Previsionary Dream By Charles Dickens
This incident in the experience of Charles Dickens (1812-1870) is to be
found in the standard biography by Forster, III, pp. 484-5 (London,
1874). On May 30, 1863, Dickens wrote:
"Here is a curious case at first-hand. On Thursday night in last week,
being at my office here, I dreamed that I saw a lady in a red shawl with
her back toward me (whom I supposed to be E--). On her turning round I
found that I d
time I was dressing next morning I thought 'What a preposterous thing to
have so very distinct a dream about nothing!' and why Miss Napier?--for
I never heard of any Miss Napier. That same Friday night I read. After
the reading, came into my retiring-room, Mary Boyle and her brother, and
the lady in the red shawl, whom they present as 'Miss Napier.' These are
all the circumstances exactly told."
I can imagine the late Professor Royce saying thirty years ago--for I
much doubt if he would have said it twenty years later--"In certain
people, under certain exciting circumstances, there occur what I shall
henceforth call Pseudo-presentiments, i.e., more or less
instantaneous hallucinations of memory, which make it seem to one that
something which now excites or astonishes him has been prefigured in a
recent dream, or in the form of some other warning, although this
seeming is wholly unfounded, and although the supposed prophecy really
succeeds its own fulfillment."
Apply this curious theory (which has probably not been urged for many
years) to the incident just cited, and see how loosely it fits. What was
there about three persons, one a stranger coming to Dickens after he had
finished a reading from his own works, to "excite" or "astonish" him,
make his brain whirl and bring about a hallucination of memory, an
illusion of having dreamed it all before? It was the most commonplace
event to him. Besides, as in most such cases, he had the distinct
recollection of his thoughts about the dream after waking, thoughts
inextricably interwoven with the acts performed while dressing! Besides,
a pseudo-presentiment should tally with the event as a reflection does
with the object, but in the dream Miss Napier introduced herself, while
in reality she was introduced by another.
More
-
A Ghost
BY LAFCADIO HEARN I Perhaps the man who never wanders away from the place of his birth may pass all his life without knowing ghosts; but the nomad is more than likely to make their acquaintance. I refer to the civilized nomad, whose wanderin... A Premonition Of Sir H M Stanley
This incident is related by the famous explorer, Sir Henry M. Stanley, in his autobiography edited by Dorothy Stanley (Houghton Mifflin Co., 1909), on pages 207-208. Stanley, then a private in the Confederate Army, was captured in the battle of S... A Witch's Den
BY MME. HELENA BLAVATSKY Our kind host Sham Rao was very gay during the remaining hours of our visit. He did his best to entertain us, and would not hear of our leaving the neighborhood without having seen its greatest celebrity, its most inter... Ben Jonson's Premonition By Apparition
This eminent dramatist, contemporary of Shakespeare (1573?-1637), visited the Scottish poet, William Drummond, who took notes of his conversations which he afterwards published in the form of a book. One incident which Jonson related and Drummond re... Coincident Experiences Of General Fremont And Relatives
These are related on pages 69-72 of Recollections of Elizabeth Benton Fremont, Daughter of the Pathfinder General John C. Fremont and Jessie Benton Fremont His Wife. After describing a terrible experience of her father and his men in 1853, while ... Ghosts In Solid Form
BY GAMBIER BOLTON Ex-Pres. The Psychological Society, London, F.R.G.S., F.Z.S., etc. CHAPTER I "A single grain of solid fact is worth ten tons of theory." "The more I think of it, the more I find this conclusion impressed upon me, th... Incidents Related By Dean Hole
The Very Rev. Samuel Reynolds Hole, Dean of Rochester, England, was not only an effective preacher and popular lecturer, but likewise the author of fascinating books, composed of reminiscences and shrewd and witty comments upon men and affairs. He m... Incidents Reported By Serjeant Ballantine
Serjeant William Ballantine (1812-1887) was one of the foremost lawyers in England, noted for his skill in cross-examination. He was counsel in the Tichborne claimant case, one of the most celebrated in the history of the English courts, and in the ... Joseph: A Story
BY KATHERINE RICKFORD They were sitting round the fire after dinner--not an ordinary fire--one of those fires that has a little room all to itself with seats at each side of it to hold a couple of people or three. The big dining room was pane... Ligeia
BY EDGAR ALLAN POE "And the will therein lieth, which dieth not. Who knoweth the mysteries of the will, with its vigor? For God is but a great will prevading all things by nature of its intentness. Man doth not yield himself t... Nature-spirits Or Elementals
BY NIZIDA "Life is one all-pervading principle, and even the thing that seems to die and putrefy but engenders new life and changes to new forms of matter. Reasoning, then, by analogy--if not a leaf, if not a drop of water, bu... Photographing Invisible Beings
BY WM. T. STEAD "Millions of Spiritual creatures walk the earth Unseen, both when we wake and when we sleep." --MILTON It was during the South African War that my father obtained one of his best authenticated spirit photographs... Phychic Tests
The tests given to me and to my fellow-investigators through the six sensitives who so ably assisted us during our seven years of experimental work in this little-known field of research--the tests have been so numerous, and were of such a varied ch... Precautions Against Fraud
We are now ready to see what happens at a typical experimental meeting for these materializations, at hundreds of which I have assisted, having the services of no less than six sensitives placed at my disposal for this purpose. I will endeavor to de... Previsionary Dream By Charles Dickens
This incident in the experience of Charles Dickens (1812-1870) is to be found in the standard biography by Forster, III, pp. 484-5 (London, 1874). On May 30, 1863, Dickens wrote: "Here is a curious case at first-hand. On Thursday night in last wee... Remarkable Psychic Experiences Of Famous Persons
BY WALTER F. PRINCE, PH.D., Official Investigator American Society for Psychical Research It does not necessarily give an occult incident more weight that it was experienced or related and credited by a person whose name is prominent for one ... Rubinstein's Death Compact
A pupil of Anton Rubinstein, the great pianist and composer (1829-1894), tells this story. It may be found in Harper's Magazine for December, 1912, under the title A Girl's Recollections of Rubinstein, by Lillian Nichia. "One wild, blustery night... The Clavecin Bruges
BY GEORGE WHARTON EDWARDS A silent, grass-grown market-place, upon the uneven stones of which the sabots of a passing peasant clatter loudly. A group of sleepy-looking soldiers in red trousers lolling about the wide portal of the Belfry, which ... The Eyes Of The Panther
BY AMBROSE BIERCE I ONE DOES NOT ALWAYS MARRY WHEN INSANE A man and a woman--nature had done the grouping--sat on a rustic seat, in the late afternoon. The man was middle-aged, slender, swarthy, with the expression of a poet and the comple... The Phantom Armies Seen In France
BY HEREWARD CARRINGTON [Footnote 17: By permission of the author.] History abounds in cases showing the apparent intrusion of spiritual help in time of trouble, and in the annals of military history these accounts are not lacking. On several ... The Portal Of The Unknown
BY ANDREW JACKSON DAVIS, "THE SEER" When the hour of her death arrived, I was fortunately in a proper state of mind and body to produce the superior (clairvoyant) condition; but, previous to throwing my spirit into that condition, I sought the m... The Return
BY ALGERNON BLACKWOOD It was curious--that sense of dull uneasiness that came over him so suddenly, so stealthily at first he scarcely noticed it, but with such marked increase after a time that he presently got up and left the theater. His s... The Second Generation
BY ALGERNON BLACKWOOD Sometimes, in a moment of sharp experience, comes that vivid flash of insight that makes a platitude suddenly seem a revelation--its full content is abruptly realized. "Ten years is a long time, yes," he thought, as he wal... The Sin-eater
By Fiona Macleod SIN. Taste this bread, this substance: tell me Is it bread or flesh? The Senses approach THE SMELL. Its smell Is the smell of bread. SIN. Touch, come. Why tremble? Say wha... The Solid But Shapeless Stage
We are told that the entity wishing to show himself to us passes into this shapeless mass of dough-like substance, which at once increases in bulk, and commences to pulsate and move up and down, swaying from side to side as it grows in height, the m... The Supernormal: Experiences
BY ST. JOHN B. SEYMOUR When Mrs. Seymour was a little girl she resided in Dublin; amongst the members of the family was her paternal grandmother. This old lady was not as kind as she might have been to her granddaughter, and consequently the la... The Sylph And The Father
By ELSA BARKER [Footnote 5: By permission of the author of War Letters of the Living Dead Man and Mitchell Kennerley.] Passing yesterday along the line where the great French army stands before its powerful opponent, and marking the spirit of... The Vapor Stage
In a few moments our clairvoyants both report that the force or power is issuing from the side of the sensitive, if a man (or from the pelvis, if a woman), in the form of a white, soft, dough-like substance, which on one occasion I was permitted to ... When The World Was Young
BY JACK LONDON I He was a very quiet, self-possessed sort of man, sitting a moment on top of the wall to sound the damp darkness for warnings of the dangers it might conceal. But the plummet of his hearing brought nothing to him save the m... Working Hypothesis
That under certain known and reasonable conditions of temperature, light, etc., entities, existing in a sphere outside our own, have been demonstrated again and again to manifest themselves on earth in temporary bodies materialized from an, at prese...