In the 1960's, a British psychiatrist named John Barker became gripped by the problem of premonitions: when people seemed able to glimpse the future and, in particular, when they were warned of their approaching death. Barker set up an experiment, The Premonitions Bureau, with the Evening Standard newspaper, with the goal of collecting dreams and forebodings from the British public on a mass scale. It didn't go well.

 

My first non-fiction book grew out of this article for The New Yorker. There is more information about the U.S edition of "The Premonitions Bureau" here and the U.K edition here. If you would like to order the book, the Amazon page is here or you can support booksellers here. Thank you for reading!