noticed was in the course of the long illness of which I have
written elsewhere; my dreams were invariably pleasant and agreeable
at that time; but I constantly had the experience in the course of
them of seeing something of a profound blackness. Sometimes it was
a man in a cloak, sometimes an open door with an intensely black
space within, sometimes a bird, like a raven or a crow; oftenest of
all it took the shape of a small black cubical box, which lay on a
table, without any apparent lid or means of opening it. This I used
to take up in my hands, and find very heavy; but the predominance
of some intensely black object, which I have never experienced
before or since, was too marked to be a mere coincidence; and I
have little doubt that it was some obscure symptom of my condition,
and had some definite physical cause. Indeed, at the same time, I
was occasionally aware of the presence of something black in waking
hours, not a thing definitely seen, but existing dimly in a visual
cell. After I recovered, this left me, and I have never seen it
since.
These are the more coherent kind of dreams; but there is another
kind of a vaguely anxious character, which consist of endless
attempts to catch trains, or to fulfil social engagements, and are
full of hurry and dismay. Or one dreams that one has been condemned
to death for some unknown offence, and the time draws near; some
little while ago I spent the night under these circumstances
interviewing different members of the Government in a vain attempt
to discover the reasons for my condemnation; they could none of
them give me a specific account of the affair, and could only
politely deplore that it was necessary to make an example. "Depend
upon it," said Mr. Lloyd-George to me, "SUBSTANTIAL justice will
be done!" "But that is no consolation to me," I said. "No," he
replied kindly, "it would hardly amount to that!"
But out of all this there emerges the fact that after a vivid
dream, one's memory is full of pictures of things seen quite as
distinctly, indeed often more distinctly, than in real life. I have
a clearer recollection of certain dream-landscapes than I have of
many scenes actually beheld with the eye; and this sets me
wondering how the effect is brought about, and how the memory is
enabled to store what appears to be a visual impression, by some
reflex action of the nerves of sight.
Then there is the second point, that of the lively emotions stirred
by dreams. It would really appear that there must be two distinct
personalities at work, without any connection between them, one
unconsciously inventing and the other consciously observing. I
dreamed not long ago that I was walking beside the lake at
Riseholme, the former palace of the bishops of Lincoln, where I
often went as a child. I saw that the level of the lake had sunk,
and that there was a great bank of shingle between the water and
the shore, on which I proceeded to pace. I was attracted by
something sticking out of the bank, and on going up to it, I saw
that it was the base of a curious metal cup. I pulled it out and
saw that I had found a great golden chalice, much dimmed with age
and weather. Then I saw that farther in the bank there were a
number of cups, patens, candlesticks, flagons, of great antiquity
and beauty. I then recollected that I had heard as a child (this
was wholly imaginary, of course) that there had once been a great
robbery of cathedral plate at Lincoln, and that one of the bishops
had been vaguely suspected of being concerned in it; and I saw at
once that I had stumbled on the hoard, stowed there no doubt by
guilty episcopal hands--I even recollected the name of the bishop
concerned.
Now as a matter of fact one part of my mind must have been ahead
inventing this story, while the other part of the mind was
apprehending it with astonishment and excitement. Yet the observant
part of the mind was utterly unaware of the fact that I was myself
originating it all. And the only natural inference would seem to be
that there is a real duality of mind at work.
For when one is composing a story, in ordinary waking moments, one
has the sense that one is inventing and controlling the incidents.
In dreams this sense of proprietorship is utterly lost; one seems
to have no power over the inventive part of the mind; one can only
helplessly follow its lead, and be amazed at its creations. And
yet, sometimes, in a dream of tragic intensity, as one begins to
awake, a third person seems to intervene, and says reassuringly
that it is only a dream. This intervention seems to disconcert the
inventor, who then promptly retires, while it brings sudden relief
to the timid and frightened observer. It would seem then that the
rational self reasserts itself, and that the two personalities, one
of which has been creating and the other observing, come in like
dogs to heel.
Another very curious part of dreams is that they concern themselves
so very little with the current thoughts of life. My dreams are
mostly composed, as I have said, of landscapes, ceremonies,
conversations, sensational adventures, muddling engagements. When I
was a schoolmaster, I seldom dreamed of school; now that I am no
longer a schoolmaster, I do sometimes dream of school, of trying to
keep order in immense classrooms, or hurrying about in search of my
form. When I had my long and dreary illness, lasting for two years,
I invariably had happy dreams. Now that I am well again, I often
have dreams of causeless and poignant melancholy. It is the rarest
thing in the world for me to be able to connect my dreams with
anything which has recently happened; I cannot say that marvellous
landscapes, ceremonies, conversations with exalted personages,
sensational incidents, play any considerable part in my life; and
yet these are the constituent elements in my dreams. The scientific
students of psychology say that the principal stuff of dreams seems
to be furnished by the early experience of life; and when they are
dealing with mental ailments, they say that delusions and
obsessions are often explained by the study of the dreams of
diseased brains, which point as a rule either to some unfulfilled
desire, or to some severe nervous shock sustained in childhood. But
I cannot discern any predominant cause of my own elaborate visions;
the only physical cause which seems to me to be very active in
producing dreams is if I am either too hot or too cold in bed. A
sudden change of temperature in the night is the one thing which
seems to me quite certain to produce a great crop of dreams.
Another very curious fact about my dreams is that I am wholly
deserted by any moral sense. I have stolen interesting objects, I
have even killed people in dreams, without adequate cause; but I am
then entirely devoid of remorse, and only anxious to escape
detection. I have never felt anything of the nature of shame or
regret in a dream. I find myself anxious indeed, but fertile in
expedients for escaping unscathed. On the other hand, certain
emotions are very active in dreams. I sometimes appear to go with a
brother or sister through the rooms or gardens of a house, which on
awaking proves to be wholly imaginary, and recall with my companion
all sorts of pathetic and delightful incidents of childhood which
seem to have taken place there.
Again, though much of my life is given to writing, I hardly ever
find myself composing anything in a dream. Once I wrote a poem in
my sleep, a curious Elizabethan lyric, which may be found in the
Oxford Book of Verse, called "The Phoenix." It is not the sort of
thing that I have ever written before or since. It came to me on
the night before my birthday, in 1891, I think, when I was staying
with a friend at the Dun Bull Hotel, by Hawes Water in Westmorland.
I scribbled the lyric down on awaking. I afterwards added a verse,
thinking the poem incomplete. I published it in a book of poems,
and showed the proof to a friend, who said to me, pointing to the
added stanza: "Ah, you must omit that stanza--it is quite out of
keeping with the rest of the poem!"
But this is a quite unique experience, except that I once dreamed I
was present at a confirmation service, at which a very singular
hymn was sung, which I recollected on waking, and which is far too
grotesque to write down, being addressed, as it was, to the bishop
who was to perform the rite. At the time, however, it seemed to me
both moving and appropriate.
It is often said that dreams only take place either when one is
just going to sleep or beginning to awake. But that is not my
experience. I have occasionally been awakened suddenly by some loud
sound, and on those occasions I have come out of dreams of an
intensity and vividness that I have never known equalled. Neither
is it true in my experience that dreamful sleep is unrefreshing. I
should say it was rather the other way. Profound and heavy sleep is
generally to me a sign that I am not very well; but a sleep full of
happy and interesting dreams is generally succeeded by a feeling of
freshness and gaiety, as if one had been both rested and well
entertained.
These are only a few scattered personal experiences, and I have no
philosophy of dreams to suggest. It is in my case an inherited
power. My father was the most vivid and persistent dreamer I have
ever met, and his dreams had a quality of unexpectedness and
interest of which I have never known the like. The dream of his,
which I have told in his biography, of the finding of the grave of
the horse of Titus Oates, seems to me one of the most extraordinary
pieces of invention I have ever heard, because of the conversation
which took place before he realised what the slab actually was.
He dreamed that he was standing in Westminster Abbey with Dean
Stanley, looking at a small cracked slab of slate with letters on
it. "We've found it," said Stanley. "Yes," said my father, "and how
do you account for it?" "Why," said Stanley, "I suppose it is
intended to commemorate the fact that the animal innocence was not
affected by the villainies of the master." "Of course!" said my
father, who was still quite unaware what the inscription referred
to. He then saw on the slab the letters ITI CAPITANI, and knew that
the stone was one that had marked the grave of Titus Oates' horse,
and that the whole inscription must have been EQUUS TITI CAPITANI,-
-"The horse of Titus the Captain"--the "Captain" referring to the
fact that my father then recollected that Titus Oates had been a
Train-band Captain.
My only really remarkable dream containing a presentiment or rather
a clairvoyance of a singular kind, hardly explicable as a mere
coincidence, has occurred to me since I began this paper.
On the night of December 8, 1914, I dreamed that I was walking
along a country road, between hedges. To the left was a little
country house, in a park. I was proposing to call there, to see, I
thought, an old friend of mine, Miss Adie Browne, who has been dead
for some years, though in my dream I thought of her as alive.
I came up with four people, walking along the road in the same
direction as myself. There was an elderly man, a younger man, red-
haired, walking very lightly, in knickerbockers, and two boys whom
I took to be the sons of the younger man. I recognised the elder
man as a friend, though I cannot now remember who he appeared to
be. He nodded and smiled to me, and I joined the party. Just as I
did so, the younger man said, "I am going to call on a lady, an
elderly cousin of mine, who lives here!" He said this to his
companions, not to me, and I became aware that he was speaking of
Miss Adie Browne. The older man said to me, "You have not been
introduced," and then, presenting the younger man, he said, "This
is Lord Radstock!" We shook hands and I said, "Do you know, I am
very much surprised; I understood Lord Radstock to be a much older
man!"
I do not remember any more of the dream; but it had been very
vivid, and when I was called, I went over it in my mind. A few
minutes later, the Times of December 9 was brought to my bedroom,
and opening it, I saw the sudden death of Lord Radstock announced.
I had not known that he was ill, and indeed had never thought of
him for years; but the strange thing is this, that he was a cousin
of Miss Adie Browne's, and she used to tell me interesting stories
about him. I do not suppose that since her death I have ever heard
his name mentioned, and I had never met him. So that, as a matter
of fact, when I dreamed my dream, the old Lord Radstock was dead,
and his son, who is a man of fifty-four, was the new Lord Radstock.
The man I saw in my dream was not, I should say, more than about
forty-five; but I remember little of him, except that he had red
hair.
I do not take in an evening paper, but I do not think there was any
announcement of Lord Radstock's illness, on the previous day; in
fact his death seems to have been quite sudden and unexpected.
Apart from coincidence, the rational explanation might be that my
mind was in some sort of telepathic communication with that of my
old and dear friend Miss Adie Browne, who is indeed often in my
mind, and one would also have to presuppose that her spirit was
likewise aware of her cousin Lord Radstock's death. I do not
advance this as the only explanation, but it seems to me a not
impossible one of a mysterious affair.
My conclusion, such as it is, would be that the rational and moral
faculties are in suspense in dreams, and that it is a wholly
primitive part of one's essence that is at work. The creative power
seems to be very strong, and to have a vigorous faculty of
combining and exaggerating the materials of memory; but it deals
mainly with rather childish emotions, with shapes and colours, with
impressive and distinguished people, with things marvellous and
sensational, with troublesome and perplexed adventures. It does not
go far in search of motives; in the train-catching dreams, for
instance, I never know exactly where I am going, or what is the
object of my journey; in the ceremonial dreams, I seldom have any
notion of what is being celebrated.
But what I cannot in the least understand is the complete
withdrawal of consciousness from the inventive part of the mind,
especially when the observant part is so eagerly and alertly aware
of all that is happening. Moreover, I can never understand the
curious way in which dream-experiences, so vivid at the time, melt
away upon awakening. If one rehearses a dream in memory the moment
one awakes, it becomes a very distinct affair. If one does not do
this, it fades swiftly, and though one has a vague sense of rich
adventures, half an hour later there seems to be no power whatever
of recovering them.
Strangest of all, the inventive power in dreams seems to have a
range and an intensity which does not exist when one is awake. I
have not the slightest power, in waking life, of conceiving and
visualising the astonishing landscapes which I see in dreams. I can
recall actual scenes with great distinctness, but the glowing
colour and the prodigious forms of my landscape visions are wholly
beyond my power of thought.
Lastly, I have never had any dream of any real or vital
significance, any warning or presentiment, anything which bore in
the least degree upon the issues of life.
There is a beautiful passage in the "Purgatorio" of Dante about the
dawn: he writes
In that hour
When near the dawn the swallow her sad song,
Haply remembering ancient grief, renews;
And when our minds, more wanderers from the flesh
And less by thought restrained, are, as 't were, full
Of holy divination in their dreams.
I suppose that it would be possible to interpret one's dreams
symbolically; but in my own case my dream-experiences all seem to
belong to a wholly different person from myself, a light-hearted,
childish, careless creature, full of animation and inquisitiveness,
buoyant and thoughtless, content to look neither forwards nor
backwards, wholly without responsibility or intelligence, just
borne along by the pleasure of the moment, perfectly harmless and
friendly as a rule, a sort of cheerful butterfly. That is not in
the least my waking temperament; but it fills me sometimes with an
uneasy suspicion that it is more like myself than I know.
X
THE VISITANT
I am going to try to put into words a very singular and very
elusive experience which visits me not infrequently. I cannot say
when it began, but I first became aware of it about four years ago.
It takes the form of an instantaneous mental vision, not very
distinct but still not to be mistaken for anything else, of two
people, a husband and wife, who are living somewhere in a large
newly built house. The husband is a man of, I suppose, about forty--
the wife is a trifle younger, and they are childless. The husband
is an active, well-built man with light, almost golden hair, rather
coarse in texture, and with a pointed beard of the same hue. He has
fine, clean-cut, muscular hands, and he wears, as I see him, a
rough, rather shabby suit of light, homespun cloth. The wife is of
fair complexion, a beautiful woman, with brown hair, and dressed, I
think, in a very simple and rather peculiar dress. They are people
of high principle, wealthy, and with cultivated tastes. They care
for music and books and art. The husband has no profession. They
live in a wide, well-wooded landscape, I am inclined to think in
Sussex, in a newly built house, as I have said, of white plaster
and timber, tiled, with many gables and with two large, bow-
windowed rooms, rather low, the big mullioned oriels of which, with
leaded roofs, are a rather conspicuous feature of the house. The
house stands on a slightly rising ground, in a park-like demesne
of a few acres, well timbered, and with open paddocks of grass. The
house is approached by a drive from the main road, with two big
gateposts of brick, and a white gate between. To the right of the
house among the trees is the louvre of a stable. There is a terrace
just in front of the house, full of flowers, with a low brick wall
in front of it separating it from the field. I see the house and
its surroundings more clearly than I see the figures themselves.
I cannot see the interior of the house at all clearly, with the
exception of one room. I do not know where the front door is, nor
have I ever seen any of the upper rooms. The one exception is a big
room on the right of the house as one looks at it from the main
road. This room I see with great distinctness. It is large and low,
papered with a white paper and with a parquetry floor, designed for
a music room. There is a grand piano, but what I see most clearly
are a good many books, rather inconveniently placed in low white
bookcases which run round most of the room, under the windows, with
three shelves in each. It seems to me to be a bad arrangement,
because it would be necessary to stoop down so much for the books,
but I do not think that there is much reading done in the room.
There are several low armchairs draped in a highly coloured chintz
with a white ground; there are pictures on the walls, but I cannot
see them distinctly. I think they are water-colours. The curtains
are of a very peculiar and bright blue. A low window-seat runs
round the oriel, with cushions of the same blue. It is in this room
only that I see the two people, always together; and I have never
seen anyone else in the house. They are seen in certain definite
positions, oftenest standing together looking out of the window,
which must face the west, because I see the sunset out of it. As a
rule, the woman's hand is passed through the man's arm.
The vision simply flashes across my mind like a picture, whatever I
am doing at the time. Sometimes I see it several times in a week,
sometimes not for weeks together. I should recognise the house in a
moment if I saw it; I do not think I should recognise the people. I
cannot see the shapes of their features or their expressions, but I
can see the bloom on the wife's cheek and its pure outline.
To the best of my knowledge I have never seen either the people or
the house in real life; and yet I have strongly the sense that it
is a real house and that the people are real. it does not seem to
me like a mere imagination, because it comes too distinctly and too
accurately for that. Nor does it seem to me to be a mere
combination of things which I have seen. The curious part of it is
that some parts of the vision are absolutely clear--thus I can see
the very texture of the smooth plaster of the house, and the oak
beams inset; and I can also see the fabric of the man's clothes and
the colour of his hair; but, however much I interrogate my memory
or my fancy about other details, they are all involved in a sort of
mist which I cannot pierce. It is this which convinces me of the
reality of the house, and makes me believe that it is not
imagination; because, if it were, I think I should have enlarged my
vision of the whole; but this I cannot do. There is a door, for
instance, in the music-room, which is sometimes open, but even so
I cannot see anything outside in the hall or passage to which it
leads. Moreover, though I can recollect the visions with absolute
distinctness, I cannot evoke them. I may be reading or writing, and
I suddenly see in my mind the house across the meadows; or I am in
the music-room, and the two figures are standing together in the
window.
So strongly do I feel the actuality of it all, that if this book
should fall into the hands of the people to whom the vision refers,
I will ask them to communicate with me. I have no idea what their
past has been, but I know their characters well. The fact that they
have no children is a sorrow to them, but has served to centre
their affections strongly on each other. The husband is a very
tranquil and unaffected man. There is no sort of pose about his
life. He just lives as he likes best. He is unambitious, and he has
no sense of a duty owed to others. But this is not coupled with any
sense of contempt or aloofness--he is invariably kind and gentle.
He is an intellectual man, highly trained and clear-minded. The
wife has less knowledge of the technique of artistic things, but a
very fine, natural, critical taste. She cares, however, less for
the things themselves than because her husband cares for them; but
I do not think that she knows this. They have always enjoyed good
health, and I cannot discern that they have had troubles of any
kind. And I have the strongest sense of a perfectly natural high-
mindedness about both, a healthy instinct for what is right and
fine. They are absolutely without meanness; and they are entirely
free from any sort of morbidity or dreariness. They have travelled
a good deal, but they now seldom leave home; they designed and
built their own house. One curious thing is that I have never heard
music in the house, nor have I ever seen them reading, and yet I
feel that they are much occupied with music and books.
What is the possible explanation of this curious vision? I have
sometimes wondered if they have been brought into some unconscious
rapport with me through one of my books. It seems to me just
possible that when I have seen them standing together there may be
some phrase in one of my books which has struck them and which they
are accustomed to remember; and I think it may be some phrase about
the sunset, because it is at sunset that I generally see them. But
this does not explain my vision of the house, because I have never
seen either of them outside of the house, and I have several times
seen the music-room with no one in it; how does the vision of the
house, which is so strangely distinct, come to me?
They inspire me with a great feeling of respect and friendship; the
vision is very beautiful, and is always attended by a great sense
of pleasure. I feel that it does me good in some obscure way to be
brought into touch with them. Yet I can never retain my hold on the
scene for more than an instant; it is just there and then it is
gone.
It is a very strange thing to be conscious of two quite distinct
personalities, and yet without any power of winding myself any
further into their thoughts. There seems to be no vital contact. I
am admitted, as it were, at certain times to a sight of the place,
but I am sure that there is no sort of volition on their part about
it; I do not feel that their thoughts are ever bent actually upon
me, as I exist, but perhaps upon something connected with me.
I must add that, though I am a great dreamer at night and have
always at all times a strong power of mental visualisations, I am
not accustomed to be controlled by it, but rather to control it;
and I have never at any time had any sort of similar vision, of a
thing apart from memory or fancy.