# Oneiromancy **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [May 30, 2004, 3:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/oneiromancy/247751 "2004-05-30T03:06:48Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 5\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Atticus\_Finch](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/ec9cab/32.png) [@Atticus\_Finch](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Atticus_Finch)\ **Post date:** [May 31, 2004, 12:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/oneiromancy/247751/21 "2004-05-31T00:06:11Z")
> [@Invincible](#): > > I said that the Sheikh didn’t know my friend and that my friend was talking to him using his mobile phone. Well, no, you didn’t mention the mobile phone. If your friend was on the phone, how do you know exactly what the Sheikh said? You can’t rightly call yourself a ‘witness’ to this event. Maybe the statement about the wife’s pregnancy was also vague. For example, “I see a baby for you in the future” is a pretty good prediction to make to a young couple. > [@](#): > > May be I failed to translate what the Sheikh said into English, but I’m sure that he meant what we understood which is the baby will die. Like I said, without the result (that the baby died, which I’m sorry to hear), his prediction could have gone either way. The prediction looks accurate in hindsight because this is what’s called [confirmation bias](http://skepdic.com/confirmbias.html) - you naturally tend to believe the interpretation of the statement that actually occurred. Btw, no need to sign or write “thanks” on each post. ---
**Author:** ![Canadjun](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/76d3ee/32.png) [@Canadjun](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Canadjun)\ **Post date:** [May 31, 2004, 12:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/oneiromancy/247751/22 "2004-05-31T00:31:53Z")
> [@Invincible](#): > > - When the Sheikh said “… I ask Allah that the baby would survive”, he didn’t mean that the baby would survive. It was a connotation that the baby will die. In other words, the Seikh told us, in a polite way, that the baby will die and that he hope he guessed wrong. Did the sheikh tell you later that that’s what he meant, or did you assume after the fact that that’s what he meant? What **exactly** was the dream that was narrated to the sheik? “Good” fortune tellers (in the sense of having satisfied customers) are very good at picking up on cues that people don’t realize they are making. Children die in childbirth all the time, all over the world. The fact that the child died after the “prophecy” (assuming it was one) could be purely coincidence. Remember that you never hear about all the times a “prophecy” fails, only about the times it succeeds. ---
**Author:** ![Loopydude](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/e56c9b/32.png) [@Loopydude](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Loopydude)\ **Post date:** [May 31, 2004, 12:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/oneiromancy/247751/23 "2004-05-31T00:39:20Z")
Maybe paranormal things do happen. Maybe they don’t. Absolutely nothing about your witnessing is the slightest bit convincing one way or the other. You’re not interested in viewing the evidence skeptically; you’re merely stating your beliefs and either hoping to troll for the concurrance of like minds, or baiting sceptics into another one of those useless debates that plague this forum, where people talk past one another for endless posts like a gaggle of idiots. I won’t play your game. The only question I ask is why do you people do this? What the hell is the point? ---
**Author:** ![Bosda\_Di\_Chi\_of\_Tricor](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bosda_di_chi_of_tricor/32/16845_2.png) [@Bosda\_Di\_Chi\_of\_Tricor](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bosda_Di_Chi_of_Tricor)\ **Post date:** [May 31, 2004, 12:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/oneiromancy/247751/24 "2004-05-31T00:46:11Z")
easy! There’s no particular sign of baiting here. Talk with the guy awhile before you get all hot & bothered. Now…let’s all join hands & sing _Kumbahya_ … 😃😃😃 ---
**Author:** ![Invincible](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/f1d935/32.png) [@Invincible](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Invincible)\ **Post date:** [May 31, 2004, 2:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/oneiromancy/247751/25 "2004-05-31T02:49:56Z")
I’m sorry, I made a mistake. Great Debates is not the proper place for my thread. I should have put it in General Questions section for I’m seeking help and I’m not arguing. My thread depends on the assumption that what I say is true. So there is no need to query my story. > [@](#): > > Well, no, you didn’t mention the mobile phone. Sorry, but that what happened. > [@](#): > > how do you know exactly what the Sheikh said? My friend told me. (please don’t say that he might be lying) > [@](#): > > I see a baby for you in the future" is a pretty good prediction to make to a young couple. Again the Sheikh doesn’t know my friend and doesn’t know if he is married or not. My friend simply greeted him and told him about the dream and the Sheikh then answered him. > [@](#): > > The prediction looks accurate in hindsight I assure you again that my friend and I understood that the baby will not make the moment the sheikh answered my friend. We understood that as if the sheikh had said “The baby will die.” The most important thing I would like to make clear is that I have always been skeptical to every that I hear. If I were in your place I wouldn’t believe this story. I didn’t write this message because of this story. I wrote it because of the many other similar paranormal stories that I’m sure of their accuracy. The story I worte is just an example. May be you don’t have dream interpreters in your society, but they are very popular in mine. They have tv shows in which you hear conversations like this one all the time: Caller: Hello Sheikh … Sheik: Hello Caller: I saw people driving their cars on the sea and . … . … Sheikh: Well, you will marry a woman whose name is … Caller: Out wedding is next week \> \> Btw, lambchops, I will thank you this time for leading me to this great site. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/oneiromancy/247751.md?page=1)