Frank Podmore

“ We have evidence, of course, that other stimuli, too faint to make their presence known in the tumult of our waking hours, frequently emerge into consciousness in sleep. In this way we seem to revert in dreamful sleep to a more primitive stage of consciousness, which was ours, perhaps, far back in planetary history, before our lives were sharply divided up into alternating periods of helpless slumber and waking activity. ”

“ It will be seen that the idea of death had been already summoned up by the previous waking experience, and that the dream simply embodied the same idea in the traditional symbolic imagery—a tradition closely associated in the dreamer's mind with the idea of the dying woman. ”

“ Many cases have been reported to us in which dreams of a particular type are apt to recur with certain persons, indicating, either by way of coincidence or forewarning, the occurrence of a death in their immediate circle. It is difficult for us in such cases to share our informant's confidence that a dream of this kind is causally connected with the death, partly because the dream as a rule is not referred at the time to any particular person, and the scope for coincidence is thus very wide ”

“ I read the telegram first. My surprise caused me to relate the occurrence of Wednesday night, November 22nd, as you had told me in the morning. Lottie told her father that you told her the same thing after breakfast. Then I read your letter, and there was the same. A loud rap upon the head of your bed, waking you up, an arm thrust over your shoulder, handing you an envelope with a black border, with death upon it. I cannot forget your excitement and sadness, caused by the occurrence. ”

“ In another case, in which a child of fourteen saw the apparition of a young man of about nineteen on the day of his death, the percipient told no one of her experience, save her sister who was present at the time; and adds, "Although I wished to put it down in my diary (which I had not kept for some time) , I was afraid to do so; I therefore made marks to remind myself." [5]
In the last case, it will be observed, the vision was a waking hallucination, a much more impressive experience than a dream, and one much more likely therefore to be recorded. ”

“ In other cases the death intimated in the dream is that of some eminent personage—President, Duke, or professional cricketer. In view of the incalculable scope offered by dreams for chance coincidence, and the danger, when the experience has not been actually written down at once, that the amount of correspondence with the event may be unduly magnified, it would not be wise to attach much importance to coincident dreams of this character. ”

“ Thus we have two or three cases in which a robbery has been seen in a dream, in which the only conceivable agent would appear to be the malefactor, presumably unknown to the dreamer, and certainly a reluctant party to the experiment. ”

“ Shortly after we returned, my step-mother said to my sister, "Have you had an accident on the river?" "I? No," said my sister. [Mrs. Clarkson then related her dream]
According to my step-mother's account, my father also seemed to have been a little anxious and uneasy in his sleep that night, and in the morning rather pointedly asked her if she had dreamt anything, but said nothing further; and nothing was afterwards said to him to make him aware of what had happened. My step-mother's dream was during the night after the accident occurred. ”

“ The force of chance still operates, and undoubtedly many dream-coincidences must be attributed to normal causes. In the second place, most dreams leave but a slight impression on the mind even of the dreamer ”

“ B even when the dream is well attested, when the experience was unusually vivid, and the coincidence striking, there are many cases in which the dream can be explained by normal causes. There are, for instance, several dreams in our collection dealing with lost property ”

“ On Tuesday, January 26, 1892, I dreamed that in a lonely wood where sometimes I hunted game and was walking along after dark, I found a friend standing some ten feet in the bushes away from the road, apparently paralysed with fear of something invisible to me, and almost completely stupefied by the sense of danger. ”

“ But in cases of this kind it is probable that the dream may be founded on slight indications actually seen by the eyes, which failed in the crowd of waking sensations to gain attention at the time, and did not actually emerge into consciousness until sleep offered a vacant opportunity. ”

“ A dream related to us by Mr. G. R. Sims furnishes a parallel for the mistake in the identity of the chief actor in the dream-drama. Mr. Sims dreamt that his sister came to tell him of his father's death. In the morning, after he had awakened from the dream, Miss Sims actually came, but the death which she announced was that of his brother-in-law. [10]
A very large number of coincident dreams, as might have been anticipated on the telepathic theory, are connected with death. The following may be cited as a typical case.
No. 25. From Mrs. Mann [11]
King's Field, Cambridge. ”

“ Brierley's account of his dream is that, just before sitting down to breakfast on the morning he mentions, he alluded to the fact that he had had a singular fancy in his sleep—that he had dreamt Lohmann, the cricketer, was dead, that he had to write an obituary notice of him, and other things which he has detailed in his own communication. ”

“ There are altogether 1942 hallucinations reported in the Census enquiry, and in only forty-nine of these, i. e., 2.5 per cent, is any record (diary or letter) said to have been written within twenty-four hours of the occurrence. [6] We can hardly expect therefore that a note of a dream will be made at the time, unless the percipient should happen to be specially interested in the subject.
In the following case also the correspondence between the dream and the event appears to have been very detailed ”

“ H. B.'s will be found in my Apparition: and Thought Transference (p. 200) . The percipient in that case. Sir Edward Hamilton. K.C.B., had a vision of his brother with his arm seriously affected, horribly red. and bent back at the wrist. The date of the dream is attested by a note in the percipient's diary. ↑ Journal, S. P. R., December. 1894. ↑ I have seen the "mark" in the diary—a. simple triangle with no comment of any kind. ↑ Proceedings, S. P. R., vol. x.. pp. 211 and 220. Of course only a small proportion of the 1942 hallucinations showed any correspondence with a death or other event. ”