Well, maybe I should call it a 'suggestive' incident -- since it's most likely just an interesting coincidence, nothing more. Anyway, that's what I would conclude, if I were a completely rational person. Fortunately for the poetically-minded among us, I am not always so rational.
I have mentioned before that sometimes one of the tiny screws that hold my eyeglass frame together comes loose (I've even dreamt about it). When that happens I tighten it with a tiny screwdriver:
Normally I keep it in a leather case that contains a basic repair kit consisting of various interchangeable tool heads plus a handle. This morning I noticed the screw was loose again, so I took out the screwdriver, tightened the screw and was about to put the tool away when it occurred to me it would make more sense for me to carry it in my shoulder bag, instead of keeping it in a drawer at home. That way, I would have it with me if I ever needed it away from home. I don't know why I'd never thought of such a simple, reasonable thing, but anyway it was the first time I actually thought of it. I started to put it in the bag, but then it occurred to me that inside that crowded bag the small sharp blade might press against the inner lining and damage it, perhaps even poke a hole through it. And I didn't want to carry the whole tool kit -- so after a moment of indecision I put it down and left for work.
Not long after I settled in at work, co-worker Erik came ambling over and asked if I had a little tiny screwdriver. He said he thought to himself that if anyone would have one around here, it would be Sam...
Interesting. Did a precognitive solution to a future want fail in the execution? Or conversely, did Erik choose to ask me for the loan of a min-screwdriver because I had thought about bringing it? It certainly looks like it could be one of these scenarios, but how odd that an active impulse motivated by precognitive knowledge would be thwarted by another, countervailing impulse. What was the 'point' of the foreknowledge, then? One would think that if a paranormal even was going to happen, it would HAPPEN... Perhaps this illustrates the principal that when something feels right, one should just do it and not overthink it. Don't teachers always tell you that when taking a multiple-choice test, if you have to take a guess you should go with your first gut-feeling?
This event recalls a case that is well known in the annals of parapsychological research. Dr. Louisa E. Rhine, wife of Dr. Joseph Banks Rhine, the founder of the famed parapsychology lab at Duke University, and herself a noted researcher in the field, had an article published in which she recounted an experience that seems to parallel what happened this morning (in a much more dramatic way, however). She wrote that when her son was a young child she once dreamt that she took him camping. The child was playing by a stream when she began to do some washing but realized she had forgotten to bring soap. She went back to fetch the soap, but when she came back the child had drowned in the stream. Some months after having this traumatic dream Dr. Rhine took her son on an actual camping trip with some friends. She took him with her to a stream to do some washing, then realized she had forgotten the soap. She began to go back for the soap, then suddenly realized that events were unfolding exactly as they happened in the dream. She ran back and snatched up her baby. Nothing happened to him that day and he grew up to become a parent himself.
Here is a strange and seemingly paradoxical event; is it even appropriate to call it a case of precognition? If the baby never drowned in the stream, Dr. Rhine's dream cannot properly be called precognitive, since the foreseen event never took place. And yet, obviously it is precognitive in some sense! If she had not had the dream, Dr. Rhine would not have gone back to pick up her baby and perhaps saved him from drowning.
EDIT: And of course, her almost-precognitive dream almost-parallels my almost-prescient experience.
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