There were 56 dream reports that came in before the 9 PM EDT deadline on September 29, 2002. Only one person besides Robert Waggoner and I -- Ed Kellogg, the conference host -- knew where the target would come from: an online collection of covers of the New Yorker magazine, numbering over a thousand. The target was selected over twelve hours after the deadline for submissions.

Here is how the target was chosen:  Around 10 AM EDT on September 30, I threw dice to arrive at a row and column on a random number table, which resulted in “179.” I went to page 179 of the New Yorker cover collection, then threw a single die to arrive at which of the 6 covers would be the target. I threw a six. At that moment, the cover in that 6th spot was from Dec. 10, 1927. It depicts an elaborately uniformed doorman holding a tiny gift-wrapped box for a woman in a fur-lined coat, who looks skyward.

As Robert and I discussed each dream report and compared them to the target, we found we each had favorite hits, and we had to hammer out a satisfactory compromise between us. Here are the results.

OUR FIRST PRIZE WINNER impressed us with two dreams. One features a chef who is “overweight and has white/gray hair” like our doorman. The fact that the chef is in uniform made us think of the doorman’s uniform, and in both the dream and the cover, they are serving others. In another scene the dreamer is “outside viewing a cityscape with another woman” looking at a “high rise building off in the distance.” The cover displays an outside city setting with a woman in it, and a high rise building in the background. In the dream she “points to the Empire State Building.” This dreamer, along with a number of others, seemed to have picked up on the “New Yorker” theme, and the woman on the cover does appear to be looking up.

OUR SECOND PRIZE WINNER also had an impressive two-dream combo. One dream features “blue and red,” “looking up at the sky,” “shopping women” in older style clothes, and then MORE looking up at the sky! A hypnogogic image just after the dream features “two rectangular windows” and  “boxes”; our cover features two rectangular windows and a box.

OUR THIRD PRIZE WINNER decribed “cartoon like” features and a woman “using her nose...walking with her head bent back, snuffling the way...” This was very compelling! The woman on our cover may not be “snuffling” per se, but she is clearly looking up with her head bent back, her nose prominent, perhaps to ascertain/sniff out the weather.

HONORABLE MENTIONS were numerous, and fell into several categories.

    The New York City theme: One dreamer flew over NYC in an airplane, and another included several NYC locations. A third reported a highway with a “big bridge,” “lots of cars,” “water somewhere near a bridge” and “huge freeway," all of which brought New York to mind. One dreamer described a man yelling, “Location, location, location!,”which seemed a clever clue that location was an important feature of the target (New York, New York and the New Yorker.)

    Visual Correlations: Two dreamers may have picked up on the awning with “jagged vertical lines” and a black and white “arrow cross.” One dreamer noted “ribbon embroidery” and a “striped sweater” that reminded us of the doorman’s uniform and the striped awning. Her dream also included a scene where “everything was being opened as though it were a present.” Another dreamer noted two different red coats in her dreaming, one on a woman in silhouette, like the red coated woman on the cover. A painter dreamt of  creating a water color with "dark shades on blue.” Our cover features a dark blue sky/background.

    Metamessage correlations: Linguist Deborah Tannen describes how “language works on two levels. . . The message is the meaning of the words and sentences spoken, what anyone with a dictionary and a grammar book could figure out. The metamessage is meaning that is not said — at least not in so many words — but that we glean from every aspect of context.” We noticed some dreams that captured the metamessage of the cover with few or no concrete correspondences.
    One dream, entitled “Unexpected Treasure,” features luxury living, a jade dragon which resembles the green embroidery on the doorman's sleeve, and precipitation, the prospect of which may be occupying the woman on our cover. Another dream, titled “Moving On Up,” contains nothing in the content of the dream that recalls our cover, but that theme song from “The Jeffersons” -- “Moving on up to the East Side, to that deluxe apartment in the sky”-- is specifically about Manhattan and the lifestyle depicted on our cover.

    Special Award for Missing with Astonishing Accuracy: This unheard-of but very justified prize goes to Gloria Sturzenacker, whose dream can be viewed graphically online. Not long after the target was selected on September 30, 2002, the order of the online display of New Yorker covers shifted. Here is the cover that came to occupy the same slot that day:

Gloria wrote,“The picture, for those who won’t recognize it, is the Hudson River, Riverside Park in Manhattan, Grant’s Tomb (the whitish monument building), and the Palisades (cliffs) across the river in New Jersey.” Her dream of 9/29/02 includes a number of  correspondences, including a “narrow bay or inlet” which is a “rich, glittering blue”;  "a beautiful, sunny day"; a "boat with a super-structure — perhaps a fishing boat — right there in the water”; "small, historical buildings arranged around this side of the bay" [Grant’s Tomb]; and, Gloria noted, "in my association, I specified 'North River,' a name used by maritime people for the Hudson."

    Last and least: Finally, Robert suggested I share the e-mail I sent him after the target was selected:

O wow -- I think I semi-precogged this on Saturday [9/28]! But I wouldn't have realized it if I hadn't read your paper. Here's the salient section:

I’ve brought in bags of bargains I’ve just bought, either on sale or at a discount place. One item surprises me when I take it out of the bag. I had thought it was this ornamental thing, one of those swags people hang over a mirror or a doorway . . . but on closer inspection I find it’s a Christmas garland, fake greenery wound up in this clear-but-heavy plastic wrapping.

I did vaguely think to myself, "Maybe this refers to something coming up in December," but it never dawned on me that it'd be a December cover, and a Christmas theme, on the target cover!

In his excellent presentation, "Identifying Precognitive Dreams Through Patterns: A Prospective Approach," Robert advises that “the inclusion of time-specific dream symbols is another major precognitive annunciation.” Nevertheless, I failed to realize that my dream may have been providing me with a clue about the target until later. Now I have placed a copy of Robert’s paper by the bedside with my dream journal and I read it regularly!