Delbœuf[16] narrates from his own experience an especially impressive
example of this kind. He saw in his dream the courtyard of his house
covered with snow, and found two little lizards half-frozen and buried
in the snow. Being a lover of animals, he picked them up, warmed them,
and put them back into a crevice in the wall which was reserved for
them. He also gave them some small fern leaves that had been growing on
the wall, which he knew they were fond of. In the dream he knew the name
of the plant: _Asplenium ruta muralis_. The dream then continued,
returning after a digression to the lizards, and to his astonishment
Delbœuf saw two other little animals falling upon what was left of the
ferns. On turning his eyes to the open field he saw a fifth and a sixth
lizard running into the hole in the wall, and finally the street was
covered with a procession of lizards, all wandering in the same
direction, &c.
In his waking state Delbœuf knew only a few Latin names of plants, and
nothing of the Asplenium. To his great surprise he became convinced that
a fern of this name really existed and that the correct name was
_Asplenium ruta muraria_, which the dream had slightly disfigured. An
accidental coincidence could hardly be considered, but it remained a
mystery for Delbœuf whence he got his knowledge of the name Asplenium in
the dream.
The dream occurred in 1862. Sixteen years later, while at the house of
one of his friends, the philosopher noticed a small album containing
dried plants resembling the albums that are sold as souvenirs to
visitors in many parts of Switzerland. A sudden recollection occurred to
him; he opened the herbarium, and discovered therein the Asplenium of
his dream, and recognised his own handwriting in the accompanying Latin
name. The connection could now be traced. While on her wedding trip, a
sister of this friend visited Delbœuf in 1860—two years prior to the
lizard dream. She had with her at the time this album, which was
intended for her brother, and Delbœuf took the trouble to write, at the
dictation of a botanist, under each of the dried plants the Latin name.
The favourable accident which made possible the report of this valuable
example also permitted Delbœuf to trace another portion of this dream to
its forgotten source. One day in 1877 he came upon an old volume of an
illustrated journal, in which he found pictured the whole procession of
lizards just as he had dreamed it in 1862. The volume bore the date of
1861, and Delbœuf could recall that he had subscribed to the journal
from its first appearance.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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