Having partially discussed the subject of phantasms projected from the
brain of the agent to that of the percipient, I must now briefly
describe another group for which the evidence is very abundant--that of
"veridical" dreams. This is a term used to describe apparitions
coinciding with other events in such a manner as to suggest a
connection. Your dream or hallucination is said to be veridical when it
conveys an idea which is both true and previously unknown to you.
Making every allowance for the element of chance, there is a mass of
evidence which mere coincidence cannot explain away. Yet we must not
overlook the frequency of dreams, even of a striking character, which
may once or twice in a million times actually hit on the coincident
event. But besides coincidence, there is at times another normal
explanation. Mr Podmore relates how a neighbour of his on the night of
24th June 1894 dreamed President Carnot had been assassinated. He told
his family before the morning paper announcing the news had been opened.
As has been pointed out, in a case of that kind it seems possible that
the information may have reached the sleeper in his dreams from the
shouts of a newsboy, or even from the conversation of passers-by in the
street.
Before any supernormal theory, we must admit the possibility of a normal
communication, however far-fetched it may seem. In each of the instances
about to be related the fact of the dream was either recorded by the
dreamer or related to a friend before the fact of any coincidence was
suspected.
One of the best-known cases is that of Canon Warburton, who writes:
"Somewhere about the year 1848 I went up from Oxford to spend a
day or two with my brother, Acton Warburton, then a barrister,
living at 10 Fish Street, Lincoln's Inn. When I got to his
chambers I found a note on the table apologising for his
absence, and saying that he had gone to a dance somewhere in
the West End, and intended to be home soon after one o'clock.
Instead of going to bed I dozed in an arm-chair, but started up
wide awake exactly at one, ejaculating: 'By Jove! he's down!'
and seeing him coming out of a drawing-room into a brightly
illuminated landing, catching his foot in the edge of the top
stair, and falling headlong, just saving himself by his elbows
and hands. (The house was one which I have never seen, nor did
I know where it was.) Thinking very little of the matter, I
fell a-doze again for half-an-hour and was awakened by my
brother suddenly coming in and saying, 'Oh, there you are! I
have just had as narrow an escape of breaking my neck as I ever
had in my life. Coming out of the ballroom I caught my foot,
and tumbled full-length down the stairs.'
"That is all. It may have been 'only a dream,' but I always
thought it must have been something more."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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