Warnings Given in Dreams.
In my case each of my premonitions
related to an important crisis in my life, but often
premonitions are of a very different nature. One
which was told me when I was in Glasgow came in a
dream, but it is so peculiar that it is worthy of
mention in this connection. The Rev. William Ross,
minister of the Church of Cowcaddens, in Glasgow, is
a Highlander. On the Sunday evening after I had
addressed his congregation, the conversation turned
on premonitions and second sight, and he told me the
following extraordinary dream: When he was
a lad, living in the Highlands, at a time when he
had never seen a game of football, or knew anything
about it, he awoke in the morning with a sharp pain
in his ankle. This pain, which was very acute,
and which continued with him throughout the whole
day, was caused, he said, by an experience which he
had gone through in a dream. He found himself
in a strange place and playing at a game which he
did not understand, and which resembled nothing that
he had seen played among his native hills. He
was running rapidly, carrying a big black thing in
his arms, when suddenly another youth ran at him and
kicked him violently on the ankle, causing such intense
pain that he woke. The pain, instead of passing
away, as is usual when we happen anything in dreamland,
was very acute, and he continued to feel it throughout
the day.
Time passed, and six months after
his dream he found himself on the playing fields at
Edinburgh, engaged in his first game of football.
He was a long-legged country youth and a swift runner,
and he soon found that he could rush a goal better
by taking the ball and carrying it than by kicking
it. After having made one or two goals in this
way, he was endeavouring to make a third, when, exactly
as he had seen in his dream, a player on the opposite
side swooped upon him and kicked him heavily upon
the ankle. The blow was so severe that he was
confined to the house for a fortnight. The whole
scene was exactly that which he had witnessed in his
dream. The playing fields, the game, the black
round ball in his arms, and finally the kick on the
ankle. It would be difficult to account for this
on any ground of mere coincidence, the chances against
it are so enormous. It is a very unusual thing
for any one to suffer physical pain in the waking
state from incidents which take place in dreams.
A Premonition of a Bad Debt.
When in Edinburgh I had the good fortune
to meet a gentleman, who had held an important position
of trust in connection with the Indian railways.
Speaking on the subject of premonitions, he said that
on two occasions he had had very curious premonitions
of coming events in dreams. One was very trivial,
the other more serious, but both are quite inexplicable
on the theory of coincidence. The evidential value
is enhanced by the fact that each time he mentioned
his dreams to his wife before the realisation came
about. I saw his wife and she confirmed his stories.
The first was curious from its simplicity. A certain
debtor owed Mr. T. an amount of some L30. One
morning he woke up and informed his wife that he had
had a very disagreeable dream, to the effect that
the money would never be paid, and that all he would
recover of the debt was seven pounds odd shillings
and sixpence. The number of shillings he had
forgotten, but he remembered distinctly the pounds
and the sixpence. A few days later he received
an intimation that something had gone wrong with the
debtor, and the total sum which he ultimately recovered
was the exact amount which he had heard in his dream
and had mentioned on the following morning to his
wife.
A Dream of Death.
His other dream was more curious.
An acquaintance of his in India was compelled to return
home on furlough on account of the ill-health of his
wife, and he agreed to let his bungalow to Mr. T. One
morning Mr. T. woke up and told his wife of what he
had dreamt. He had gone to Lucknow railway station
to take possession of Mr. C’s. bungalow, but
when stepping on the platform the stationmaster had
told him that Mr. C. was dead, and that he hoped it
would not make any difficulties about the bungalow.
So deeply impressed was he with the dream that he telegraphed
to his friend C. to ask when he was going to start
for England, feeling by no means sure that the reply
telegram might not announce that he was dead.
The telegram, however, came back in due course.
Mr. C. stated that he was going to leave on such and
such a date. Reassured, therefore, Mr. T. dismissed
the idea of the dream as a subjective delusion.
At the appointed time he departed for Lucknow.
When he alighted he was struck by the strange resemblance
of the scene to that in his dream, and this was further
recalled to his mind when the stationmaster came up
to him and said, not that Mr. C. was dead but that
he was seriously ill, and that he hoped it would not
make any difference about the bungalow. Mr. T.
began to be uneasy. The next morning, when he
entered the office, his chief said to him, “You
will be very sorry to hear that Mr. C. died last night.”
Mr. T. has never had any other hallucinations, nor
has he any theory to account for his dreams.
All that he knows is that they occurred, and that
in both cases what he saw was realised in
one case to the very letter, and in the other with
a curious deviation which adds strong confirmatory
evidence to the bona fides of the narrator.
Both stories are capable of ample verification if sufficient
trouble were taken, as the telegram in one case could
be traced, the death proved, and in the other the
receipt might probably be found.
Dreams which give timely notice of
coming accidents are, unfortunately, quite as often
useless as they are efficacious for the protection
of those to whom they are sent. Mr. Kendall,
from whose psychical diary I have often quoted, sends
me the following story of a dream which occurred,
but which failed to save the dreamer’s leg, although
he struggled against it, and did his best to avert
his evil fate:
“Taking tea at a friend’s
house in the road where I live, I met with the Rev.
Mr. Johnson, superintendent of the South Shields Circuit
among the Primitive Methodists. He spoke with
great confidence of the authenticity of a remarkable
dream which he related. He used to reside at Shipley,
near Bradford. His class-leader there had lost
a leg, and he had heard direct from himself the circumstances
under which the loss took place and the dream that
accompanied. This class-leader was a blacksmith
at a manufacturing mill which was driven by a water-wheel.
He knew the wheel to be out of repair, when one night
he dreamed that at the close of the day’s work
the manager detained him to repair it, that his foot
slipped and became entangled between the two wheels,
and was injured and afterwards amputated. In
consequence he told his wife the dream in the morning,
and made up his mind to be out of the way that evening,
if he was wanted to repair the wheel. During
the day the manager announced that the wheel must
be repaired when the workpeople left that evening,
but the blacksmith determined to make himself scarce
before the hour arrived. He fled to a wood in
the vicinity, and thought to hide himself there in
its recesses. He came to a spot where some timber
lay which belonged to the mill, and detected a lad
stealing some pieces of wood from the heap. He
pursued him in order to rescue the stolen property,
became excited, and forgot all about his resolution.
He found himself ere he was aware of it back at the
mill just as the workpeople were being dismissed.
He could not escape, and as he was principal smith
he had to go upon the wheel, but he resolved to be
very careful. In spite of his care, however,
his foot slipped and got entangled between the two
wheels just as he had dreamed. It was crushed
so badly that he had to be carried to the Bradford
Infirmary, where the leg was amputated above the knee.
The premonitory dream was thus fulfilled throughout.”
A Death Warning.
A much more painful story and far
more detailed is contained in the fifth volume of
the “Proceedings of the Psychical Research Society,”
on the authority of C. F. Fleet, of 26, Grosvenor
Road, Gainsborough. He swears to the authenticity
of the facts. The detailed story is full of the
tragic fascination which attaches to the struggle of
a brave man, repeatedly warned of his coming death,
struggling in vain to avert the event which was to
prove fatal, and ultimately perishing within the sight
of those to whom he had revealed the vision. The
story in brief is as follows: Mr. Fleet was third
mate on the sailing ship Persian Empire, which
left Adelaide for London in 1868. One of the crew,
Cleary by name, dreamed before starting that on Christmas
morning, as the Persian Empire was passing
Cape Horn in a heavy gale, he was ordered, with the
rest of his watch, to secure a boat hanging in davits
over the side. He and another got into the boat,
when a fearful sea broke over the ship, washing them
both out of the boat into the sea, where they were
both drowned. The dream made such an impression
upon him that he was most reluctant to join the ship,
but he overcame his scruples and sailed. On Christmas
Eve, when they were nearing Cape Horn, Cleary had
a repetition of his dream, exact in all particulars.
He uttered a terrible cry, and kept muttering, “I
know it will come true.” On Christmas Day,
exactly as he had foreseen, Cleary and the rest of
the watch were ordered to secure a boat hanging in
the davits. Cleary flatly refused. He said
he refused because he knew he would be drowned, that
all the circumstances of his dream had come true up
to that moment, and if he went into that boat he would
die. He was taken below to the captain, and his
refusal to discharge duty was entered in the log.
Then the chief officer, Douglas, took the pen to sign
his name. Cleary suddenly looked at him and exclaimed,
“I will go to my duty for now I know the other
man in my dream.” He told Douglas, as they
were on deck, of his dream. They got into the
boat, and when they were all making tight a heavy
sea struck the vessel with such force that the crew
would have been washed overboard had they not clung
to the mast. The boat was turned over, and Douglas
and Cleary were flung into the sea. They swam
for a little time, and then went down. It was
just three months after he had dreamed of it before
leaving Adelaide.
Here we have inexorable destiny fulfilling
itself in spite of the struggles of its destined victim.
It reminds me of a well-known Oriental story, which
tells how a friend who was with Solomon saw the Angel
of Death looking at him very intently. On learning
from Solomon whom the strange visitor was, he felt
very uncomfortable under his gaze, and asked Solomon
to transport him on his magic carpet to Damascus.
No sooner said than done. Then said the Angel
of Death to Solomon, “The reason why I looked
so intently at your friend was because I had orders
to take him at Damascus, and, behold, I found him at
Jerusalem. Now, therefore, that he has transported
himself thither I shall be able to obey my orders.”
A Life Saved by a Dream.
The Rev. Alexander Stewart, LL.D.,
F.S.A., etc., Nether Lochaber, sends me the following
instance of a profitable premonition:
“It was in the winter of 1853
that my brother-in-law, Mr. Kenneth Morrison, came
on a visit to us here at the Manse of Nether Lochaber.
Mr. Morrison was at that time chief officer of the
steamship City of Manchester, of the Inman
line, one of the ocean ‘greyhounds’ of
her day, sailing between Liverpool and Philadelphia.
“In my service here, at the
time of Mr. Morrison’s visit, was a native of
Lochaber, Angus MacMaster by name, an active, intelligent
man, of about thirty years of age, a most useful man,
a capital shot, an expert angler, and one of the best
violinists in the West Highlands. No great wonder,
therefore, that Morrison took a liking for Angus, and
that the end of it was that Morrison invited Angus
to join him on board the City of Manchester,
where, it was arranged, he should act as one of the
steerage stewards, and, at the same time, as Mr. Morrison’s
valet. To this Angus very willingly agreed, and
so it was that when Mr. Morrison’s leave of
absence expired, he and Angus joined the City of
Manchester at Liverpool.
“Within a twelvemonth afterwards,
Mr. Morrison wrote to say that he was about to be
promoted to the command of the new Inman Steamship
City of Glasgow at that time, of
her class and kind, the finest ship afloat and
that having got a few weeks’ holiday, he was
coming down to visit his friends in Lochaber, bringing
Angus MacMaster along with him, for he had proved
so good and faithful a servant that he was resolved
not to part with him.
“Sooner than was expected, and
when his leave had only extended to some twenty days,
Captain Morrison was summoned to Liverpool to take
charge of his ship, which had already booked her full
complement of passengers, and taken in most of her
cargo, and only required some little putting to rights,
which had better be done under her commander’s
supervision, before she sailed on her maiden trip
to Philadelphia. ’I must be off the day
after to-morrow,’ said Morrison, as he handed
the letter to me across the table. ‘Please
send for Angus,’ he continued, ’I wish
him to come at once, that we may be ready to start
by Wednesday morning.’ This was at the
breakfast table on a Monday morning; and that same
evening Angus, summoned by a special messenger from
the glen in which he was staying with his friends,
arrived at the Manse, but in so grave and cheerless
a mood that I noticed it at once, and wondered what
could be the matter with him. Taking him into
a private room, I said, ’Angus, Captain Morrison
leaves the day after to-morrow. You had better
get his things packed at once. And, by the way,
what a lucky fellow you are! If you did so well
on the City of Manchester, you will in a year
or two make quite a fortune in the City of Glasgow.’
To my astonishment Angus replied, ’I am not
going in the City of Glasgow at least,
not on this voyage and I wish you could
persuade Captain Morrison the best and
kindest master ever man had not to go either.’
’Not going? What in the world do you mean,
Angus?’ was my very natural exclamation of surprise.
‘Well, sir,’ said Angus (the reader will
please understand that our talk was in Gaelic).
‘Well, sir,’ said Angus, ’You must
not be angry with me if I tell you that on the last
three nights my father, who has been dead nine years,
as you know, has appeared to me and warned me not to
go on this voyage, for that it will prove disastrous.
Whether in dream or waking vision of the night, I
cannot say; but I saw him, sir, as distinctly as I
now see you; clothed exactly as I remember him in life;
and he stood by my bedside, and with up-lifted hand
and warning finger, and with a most solemn and earnest
expression of countenance, he said, “Angus,
my beloved son, don’t go on this voyage.
It will not be a prosperous one.” On three
nights running has my father appeared to me in this
form, and with the same words of warning; and although
much against my will, I have made up my mind that
in the face of such warning, thrice repeated, it would
be wrong in me to go on this voyage. It does not
become me to do it, but I wish you, sir, would tell
Captain Morrison what I have now told you; and persuade
him if possible to make the best excuse he can, and
on no account to go on this voyage in the City of
Glasgow.’ I said all I could, of course,
and when Captain Morrison was told of it, he, too,
said all he could to shake Angus from his resolution;
but all in vain. And so it was that Morrison left
without him; poor Angus actually weeping as he bade
his master good-bye.
“Early in March of that year,
the City of Glasgow, with a valuable cargo
and upwards of five hundred passengers on board, sailed
under Morrison’s command for Philadelphia; and
all that was good and prosperous was confidently predicted
of the voyage of so fine a ship under charge of so
capable a commander. When sufficient time had
expired, and there was still no word of the ship’s
arrival at Philadelphia, Angus came to enquire if
we had heard anything about her. I could only
reply that there was as yet no word of her, but that
the owners, in reply to my inquiries, were confident
of her safety their theory being that something
had gone wrong with her engines, and that she was
probably proceeding under sail. ‘Pray God
it may be so!’ said Angus, with the tears in
his eyes; and then in his own emphatic language ach
s’eagal leam, aon chuid dhuibhse na dhomhsa nach
tig fios na forfhais oiree gu brath (but
great is my fear that neither to you, sir, nor to
me shall word of her safety, or message from her at
all ever arrive). And it was even so: from
the day she left the Mersey until this day no word
of the City of Glasgow has ever been heard.
It was the opinion of those best able to offer a probable
conjecture at the time, that she must have come into
contact with an iceberg, and instantly gone down with
all on board.
“I may add that Angus was a
Catholic, and that Father Macdonald, his priest, told
me shortly afterwards that Angus, before my messenger
calling him to the Manse could have reached him, had
communicated the thrice-repeated dream or vision to
him in confession, and precisely in the same terms
he used in describing it to me. When no hope of
the safety of the City of Glasgow could any
longer be entertained, Angus emigrated to Australia,
whence after the lapse of several years, he wrote
me to say that he was well and doing well. Whether
he is still in life, or gone over to the majority,
I do not know.”
A Highlander’s Dream of his Drowning.
Another story, which was sent me by
my old friend the housekeeper of the Hon. Auberon
Herbert’s Highland retreat on the shores of Loch
Awe, is an awful tale of destiny, the premonition
of which only renders it more tragic.
They were all sitting round the fire
one winter night each relating his best story.
Each had told his story of the most wonderful things
he had heard or seen in the Ghost line except Martin
Barraw from Uist who sat silently listening to all.
“Come, Martin,” said the
man of the house “are you not going to tell a
story, I am sure you know many?”
“Well yes,” said Martin.
“I know some and there is one strange one, running
in my mind all this night, that I have never told to
anyone yet, but I think I must tell it to-night.”
“Oh, yes, do, Martin,” cried all present.
“Well,” said Martin, “you
all I am sure remember the night of the fatal boat
accident at Portroch ferry, when Murdoch McLane, big
David the Gamekeeper, and Donald McRae, the ferryman
were drowned and I was the only one saved of the four.”
“Yes we do that Martin, remember
it well,” said the good man, “that was
the night the Taybridge was blown down, it was a Sunday
night the 28th of Dec. ’79.”
“Yes you are right that was
the very night. Well you know Murdoch and I were
Salmon watching down the other side of the Loch that
winter. Well one night about the middle of November
we were sitting by the side of Altanlarich, it would
be about midnight, we had sat for some time without
speaking I thought Murdoch was asleep and I was very
nearly so, when suddenly Murdoch sprung to his feet
with a jump that brought me to mine in a second.
“Goodness what is wrong with
you,” said I, looking round in every direction
to see what startled him but could see nothing.
“‘O dear, dear! what a
horrid dream I have had,’ said he. ‘A
dream,’ said I. ‘My’ I thought
you had seen a ghost or something by the spring you
gave.’
“‘Well! you would spring
too if you could and you drowning.’ Then
he told me that he thought it was the 28th of December
and there was such a storm he had never seen anything
like it in his life before. ’We were crossing
the loch at the ferry,’ said he. ’We
had the big white boat and four oars on her.
Big David the keeper Donald the ferryman you and I.
And man but it was awful. The boat right up on
end at times every wave washing over us and filling
the boat more and more, and no way of bailing her,
because no one could let go his oar, you and I were
on the weather side, and Big David and Donald on the
other, they of course had the worst of it, we got
on until we were near the other side, the waves were
getting bigger and the boat getting heavier, we were
going to run for the creek, when she was struck by
a huge wave that filled her up to the seats and sent
David and Donald on their backs, they lost their oars,
and the next wave came right over her and down she
went. The other two never were seen, you and
I came up and tried to swim to the shore, you got
near enough to catch a rope that was thrown you, but
I could not get through the tremendous waves and was
just going down when I awoke with such a start.’
“‘My what a frightful
dream,’ said I. ’I should not like
to have such a dream although I do not believe in
dreams or Ghosts or these things it was the rain falling
on your face did it.’
“‘Well! maybe it was’
said he, but all the same I could see he was thinking
a good deal about it all night, although I tried to
laugh him out of it. Well time passed until about
the beginning of December there was heavy rain.
Murdoch went home to see his wife and family as all
the rivers were flooded and there was no need of watching.
He was on his way back to his work on the evening
of the next day, when he got to the ferry, it was
raining and blowing like to blow the breeks off a Hieland
man as they say. ‘Dear me Murdoch,’
said Donald the ferryman, ’you surely, don’t
mean to go out to-night.’
“‘It is very stormy,’
said Murdoch, ’if you would be so kind as come
over for me at six o’clock in the morning I would
go home again I must be down passed the Governor’s
before he gets up you know.’
“‘Oh! I’ll
do that for you Murdoch,’ said Donald. So
Murdoch went home again that night and next morning
by six o’clock he was at the ferry again.
‘Well done, Donald. You are a man of your
word,’ said he, as he saw what he thought was
Donald on the pier waiting him with his boat along
side, the morning was calm and fair though
pretty dark, he thought it strange Donald did not
answer him, but hurrying down the pier was about to
step into the boat, when he felt someone strike him
a violent blow on the ear with the open hand.
Looking sharply round he was astonished to find no
one near, but he thought as he turned round he had
seen a dark shadow disappear in the distance.
“‘God be with us,’
said he, turning to Donald, ‘what was that?’
He was horror struck to see a most hideous object
for what he had taken to be Donald, glaring at him
with eyes of fire. ‘God have mercy on my
soul,’ said he, as he turned to run, but he
had no sooner done so than he was seized by a grasp
of iron and pressed down towards the boat, then began
a struggle for life. He wrestled and struggled
with all his strength and you know he was a very strong
man, but he could do nothing in the iron grasp of
his foe, and that foe a mere shadow, he was surely
and steadily forced towards the boat, he was being
forced over the side of the pier and into the boat
through which he could see the waves rolling quite
clearly, it was a mere shadow also.
“‘Oh God help me,’
he cried from the depth of his heart as he gave himself
up for lost. Suddenly as though forced by some
unseen power the grasp that held him ceased and Murdoch
fell back upon the pier unconscious.
“How long he lay he could not
say, but it was Donald throwing water in his face
that brought him round, they went into the Hotel where
the people were just getting up, and he got a glass
of brandy to steady his nerves, and after a short
time they started and Murdoch got back to his work
sometime during the day, where he told me the whole
affair.
“Poor Murdoch was much changed
after that, for the few days that he lived you could
easily see the thing was pressing upon his mind a good
deal.
“I need not tell you of the
boat accident, you all know that well enough already,
how Murdoch’s dream became true even to the very
letter. Mr. Ross the Minister was preaching in
the little church up here we went to put him across
the Loch and it was while coming back that we were
caught in the storm and the boat was swamped.
Big David and Donald never were seen. Murdoch
and I tried to swim to the shore but he only got a
short way when he also sank and was drowned.
I got near enough to catch a rope that they threw
out to me and they pulled me in although I was just
about dead too.”
There are many cases of this unavailing
warning. Mr. T. A. Hamilton, of Ryedale Terrace,
Maxwelltown, Dumfries, writes:
“Thirty years ago I had the
misfortune to lose my right eye under peculiar circumstances,
and the night previous to the day on which it happened
my sister dreamt that it had happened under precisely
the same circumstances to which it did, and related
her dream to the household before it had occurred.
The distance between the scene of the accident and
the house in which she slept was eight miles.”
How a Betting Man was Converted.
One of the most interesting cases
of premonitions occurring in a dream is that which
I have received from the Rev. Mr. Champness, who is
very well known in the Wesleyan denomination, and
whose reputation for sterling philanthropy and fervent
evangelical Christianity is much wider than his denomination.
Here is the story, as Mr. Champness sends it me:
“Some years ago, when working
as an Evangelist, it was arranged that I should conduct
a Mission in a town which I had never visited before,
and where, so far as I remember, I did not know a
single person, though I ought to say I was very much
interested in what I had heard about the place, and
had been led to think with some anxiety about the Mission.
It would appear that on the Saturday night preceding
the Mission a man in the town dreamed that he was
standing opposite the chapel where the Mission was
to be held, and that while he was standing there watching
the people leave the chapel, a minister, whom he had
never seen before, came up to him and spoke to him
with great earnestness about religious matters.
He was so much impressed by the dream that he awoke
his wife, and told her how excited he was. On
the Sunday morning he went to the chapel, and greatly
to his astonishment, when I came into the pulpit he
saw that I was the man whom he had seen in his dream.
I need not say that he was very much impressed, and
took notice of everything that the preacher said and
did. When he got home he reminded his wife of
the dream he had had, and said, ’The man I saw
in my dream was the preacher this morning, and preaches
again to-night.’ This interested his wife
so much that she went to chapel with him in the evening.
He attended on Monday and Tuesday evenings. On
the Tuesday evening after the service he waited outside
the chapel. To his great surprise, when I came
out of the chapel I walked straight up to him, and
spoke to him energetically, just as he had seen on
the Saturday night. The whole thing was gone over
again in reality, just as it had been done in the vision.
On the Wednesday evening he was there again, and I
remonstrated with those who had not yielded to the
claims of Jesus Christ. I pushed them very hard,
and was led to say, without premeditation, ’What
hinders you? Why do you not yield yourself to
Christ? Have you something on a horse?’
Strange to say, there was a race to be run next day,
and he had backed the favourite, and stood to win
8 to 1. As he said afterwards, ’I could
not lug a racehorse to the penitent form.’
After the service, he went straight to the man with
whom he had made the bet, and said, ’That bet’s
off,’ at which the man was very glad, as he expected
to lose the bet. Sure enough, when the race was
run the one that had been backed did win, but he had
given up any intention of winning money in that way,
and that night decided to become a Christian.
He has since then died, and I have good hope of seeing
him in the country where we may perhaps understand
these things better than we do now.”