Friday, January 8, 2010

It will be worth while to quote here one dream-case of a more ordinary type so far


From Phantasms of the Living by Edmund Gurney, Frederic Myers, and Frank Podmore, Chapter V "Specimens of the Various Types of Spontaneous Telepathy."

It will be worth while to quote here one dream-case of a more ordinary type so far as its content is concerned, but resembling the last in its unusual and distressing vividness. The supposed agent in this instance experienced nothing more than a brief sense of danger and excitement, which, however, may have been sufficiently intense during the moments that it lasted. The account is from Mrs. West, of Hildegarde, Furness Road, Eastbourne.

"My father and brother were on a journey during the winter. I was expecting them home, without knowing the exact day of their return. The date, to the best of my recollection, was the winter of 1871-2. I had gone to bed at my usual time, about 11 p.m. Some time in the night I had a vivid dream, which made a great impression on me. I dreamt I was looking out of a window, when I saw father driving in a Spids sledge, followed in another by my brother. They had to pass a cross-road, on which another traveller was driving very fast, also in a sledge with one horse. Father seemed to drive on without observing the other fellow, who would without fail have driven over father if he had not made his horse rear, so that I saw my father drive under the hoofs of the horse. Every moment I expected the horse would fall down and crush him. I called out 'Father! father!' and woke in a great fright. The next morning my father and brother returned. I said to him, 'I am so glad to see you arrive quite safely, as I had such a dreadful dream about you last night.' My brother said, 'You could not have been in greater fright about him than I was,' and then he related to me what had happened, which tallied exactly with my dream. My brother in his fright, when he saw the feet of the horse over father's head, called out, 'Oh! father, father!'