is the “attribution of mental properties to non-mental phenomena or vice versa” — treating the natural world as if it had elements of mind or consciousness, or treating your own thoughts as if they could have a physical influence on the World

What’s an example of magical thinking?
For instance, believing that your thoughts can affect reality directly through wishing or the law of attraction. If you think something and then it happens, often you feel a little bit responsible. You see your thought as the cause of the event. Another example is believing that certain things were meant to happen, in divine intervention.

Why are people so prone to these types of beliefs?
One common underlying factor is the tendency to see patterns in the world. We often see patterns when they aren’t there, and if we see a pattern between what’s going on inside our heads and outside in the world, if an event happens that has particular meaning, you might draw the conclusion and think that the event occurred in order to send your life down a particular path or communicate a message.

Back to me. I really think the last part is heplful. You just make a pattern where there is none. I do and then I freak out and I am wrapped in magical thinking but wants to let it go. My magicla thinking can even say there áre days where I must not think bad because wiches come true that day. This is a thuff one, and it is stupid because all days are the same. So the only thing it does is to make birthdays or other days more anixous. I have one of those days on saturday and I am wondering if I should cancel ging, but I wont because its just in my head. I actually need to do some exercises to go up front and get rid of this.

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Thank you both for your responses.

It is reassuring to know there are others experiencing this.

Himmel -what you have talked about is how I feel all of the time - like everything you do must be done in exactly the right way, it is so frustrating!

You make an interesting point about how we could be more aware of our surroundings than the average person and this is what I try to reassure myself with - I also wonder whether there is a slight delay in picking up something and the 'aware' part of our brain knowing that we have in which the prediction comes into our minds? Many of my predictions happen a split second before they happen which makes me believe this could be possible.

Have you had any treatment for your OCD? I am wondering whether to try and medication but am worrying about addling with my brain...

Tricia - Thank you for your advice, I am not religious so I don't know whether that would be beneficial to me - thinking about religion only scares me more as I think if religion can be true why not my OCD?

Thank you both again

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Anna, I am not religious either, but many priests and other clergy believe in precognition and it certainly stopped me from 'seeing' things.

P.S. I sought help just for the precognition and neither vicars mentioned religion or tried to persuade me to attend their churches or read the Bible (unlike an American evangelist I once saw for help with my OCD. A friend recommended him but he did more harm than good! I ended up with more obsessions than what I went to him with).

Edited by Tricia
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I don't know that I believe in precognition more than coincidence, and I fear that doing so could be a hindrance to treating the OCD effectively. That said, I wanted to reassure (not in an OCD-enabling way I hope) Himmel that I at least have never considered you crazier than anyone else on this forum. The only people here who baffle me are the ones who refuse treatment entirely but I know that they too are just overwhelmed by their OCD.

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Hi guys

Thank you for our little chat.

Anna what a funny link. Sometime you just need to laugh.

Sodovka Thank you so much for letting me know how you consider me.

Anna I am having CBT treatment and am progressing i small steps and sometimes one back. I am not on medication and my therapist only wants to go there if I am not making any progress. I too am scared of medication and dont know if it will have an effect or not. But you should defintly have CBT treatment. You cant Beat it alone. Get some now and dont wait.

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Correlation does not equal causation! Whether you could sense some types of things intuitively or not and then those intuitions be right about them has nothing to do with your intuition having effected or caused any of it to happen. Could be intuition or lucky guesses or coincidence, though certainly not any causation!

I get a lot of magical thinking also and my fears are not ever even normal rational things that actually could happen in the world or to me. Though they still feel so real and scare the life out of me! Like if I get an unwanted thought when I'm doing something I feel I have to redo it or do something else or something related to that thought or impression would happen or would contaminate me with its essence or something. Not even concrete threats usually only fear of something negative related to it. Or that I'll become like the unwanted features of the thoughts or they'll get stuck in my mind forever!

I constantly redo things cause of that. I count all the time and only choose certain numbers of things. It's not that the numbers are 'lucky' or 'unlucky' it's that they all represent different unwanted thoughts I hate! All numbers are like a separate language to me each representing a different thing or person or thought the way that words in our language represent things! So when they are negative ones I feel the magical thinking that using them or them associating to me is going to cause something negative related to them and change me or make me like that thing! It is endless always counting and looking at numbers or having thousands of other things that also represent these unwanted thoughts that give me magical thinking about them contaminating me or my life somehow! Almost any variable!!! I know it's OCD though the risk feels too scary! And my decisions usually have to be quick in the moment so I'm too scared to choose the 'risks'! It never ends, people saying things that are triggers. Life feels so pointless most often! :(

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