Premonitions and Dreams
Physicians who received forewarning through dreams that proved prophetic
Throughout history, physicians have occasionally reported a phenomenon both unsettling and fascinating: the experience of knowing something about a patient's condition before any clinical evidence supports that knowledge. These premonitions may arrive as vivid dreams, sudden intrusive thoughts, or an unshakable gut feeling that compels action. In "Physicians' Untold Stories," Dr. Kolbaba documents multiple accounts from physicians who dreamed about a patient's diagnosis before making it, who felt an inexplicable urgency to check on a stable patient moments before a crisis, or who experienced a flash of certainty about a clinical situation that defied all available data.
The scientific investigation of premonitions and precognitive experiences has a longer and more rigorous history than most people realize. Dr. Jessica Utts, a statistician at the University of California, Davis, was commissioned by the CIA to evaluate the U.S. government's remote viewing program and concluded in her 1995 report that the statistical evidence for precognition was significant and consistent across multiple independent laboratories. More recently, Dr. Julia Mossbridge at Northwestern University published a meta-analysis in Frontiers in Psychology in 2012 analyzing 26 studies that demonstrated statistically significant physiological anticipation of future events — the body responding to stimuli before they occur. While these findings remain controversial, they suggest that what physicians experience as premonitions may have a measurable physiological basis.
For physicians, the practical implications are significant. Clinical intuition — the experienced physician's ability to sense that something is wrong before the monitors confirm it — is widely acknowledged in medical education, though its mechanism remains poorly understood. The stories in "Physicians' Untold Stories" push this concept further, documenting cases where the physician's foreknowledge extends beyond pattern recognition into territory that cannot be easily explained by experience or subconscious processing. These accounts do not demand belief, but they do demand serious consideration from a profession that claims to follow evidence wherever it leads.
Inside the Book
Dr. Kolbaba's collection features physicians who experienced vivid, prophetic dreams about patients — dreams that conveyed specific clinical details later confirmed by diagnostic workup or clinical events. Several accounts describe doctors waking in the middle of the night with an unshakable conviction about a patient's deteriorating condition, rushing to the hospital, and arriving just in time to intervene before a crisis became fatal. These stories sit at the boundary between clinical intuition and something physicians found much harder to name.
Read the Stories →Key Facts About Premonitions and Dreams
Dr. Julia Mossbridge's 2012 meta-analysis at Northwestern University, published in Frontiers in Psychology, analyzed 26 studies demonstrating statistically significant physiological anticipation of future random events — the body responding to stimuli before they occurred.
Dr. Larry Dossey, former chief of staff at Medical City Dallas Hospital, has documented over 100 physician accounts of precognitive dreams about patients in his research on nonlocal consciousness in medicine.
A 2015 study in the British Medical Journal found that experienced physicians' gut feelings about patient deterioration — often dismissed as unscientific — were correct 68% of the time and outperformed several validated early warning scoring systems.
Abraham Lincoln reportedly dreamed of his own assassination two weeks before it occurred, telling his bodyguard Ward Hill Lamon the details — one of the most well-documented historical premonition accounts.
The Rhine Research Center at Duke University has maintained a database of over 14,000 reported precognitive experiences since 1935, with healthcare professionals representing the second-largest occupational group after educators.
Research Spotlight
Dr. Larry Dossey, former editor-in-chief of the journal Alternative Therapies in Health and Medicine, compiled extensive evidence from clinical settings in his 2009 book "The Power of Premonitions," documenting that physicians and nurses report precognitive experiences about patients at rates significantly higher than baseline population surveys would predict, suggesting that the clinical environment may heighten these phenomena.
Types of Phenomena in the Book
Distribution across 26 physician accounts
Near-Death Experience Features
Percentage reporting each feature (van Lommel et al., 2001)
Why Premonitions and Dreams Matter
Physicians are taught to distrust anything they cannot measure, test, or replicate — yet many carry memories of moments when they simply knew something they had no rational basis for knowing, and that knowledge saved a life. These experiences are deeply isolating precisely because the medical profession offers no framework for discussing them. "Physicians' Untold Stories" normalizes these accounts by presenting them alongside rigorous clinical details, allowing physicians to recognize that premonitions and intuitive knowledge are part of the authentic physician experience. Reading these stories gives physicians permission to honor their instincts alongside their training, and to trust that some forms of knowing may operate through channels science has not yet charted.
Questions Readers Ask
How common are premonitions among physicians, and why do so few discuss them?
Is there a scientific distinction between clinical intuition and genuine precognition?
Can physicians learn to trust premonitions without abandoning evidence-based practice?
What happens neurologically when a physician experiences a premonition about a patient?
Read the Stories That Changed Everything
Over 200 physicians interviewed. 26 stories that will challenge what you believe about life, death, and everything in between.
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