of the incident from herself and Mr. Barber, who, though not himself
present at the time, was conversant with the facts. The incident
took place on January 6th, 1882, and Mrs. Barber allowed me to see
the note-book in which the account (substantially reproduced in the
_Spectator_) was written down on January 11th. Of course there is
always the possibility in a case of this kind that the lips may have
unconsciously begun to form the words, but in the present instance it
seems unlikely that any indication of the kind would have escaped the
notice of the others present at the table. Mrs. Barber has given us
other accounts, extracted from her journal, of thought-transference, in
which the same percipient was concerned. She writes on December 26th,
1886:--
"On Wednesday J. went to London, and on getting his breakfast at a
little inn in C----, he found a 'blackclock' (_i.e._, cockroach)
floating in his coffee. He fished it out and supposed it was all
right, but on pursuing the coffee he got one in his mouth! Next
day, at breakfast, he said, 'What's the most horrible thing that
could happen to any one at breakfast? I don't mean getting killed,
or anything of that sort.' E. looked at him for a moment and said,
'To have a blackclock in your coffee!'
"She was asleep in bed when her father returned the night before,
and they met at the breakfast-table for the first time the next
morning, when the question was asked quite suddenly. When asked how
she came to think of it, she said, 'I looked at the bacon-dish, and
thought a blackclock in the bacon,--no, he would see that--it must
have been in the coffee.'
"She has a special horror of 'blackclocks,' so the incident may
merely have been one of the numerous instances of her unusually
quick wit.
"CAROLINE BARBER."
_Transference of Mental Pictures._
The next three narratives are interesting as illustrating three
different stages in the externalisation of visual impressions. In the
first case, which is quoted from the _Proceedings of the American
S.P.R._ (pp. 444, 445), the impression seems to have been almost of the
nature of an illusion--_i.e._, the idea emerged into consciousness only
when a somewhat similar image was presented to the external organ of
vision.[88]
No. 45.--From MR. HAYNES.
In a letter to Mr. Hodgson, Mr. Haynes writes:--
"BOSTON, _June_ 25, 1887.
"The name of the prisoner alluded to has passed from my
recollection. He belonged in East Boston, and was sentenced for
life for an assault upon a woman. I think he was pardoned some
years ago, but am not certain about it. He had but one child, a
boy about five years old, who always came with his wife to visit
him. He seemed very fond of the child, always held him in his arms
during the visit, and showed a good deal of feeling at parting.
"The following is an account of the affair made at the time:--
"'The following very singular incident I can vouch for as having
actually occurred. I refer to it, not to illustrate a supernatural
or any other unusual agency, as I am a sceptic in such matters, but
as a remarkable instance of hallucination or presentiment.
"'I received a message from the wife of one of our convicts, in
prison for life, that their only child, a bright little boy five
years old, was dead, he having accidentally fallen into the water
and been drowned. I was requested to communicate to the father the
death of the child, but not the cause, as the wife preferred to
tell him herself when she should visit him a week or two later.
"'I sent for him to the guard-room, and after a few questions in
regard to himself, I said I had some sad news for him. He quickly
replied, "I know what it is, Mr. Warden; my boy is dead!" "How did
you hear of it?" I asked. "Oh, I knew it was so; he was drowned,
was he not, Mr. Warden?" "But who informed you of it?" I again
asked. "No one," he replied. "How, then, did you know he was dead,
and what makes you think he was drowned?" "Last Sunday," he said,
"your little boy was in the chapel; he fell asleep, and you took
him up and held him. As I looked up and caught sight of him lying
in your arms, instantly the thought occurred to me that my boy was
dead--drowned. In vain I tried to banish it from my mind, to think
of something else, but could not; the tears came into my eyes, and
it has been ringing in my ears ever since; and when you sent for
me, my heart sunk within me, for I felt sure my fears were to be
confirmed."
"'What made it more remarkable was the fact that the child was
missed during the forenoon of that Sunday, but the body was not
found for some days after.'
"The foregoing is copied from my journal, the entry made on the day
of the interview, and I can assure you is strictly correct in every
particular.
"GIDEON HAYNES."
In answer to inquiries as to the name and address of the percipient,
Mr. Haynes writes:--
"His name was Timothy Cronan. He was pardoned in 1873 or 1874. Mr.
Darling, the officer in the guard-room to-day, occupied the same
position when I had the interview with Cronan. He was present,
and remembers distinctly all the circumstances of the case, which
were discussed by us at the time. Cronan served some ten or twelve
years. ... He has not been heard from at the prison since his
discharge."
In this case it may perhaps be inferred, from the circumstances of its
occurrence, that the impression was of a rudimentary visual character.
In the next case it seems clear that the percipient saw what she
described, but the impression appears to have been of a purely inward
nature.
No. 46.--From PROFESSOR RICHET.
"On Monday, July 2nd, 1888, after having passed all the day in my
laboratory, I hypnotised Léonie at 8 P.M., and while she tried to
make out a diagram concealed in an envelope I said to her quite
suddenly: 'What has happened to M. Langlois?' Léonie knows M.
Langlois from having seen him two or three times some time ago in
my physiological laboratory, where he acts as my assistant. 'He has
burnt himself,' Léonie replied. 'Good,' I said, 'and where has he
burnt himself?' 'On the left hand. It is not fire: it is---I don't
know its name. Why does he not take care when he pours it out?'
'Of what colour,' I asked, 'is the stuff which he pours out?' 'It
is not red, it is brown; he has hurt himself very much--the skin
puffed up directly.'
"Now, this description is admirably exact. At 4 P.M. that day M.
Langlois had wished to pour some bromine into a bottle. He had
done this clumsily, so that some of the bromine flowed on to his
left hand, which held the funnel, and at once burnt him severely.
Although he at once put his hand into water, wherever the bromine
had touched it a blister was formed in a few seconds--a blister
which one could not better describe than by saying, 'the skin
puffed up.' I need not say that Léonie had not left my house,
nor seen any one from my laboratory. Of this I am _absolutely
certain_, and I am certain that I had not mentioned the incident of
the burn to any one. Moreover, this was the first time for nearly a
year that M. Langlois had handled bromine, and when Léonie saw him
six months before at the laboratory he was engaged in experiments
of quite another kind." (_Proc. S.P.R._, vol. vi. pp. 69, 70.)
In the next case the mental picture seems to have been much more vivid
than the visions of distant familiar scenes, or faces, which most
of us can summon up by an effort of will; in fact, the impression
probably approached very nearly to a hallucination. It is noteworthy,
however, that it did not apparently form part of the external order,
but replaced it. We have no means therefore of measuring the degree of
vividness.
No. 47.--From DR. G. DUPRÉ.
"REIMS, _July_ 6_th_, 1891.
"One day in May 1890, I had just been visiting a patient, and was
coming downstairs, when suddenly I had the impression that my
little girl of four years old had fallen down the stone stairs of
my house, and hurt herself."
"Then gradually after the first impression, as though a curtain
which hid the sight from me were slowly drawn back, I saw my child
lying at the foot of the stairs, with her chin bleeding, but I had
no impression of hearing her cries.
"The vision was blotted out suddenly, but the memory of it remained
with me. I took note of the hour--10.30 A.M.--and continued my
professional rounds."
"When I got home I much astonished my family by giving a
description of the accident, and naming the hour when it occurred."
"The circumstance made a great impression on me, and my memory of
it is quite clear.
"Dr. G. DUPRÉ."
In a further letter Dr. Dupré adds:--
"REIMS, _August_ 2_nd_, 1891.
"The account which I have given you is exact in every point. Madame
Dupré remembers it perfectly. As I had a great many visits to pay
that day I did not return home at once, but continued my rounds. I
took particular note of the time, however, and it was found to be
exact.
"This phenomenon of perception seemed to me so curious that I noted
all the particulars, in order to analyse them at my leisure.
"When I got home my first words were these, addressed to my wife,
'Loulou is hurt. Is it serious?' Madame Dupré exclaimed, 'Who
told you?' 'No one,' I replied; 'I saw her fall,' and then while
examining my little girl I told my wife about the vision.
"I did not relate the circumstance to any one else but my
father-in-law, Dr. Bracon, and he did not take it very seriously.
Indeed, I was not inclined to lay much stress upon the matter
either, as I did not wish to be considered visionary or credulous."
Madame Dupré writes:--
"25_th September_ 1891.
"My husband's account of his telepathic experience is perfectly
correct. For my own part I was extremely surprised at the
circumstances, for till then my attitude towards all questions
of clairvoyance had been one of almost complete incredulity. Let
me add, however, that my husband is of an excessively nervous
temperament, and was liable to somnambulism in his youth. It is
seldom that a night passes in which he does not talk in his sleep.
It would be quite possible to hold a conversation with him for a
few minutes whilst he is in this condition." (_Annales des Sciences
Psychiques_, vol. i. pp. 324, 325.)
It seems permissible to conjecture that in this case Madame Dupré, as
in the previous case Professor Richet, was the agent.
_Transference of Emotion._
Sometimes the telepathic impulse appears to express itself in a vague
feeling of alarm or distress. Of course, impressions of this sort, with
no definite content, and not recognised at the time as having reference
to any particular person, can do little to strengthen the proof of
telepathy. But when it has been shown, by the mention of the experience
beforehand, or by any unusual action consequent on its occurrence,
that the emotion was unique in the history of the percipient, and when
the coincidence with a serious crisis is clearly established, the
telepathic explanation may be admitted as at least plausible. These
conditions appeared to be fulfilled in the following case, which is
quoted from the _Proceedings of the American S.P.R._ (pp. 474, 475).
No. 48.--From MR. F. H. KREBS.
The percipient in this case described his experience to Professor
William James, of Harvard, who writes as follows:--
"Mr. Krebs (special student) stopped after the logic lesson of
Friday, November 26, and told me the facts related in his narrative.
"I advised him to put them on paper, which he has thus done.
"His father is said by him to be too much injured to do any writing
at present.
"WM. JAMES.
"_December_ 1, 1886."
From MR. F. H. KREBS.
"On the afternoon of Wednesday, November 24, I was very uneasy,
could not sit still, and wandered about the whole afternoon with
little purpose. This uneasiness was unaccountable; but instead of
wearing away it increased, and after returning to my room at about
6.45 it turned into positive fear. I fancied that there was some
one continually behind me, and, although I turned my chair around
several times, this feeling remained. At last I got up and went
into my bedroom, looked under the bed and into the closet; finding
nothing, I came back into the room and looked behind the curtains.
Satisfied that there was nothing present to account for my fancy,
I sat down again, when instantly the peculiar sensation recurred;
and at last, finding it unbearable, I went down to a friend's room,
where I remained the rest of the evening. To him I expressed my
belief that this sensation was a warning sent to show me that some
one of my family had been injured or killed.
"While in his room the peculiar sensation ceased, and, despite my
nervousness, I was in no unusual state of mind; but on returning to
my room to go to bed it returned with renewed force. On the next
day (the 25th), on coming to my grandfather's, I found out that the
day before (the 24th), at a little past 12, my father had jumped
from a moving train and been severely injured. While I do not think
that this warning was direct enough to convince sceptics that I
was warned of my father's mishap, I certainly consider that it is
curious enough to demand attention. I have never before had the
same peculiar sensation that there was some being besides myself in
an apparently empty room, nor have I ever before been so frightened
and startled at absolutely nothing.
"On questioning my father, he said that before the accident he was
not thinking of me, but that at the very moment that it happened
his whole family seemed to be before him, and he saw them as
distinctly as if there.
F. H. KREBS, JUN.
"_November_ 29, 1886."
From MR. CHAUNCEY SMITH, JUN.
"I, the undersigned, distinctly remember that F. H. Krebs, Jun.,
came into my room November 24 and complained of being very nervous.
I cannot remember exactly what he said, as I was studying at the
time, and did not pay much attention to his talk.
"On the 25th he came into my room in the evening, and made a
statement that his state the evening before was the consequence of
an accident that happened to his father, and that he had the night
before told me that he had received a warning of some accident to
some one dear to him. This I did not contradict, because I consider
that it is extremely probable that he said it, and that I did not,
through inattention, notice it.
"CHAUNCEY SMITH, JUN."
The present case well illustrates the difficulties attendant on any
efforts to procure reliable contemporary evidence for psychical events.
Even when, as here, the percipient himself took the right course, from
the standpoint of psychical research, his forethought was to a great
extent frustrated by the shortcomings of his friend.
With this narrative may be compared three cases given in _Phantasms
of the Living_ (vol. i. pp. 280 _et seq._) of the occurrence of
exceptional distress to one twin at the time of the death of the other.
Mr. Leveson Gower has sent us an account of a similar marked fit of
depression, accompanied by "a vivid sense of the presence of death,"
which coincided with the quite sudden and unlooked-for death of a near
relation, the late Lady Marion Alford. (_Journal S.P.R._, May 1888.)
Professor Tamburini records an analogous case. A lunatic died in the
asylum at Reggio on the 21st May 1892. A letter of inquiry, dated the
22nd May, was received at the asylum from the husband, who had not
previously written for more than a year; and it was ascertained that he
was prompted to write the letter by a feeling of "great discomfort, as
though some misfortune were about to befall him," experienced on the
previous day, the day of the death.
No. 49.--From Dr N., of New York State.
The next case is specially interesting, because the emotion which was
felt in the first instance was succeeded by a visual impression of a
detailed kind. This case again comes to us from America (_Proc. Am.
S.P.R._, pp. 397-400). Dr. N., the percipient, writes to Professor
Royce as follows:--
[Postmarked _Aug._ 16, 1886.]
"In the convalescence from a malarial fever during which great
hyperæsthesia of brain had obtained, but no hallucinations or false
perceptions, I was sitting alone in my room looking out of the
window. My thoughts were of indifferent trivialities; after a time
my mind seemed to become absolutely vacant; my eyes felt fixed,
the air seemed to grow white. I could see objects about me, but it
was a terrible effort of _will_ to perceive anything. I then felt
great and painful sense as of sympathy with some one suffering,
who or where I did not know. After a little time I knew with whom,
but how I knew I cannot tell; for it seemed some time after this
knowledge of personality that I saw distinctly, in my brain, _not_
before my eyes, a large, square room, evidently in a hotel, and saw
the person of whom I had been conscious, lying face downward on the
bed in the throes of mental and physical anguish. I felt rather
than heard sobs and grieving, and felt conscious of the nature of
the grief subjectively; its objective cause was not transmitted to
me. Extreme exhaustion followed the experience, which lasted forty
minutes intensely, and then very slowly wore away. Let me note:--
"1st. I had not thought of the person for some time and there was
no reminder in the room.
"2nd. The experience was remembered with more vividness than that
seen in the normal way, while the contrary is true of dreams.
"3rd. The natural order of perception was reversed, _i.e._, the
emotion came first, the sense of a personality second, the vision
or perception of the person third.
"I should be glad to have a theory given of this reverse in the
natural order of perception."
The agent, M., is well known to both Professor Royce and Dr. Hodgson.
In the report it is stated that "there can be no doubt of his high
character and general good judgment." He writes as follows:--
"BOSTON, _Nov._ 16_th_, 1886.
"Some years ago, perhaps eight or nine, while in a city of Rhode
Island on business, my house being then, as now, in Boston, I
received news which was most unexpected and distressing to me,
affecting me so seriously that I retired to my room at the hotel,
a large square room, and threw myself upon my bed, face downward,
remaining there a long time in great mental distress. The acuteness
of the feeling after a time abating, I left the room. I returned
next day to Boston, and the day after that received a short letter
from the person whose statement I enclose herewith, and dated at
the town in Western New York, from which her enclosed letter comes.
The note begged me to tell her without delay what was the matter
with me 'on Friday, at 2 o'clock,'--the very day and hour when I
was affected as I have described.
"This lady was a somewhat familiar acquaintance and friend, but I
had not heard from her for many months previous to this note, and
I do not know that any thought of her had come into my mind for a
long time. I should still further add that the news which had so
distressed me had not the slightest connection with her.
"I wrote at once, stating that she was right as to her impression
(she said in her letter that she was sure I was in very great
trouble at the time mentioned), and expressed my surprise at the
whole affair.
"Twice since that time she has written to me, giving me some
impression in regard to my condition or situation, both referring
to cases of illness or suffering of some kind, and both times her
impressions have proved correct enough to be considered remarkable,
yet not so exact in detail or distinctness as the first time. I
feel confident that I have her original letter, but have not been
able to command the time necessary to find it.
"(Signed) M.
"P.S.--The three occurrences above detailed comprise all the
experiences of this sort which I have had in my life."
Mr. M. has searched in vain for the original letter of Dr. N. referring
to the incident. Two letters, however, referring to one of the later
experiences mentioned by him have been found, and copies of them, made
by Dr. Hodgson on June 6th, 1887, are given below.
(1.)
DR. N. to MR. M.
"DOCTOR'S OFFICE, _July_ 24_th_,
(Year not given).
"If I don't hear from you to-morrow, I shall write you a letter! I
am anxious about you.
"N."
(2.)
MR. M. to DR. N.
BOSTON, _July_ 26, 1883.
"What clairvoyant vision again told you of me Monday and Tuesday
and Wednesday? Was it as vivid and real as the other time? It had,
at least, a very closely related cause.
"It is past 1 A.M., but I will not go to bed till I have sent you
a word. A letter will follow very soon. For two days I have been
thinking of the way you wrote to me that time, and I should have
written to you within twenty-four hours if I had not received the
note from you. Please write to me as you proposed. This is only to
tell you that I am alive and not ill, but tired, tired! Tell me of
yourself. I have had a hard three months in the West, eighteen to
twenty hours a day, scarce a respite--I am not ill; I am sure I am
not, but I am _worked out_. I couldn't get to ---- or write.
"I used the telegraph even with my sisters.
"I hope for a letter, and will surely send you one.
"Yours,
"M."
These letters, which apparently relate to the second of the three
experiences mentioned by M., afford incidentally strong corroboration
of the accuracy of the statements made as to the first and most
remarkable experience.
Several instances have been already published (_Phantasms of the
Living_, vol. ii. pp. 365-370) of what appears to be telepathic
affection, in which there was no apparent link to connect the agent and
percipient. Thus intimation of the deaths of three dukes--Cambridge,
Portland, and Wellington--was conveyed to complete strangers. A similar
impression is recorded (_Journal S.P.R._, Nov. 1892) as affecting a
stranger at the death of Lord Tennyson, and a somewhat similar instance
is recorded (_Journal_, May 1892) in connection with the death of
General the Hon. Sir Leicester Smyth. The Head-master of a Grammar
School in Leicester saw in a vision the irruption of water into the
Thames Tunnel (_Phantasms, loc. cit._). In all these cases, if we
accept the incidents as telepathic, they recall, as Mr. Gurney remarks,
"the Greek notion of φήμη, the Rumour which spreads from some unknown
source, and far outstrips all known means of transport." The evidence
so far adduced, however, is by no means sufficient to establish any
such conclusion. But the following narrative, which comes from a lady
well known to me, is worth considering in this connection.
No. 50.--From MISS Y.
"PERTH, 19_th January_ 1890.
"One Sunday evening I was writing to my sister, in my own room,
and a wild storm was raging round the house (in Perth). Suddenly
an eerie feeling came over me, I could not keep my thoughts on my
letter, ideas of death and disaster haunted me so persistently. It
was a vague but intense feeling; a sudden ghastly realisation of
human tragedy, with no 'where,' 'how,' or 'when' about it.
"I remember flying upstairs to seek refuge with my mother, and
I remember her soothing voice saying, 'Nonsense, child,' when I
insisted that I was sure '_lots_ of people were dying.'
"We both thought it was a little nervous attack, and thought
no more about it. But when we heard the news of the Tay Bridge
disaster next day, we both noticed (we received the news separately
from the maid when she came to wake us) that the time of the
accident coincided with my strange experience of the evening
before.
"We spoke of the 'coincidence' together, but did not attach much
importance to it.
"I have never had any experience like it, before or since."
Mrs. Y., in a letter of the same date, corroborates her daughter's
statement. Mrs. Y.'s account, it should be added, was written without
previous consultation with Miss Y., and embodies her independent
recollection of the incident.
"On the night of the Tay Bridge disaster A. was sitting alone in
her room, when she suddenly came running upstairs to me, saying
that she had heard shrieks in the air; that something dreadful must
have happened, for the air seemed full of shrieks. She thought a
great many people must be dying. Next morning the milk-boy told the
servant that the Tay Bridge was down."
In a later letter, Miss Y. adds:--
"My mother says she cannot remember my having any other experience
of the kind. It happened before 9 P.M., we think."
From the _Times_ of December 29th, 1879 (Monday), it appears
that the accident took place on the previous evening (28th). The
Edinburgh train, due at Dundee at 7.15 P.M., crossed the bridge
during a violent gale. It was duly signalled from the Fife side
as having entered on the bridge for Dundee at 7.14. It was seen
running along the rails, and then suddenly there was observed a
flash of fire. The opinion was the train then left the rails and
went over the bridge.
_Motor Impulses._
Occasionally the telepathic impression manifests itself to
consciousness as a monition or impulse to perform a certain action.
There is no ground for thinking in such a case that the idea
transferred from the agent has in itself any special impulsive quality.
The impulse towards action is no doubt the result of the percipient's
unconscious reasoning on the information supplied to him.
Sometimes the impulse to action, though strong, is vague and
inarticulate. Thus Mrs. Hadselle, of Pittsfield, Mass., U.S.A.,
narrates (_Journal S.P.R._, May 1891) that some years ago she
experienced, when spending the evening with some friends, "a sudden
and unaccountable desire to go home, accompanied by a dread and fear
of something, I knew not what." She eventually yielded to her impulse,
and at some inconvenience returned home, just in time to rescue her
son, who was insensible through the smoke from a fire of wet sticks in
his room. Professor Venturi (_Annales des Sci. Psy._, vol. iii. pp.
331-333) relates that in July 1885, in obedience to an irresistible
impulse, he made a sudden and quite unpremeditated journey from
Pozzuoli to his home at Nocera, to find his child in serious danger
from a sudden attack of croup. A case is recorded in the _Proc. Am.
S.P.R._ (pp. 227, 228), in which a lady living in a Western State
awoke in the night of January 30th-31st, 1886, with a strong feeling
that her daughter in Washington was ill and needed her, and in the
morning telegraphed to her son-in-law, offering to come at once. There
had been no previous cause of anxiety on the mother's part, but as a
matter of fact the daughter had been taken suddenly and seriously ill
on that night. A letter and the telegram relating to the event have
been preserved. In another case Lady de Vesci, in 1872, telegraphed on
a sudden impulse from Ireland to a friend in Hong Kong. The telegram
arrived less than twenty-four hours before the recipient's death, an
event which Lady de Vesci had no reason to anticipate for some months
(_Journal S.P.R._, October 1891).
In another case, also recorded by Mrs. Hadselle (_loc. cit._), the
impulse took the form of a voice bidding her go to a certain town,
where, as it appeared, an intimate friend stood in urgent need
of her. The effect produced in this case was so strong that the
percipient actually bought a fresh railway ticket and changed her
route. In the following case the impulse found a more unusual mode of
expression--viz., utterance on the part of the percipient.
No. 51.--From ARCHDEACON BRUCE.
"ST. WOOLOS' VICARAGE, NEWPORT,
MONMOUTHSHIRE, _July_ 6_th_, 1892.
"On April 19th, Easter Tuesday, I went to Ebbw Vale to preach at
the opening of a new iron church in Beaufort parish.
"I had arranged that Mrs. Bruce and my daughter should drive in the
afternoon.
"The morning service and public luncheon over, I walked up to the
Vicarage at Ebbw Vale to call on the Vicar. As I went there I
heard the bell of the new church at Beaufort ringing for afternoon
service at three. It had stopped some little time before I reached
the Vicarage (of Ebbw Vale). The Vicar was out, and it struck me
that I might get back to the Beaufort new church in time to hear
some of the sermon before my train left (at 4.35). On my way back
through Ebbw Vale, and not far from the bottom of the hill on which
the Ebbw Vale Vicarage is placed, I saw over a provision shop one
of those huge, staring Bovril advertisements--the familiar large
ox-head. I had seen fifty of them before, but something fascinated
me in connection with this particular one. I turned to it, and
was moved to address it in these, my _ipsissima verba_: 'You ugly
brute, don't stare at me like that: has some accident happened to
the wife?' Just the faintest tinge of uneasiness passed through
me as I spoke, but it vanished at once. This must have been as
nearly as possible 3.20. I reached home at six to find the vet.
in my stable-yard tending my poor horse, and Mrs. Bruce and my
daughter in a condition of collapse in the house. The accident had
happened--so Mrs. Bruce thinks--precisely at 3.30, but she is not
confident of the moment. My own times I can fix precisely.
"I had no reason to fear any accident, as my coachman had driven
them with the same horse frequently, and save a little freshness
at starting, the horse was always quiet on the road, even to
sluggishness. A most unusual occurrence set it off. A telegraph
operator, at the top of a telegraph post, hauled up a long flashing
coil of wire under the horse's nose. Any horse in the world, except
the Troy horse, would have bolted under the circumstances.
"My wife's estimate of the precise time can only be taken as
approximate. She saw the time when she got home, and took that as
her zero, but the confusion and excitement of the walk home from
the scene of the accident leaves room for doubt as to her power of
settling the time accurately. The accident happened about 2-1/4
miles from home, and she was home by 4.10; but she was some time on
the ground waiting until the horse was disengaged, etc.
"W. CONYBEARE BRUCE."
Archdeacon Bruce adds later:--
"_May_ 20_th_, 1893.
"I think I stated the fact that the impression of danger to Mrs.
Bruce was only momentary--it passed at once--and it was only when
I heard of the accident that I recalled the impression. I did not
therefore go home expecting to find that anything had happened.
"W. CONYBEARE BRUCE."
Mrs. Bruce writes:--
"The first thought that flashed across me as the accident happened
was, 'What will W. say?' My ruling idea then was to get home before
my husband, so as to save him alarm."
The Rev. A. T. Fryer, to whom the incident was originally communicated
by the percipient, ascertained independently from the Vicar of Ebbw
Vale that the date of Archdeacon Bruce's visit to him was April 19th,
1892. It is worth noting that here, as in case 45, an external object
appears to have acted as a _point de repère_, and to have thus aided
in the development of the transferred idea. Another instance of a
telepathic impulse leading to speech is to be found in the _Annales des
Sciences Psychiques_ (vol. i. p. 36). The Lady Superior of a convent
was moved during the celebration of a service to pray for the safety of
the children of a neighbour--a visitor to the convent--who was somewhat
startled by the Superior's abrupt action. It subsequently appeared
that at about the time of this prayer the two boys were involved in a
carriage accident.
The most striking evidence, however, of telepathically induced action
is to be found in automatic writing. Some experimental cases of the
kind have been quoted in Chapter IV. The spontaneous cases are more
numerous. Mr. Myers has recorded several instances in his article on
Motor Automatism (_Proc. S.P.R._, vol. ix. pp. 26 _et seq._), and Mr.
W. T. Stead has published, in the _Review of Reviews_ and elsewhere,
accounts of messages and conversations with friends at a distance
written through his hand. Generally speaking, however, where living
persons are concerned, it is difficult, without full knowledge of all
the circumstances, to feel assured that the facts recorded by this
means are not such as might conceivably have been within the knowledge
of the writer, or at least within his powers of conjecture. The best
evidence, therefore, for spontaneous telepathic automatism is no doubt
afforded by those cases in which some altogether unforeseen event, such
as the death of the presumed agent, is communicated. Such is the case
recorded by M. Aksakof (_Psychische Studien_, February 1889, quoted
in _Proc. S.P.R._, vol. v. pp. 434, etc.), in which Mademoiselle Emma
Stramm, a Swiss governess at Wilna, on the 15th January 1887 wrote
particulars of the death on the same day of a former acquaintance
of hers, August Duvanel, in Canton Zurich. A similar instance is
recorded by Dr. Liébeault (_Annales des Sciences Psychiques_, vol. i.
pp. 25, 26). The automatic writer was in this case at Nancy, and the
person whose death was announced was a young English lady resident at
Coblentz. Dr. Liébeault was shown the written message within an hour or
two of the séance, and some days before news of the death was received.
Other cases of the kind are recorded by M. Aksakof and others (_Revue
Spirite_, August 1891, April 1892, etc.).
FOOTNOTES:
[Footnote 86: Two other examples are referred to in _Phantasms_,
vol. i. p. 189, but in neither case is the evidence obtainable at
first-hand.]
[Footnote 87: Except, of course, in cases of rudimentary
hallucinations, such as after-images and bright spots in the eyes and
singing in the ears, which are caused by the physical condition of the
external organ.]
[Footnote 88: See case No. 51, later; and compare Mr. Galton's
observations in his lecture at the Royal Institution on "The Just
Perceptible Difference" (reported in the _Times_, January 30th, 1893).
Mr. Galton found that the ideal auditory impressions called up by
reading the printed substance of a lecture enabled him to hear the
lecturer's voice at a greater distance than when he had not the printed
text before him; the ideal appears to have supplemented the real
impression, as, in the case given in the text, the real reinforced the
ideal.]
CHAPTER VIII.
COINCIDENT DREAMS.
Seeing that so large a part of our lives is spent in sleep, we should
perhaps be warranted in looking amongst dreams for evidence of the
transference of thought from one mind to another; especially as the
quiescence and the absence of outward impressions characteristic of
sleep are precisely the conditions indicated by our researches as
favourable to such transmission. Nor do the actual results in this
direction at all fall short of any reasonable expectation. Long before
scientific attention was directed to the subject the coincidences
reported between dreams and external events had won the special
consideration of the superstitious, and had given to the dreamer of
dreams high rank in the company of the prophets and soothsayers.
And such coincidences appear to be not less frequent at the present
time. My chief difficulty in writing this chapter has been the task
of selection from the super-abundant material at hand, much of it
accumulated within the last five or six years; and this material
is itself the carefully-sifted residuum of a much larger mass of
testimony, inferior, if at all, by slight and various degrees. But
notwithstanding this great accumulation, it cannot be contended
that the proof of telepathy derived from a consideration of dream
coincidences is at all comparable in cogency with that furnished by
impressions received during waking life. That some at least of the
dreams quoted below owed their origin to ideas transmitted to the
sleeper from another mind will no doubt be admitted as probable, but
the probability depends perhaps not more on their intrinsic value than
on the analogy of similar testimony from waking percipients. When (as
in some of the cases to be given later, in Chapters X.-XIII.) a witness
of integrity asserts that he saw in broad daylight a figure where no
such figure was, resembling a friend, and coincident with that friend's
death, we are justified in attaching great weight to the coincidence.
But if the same witness had dreamt of the figure, instead of seeing
it, the coincidence would deserve far less consideration. And yet the
cerebral mechanism involved in both processes is no doubt very similar.
A dream is a hallucination in sleep, and a hallucination is only a
waking dream; though it is probable that the waking impression, seeing
that it can contend on equal terms with the impressions derived from
external objects, is more vivid than the common run of dreams. But
the evidence of dream coincidence is defective, primarily, from the
frequency of dreams; it is only a small proportion of educated persons,
at any rate, who ever experience a hallucination, but everybody dreams
occasionally, and some persons dream every night. Clearly there must be
here a wide scope for coincidence. Secondly, whilst dream impressions
are probably less vivid at the time, they are certainly more elusive
in the memory. There is a serious risk, therefore, that after the
event is known detailed correspondences may be read back into the
indistinct picture preserved in the memory; or that a dream which at
the time made but a slight impression may be charged retrospectively
with emotional significance. Finally, as the dream does not enter into
any organic series of impressions, and has no landmarks of its own,
either in space or time, it becomes after the lapse of a few days, or
even hours, a matter of difficulty to determine its date. Against
the last two sources of error it is indeed possible to guard. Under
ordinary circumstances no dream should be regarded as having evidential
value which has not been either recorded in writing or mentioned to
some other person before the coincidence is known. Mention of the
dream immediately after the receipt of the news, even with persons of
proved accuracy, can by no means be regarded as equivalent to mention
of it beforehand. For it is possible, as already pointed out (p.
155), that some alleged coincident and prophetic dreams may be due to
hallucination of memory, or still more probably to the embellishment
and amplification of vague pre-existent memories.
But however carefully dreams are noted and described, the objection
still holds good that with impressions of such frequent occurrence
chance alone will account for a considerable number of coincidences. It
is easy, however, on a superficial view to exaggerate the probabilities
of chance coincidence. The great majority of dreams, vague at the time
and fugitive in the retrospect, are like footsteps in the sand. Yet as,
here and there, one set of footprints out of the millions impressed
upon the shore of a long-forgotten sea has been preserved for us in
sand now turned to stone, so now and then one dream stands out from
all the rest, and leaves on the memory an imprint which the daily
reflux of the tide of consciousness cannot efface. If we strike out of
the account all the dreams which are too vague to leave any permanent
impress on waking, all those which are purely inconsequent and
fantastic, and all which can be readily traced to some physical cause,
we shall find that the number which we have to deal with,--the number,
that is, of vivid and passably realistic dreams,--though no doubt
large, is perhaps not beyond the range of definite calculation. It
could not, for instance, be plausibly contended that the correspondence
of a dream such as that of Captain Campbell's, recorded below,
with the death of the person portrayed, is on the same level as the
prophetic vision of the City clerk, who, dreaming every other night
of the success of some horse which he has backed, happens on some one
occasion to dream of the future winner.
It will be observed that of the nine dreams which are given in full in
this chapter, no less than four are concerned with death. Of the much
larger number--149--of coincident dreams published in _Phantasms of the
Living_, no less than 79 relate to a death. Now, as dreams of death or
suggesting death do not form a large proportion of dreams in general,
their startling preponderance amongst coincident dreams constitutes
in itself an argument for ascribing such dreams to telepathy; for
if any power exists whereby one mind can affect another, it would
appear _à priori_ probable that such a power would be exercised most
frequently and effectually at times of exceptional crisis. As has been
pointed out by Mr. Gurney (_Phantasms of the Living_, vol. i. p. 303),
the preponderance amongst "true" dreams of dreams relating to death
may indeed be explained on the assumption that such dreams are more
frequently remembered than other "true" dreams. This assumption is no
doubt in a measure justified, but the consequences of admitting its
truth must not be overlooked; for it of course follows that a large
number of coincident dreams are forgotten, _i.e._, that the grounds
furnished by dreams for believing in telepathy are much stronger than
would at first sight appear.
Again, the frequency of coincident dreams of death offers a favourable
opportunity for estimating the probabilities of their occurrence by
chance. The problem is simplified in one direction by the consideration
that death is at all events a unique event in the history of the agent.
If we can ascertain the proportion which "true" bear to "not-true"
dreams of death, we can calculate by means of the tables of mortality
the probabilities for some other cause than chance. The problem was
actually attempted by Mr. Gurney, who found that coincident dreams of
death in the collection published in _Phantasms of the Living_ were
twenty-four times as numerous as chance would allow.[89]
Theoretically, dreams are of considerable interest as throwing light
upon the nature of waking impressions; for it should be observed
that dreams are of many kinds and of many degrees of vividness. Some
in the vagueness and ideality of the impressions resemble closely
the waking experiences recorded in the preceding chapter. Others in
their extreme clearness and semi-externalisation approach nearly to
the level of hallucinations. But whilst few persons above the level
of the savage believe that their dream percepts correspond to actual
external objects visibly present, there are some who think that the
hallucinatory image of a dying friend which they see with their eyes
open, and taking a place in the external order of things, must, just
because they see it with open eyes, form a part of that external order.
And if the percipient himself is not under any such misconception,
the journalist who sneers at him for believing in "ghosts" is so, by
his own confession. If once it is recognised that between dreams and
hallucinations there is no essential difference, the chief obstacle
to the acceptance, by two different classes of minds, of telepathy as
the explanation of coincident hallucinations will have disappeared. It
will become clear, on the one hand, that a belief in the significance
of such hallucinations does not necessarily carry with it a belief in
"ghosts"; and on the other, that the fact of an apparition taking its
place as a fully externalised percept does not imply any substantial
basis for the percept.
In dealing with dreams we will discuss first those which resemble most
closely the experimental results and the cases considered in the last
chapter, and proceed from these to dreams which include a definite
representation of the agent. Finally, cases of somewhat aberrant type
and clairvoyant dreams will be considered.
_Simultaneous Dreams._
No. 52.--From MISS INA BIDDER.
"RAVENSBURY PARK, MITCHAM,
_June_ 10_th_, 1890.
"The night before last a curious case of what I cannot but call
telepathy occurred between myself and my sister. (We sleep in the
same room.) For the last two years the whole family have been very
much interested in some skeletons and flint instruments found in
a gravel pit in one of the fields. They have never been properly
excavated, and about ten days ago my sister and I had been amusing
ourselves pulling out, bone by bone, one of these 'palæolithic
men,' as we pleased to call them. He was a particularly interesting
one, as we found a flint arrow-head in his hip-bone, but we only
got to his ribs. On the night in question I dreamt that my father
was excavating in a more approved method, taking off the top mould
and leaving the bones in their original position in the brown
earth, so that you could see the form of the man to whom they
had belonged. In this way we lifted out the rest of the skeleton
at which my sister and I had been working, and behold! when we
got to the skull it had a snout. We were delighted to be able to
prove this extraordinary fact respecting palæolithic man, and
the doctors crowded down from town to see the creature; but my
sister was nowhere about, and in my anxiety to tell her of our
discovery I woke myself and nearly woke her. I stopped myself just
in time, thinking what a shame it was to spoil her night's rest
for a dream. Still wishing she were awake to hear, and thinking
again of the curious effect of the black, earth-filled skull, with
its projecting snout, and dreaming of my dream, I turned over
and dropped into another. Before I had got well started in this,
however, I was awakened by my sister trying to light the candle.
'What is it?' I said, 'what's the matter?' 'I've just had such a
horrid dream,' she answered; 'it haunts me still.' But I do not
think I need repeat her dream, which I believe she has written."
Miss M. Bidder writes as follows:--
"_June_ 9_th_, 1890.
"I was sleeping last night with my sister, with whom I have shared
a room all my life. I was sleeping soundly, and my dreams, of which
I now retain only the vaguest recollection, took their most usual
form of a confused repetition of all the events of the past day
jumbled together without meaning or sequence, and without even much
distinctness. The whole scene of the dream was hazy and confused,
until I became suddenly conscious of the figure of a skeleton in
the foreground, as it were, which disturbed me in my dream with
a sense of incongruity. I first made a half-conscious effort to
banish the figure--which struck me with great horror--from my
dream, but instead of disappearing it grew more and more prominent
and distinct, while all the rest of the scene and the people in
it seemed fading away. The figure of the skeleton, which I can
perfectly recall, presented one of the most vivid impressions I
ever remember to have received in a dream. It appeared to stand
upright before me, with what seemed to be a dark cloak hanging
about its limbs and forming a kind of background as of a black
hood behind the skull, which showed against it with extreme
distinctness. It was on the skull, which was facing me full, that
my attention was chiefly concentrated, and as I stared at it it
slowly turned sideways, showing, to my horror, the profile of a
very long, sharp nose in place of the hollow socket. The feeling
of terror with which I perceived this (for the first time) was so
intense as to awaken me, nor could I even then entirely banish it.
So unpleasantly strong, indeed, was the impression of some horrible
presence which still remained, that it was with difficulty that I
resisted the desire to rouse my sister that she might help me to
shake it off. Some movement of mine did in fact presently awake
her, and I at once began to tell her of my horrible dream. Before,
however, I had described it to her, she interrupted me to tell me
of a dream which she had had."
Here it is perhaps permissible to conjecture that some common
experience of their waking life might have suggested to both sisters
the idea of a primeval skeleton with a snout. But it is remarkable,
if such is the true explanation, that the common idea was elaborated
into a dream by the two percipients almost simultaneously. It must be
admitted, however, that such dreams, which have hitherto been reported
only as occurring between persons whose lives are spent for the most
part in the same surroundings, have little value as evidence. It is
only those who believe, on evidence derived from other sources, in the
reality of telepathy, who will be inclined to regard such cases as
possibly due to its action, rather than to the spontaneous association
of ideas in minds sharing the same experiences and moving to some
extent in similar grooves.
_Dreams coinciding with external events._
In the cases which follow the coincidence is of a more definite kind,
and the question is now no longer of the correspondence of thought in
closely associated minds, but of the correspondence of thought with an
outward event--with something done or suffered by the person whose mind
apparently affects that of the dreamer.
_Transference of Sensation in Dreams._
The following case, quoted from the _Proc. of the Am. S.P.R._ (pp. 226,
227), offers a curious parallel to some of the cases recorded at the
beginning of Chapter II. The narrator is a lady of Boston, whose good
faith is vouched for by Professor Royce. She wrote from Hamburg on the
23rd of June 1887 to her sister, who was at that time in Boston, U.S.A.
The following is an extract from this letter:--
No. 53.
"I very nearly wrote from the Hague to say that I should be very
thankful when we had a letter from you of the 18th of June saying
that you were well and happy.... In the night of the 17th I had
what I suppose to be a nightmare, but it all seemed to belong
to you ... and to be a horrid pain in your head, as if it were
being forcibly jammed into an iron casque, or some such pleasant
instrument of torture. The queer part of it was my own dissociation
from the pain, and conviction that it was yours. I suppose it was
some slight painful sensation magnified into something quite severe
by a half-asleep condition. It will be a fine example of what the
Society for Psychical Research ought to be well supplied with--an
_Ahnung_ which came to nothing."
As a matter of fact the lady in Boston to whom this letter was
addressed is shown, on the evidence of a dentist's bill, to have spent
on the 17th June an hour and three-quarters in the operating chair,
while a painful tooth was being stopped. The discomfort consequent on
the operation, as was learnt from the patient herself, "continued as
a dull pain for some hours, in such wise that during the afternoon of
the 17th June the patient could not forget the difficulty at all. She
slept, however, as usual at night. The nightmare in Europe followed the
operation in Boston by a good many hours, but the pain of the tooth
returned daily for some three weeks." As the letter was written from
Europe six days after the nightmare there was of course no possibility
of any communication having passed in the interval except by telegram.
In the next case also the coincidence was of a trivial nature, but
appears to have been exact in point of time. The narrative is quoted
here because the impression, though not described beforehand, was of
a quite unusual kind, being in part, if not altogether, a _waking_
experience. It is doubtful, indeed, whether it should be classed as a
dream, and not rather as a "borderland" hallucination.
No. 54.--From MRS. HARRISON.
"_February_ 7_th_, 1891.
"I reside with my husband at 15 Lupton Street, N.W. This
afternoon I was lying on the sofa, sound asleep, when I suddenly
awoke, thinking I heard my husband sigh as if in pain. I arose
immediately, expecting to find him in the room. He was not there,
and looking at my watch I found it was half-past three. At six
o'clock my husband came in. He called my attention to a bruise on
his forehead, which was caused by his having knocked it against
the stone steps in a Turkish bath. I said to him, 'I know when it
happened--it was at half-past three, for I heard you sigh as if in
pain at that time.' He replied, 'Yes, that was the exact time, for
I remember noticing the clock directly after.'
"The gentleman who appends his name as witness was present when
this conversation took place.
"LOUISA E. HARRISON.
"Witness: Henry Hooton, 23 Bunhill Row, E.C."
This account was sent to the S.P.R. by Mr. Harrison on the day of the
occurrence described. In an accompanying letter he writes: "Everything
happened exactly as stated."
In the cases which follow, with one exception, the dream impression
was of a well-marked visual nature. In the first three narratives the
dream had reference to the death of the person represented. The mode
of representation, however, it will be seen, differed in each case. In
the first, the associated imagery was in part of a fantastic nature,
and the dream, though sufficiently exceptional to leave a feeling of
fatigue on the following morning, and to induce the percipient to write
an account of it to his friends, resembled in other respects the motley
crowd which throng through the gate of ivory. In the second case the
surroundings of the central figure were such as the waking imagination
of the dreamer would naturally have conjured up in picturing the
deathbed of his friend.
No. 55.--From MR. J. T.
This case is recorded at some length in the _Proceedings of the
Am. S.P.R._ (pp. 394-397) by Professor Royce. Professor Royce
explains that Mr. E., the agent, died after a short illness in
New York City, on Tuesday, February 23rd, 1886. Mr. J. T., who,
though an acquaintance of Mr. E., had heard nothing of him for some
time, and, as indeed appears from the letters quoted, knew of no
special cause for anxiety, was on the day of the death, and for
some time afterwards, in St. John, New Brunswick. In consequence of
severe snowstorms, no mails had been received in St. John from the
South for some days, and at the time when the letter, an extract
from which we give below, was written, it was not possible for
the writer to have known of Mr. E.'s death. The original letter,
written by Mr. J. T. to his wife, and dated Wednesday, March 3rd,
1886, on paper headed Hotel Dufferin, St. John, N.B., has been seen
by Professor Royce:--
"I have not heard of you for an age. The train that should have
been here on Friday last has not arrived yet. I had a very strange
dream on Tuesday night. I have never been in Ottawa in my life,
and yet I was there, in Mr. E.'s house. Mrs. E., Miss E., and the
little girls were in great trouble because Mr. E. was ill. I had to
go and tell my brother [Mr. E.'s son-in-law], and, strange to say,
he was down a coal-mine.
"When I got down to him I told him that Mr. E. was dead. But in
trying to get out we could not do it. We climbed and climbed, but
always fell back. I felt tired out when I awoke next morning, and I
cannot account for the dream in any way."
Though the letter leaves it doubtful whether the dream actually
occurred on the night of the death, or a week later, it appears from
further correspondence that the percipient believes the dream to have
taken place on the night of the 23rd February, the night of the death,
and this is the most natural interpretation of the letter.[90] In any
case, the dream preceded the news of the death.
In the next case, again, the dream is of a not uncommon type, but the
impression made, it will be seen, was such as to wake the dreamer at
the time, and to induce him in the morning to take the unusual course
of noting the dream in his diary.
No. 56.--From MR. R. V. BOYLE.
"3 STANHOPE TERRACE, W.,
_July_ 30_th_, 1884.
"In India, early on the morning of November 2nd, 1868 (which would
be about 10 to 11 P.M. of November 1st in England), I had so clear
and striking a dream or vision (repeated a second time after a
short waking interval) that, on rising as usual between 6 and 7
o'clock, I felt impelled at once to write an entry in my diary,
which is now before me.
"At the time referred to my wife and I were in Simla, in the
Himalayas, the summer seat of the Governor-General, and my
father-in-law and mother-in-law were living in Brighton. We had not
heard of or from either of them for weeks, nor had I been recently
speaking or thinking of them, for there was no reason for anxiety
regarding them. It is right, however, to say that my wife's father
had gone to Brighton some months before on account of his health,
though he was not more delicate than his elder brother, who is
(1884) still living.
"It seemed in my dream that I stood at the open door of a bedroom
in a house in Brighton, and that before me, by candle-light, I saw
my father-in-law lying pale upon his bed, while my mother-in-law
passed silently across the room in attendance on him. The vision
soon passed away, and I slept on for some time. On waking, however,
the nature of the impression left upon me unmistakably was that
my father-in-law was dead. I at once noted down the dream, after
which I broke the news of what I felt to be a revelation to my
wife, when we thought over again and again all that could bear
upon the matter, without being able to assign any reason for my
being so strongly and thoroughly impressed. The telegraph from
England to Simla had been open for some time, but now there was an
interruption, which lasted for about a fortnight longer, and on
the 17th (fifteen days after my dream) I was neither unprepared
nor surprised to receive a telegram from England, saying that my
father-in-law had died in Brighton on November 1st. Subsequent
letters showed that the death occurred on the _night_ of the 1st.
"Dreams, as a rule, leave little impression on me, and the one
above referred to is the only one I ever thought of making a note
of, or of looking expectantly for its fulfilment.
"R. VICARY BOYLE."
Mrs. Boyle writes as follows:--
"6_th August_ 1887.
"I well remember my husband telling me one morning, early in
November 1868, when at Simla, in India, that he had had a striking
dream (repeated) in which my father, then at Brighton, seemed to be
dying. We were both deeply impressed, and then anxiously awaited
news from home. A telegram first reached us, in about a fortnight,
which was afterwards confirmed by letters telling of my father's
death having occurred on the same night when my husband had the
dream.
"ELÉONORE A. BOYLE.
Mr. Gurney adds the following notes on the case:--
"The following entries were copied by me from Mr. Boyle's diary:--
"'Nov. 2. Dreamed of E.'s F[ather] early this morning.
"'Written before dressing.
"'Nov. 17. Got telegram from L[ouis] H[ack] this morning of his
father's death on 1st Nov. inst.'
"The following notice of the decease of Mr. Boyle's father-in-law
occurred in the _Times_ for 4th November 1868:--
"'On 1st Nov., at Brighton, William Hack, late of Dieppe, aged 72.'
"Mr. Boyle informed me that he is a 'particularly sound sleeper,
and very rarely dreams.' This dream was a very unique and
impressive experience, apart from the coincidence.
"There was a regular correspondence between Mrs. Boyle and her
mother, but for several mails the letters had contained no mention
of her father, on whose account absolutely no anxiety was felt.
"E. G."
It appears that the death actually occurred at about 2 P.M. in England,
which was, allowing for the difference in longitude, about nine hours
before the dream.
In the next case the dream is of a more unusual character. The figure
of the agent appears to have stood alone, whilst the impression
made was such that the percipient is uncertain whether to class
his experience as a dream or a vision. Indeed, in the absence of
dream-background, and in the life-like appearance of the figure, the
dream bears a striking resemblance to a waking hallucination.
No. 57.--From CAPTAIN R. E. W. CAMPBELL
(2nd Royal Irish Fusiliers).
"ARMY AND NAVY CLUB, PALL MALL, S.W.,
_February_ 21_st_, 1888.
"I have much pleasure in enclosing you an account of a remarkable
dream which occurred to me in the year 1886, together with three
other accounts of the same, written by officers to whom the facts
of the case are known. You are at liberty, in the interests of
science, to make such use of them as you please.
"I was stationed at the Depôt Barracks, Armagh, Ireland, on the
30th November 1886, and on the night of the same date, or early
in the morning of the 1st December (I cannot tell which, as I
did not refer to my watch), I was in bed in my room, when I was
awakened by a most vivid and remarkable dream or vision, in which
I seemed to see a certain Major Hubbersty, late of my regiment,
the 2nd Battalion Royal Irish Fusiliers, looking ghastly pale, and
falling forward as if dying. He seemed to be saying something to
me, but the words I could not make out, although I tried hard to
understand him. The clothes he had on at the time appeared to me
to have a thin red thread running through the pattern. I was very
deeply impressed by my dream, and so much did I feel that there
was something significant in it that on the 1st December, when
at luncheon in the mess, I related it to three brother-officers,
telling them at the same time that I felt sure we should soon hear
something bad about Major Hubbersty. I had almost forgotten all
about it when, on taking up the _Times_ newspaper of the following
Saturday on the Sunday morning following, the first thing that
caught my eyes was the announcement of Major Hubbersty's death at
Penzance, in Cornwall, on the 30th November, the very date on which
I had the remarkable dream concerning him.
"My feelings on seeing such a remarkable fulfilment of my dream can
be better imagined than described. Suffice it to say that on the
return from church of Messrs. Kaye and Scott I asked them to try
and recollect anything peculiar which had happened at luncheon on
the 1st December, when, after a few moments' deliberation, they at
once recounted to me the whole circumstances of my dream, as they
had heard them from my lips on the 1st December 1886. On seeing Mr.
Leeper a few days afterwards at his father's house, Loughgall, Co.
Armagh, he at once remembered all I had told him about the dream
on the 1st December, on my questioning him about it. I, of course,
can assign no possible cause for the remarkable facts related, as
apart from the difference of our standing in the service, the late
Major Hubbersty and I were in no wise particularly friendly to one
other, nor had we seen very much of each other. I had not seen him
for eighteen months previously. A very curious fact in connection
with the dream is that it occurred to me in the very same room in
the barracks as Major Hubbersty used to occupy when stationed at
Armagh, several years previously."
In answer to an inquiry, Captain Campbell writes, on February 29th,
1888:--
"I do not dream much, as a rule, and cannot recall to my mind ever
before having had a dream of a similar nature to that dreamt by me
about the late Major Hubbersty."
Mr. A. B. R. Kaye, Lieutenant Third Royal Irish Fusiliers, writes on
August 20th, 1887, from 62 Fitzwilliam Square, Dublin:--
"I was stationed in the barracks, Armagh Depôt, Royal Irish
Fusiliers, in November and December 1886. On the 1st of December at
lunch there were present Lieutenant R. E. W. Campbell (2nd R.I.F.),
Lieutenant R. W. Leeper (2nd R.I.F.), Lieutenant T. E. Scott (4th
R.I.F.), and myself. During our conversation Major Hubbersty's
name was mentioned, and Campbell told us that he had a dream about
him the night before, how he had seen a vision of Major Hubbersty
looking very pale and seeming to be falling forward, and saying
something to him which he could not hear; also, he (Campbell) told
us he was sure we would hear something about Major Hubbersty very
soon.
"On the following Sunday, when Scott and I returned from church and
went into the ante-room, Campbell, who was there, asked us both
to try and remember anything peculiar that he had told us on the
1st. After a little time, we remembered about the dream, and he
(Campbell) then showed us the _Times_ newspaper of the day before,
containing the notice of Major Hubbersty's death, at Penzance, on
November 30th, 1886, the same date as that on which he had the
dream; also, I remember, he (Campbell) told us that in his vision
he seemed to see the clothes which Major Hubbersty had on, and that
there was a red thread running through the pattern of the trousers."
The two other friends mentioned by Captain Campbell, Messrs. Leeper and
Scott, have written letters to the same effect.[91]
From these letters there can be no doubt that the coincidence made a
marked impression on each of those to whom the dream was related, and
this fact, perhaps even more than Captain Campbell's own narrative, is
a striking proof of the exceptional nature of the experience.
There is no reason in this case for supposing that the dream conveyed
any other information than the fact of the agent's death. There is
no evidence that the manner of death or the clothes worn by Major
Hubbersty resembled what was seen in the dream. The clothes in which
the figure appeared may have been a reminiscence of clothes which the
percipient had actually seen worn on some occasion by the agent. But
this explanation will hardly apply to the following case, where the
dream included a representation, accurate in more than one particular,
of the agent as he actually appeared at the time. It is true that
we have to rely upon the percipient's memory after the interval of
a fortnight for the details of the dream, but since the dream was
sufficiently impressive to cause a note to be taken of it by a person
not in the habit of making such notes, it seems not unreasonable to
trust the memory to that extent.
No, 58.--From MR. E. W. HAMILTON, C.B.
"PARK LANE CHAMBERS, PARK LANE, W.,
_April_ 6_th_, 1888.
"On Wednesday morning, March 21st, 1888, I woke up with the
impression of a very vivid dream. I had dreamt that my brother,
who had long been in Australia, and of whom I had heard nothing
for several months, had come home; that after an absence of twelve
years and a half he was very little altered in appearance, but that
he had something wrong with one of his arms; it looked horribly red
near the wrist, his hand being bent back.
"When I got up that morning the dream recurred constantly to
my thoughts, and I at last determined to take a note of it,
notwithstanding my natural prejudices against attaching any
importance to dreams, to which, indeed, I am not much subject.
Accordingly, in the course of the day, I made in my little Letts'
diary a mark thus: X, with my brother's name after it.
"On the following Monday morning, the 26th March, I received a
letter from my brother, which bore the date of the 21st March, and
which had been posted at Naples (where the Orient steamers touch),
informing me that he was on his way home, and that he hoped to
reach London on or about the 30th March, and adding that he was
suffering from a very severe attack of gout in the left arm.
"The next day I related to some one this curious incident, and I
commented on the extraordinary coincidence of facts with the dream
except in one detail, and that was, that the arm which I had seen
in my dream did not look as if it were merely affected with gout:
the appearance it had presented to me was more like extremely bad
eczema.
"My brother duly reached England on the 29th, having disembarked
at Plymouth owing to the painful condition of his arm. It turned
out that the doctor on board ship had mistaken the case; it was
not gout, but a case of blood poisoning, resulting in a very bad
carbuncle or abscess over the wrist joint.
"Since my brother's return, I have endeavoured to ascertain from
him the exact hour at which he wrote to me on March 21st. He is not
certain whether the letter to me was written before noon or after
noon of that day. He remembers writing four short letters in the
course of that day--two before luncheon and two after luncheon.
Had the note addressed to me been written in the forenoon, it
might nearly have coincided in time with my dream, if allowance
be made for the difference of time between Greenwich and Naples;
for, having no recollection of the dream when I woke, according to
custom, at an early hour on the morning of the 21st, I presume I
must have dreamt it very little before eight o'clock, the hour at
which I was called.
"I may add that, notwithstanding an absence of twelve years and a
half, my brother has altered very little in appearance; and that I
have not to my knowledge ever noted a dream before in my life."
On April 12th, 1888, Mr. Gurney inspected the diary with the entry
(X, Clem) under Tuesday, March 20th, 1888, though, as Mr. Hamilton
explained, "it was early the next morning that I had the dream, for I
generally consider all that appertains to bed relates to the day on
which one gets into it".
Mr. Gurney also saw the letter signed Clement E. Hamilton, and dated
Naples, March 21st, 1888, which says "am suffering from very severe
attack of gout in left arm."
The next case presents several points of interest. In part, at least,
it seems to have been a waking experience, possibly the prolongation
of a dream. In this respect it resembles Mrs. Harrison's case, already
cited (No. 54), and if correctly described, the incident possesses
therefore a higher evidential value than a mere dream, however vivid.
I have here classed it as a dream, however, because the percipient
himself so describes it in his letter written a few days after the
experience. The utterance of words by the percipient finds a parallel
in the case of Archdeacon Bruce (Chapter VII., No. 51). But in the
present case there is the additional feature that the percipient is
conscious not only of the sound of his own voice, but of another voice
in reply. The incident, it will be seen, though remote, is attested by
letters written immediately after the event, and by the percipient's
recollection of action taken in consequence of the dream-warning.
No. 59.--From MR. EDWARD A. GOODALL, of the Royal Society of Painters
in Water-Colours.
"_May_, 1888.
"At Midsummer, 1869, I left London for Naples. The heat being
excessive, people were leaving for Ischia, and I thought it best to
go there myself.
"Crossing by steamer, I slept one night at Casamicciola, on the
coast, and walked next morning into the town of Ischia [Mr. Goodall
then describes an accident to his hand, which prevented him from
sketching.]
"It must have been on my third or fourth night, and about the
middle of it, when I awoke, as it seemed, at the sound of my own
voice, saying: 'I know I have lost my dearest little May.' Another
voice, which I in no way recognised, answered: '_No_, not May, but
your _youngest boy_.'
"The distinctness and solemnity of the voice made such a
distressing impression upon me that I slept no more. I got up at
daybreak, and went out, noticing for the first time telegraph-poles
and wires.
"Without delay I communicated with the postmaster at Naples, and by
next boat received two letters from home. I opened them according
to dates outside. The first told me that my youngest boy was taken
suddenly ill; the second, that he was dead.
"Neither on his account nor on that of any of my family had I any
cause for uneasiness. All were quite well on my taking leave of
them so lately. My impression ever since has been that the time of
the death coincided as nearly as we could judge with the time of my
accident.
"In writing to Mrs. Goodall, I called the incident of the voice a
dream, as less likely perhaps to disturb her than the details which
I gave on reaching home, and which I have now repeated.
"My letters happen to have been preserved.
"I have never had any hallucination of any kind, nor am I in the
habit of talking in my sleep. I do remember once waking with some
words of mere nonsense upon my lips, but the experience of the
voice speaking to me was absolutely unique.
"EDWARD A. GOODALL."
Extracts from letters to Mrs. E. A. Goodall from Ischia:--
"WEDNESDAY, _August_ 11_th_, 1869.
"The postman brought me two letters containing sad news indeed.
Poor little Percy! I dreamt some nights since the poor little
fellow was taken from us...."
"_August_ 14_th_.
"I did not tell you, dear, the particulars of my dream about poor
little Percy.
"I had been for several days very fidgety and wretched at getting
no letters from home, and had gone to bed in worse spirits than
usual, and in my dream I fancied I said: 'I have lost my dearest
little May.' A strange voice seemed to say: 'No, _not_ May, but
your youngest boy,' not mentioning his name."
Mr. Myers adds:--
"Mr. Goodall has given me verbally a concordant account of the
affair, and several members of his family, who were present at our
interview, recollected the strong impression made on him and them
at the time."[92]
In the case which follows the agency is difficult to elucidate. The
persons who were spectators of the scene represented in the dream can
hardly be supposed to have been acquainted with the dreamer, and
assuredly would not willingly have revealed the secret. The dream
appears to have been of a clairvoyant character. The account is taken
from the _Proceedings of the Am. S.P.R._, pp. 454 _et seq_.
No. 60.--From MRS. E. J.
"CAMBRIDGE (U.S.A.), _Nov._ 30, 1886.
"The dream I will endeavour to relate as clearly as possible.
"It occurred during the month of August, last summer, while we were
boarding with Mrs. H., in Lunenburg, where I first met the Misses
W. I am a perfectly healthy woman, and have always been sceptical
as to hallucinations in any one, always before having felt the
cause of the experience might be traced.
"In my dream I arrived unexpectedly at the house of the Misses
W., in Cambridge, where I found everything in confusion, drawers
emptied and their contents scattered about the floor, bundles
unrolled, and dresses taken down from the closets. Then, as I
stepped into one room, I saw some boys in bed,--three or four,
I cannot distinctly remember. I saw their faces distinctly, as
they sat up in bed at my approach, but the recollection of their
faces has faded from me now. I could not reach the boys, for they
disappeared suddenly, and I could not find them; but I thought,
These cannot be the people whom the Misses W. trusted to care for
their house in their absence; and I was troubled to know whether it
was best to tell them when I should return to Lunenburg. This is
all there was in the dream.
"Thinking only to amuse them, I related my dream at the
breakfast-table the following morning, and I regretted doing so
immediately, for anxiety showed itself in their faces, and the
elder Miss W. remarked that she hoped my dream was not a forerunner
of bad tidings from home. I laughed at the idea, but that morning
the mail brought a letter telling them that their house had been
entered, and when they went down they found almost the same
confusion of which I had been a witness the night before--with
everything strewn about the floor. It was a singular coincidence,
surely."
Miss W. writes:--
"7 ---- STREET, _Dec._ 4.
"I am not quite sure whether the incident to which you allude in
your note is worthy your attention or not, but I will give you the
facts, that you may judge for yourself of its value.
"The burglary, we suppose, took place on the night of the 17th or
18th of August, I being at the time, for the summer, in the town of
Lunenburg, Mass.
"Coming down to breakfast on the morning of the 17th, a lady said
to me that she had had a strange dream. She thought she went to
our house, finding it in the greatest confusion, everything turned
upside-down. As she entered one of the sleeping-rooms she saw two
boys lying in the bed; but she could not see their faces, for as
soon as they saw her they jumped up and ran off. I said, 'I hope
that does not mean that we have been visited by burglars.'
"I thought no more about it, till the eleven o'clock mail brought
a note from the woman in charge of the house saying that it had
been entered,--that everything was in great confusion, many things
carried off, and she wished we would come home at once. The
policeman who went over the house with her said he had never seen a
house more thoroughly ransacked.
"We found that in the upper attic room the bed had evidently been
used, and there was, perhaps, more confusion in this room than in
any other.
"The lady who had the dream was Mrs. E. J., of Cambridgeport. I
was told that she had been suffering for about a year from nervous
prostration, and she was evidently in a condition of great nervous
excitement.
"I forbore to speak to her of the occurrence, as one of the ladies
in the house told me that it had made an unpleasant impression on
her mind.
"The whole thing seems rather curious to me, but I do not know that
you will find it of any value in your investigations."
A dream presenting similar features is recorded in the _Journal of the
S.P.R._ for June 1890. Mr. William Bass, farm bailiff to Mrs. Palmer,
of Turnours Hall, Chigwell, on Good Friday, 1884, "awoke in violent
agitation and profuse perspiration" from a dream that something was
wrong at the stables. He was at first dissuaded by his wife from
paying any attention to the dream, but subsequently, at about 2 A.M.,
dressed and proceeded to the stables (a third of a mile off) to find
that a mare had been stolen. The case has been investigated by Mr. T.
Barkworth, of West Hatch, Chigwell, and by Mr. J. B. Surgey, of 22
Holland Street, Kensington. In a dream recorded in _Phantasms of the
Living_ (vol. i. p. 369), Miss Busk, of 16 Montagu Street, W., dreamt
that in a spot in Kent well known to her she stumbled over "the heads,
left protruding, of some ducks buried in the sand, under some firs."
The dream was mentioned at breakfast to Miss Busk's sister, Mrs. Pitt
Byrne, and an hour later the ladies learnt from their bailiff that some
stolen ducks had accidentally been found buried on the spot and in the
manner described.
FOOTNOTES:
[Footnote 89: _Phantasms_, vol. i. pp. 303-310. The statement in the
text must not be regarded as having more weight than its author himself
would have assigned to it. Mr. Gurney certainly regarded his estimate
as little more than a guess--a guess indeed made by one who had
carefully studied and weighed the facts, so far as they could be known,
but because of our inevitable ignorance a guess still, rather than an
estimate on the approximate accuracy of which it would be safe to rely.
The calculation depends on several assumptions, one or two of which,
at least, are highly controvertible; for instance, the accuracy of the
5187 persons who asserted that they had not within a given period of
twelve years had an exceptionally vivid and distressing dream relating
to the death of a friend; and the accuracy of the twenty-four persons
who described themselves as having had within the same period a similar
dream actually occurring within twelve hours of the death of the person
represented. Probably the estimate given requires modification by large
allowances being made in both directions for defects of memory. But
even when thus discounted the coincidences will, it is thought, by any
one who carefully studies the subject be found to be more numerous than
can plausibly be attributed to chance.]
[Footnote 90: A man writing on Wednesday would almost certainly say
"last night" if he meant to indicate the preceding night, whereas,
having just before written of "Friday last," it was natural to describe
the Tuesday in the previous week as simply "Tuesday."]
[Footnote 91: These letters are omitted for want of space. They are
given in full in the _Journal of the S.P.R._ for April 1888, pp. 255,
256.]
[Footnote 92: _Proc. S.P.R._, vol. v. pp. 453-455.]
CHAPTER IX.
ON HALLUCINATION IN GENERAL.
Before proceeding, in the chapters which follow, to cite instances of
hallucinations which purport to have been telepathically originated, it
seems needful to glance briefly at sensory hallucination in general.
To most persons, no doubt, the word connotes disease. Their ideas
of hallucination are probably derived from vague reports of asylum
experience and _delirium tremens;_ or at least from the cases of
Goethe's butt, Nicolai, the Berlin bookseller, and the Mrs. A. whose
experiences are described in Brewster's _Letters on Natural Magic_,
both of whom are known to have been under medical treatment for illness
of which the hallucinations were regarded as a symptom. Indeed, until
recent years the tendency of even well-instructed opinion has been to
regard a sensory hallucination as necessarily implying some physical
or mental disorder. This misconception--for it is a misconception--has
had some curious consequences. Since it does occasionally happen that
a person admittedly sane and healthy reports to have seen the likeness
of a human figure in what was apparently empty space, such reports have
been by some perforce scouted as unworthy of credence, and by others
regarded as necessarily indicating some occult cause--as testifying,
in short, to the agency of "ghosts." There was indeed the analogy of
dreams to guide us. Few educated persons would regard dreams, on the
one hand, as a symptom of ill-health, or on the other as counterparts
or revelations of any super-terrestrial world; or, indeed, as anything
else than purely subjective mental images. Yet dreams belong to the
same order of mental phenomena as hallucinations, and are commonly so
classed--such differences as exist being mainly due to the conditions
under which the two sets of phenomena respectively occur. In fact, a
hallucination is simply a hypertrophied thought--the last member of
a series, whose intermediate terms are to be found in the mind's-eye
pictures of ordinary life, in the vivid images which some artists can
summon at will, and in the Faces in the Dark which many persons see
before passing into sleep, with its more familiar and abundant imagery.
Of recent years, however, our knowledge of hallucinations has been
largely augmented from two distinct sources. On the one hand, a
systematic attempt has been made to study the spontaneous non-recurrent
hallucinations occurring amongst normal persons; on the other hand,
wider knowledge of hypnotism and the discovery of various processes for
inducing hallucinations has afforded facilities for the experimental
investigation of their nature, mechanism, and genesis, both in the
trance and in waking life. The hallucinations, indeed, of the ordinary
hypnotic subject, with which the public has been familiarised by
platform demonstrations, are possibly not sensory at all. When a
hypnotised lad eats tallow-candle for sponge-cake, drinks ink for
champagne, or professes to see a lighted candle at the end of the
operator's finger, we may conclude, if the performance is a genuine
one, that a false belief has been engendered in his mind; but we have,
in most cases, no evidence that this belief includes any sensory
element. In many laboratory experiments, however, there can be little
question that a complete sensory hallucination is induced, and that
what the subject professes to see and hear is as real to him as the
furniture or the person of the operator. One or two such cases have
been quoted in a previous chapter (Chap. III., p. 68). The nature
and reaction of these hypnotic hallucinations have been investigated
with much ingenuity by various Continental observers.[93] MM. Binet
and Féré, to quote the best-known series of experiments, have found,
speaking generally, that the hallucinatory percept behaves under
various conditions precisely as if it were a real percept. Thus, if
the subject is told to see a picture on a blank card, he will not
only see the picture at the time, but he will be able subsequently
to pick out the card, recognising it by means of the hallucinatory
picture impressed on it, from a number of similar cards. If the card is
inverted, he will see the picture upside-down; if a magnifying glass is
interposed, he will see the picture enlarged; viewed through a prism,
it will appear doubled; it will be reflected in a mirror; and if the
hallucinatory image consists of written or printed words, he will see
the writing in the mirror inverted. Hallucinatory colours will develop
after-images of the complementary colour, precisely as if coloured
surfaces were actually present to the eyes of the _halluciné;_ and a
mixture of these hallucinatory colours will produce the appropriate
third colour. If other proof were needed of the sensory nature of
the induced affection, MM. Binet and Féré find it in the observation
that with cataleptic subjects who have lost the sensitiveness of the
cornea and conjunctiva, this sensitiveness is restored when a visual
hallucination is enjoined upon them. M. Pierre Janet, in _L'Automatisme
Psychologique_, has recorded a similar restoration of sensitiveness in
a subject's arm by the imposition of a tactile hallucination.
It is right to point out that these experiments, by the authors'
admission, succeed only occasionally, and that many of them have
not yet been confirmed by other observers. In fact, according to
the evidence collected by the S.P.R., the results of applying such
optical tests differ with each individual. Thus Mr. Myers succeeded
by post-hypnotic suggestion in inducing two young men to see
hallucinatory images in the crystal enlarged by the application of a
magnifying glass (_S.P.R._, viii. 462, 463), and Miss X. (_id._, pp.
485, 486) reports that she sees hallucinatory pictures distorted in
a spoon, reversed in a mirror, enlarged by a magnifying glass, and
doubly refracted by Iceland spar. She believes herself also to have
experienced complementary colours as the result of prolonged looking
at a hallucinatory picture. But Mrs. Verrall (_id._, p. 474) finds the
crystal pictures vanish when the magnifying glass is applied; and Miss
A. (_id._, p. 500) finds that the superimposition of a magnifying glass
does not affect the picture. In all these cases, it should be noted,
the percipients were in their normal condition, and were more or less
familiar with the nature of the optical effects following under similar
circumstances with real percepts.
MM. Binet and Féré suppose that the appropriate reaction of the
hallucinatory picture to the various tests described is due to the
hallucination being built up round a fragment of actual percept, such
as a mark on a card, which would conform to ordinary optical laws. This
imaginary nucleus they name the _point de repère_. It is not improbable
that in some cases this may be the true explanation. But experience
leads us to infer that suggestion would be competent to produce all
the observed effects in cases where the subject, either from previous
knowledge of the instrument or process, from the behaviour of the
investigators, or from his own observations at the time, was aware
of the nature of the effect to be expected. And it is not clear that
MM. Binet and Féré, and other investigators of this school, have been
sufficiently on their guard against the abnormal receptivity of the
hypnotised subjects with whom they have for the most part experimented.
Miss X., it may be remarked, professes herself uncertain whether or
not to ascribe the results which she has recorded to self-suggestion.
But to choose between these alternative explanations is not important
for our present purpose. To whatever cause we may attribute the results
observed, there can be no doubt either of the sense of reality conveyed
by the false percept, or of its appropriate behaviour under favourable
conditions.
An instance may be quoted in detail which illustrates at once the
apparent attachment of the hallucination to an external object, and its
successful competition with the impressions of waking life. A lady of
my acquaintance, Sister L., was put into the hypnotic state by Mr. G.
A. Smith in the spring of 1892. Whilst she was entranced, Mr. Smith, at
my request, handed to her several blank cards, and told her that one of
them (which had been privately marked on the back) bore a portrait of
himself, and that she was to look at it ten minutes after waking. A few
minutes later, when engaged in conversation and apparently completely
awake, Sister L. picked out the card in question from the little
heap of similar cards and showed it to me, remarking that it was an
excellent likeness. Some half-hour later, when Sister L. was about to
take her departure, I handed her the card and said that Mr. Smith would
be glad if she would accept the photograph. She looked at the card,
expressed her thanks for the gift, and placed it in her pocket. When I
met her a few days later I learnt that on her arrival at home she had
searched in her pocket for the photograph, and had been much surprised
to find there only a blank card. In this instance there can be little
doubt that a complete sensory hallucination was induced, and that it
persisted, or was capable of being revived, for some 30 minutes or more
after the original impression had been established.
This last example, it will be seen, belongs to the important class of
post-hypnotic hallucinations--_i.e._, hallucinations enjoined on the
subject in the hypnotic state, but realised only after waking. Special
interest attaches to hallucinations of this kind, because the subject
is in a condition which, if not fully normal, at least approaches in
some cases very nearly to the normal, and is thus able to observe and
describe his own sensations with care.[94]
A more striking form of the same experiment, the post-hypnotic
production of a completely developed hallucination of the human figure,
has been practised by Bernheim,[95] Beaunis,[96] Liegeois,[97] and
others. Thus M. Liegeois, on the 12th October 1885, told a hypnotised
subject that on the 12th October of the year following he would go to
Dr. Liébeault's house, where he would also see M. Liegeois, and would
thank them both for the good done to his eyes. He would then see a
performing dog and monkey enter the consulting room, where they would
perform many amusing tricks; ultimately he would see a gipsy enter
with a bear, to reclaim the dog and monkey, and would borrow two sous
from M. Liegeois to give to the gipsy. On the 12th October 1886 the
subject entered Dr. Liébeault's consulting room and thanked him and
M. Liegeois as arranged. He then saw a dog and monkey enter the room,
and ultimately a gipsy. The bear he did not see, and the two sous,
which were duly borrowed, he handed to the imaginary dog. With these
exceptions the hallucinations enjoined a year before were exactly
realised. Some experiments of a similar nature are recorded by Mr.
Gurney (_Proc. S.P.R._, vol. v. pp. 11-13). The subject was a servant
named Zillah, in the service of Mrs. Ellis, of 40 Keppel Street,
Russell Square. In the first two experiments Zillah was told in the
trance that at a certain hour on the following day she would see Mr. G.
A. Smith. In each case the experiment succeeded.
The third and last experiment with this "subject" was made on
Wednesday evening, July 13th, 1887. On this occasion S. told her,
when hypnotised, that the next afternoon at three o'clock she
would see me come into the room to her. She was further told that
I would keep my hat on, and would say, "Good afternoon;" that I
would further remark, "It is very warm;" and would then turn round
and walk out. These hallucinations were suggested in another room,
where Zillah was taken for the purpose, and neither Mrs. Ellis nor
any other person, except S. and myself, knew their nature. Zillah,
as usual, knew nothing about them on waking. On the second day
after, the following letter was received from Mrs. Ellis:--
"40 KEPPEL STREET, RUSSELL SQUARE, W.C.,
_July_ 14_th_.
"DEAR MR. SMITH,--Mr. Gurney did not ask me to write in case
there was anything to communicate with respect to Zillah, but as
I _suppose_ you gave her a post-hypnotic hallucination, probably
you will wish to hear of it. I will give you the story in her own
words, as I jotted them down immediately afterwards--saying nothing
to her, of course, of my doing so. She said: 'I was in the kitchen
washing up, and had just looked at the clock, and was startled to
see how late it was--five minutes to three--when I heard footsteps
coming down the stairs--rather a quick, light step--and I thought
it was Mr. Sleep' (the dentist whose rooms are in the house), 'but
as I turned round, with a dish mop in one hand and a plate in
the other, I saw some one with a hat on, who had to stoop as he
came down the last step, and there was Mr. Gurney! He was dressed
just as I saw him last night, black coat and grey trousers, his
hat on, and a roll of paper, like manuscript, in his hand, and
he said, 'Oh, good afternoon.' And then he glanced all round the
kitchen, and he glared at me with an awful look, as if he was going
to murder me, and said, 'Warm afternoon, isn't it?' and then,
'Good afternoon' or 'Good day,' I'm not sure which, and turned
and went up the stairs again, and after standing thunderstruck a
minute, I ran to the foot of the stairs, and saw like a boot just
disappearing on the top step.' She said, 'I think I must be going
crazy. Why should I always see something at three o'clock each day
after the séance? But I am not nearly so frightened as I was at
seeing Mr. Smith.' She seemed particularly impressed by the 'awful
look' Mr. Gurney gave her. I presume this was the hallucination you
gave her.
"AMELIA A. ELLIS."
It is important to note that in cases of this kind there is no
discoverable _point de repère_, at least in the sense in which the
phrase is understood by its authors; and the nature of the effect
produced--a moving figure, apparently occupying a position in solid
space--makes it very difficult to suppose that the hallucination is
attached to any external object, which must necessarily be fixed. But
the whole discussion about the necessity of external excitation or of
_points de repère_ seems beside the mark in such cases as these. For
there can be no question that what in the first instance excites the
hallucination is not a present sensation, but a memory. Whether for
the full development of a sensory hallucination some external stimulus
to the sense-organ is necessary is here a question of quite minor
importance. The really interesting fact in its bearing on the question
of telepathic hallucination is that some hallucinations are shown
to be centrally, not peripherally, initiated. It should be further
remarked that Zillah's astonishment at seeing the figure is typical,
since in the case of post-hypnotic hallucinations in general neither
the injunction to see the figure, nor indeed any other incident of his
trance life, is remembered by the percipient in the normal state; and
he is therefore entirely ignorant of the chain of events which led up
to the hallucination, and can only by inquiry and reflection ascertain
that the apparition which he has seen is of his own manufacture.
From these experimental cases we may pass to the consideration of
spontaneous hallucinations, and amongst them to that class with which
we are more directly concerned, the occasional hallucinations of sane
and healthy persons. Owing, amongst other causes, to their comparative
infrequency, and to the difficulty of obtaining accurate contemporary
records (since their occurrence cannot, as in the hallucinations of
disease, be foreseen), phenomena of this class have hitherto attracted
little attention amongst psychologists.[98] Mr. Edmund Gurney,
however, in 1884 and onwards conducted an inquiry, by means of a
printed schedule of questions, amongst a circle of some 6000 persons;
and during the last four years, at the request of the Congress of
Experimental Psychology which met at Paris in 1889, Professor Henry
Sidgwick, with the aid of a Committee of members of the S.P.R., has
carried on a similar investigation on a larger scale. 17,000 adult
persons, for the most part resident in the United Kingdom, have been
questioned as to their experience of sensory hallucinations.[99] In
the result it appeared that 1684 out of 17,000, or 9.9 per cent.--to
wit, 655 out of 8372 men, and 1029 out of 8628 women--had experienced a
sensory hallucination at some time in their lives. In about one-third
of the cases the percipient had more than one experience of the kind.
The phenomenon, therefore, though not so common as dreaming, is less
rare than is generally supposed, seeing that about one in every ten
educated persons has such an experience in the course of his life.
The inquiries of the Committee have revealed no general cause for the
greater number of these isolated hallucinations. In a small proportion
of the cases there was a slight degree of ill-health, and in a rather
greater number there was a certain amount of anxiety or other emotional
excitement, to which the hallucinatory experience might with some
plausibility be attributed.[100] But in the great majority of the
cases there was no obvious antecedent to be discovered either in the
condition of the percipient or in the surrounding circumstances,
and we are led to the conclusion that an isolated hallucination of
this kind is as little incompatible with ordinary health as a blush
or a hiccough. At the same time we are entitled to infer, from the
relatively large proportion of cases occurring when the percipient is
in bed, or alone, that quiescence and freedom from external stimuli are
favourable conditions for the genesis of hallucinations.[101] They
may, in short, be regarded as unusually vivid dreams, and have for
the most part just so much interest and significance. The nature and
variety of these casual hallucinations may be gathered from the table
on the following page.
If we turn to the mechanism of hallucinations, we shall find that--like
dreams--some are apparently originated by the condition of the bodily
organs; others again appear to be mere automatic reverberations of
recent sensation; whilst yet others cannot be referred to any immediate
external stimulus, and suggest the "spontaneous" activity of the
higher cerebral centres. With the rudimentary hallucinations--singing
in the ears, sparks and flashes of light, etc.--which are caused by
transient conditions of the external organs of sense, we are probably
all familiar. But experience shows that a small nucleus of actual
sensation may enter into more fully developed hallucinations. Thus,
to take the simplest case, it is known that "sparks" may develop into
"Faces in the Dark," which are themselves on the border-line between
mind's-eye pictures and hallucinations. (See _St. James's Gazette_,
"Faces in the Dark," Feb. 10, 1882, and _Proc. S.P.R._, vol. iii. p.
171.) And in another recorded case (_Proc. S.P.R._, vol. i. pp. 102,
103) an artist was accustomed to see constantly at his studio the
figure of a man, under circumstances which strongly suggest that a
_point de repère_ was furnished by those floating motes in the eyeballs
which are liable momentarily to cloud the vision when the position is
abruptly changed after a period of immobility. And we find cases where
the constructive impulse has so amplified and misinterpreted the data
of normal sensation that we hardly know whether to class the result as
hallucination or illusion. Thus, in a case given in _Phantasms_ (vol.
ii. p. 28), a young girl sees the face of a friend growing out of a
yellow pansy; and an account of a similar incident has recently been
furnished to me by Mr. H. Smith, of the Central Telegraph Office. The
reference in the first line of the following narrative is to a rumour
of the house being haunted, the remembrance of which possibly gave a
definite form to the apparition:--
HALLUCINATIONS CLASSIFIED ACCORDING TO THE SENSE AFFECTED AND ACCORDING
TO THE KIND OF PERCEPT.
(1) (2) (3) (4) (5)
-----------------------------------+-----------------+-----+-----+-
| Realistic Human | | |
---- | Phantasms | B | C |
+-----+-----+-----+ | |
|A1[102]| A2 | A3 | | |
-----------------------------------+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-
Visual | 296 | 105 | 272 | 120 | 18 |
Visual and Auditory (vocal) | 30 | 41 | 10 | 1 | -- |
Visual and Auditory (non-vocal) | 7 | 4 | 24 | 13 | 3 |
Visual and Tactile | 13 | 7 | 4 | 5 | -- |
Visual and Auditory (vocal) }| | | | | |
and Tactile }| 5 | 6 | 4 | 2 | -- |
Visual and Auditory (non-vocal)}| | | | | |
and Tactile }| 1 | -- | 1 | 2 | -- |
Auditory (vocal) | 172 | 57 | 144 | -- | -- |
Auditory (vocal) and Tactile | 6 | 4 | 1 | -- | -- |
Tactile | 6 | 8 | 55 | -- | -- |
Tactile and Auditory (non-vocal) | -- | -- | 5 | -- | -- |
+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-
Total | 536 | 232 | 520 | 143 | 21 |
-----------------------------------+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-
[Note: Table split]
Key:
A1 = of living people.
A2 = of dead people.
A3 = unrecognised.
B = Incompletely developed apparitions.
C = Visions (i.e., scenes or pictures.
(6) (7) (8) (9) (10) (11) (12) (13) (14)
-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+--------+-----
| | | | | | | |
D | E | F | G | H | I | J | Totals |
| | | | | | | |
| | | | | | | |
-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+--------+-----
10 | 23 | 22 | 10 | 14 | 14 | 8 | 912 |}
1 | 1 | -- | -- | 2 | 1 | -- | 87 |}
-- | 7 | 3 | 3 | 1 | 2 | -- | 67 |}
-- | 2 | -- | -- | -- | -- | -- | 31 |} 1120
| | | | | | | |}
1 | -- | -- | 1 | -- | -- | -- | 19 |}
| | | | | | | |}
-- | -- | -- | -- | -- | -- | -- | 4 |}
4 | -- | -- | -- | -- | -- | -- | 377 |} 388
-- | -- | -- | -- | -- | -- | -- | 11 |}
-- | -- | 2 | 2 | -- | 35 | -- | 108 |} 114
-- | -- | -- | -- | -- | 1 | -- | 6 |}
-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+--------+-----
16 | 33 | 27 | 16 | 17 | 53 | 8 |1622 | 1622
-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+--------+-----
Key:
D = Angels and religious phantasms.
E = Grotesque, horrible or monstrous apparitions.
F = Animals.
G = Definite inanimate objects.
H = Lights.
I = Indefinite objects or touches.
J = Insufficiently described for classification.
NOTE.--This Table does not include 510 cases, of which the details
are given at second-hand in 320, and are not given at all in 190.
* * * * *
"POST OFFICE, 3_rd Dec._ 1892.
"I had a turn last night, and for the moment thought I had caught
the spook of my predecessor, but, alas! it all ended in smoke
instead of spook. It gave me a turn, though, and made cold water run
rippling down my back. It happened thus:--I had paid a good-night
visit to the room of a dear little friend, a Callithrix monkey,
whose lodgings are in a side building which has a door opening into
the entrance hall. There was no light in the room of my friend,
but a side light shone in through the door from the hall. (I was
smoking.) On going out I looked back before shutting the door, and
was startled to see just behind me, in the dark shade, the face of
a human being--apparently an old man with grey hair. The face was
perfectly distinct in every detail for an appreciable interval, and
the eyes seemed to look sadly at me, and I looked sadly at him. The
face moved, and the appearance, though a bit out of shape, still
remained. I, however, saw what it was, and gave a gasp of relief
which blew the old man's countenance into the shapelessness of the
last remains of an extra strong puff of tobacco smoke I had left
behind me."
Hallucinations of this kind, whose origin we can trace with more or
less probability to some external sensation, may be in some respects
compared with the visions seen on blank cards by the subjects of
MM. Binet and Féré. But there are other hallucinations which cannot
with any plausibility be referred to peripheral excitation. Such, as
already said, are many hypnotic hallucinations, and the majority of
the fully-developed hallucinations of normal life would appear to
fall under the same category. Hallucinations of this class, like what
may be called hallucinatory[103] dreams, are no doubt due to the
spontaneous activity of the higher cerebral centres; they are simply
ideas which take on sensory colouring. And just as the hallucinations
of hypnotism, for the most part, are due to external suggestion, so
it would seem that amongst the centrally initiated hallucinations
of normal life there are some which owe their origin not to the
spontaneous activity of the percipient's brain, but to an idea intruded
from without--a suggestion not verbal but telepathic.
The proof of this proposition--the proof, that is, of the operation
in certain cases of some distant cause external to the percipient's
organism--lies in a numerical comparison of those hallucinations
which coincide with an external event--_e.g._, the death of the
person seen--and those which do not. For when the relative frequency
of hallucinations has been ascertained the probability of chance
coincidence in such cases can be exactly calculated. And should it
appear that coincidental hallucinations are more frequent than chance
would allow, it is certain that some other cause has to be sought
for. And here we are met at the outset by a serious difficulty. It
would appear from the results of the census just described that
hallucinations even of a vivid and interesting character tend very
quickly to be forgotten. Thus, to take only the cases of _realistic_
apparitions resembling a living person, we find 157 cases recorded as
occurring during the last ten years, and only 166 as occurring more
than ten years ago; although, as the average age of our informants is
about 40, we might have anticipated that the latter number would be
about three times as great as the former.[104] But the discrepancy
becomes still more striking if the figures are examined in detail. The
subjoined table gives the number of apparitions resembling the human
form recorded for each of the last ten years:--
---------------------------+------+---------+---+---+---+---+---+---+-
No. of Years Ago-- |1 and | b'tw'n--|2-3|3-4|4-5|5-6|6-7|7-8|
|under | 1 and 2 | | | | | | |
---------------------------+------+---------+---+---+---+---+---+---+-
Realistic } Living | 35 | 19 | 15| 13| 15| 13| 17| 12|
Human } Dead | 12 | 10 | 7| 1| 7| 6| 6| 2|
Apparitions } Unrecognised | 17 | 16 | 12| 17| 17| 13| 11| 10|
+------+---------+---+---+---+---+---+---+-
| 64 | 45 | 34| 31| 39| 32| 34| 24|
---------------------------+------+---------+---+---+---+---+---+---+-
---+----+------
8-9|9-10|Total.
| |
---+----+------
8| 10 | 157
8| 3 | 62
5| 8 | 126
---+----+------
21| 21 | 345
---+----+------
It will be seen that the number of hallucinations recorded as occurring
between nine and ten years ago is less than one-third of the number
recorded for the last twelve months. Nay, if the analysis is carried
still further, it is found that within the last year the number of
hallucinations remembered decreases month by month as we recede further
from the present. The inference is irresistible, that the great
majority even of interesting hallucinations do not sufficiently impress
the memory to be preserved for a few years. After a careful analysis
of the figures the Committee are of opinion that the number of visual
hallucinations actually experienced by their informants since the age
of ten would be approximately secured by multiplying the recorded
number by _four_.[105]
But if hallucinations in general are not remembered enough,
coincidental hallucinations, at least those which coincide with the
death of the person seen,[106] would appear to be remembered too well,
as will appear from the following figures. There are 13 such cases
recorded during the last ten years. Now if we assume that this figure
accurately represents the number of such coincidences that have
occurred in the experience of our informants during the last ten years,
then, since the average age of our informants in this particular case
is 46, we should expect to find for the whole period since the age of
ten years 47 such coincidences reported; that is on the assumption that
no death-coincidence is ever forgotten, and that the liability to such
hallucination is practically uniform during the entire period. We do
actually find 65 cases; from which it should, the Committee think, be
inferred, not only that few or no death-coincidences are forgotten,--a
result which is probably not surprising,--but also that a certain
number of cases which are not death-coincidences have by the lapse of
time grown to appear so.[107] Nor is it difficult to conjecture the
particular form of error. It is probable that in most of the 18--more
or less--spurious death-coincidences, there was an actual phantasm
and an actual death, but that the two events did not stand in close
relation to each other. We have already (see Chap. VI.) seen reason to
suspect a constant tendency to magnify the closeness of a coincidence
of this kind. Seen from a distance the two events--like a binary
star-system--are apt to coalesce into one; and a new spectral analysis
is required to dissociate them.
Nor would it be safe to assume that the tendencies which have
demonstrably operated to falsify the more remote records have been
altogether inactive during the last ten years. The causes which tend
to sophisticate narratives of this kind, as already shown, are many
and difficult to detect; the kind of evidence required to place the
alleged death-coincidence beyond reasonable doubt has in some cases
never existed; in others, through the destruction of documents, the
death of friends, or the mere lapse of time, it is now unattainable. Of
the 65 reported coincidences perhaps not more than one-fifth reach the
evidential standard of the cases included in this volume. And whilst
there is a strong presumption that some proportion of those, which
from one or other of the causes suggested inevitably fall below the
standard, yet represent facts with substantial accuracy, we have no
test which will enable us to determine with precision what narratives
and to what extent are worthy of credence. Many of the best-attested
cases are printed in full in the Report already referred to, and any
reader who is interested in the matter will be able to form an estimate
for himself. Meanwhile, an attempt has been made, by means of a careful
examination of each narrative in detail, to estimate its evidential
value. In the result it would appear that about 44 narratives rest
on evidence that may be regarded as fairly good. Of these 44 cases,
however, 12 must be struck out, 3 as having been imported into the
census,[108] and 9 because a certain amount of anxiety may be presumed
to have existed, and may be supposed--though the evidence for such
action is very slight--to have caused the hallucination. We thus have
32 cases remaining, in which we have evidence of the occurrence of a
hallucination, without apparent cause, within twelve hours of the death
of the person seen.
The total number of recognised apparitions of living persons recorded
at first-hand as occurring in the circle of 17,000 persons from which
these death-coincidences were drawn, is 322.[109] But if, in order to
allow for forgetfulness, as already indicated (p. 221), we multiply
the number recorded by 4, we shall arrive at a total of 1288, as
representing the probable number actually experienced by our informants
since the age of ten. We have, therefore, 32 cases of hallucinations
coinciding with the death of the person seen, in an estimated total
of nearly 1300 recognised apparitions of living persons--or about 1
in 40. But the death-rate for England and Wales in the last completed
decade being 19.15 per 1000 per annum, the average probability that any
particular person will die on any particular day is 1000 × 365 / 19.15
= about 1 in 19,000. That is, there is one chance in 19,000 that a man
will die on the day on which his apparition is seen and recognised,
supposing there to be no causal connection between the two events.
Or in other words, for every hallucination which coincides with the
death of the person seen, we should have to find about 18,999 similar
hallucinations (_i.e._, recognised apparitions of living persons) which
do not so coincide.
But after making due allowance for forgetfulness on the one hand, and
for the creative activity of the imagination on the other, we find the
actual proportion to be 1 to 40. In the face of these figures it would
be preposterous to ascribe the reported cases of hallucinations at the
time of death to chance. And the argument for some causal connection
between hallucinations and external events is of course considerably
strengthened if, in addition to (_a_) the coincidences of visual
hallucinations with death, we take account of (_b_) the coincidences
of auditory hallucinations with death, and (_c_) the coincidences of
both visual and auditory hallucinations with other events than death,
and (_d_) the cases in which the coincidence of the apparition with
the death is nearer than twelve hours, the limit assumed in the above
calculations.
It may not be superfluous to repeat (see _ante_, p. 27, footnote)
that the calculation above given does not purport to establish
thought-transference as the cause of these coincidences. The cause may
be a greater prevalence of exaggeration and memory-illusion than the
Committee have allowed for. What the calculation does is to bring us
face to face with the problem: Here are certain phenomena, demonstrably
not due to chance: do they reveal a new mode of communication between
human minds, or merely a new source of fallacy in human testimony? It
will hardly be disputed that, in either event, to find an answer to the
question will justify much labour spent upon the search.