Andrew Lang

“ Alfred Maury, the well-known writer on Greek religion, dreamed a long, vivid dream of the Reign of Terror, of his own trial before a Revolutionary Tribunal, and of his execution, in the moment of time during which he was awakened by the accidental fall of a rod in the canopy of his bed, which touched him on the neck. Thus even a prolonged interview with a ghost may conceivably be, in real time, a less than momentary dream occupying an imperceptible tenth of a second of somnolence, the sleeper not realising that he has been asleep. ”

“ Any educated man who “saw a ghost” or “had a hallucination” called it a “dream,” as Lord Brougham and Lord Lyttelton did. But, if the death of the person seen coincided with his appearance to them, they illogically argued that, out of the innumerable multitude of dreams, some must coincide, accidentally, with facts. They strove to forget that though dreams in sleep are universal and countless, “dreams” in waking hours are extremely rare—unique, for instance, in Lord Brougham’s own experience. Therefore, the odds against chance coincidence are very great. ”

“ In any case the ghosts of our stories hitherto have been so aimless and purposeless as to resemble what we might imagine a dead man’s dream to be.
This view of the case (that a “ghost” may be a reflection of a dead man’s dream) will become less difficult to understand if we ask ourselves what natural thing most resembles the common idea of a ghost. You are reading alone at night, let us say, the door opens and a human figure glides into the room. ”

“ This perfectly accountable appearance, in its aimlessness, its unconsciousness, its irresponsiveness, is undeniably just like the common notion of a ghost. Now, if ordinary ghosts are not of flesh and blood, like the sleep-walking house-maid, yet are as irresponsive, as unconscious, and as vaguely wandering as she, then (if the dead are somewhat) a ghost may be a hallucination produced in the living by the unconscious action of the mind of the dreaming dead. ”

“ Mr. Rutherford awoke in the morning with all the words of the vision imprinted on his mind, and thought it worth while to walk across the country to Inveresk instead of going straight to Edinburgh. When he came there he waited on the gentleman mentioned in the dream—a very old man. Without saying anything of the vision he inquired whether he ever remembered having conducted such a matter for his deceased father. ”

“ Shchapoff came back, and the double shuffle was sounding merrily in the empty loft. Next day was no better, but the noises abated and ceased gradually.
Alas, Mr. Shchapoff could not leave well alone. On 20th December, to amuse a friend, he asked Maria to dance and play. Raps, in tune, began on the window panes. Next night they returned, while boots, slippers, and other objects, flew about with a hissing noise. A piece of stuff would fly up and fall with a heavy hard thud, while hard bodies fell soundless as a feather. ”

“ In dreams, time and space are annihilated, and two severed lovers may be made happy. In dreams, amidst a grotesque confusion of things remembered and things forgot, we see the events of the past (I have been at Culloden fight and at the siege of Troy) ; we are present in places remote; we behold the absent; we converse with the dead, and we may even (let us say by chance coincidence) forecast the future. All these things, except the last, are familiar to everybody who dreams. ”

“ No ghost story is more celebrated than that of Old Jeffrey, the spirit so named by Emily Wesley, which disturbed the Rectory at Epworth, chiefly in the December of 1716 and the spring of 1717. Yet the vagueness of the human mind has led many people, especially journalists, to suppose that the haunted house was that, not of Samuel Wesley, but of his son John Wesley, the founder of the Wesleyan Methodists. For the better intelligence of the tale, we must know who the inmates of the Epworth Rectory were, and the nature of their characters and pursuits. ”

“ Ricketts may be allowed to tell her own tale.
“Sometime after Mr. Ricketts left me (autumn, 1769) I—then lying in the bedroom over the kitchen—heard frequently the noise of some one walking in the room within, and the rustling as of silk clothes against the door that opened into my room, sometimes so loud, and of such continuance as to break my rest. Instant search being often made, we never could discover any appearance of human or brute being. ”

“ Dreams only form subjects of good dream-stories when the vision coincides with and adequately represents an unknown event in the past, the present, or the future. We dream, however vividly, of the murder of Rizzio. Nobody is surprised at that, the incident being familiar to most people, in history and art. But, if we dreamed of being present at an unchronicled scene in Queen Mary’s life, and if, after the dream was recorded, a document proving its accuracy should be for the first time recovered, then there is matter for a good dream-story. ”

“ Now, the ghostly is nothing but the experience, when men are awake, or apparently awake, of the every-night phenomena of dreaming. The vision of the absent seen by a waking, or apparently waking, man is called “a wraith”; the waking, or apparently waking, vision of the dead is called “a ghost”. Yet, as St. Augustine says, the absent man, or the dead man, may know no more of the vision, and may have no more to do with causing it, than have the absent or the dead whom we are perfectly accustomed to see in our dreams. ”

“ These are the most remarkable doings of the ghost at Garpsdal, according to the evidence of Sir Saemund, Magnus, Gudrun, and all the household at Garpsdal, all of whom will confirm their witness with an oath, and aver that no human being could have been so invisible there by day and night, but rather that it was some kind of spirit that did the mischief. From the story itself it may be seen that neither Magnus nor any other person could have accomplished the like, and all the folk will confirm this, and clear all persons in the matter, so far as they know. ”

“ Very often the dream is forgotten by the dreamer till he hears of or sees the event. He is then either reminded of his dream by association of ideas or he has never dreamed at all, and his belief that he has dreamed is only a form of false memory, of the common sensation of “having been here before,” which he attributes to an awakened memory of a real dream. Still more often the dream is unconsciously cooked by the narrator into harmony with facts.
As a rule fulfilled dreams deal with the most trivial affairs, and such as, being usual, may readily occur by chance coincidence. ”

“ As a rule dreams throw everything into a dramatic form. Some one knocks at our door, and the dream bases a little drama on the noise; it constructs an explanatory myth, a myth to account for the noise, which is acted out in the theatre of the brain. ”

“ We may not believe in “mental telegraphy,” but we can imagine it as one of the unknown possibilities of nature. Again, if I dream of an unchronicled event in the past, and if a letter of some historical person is later discovered which confirms the accuracy of my dream, we can at least conceive (though we need not believe) that the intelligence was telegraphed to my dreaming mind from the mind of a dead actor in, or witness of the historical scene, for the facts are unknown to living man. ”

“ At daybreak Inverawe hurried off to the cave, and said to Macniven: “I can shield you no longer; you must escape as best you can”. Inverawe now hoped to receive no further visit from the vengeful spirit. In this he was disappointed, for at the usual hour the ghost appeared, and in anger said, “I have warned you once, I have warned you twice; it is too late now. We shall meet again at TICONDEROGA.”
Inverawe rose before dawn and went straight to the cave. ”

“ Grettir answered that he was. Jökull bade him not do so, ‘for it is a dangerous undertaking, and a great risk for your friends to lose you, for in our opinion there is not another like you among the young men, and “ill will come of ill” where Glam is. Far better it is to deal with mortal men than with such evil spirits.’
“Grettir, however, said that he had a mind to fare to Thorhall-stead, and see how things had been going on there. Jökull replied: ‘I see now that it is of no use to hold you back, but the saying is true that “good luck and good heart are not the same’”. ”

“ Again, the phenomena occurring in “haunted houses” (whether caused, or not, by imposture or hallucination, or both) were easily magnified into such legends as that of Grettir and Glam, and into the monstrosities of the witch trials. Once more the simple hallucination of a dead person’s appearance in his house demanded an explanation. This was easily given by evolving a legend that he was a spirit, escaped from purgatory or the grave, to fulfil a definite purpose. The rarity of such purposeful ghosts in an age like ours, so rich in ghost stories, must have a cause. ”

“ Much later in time than the ghost of Sir George Villiers is the ghost of Sergeant Davies, of Guise’s regiment. His purpose was, first, to get his body buried; next, to bring his murderers to justice. In this latter desire he totally failed.
THE SLAYING OF SERGEANT DAVIES
We now examine a ghost with a purpose; he wanted to have his bones buried. The Highlands, in spite of Culloden, were not entirely pacified in the year 1749. Broken men, robbers, fellows with wrongs unspeakable to revenge, were out in the heather. The hills that seemed so lonely were not bare of human life. ”

“ Science may conceivably come to study crystal visions, but veracious crystal visions will be treated like veracious dreams. That is to say, they will be explained as the results of a chance coincidence between the unknown fact and the vision, or of imposture, conscious or unconscious, or of confusion of memory, or the fact of the crystal vision will be simply denied. Thus a vast number of well-authenticated cases of veracious visions will be required before science could admit that it might be well to investigate hitherto unacknowledged faculties of the human mind. ”

“ Excellently as this practice has worked in politics (compare the warming-pan lie of 1688) , in the telling of ghost stories a different plan has its merits. Beginning with the common-place and familiar, and therefore credible, with the thin end of the wedge, in fact, a wise narrator will advance to the rather unusual, the extremely rare, the undeniably startling, and so arrive at statements which, without this discreet and gradual initiation, a hasty reader might, justly or unjustly, dismiss as “great swingeing falsehoods”. ”

“ As there are, undeniably, many examples of hallucinatory appearances of persons in perfect health and ordinary circumstances, the question has been asked whether there are more cases of an apparition coinciding with death than, according to the doctrine of chances, there ought to be. Out of about 18,000 answers to questions on this subject, has been deduced the conclusion that the deaths do coincide with the apparitions to an extent beyond mere accident. Even if we had an empty hallucination for every case coinciding with death, we could not set the coincidences down to mere chance. ”

“ Where more than one person shares the vision, we may suppose that the influence comes directly from A to B, C and D, or comes from A to B, and is by him unconsciously “wired” on to B and C, or is “suggested” to them by B’s conduct or words.
In that case animals may be equally affected, thus, if B seems alarmed, that may frighten his dog, or the alarm of a dog, caused by some noise or smell, heard or smelt by him, may frighten B, C and D, and make one or all of them see a ghost. ”

“ Noises being the staple of haunted houses, a few words may be devoted to them. They are usually the frou-frou or rustling sweep of a gown, footsteps, raps, thumps, groans, a sound as if all the heavy furniture was being knocked about, crashing of crockery and jingling of money. Of course, as to footsteps, people may be walking about, and most of the other noises are either easily imitated, or easily produced by rats, water pipes, cracks in furniture (which the Aztecs thought ominous of death) , and other natural causes. ”

“ Every one has heard of the Wesley ghost, Sir George Villiers’s spectre, Lord Lyttelton’s ghost, the Beresford ghost, Mr. Williams’s dream of Mr. Perceval’s murder, and so forth. But the original sources have not, as a rule, been examined in the ordinary spirit of calm historical criticism, by aid of a comparison of the earliest versions in print or manuscript. (3) Even ghost stories, as a rule, have some basis of fact, whether fact of hallucination, or illusion, or imposture. They are, at lowest, “human documents”. ”

“ Yet we very seldom hear of a ghost stark naked; that of Sergeant Davies, murdered in 1749, is one of three or four examples in civilised life. {69b} Hence arises the old question, “How are we to account for the clothes of ghosts?” One obvious reply is that there is no ghost at all, only a hallucination. We do not see people naked, as a rule, in our dreams; and hallucinations, being waking dreams, conform to the same rule. If a ghost opens a door or lifts a curtain in our sight, that, too, is only part of the illusion. ”

“ Probably many readers have had the experience of meeting an acquaintance in the street. He passes us, and within a hundred yards we again meet and talk with our friend. When he is of very marked appearance, or has any strong peculiarity, the experience is rather perplexing. Perhaps a few bits of hallucination are sprinkled over a real object. This ordinary event leads on to what are called “Arrivals,” that is when a person is seen, heard and perhaps spoken to in a place to which he is travelling, but whither he has not yet arrived. Mark Twain gives an instance in his own experience. ”

“ But even these wild guesses cannot cover a dream which correctly reveals events of the future; events necessarily not known to any finite mind of the living or of the dead, and too full of detail for an explanation by aid of chance coincidence.
In face of these difficulties mankind has gone on believing in dreams of all three classes: dreams revealing the unknown present, the unknown past, and the unknown future. ”