I am not the subject of remarkable dreams. I had one, however, lately, and I give it you because it stands connected in my mind with the knowledge of a singular psychical fact which I am confident will greatly interest you, if you have not yet fallen upon it in the course of your reading. About a fortnight ago I thought I saw in my sleep, a young man, who is assistant to our principal surgeon, come into my room, looking exceedingly unwell. He laid himself on the other bed in my chamber, and I thought that he had come there to linger out his last illness, at which I felt not the least surprise or objection. He seemed to be perfectly resigned, and presently he began to converse with me, and after we had talked for some time, whilst he was replying to something I had said, I distinctly saw his spirit rise up out of his body. He gazed at the corpse with the deepest interest and pleasure. One moment he would stand by the head and survey the face, and the next move to the feet, and then gaze at the entire body. He called me to come and stand by his side and view this lifeless frame, which I did with as much placidity as he seemed himself to possess, and without the slightest idea of their being anything absurd in what I saw. I could not, however, help saying "O, that I could leave my body and have such a view of it as you have now of yours!" I remember no more. In the morning I had occasion to call on a friend, who has a large library containing many rare books. Not being in the humour for close reading (for I spend many hours at a time there) I took up from a centre table a volume of a lighter kind. It happened to be Mrs. Child's "Letters from New York." Turning the leaves over carelessly, my eye lighted on a chapter headed "The spirit surveying its own body!" She there says that she was told by a pious lady, that when once in a swoon, she felt that she left the body and was _standing by it_ during the whole time it lasted; that she distinctly heard every word spoken by the doctor and her family, and saw every movement of their countenances, and all that was done with her body. I may observe that I have not heard that anything has occurred to the young man I saw. If I have not already tired your patience you may draw on my memory for something more. A line to that effect will oblige, Yours very truly, Mrs. Crowe, R. I. O. * * * * * LETTER IV. _Edinburgh, Aug. 10th._ MADAM, In consequence of a long absence abroad, I never had, till recently, an opportunity of reading your agreeable work, "The Night side of Nature," which contains a mass of evidence in favour of your theories, to which I take the liberty of adding a few cases from my own experience.