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Precognition is the ability to foresee the future, usually through visions had during sleep or meditation. Individuals with precognition have varying degrees of natural talent, which can be honed through focus and understanding. It is typically inherited, and approximately fifteen in every hundred people have the ability to varying degrees. Though, just about anyone can have a fluke premonition once in their life. This can be chalked up to either the will of a god or the Fates, a spiritual connection, or other causes. However, recurring premonitions or visions are traits of those with the natural ability.

The gene for precognition is co-dominative, meaning that if an individual has a parent with the gene for precognition and the other parent doesn’t, both genes will be dominant. This leads to only a decrease in the precognitive ability in comparison to the precognitive parent. If there are no fresh infusions of the gene into a family’s bloodline, the ability will often weaken over each generation and could eventually become non-existent. However, sometimes the gene will present itself strongly as a random mutation, even in bloodlines with no history of it. Some bloodlines may attempt to practice “pure breeding” by paring precognitives together, even close relatives, but while this may sometimes result in a generation or two of strong seers, it inevitably becomes detrimental to the trait and can lead to unintentional dilution.

As with oracles, the ability to foresee the future is more common in females than males (approximately four females to every one male). Young virgin females between the age of thirteen and eighteen tend to be the strongest in the ability, but this is not to say that males, older women, or non-virginal women cannot be powerful seers in their own right. It is merely more common in virgin teenage girls. Truly talented precognitives can maintain the ability late in life, regardless of gender or virginal status. In many cultures, precognitives are revered as seers or soothsayers and given special positions in the community. Other cultures, however, may fear and ostracize a seer.

Visions

Visions typically occur in a sleep or meditative state. They may be confused for dreams by the uninitiated, but they are not dreams. Visions feel absolutely real for the seer, as if they are experiencing it in that moment. Many visions reoccur night after night, increasing in frequency as the event is approaching. These recurring visions typically do not change, unless an alteration has been made in response to the knowledge gained from previous occurrences of the vision.

Visions will occur naturally in sleep to those with the ability, and the seer will wake upon completion of the vision to remember it. It is often such a jarring experience that they will not easily forget it or be able to return to sleep and override the memory of the vision with fresh dreams. Precognitives will learn better mastery of when and what they foresee with dedication to focus and meditation, but no matter how powerful their ability becomes, they are bound by Fate and the gods with what they are allowed to see.

Rules of Visions

1. The future is never certain, even when it has been foreseen. The very act of knowing what will happen may completely change the outcome. In many cases, precognition acts as an early warning system, notifying the seer of an event in the future that they can change (for example, foreseeing a deadly accident and then avoiding the circumstances so that it never occurs).
2. Fate-bound events are harder to avoid than normal events. These events seem to have a mind of their own and it becomes nigh on impossible to avoid the outcome. A seer can see this event and try to stop it, but by trying to stop it they create the circumstances that make it happen anyway. This rarely happens, and when it does it is often a part of a crucial series of events that the Fates have laid out.
3. The Fates and gods allow people to foresee only what they want them to see. While visions pertaining to a seer’s everyday life are not regulated, visions on a world or regional scale (such as an impending disaster) may be blocked, depending on the outcome the gods or Fates want. Some individuals may be allowed to see visions of these events if the Fates have allowed it, thus making it a “Fate-bound” vision.
4. Visions are always seen through the eyes of an individual while the event is occurring—not from a bird’s eye view, nor is it viewed like a movie. It is always experienced through a person’s perception. Typically, it is the seer themselves, but it can also be through the eyes of another person with whom the seer has somehow connected with—either by the will of Fate or from a personal or spiritual connection.
5. Visions feel absolutely real. It is not an “almost” real sensation, nor is there any lucid knowledge that this is a premonition while it is occurring. The seer feels as if they are actually there so long as the vision lasts, basically existing in that time frame for a brief period. Only when the seer wakes can they address the fact that it is a vision and not a dream.