In all ages of the world a belief in the prophetic character of certain dreams has prevailed. Numerous examples are recorded in which a warning intimation of approaching disaster has been thus received. Thus the holy evangelist, St. Matthew, relates that Joseph, the husband of Mary, was guided by dreams to escape with his family from the murderous designs of Herod and of his son Archelaus. The literature of the middle ages is filled with similar narratives. Coming down to recent times, it is not difficult to gather numerous examples of dreams which have been excited by presentiments of good or evil. A lady who was about to embark upon the ill-fated steamer Arctic, dreamed so vividly of shipwreck that she refused to take passage, and thus escaped the frightful disaster which overwhelmed the ship and its numerous passengers. Max Simon[64] relates the case of a lady who, in spite of a similar warning, embarked upon a steamship and lost her life, through the explosion of the boiler during the voyage. On another occasion[65] a noble lady dreamed that a wing of the palace in which her children were sleeping was about to fall down. Starting up, she called her waiting maids, and insisted that they should bring the children to her chamber. The women endeavored to calm her agitation, quoting an old proverb to the effect that “dreams go by contraries.” As she persisted in her commands, they feigned obedience, but soon returned to say that the young princes were sleeping too quietly to be removed. The princess would not be thus composed; and at last the servants reluctantly brought the little boys from their room. They had scarcely reached their mother’s apartments, when the disaster of which she had dreamed was realized, and the bedroom from which they had just been carried, was crushed into a mass of ruins.