Ten Thousand Dreams Interpreted; Or, What's in a Dream: A Scientific and Practical Exposition — John Stuart Mill — John Shaqi
Ten Thousand Dreams Interpreted; Or, What's in a Dream: A Scientific and Practical Exposition
John Stuart Mill · en
``All these show unknown faculties in the soul. Such at least
is my own impression. It seems to me that we cannot reasonably
attribute the prevision of the future and mental sight to a nervous
action of the brain.
``I think we must either deny these facts or admit that they must
have had an intellectual and spiritual cause of the psychic order,
and I recommend sceptics who do not desire to be convinced, to deny
them outright; to treat them as illusions and cases of a fortuitous
coincidence of circumstances. They will find this easier.
Uncompromising deniers of facts, rebels against evidence,
may be all the more positive, and may declare that the writers
of these extraordinary narratives are persons fond of a joke,
who have written them to hoax me, and that there have been persons
in all ages who have done the same thing to mystify thinkers
who have taken up such questions.
``These phenomena prove, I think, that the soul exists,
and that it is endowed with faculties at present unknown.
That is the logical way of commencing our study, which in the end
may lead us to the problem of the after-life and immortality.
A thought can be transmitted to the mind of another.
There are mental transmissions, communications of thoughts,
and psychic currents between human souls. Space appears
to be no obstacle in these cases, and time sometimes seems
to be annihilated.''
A few years ago a person whom I will designate as ``A'' related a dream
to me as follows: ``I take no interest in pugilism or pugilists,
but I saw, in a dream, every detail of the Corbett and Fitzsimmons mill,
four days before it took place out West. Two nights before the fight I
had a second dream in which a favorite horse was running, but suddenly,
just before the judge's stand was passed, a hitherto unobserved little black
horse ran ahead and the crowd shouted in my ears, `Fitzsimmons wins!' ''
``B'' relates the following as a dream: ``I saw the American soldiers,
in clay-colored uniform, bearing the flag of victory two weeks
before the Spanish-American war was declared, and of course before
any living being could have known the uniform to be adopted.
Later I saw, several days before the actual occurrence happened,
the destruction of Cervera's fleet by the American navy.''
Signed ``B.''
``Just after the South African hostilities began, I saw in a dream
a fierce struggle between the British and Boers, in which the former
suffered severe losses. A few nights after I had a second dream
in which I saw the contending forces in a long-drawn contest,
very disastrous to both, and in which neither could claim a victory.
They seemed to be fighting to a frazzle.'' Signed ``C.''