The following very curious allegorical dream I give, not in the words of the dreamer, but in those of her son, who bears a name destined, I trust, to a long immortality:—
“Wooer’s Abbey-Cottage, Dunfermline-in-the-Woods, }
“Monday morning, 31st May, 1847. }
“Dear Mrs. Crowe: That dream of my mother’s was as follows: She stood in a long, dark, empty gallery: on her one side was my father, and on the other my eldest sister Amelia; then myself, and the rest of the family, according to their ages. At the foot of the hall stood my youngest sister Alexes, and above her my sister Catherine—a creature, by-the-way, in person and mind, more like an angel of heaven than an inhabitant of earth. We all stood silent and motionless. At last it entered—the unimagined something, that, casting its grim shadow before, had enveloped all the trivialities of the preceding dream in the stifling atmosphere of terror. It entered, stealthily descending the three steps that led from the entrance down into the chamber of horror: and my mother felt it was Death! He was dwarfish, bent, and shrivelled. He carried on his shoulder a heavy axe; and had come, she thought, to destroy ‘all her little ones at one fell swoop.’ On the entrance of the shape, my sister Alexes leaped out of the rank, interposing herself between him and my mother. He raised his axe and aimed a blow at Catherine—a blow which, to her horror, my mother could not intercept, though she had snatched up a three-legged stool, the sole furniture of the apartment, for that purpose. She could not, she felt, fling the stool at the figure without destroying Alexes, who kept shooting out and in between her and the ghastly thing. She tried in vain to scream; she besought my father, in agony, to avert the impending stroke; but he did not hear, or did not heed her, and stood motionless, as in a trance. Down came the axe, and poor Catherine fell in her blood, cloven to ‘the white halse bane.’ Again the axe was lifted, by the inexorable shadow, over the head of my brother, who stood next in the line. Alexes had somewhere disappeared behind the ghastly visitant; and, with a scream, my mother flung the footstool at his head. He vanished, and she awoke.
“This dream left on my mother’s mind a fearful apprehension of impending misfortune, ‘which would not pass away.’ It was murder she feared; and her suspicions were not allayed by the discovery that a man (some time before discarded by my father for bad conduct, and with whom she had, somehow, associated the Death of her dream) had been lurking about the place, and sleeping in an adjoining outhouse on the night it occurred, and for some nights previous and subsequent to it. Her terror increased. Sleep forsook her; and every night, when the house was still, she arose and stole, sometimes with a candle, sometimes in the dark, from room to room, listening, in a sort of waking nightmare, for the breathing of the assassin, who, she imagined, was lurking in some one of them. This could not last. She reasoned with herself; but her terror became intolerable, and she related her dream to my father, who, of course, called her a fool for her pains, whatever might be his real opinion of the matter.
“Three months had elapsed, when we children were all of us seized with scarlet fever. My sister Catherine died almost immediately—sacrificed, as my mother in her misery thought, to her (my mother’s) over-anxiety for Alexes, whose danger seemed more imminent. The dream-prophecy was in part fulfilled. I also was at death’s door—given up by the doctors, but not by my mother: she was confident of my recovery; but for my brother, who was scarcely considered in danger at all, but on whose head she had seen the visionary axe impending, her fears were great; for she could not recollect whether the blow had or had not descended when the spectre vanished. My brother recovered, but relapsed, and barely escaped with life; but Alexes did not. For a year and ten months the poor child lingered, and almost every night I had to sing her asleep—often, I remember, through bitter tears, for I knew she was dying, and I loved her the more as she wasted away. I held her little hand as she died; I followed her to the grave—the last thing that I have loved on earth. And the dream was fulfilled.
“Truly and sincerely yours,
J. Noel Paton.”
The dreaming of coffins and funerals, when a death is impending, must be considered as examples of this allegorical language. Instances of this kind are extremely numerous. Not unfrequently the dreamer, as in cases of second-sight, sees either the body in the coffin, so as to be conscious of who is to die, or else is made aware of it from seeing the funeral-procession at a certain house, or from some other significant circumstance. This faculty, which has been supposed to belong peculiarly to the highlanders of Scotland, appears to be fully as well known in Wales and on the continent, especially in Germany.
The language of dreams, however, is not always symbolical. Occasionally, the scene, that is transacting at a distance, or that is to be transacted at some future period, is literally presented to the sleeper, as things appear to be presented in many cases of second-sight, and also in clairvoyance; and, since we suppose him (that is, the sleeper) to be in a temporarily magnetic state, we must conclude that the degree of perspicuity, or translucency of the vision, depends on the degree of that state. Nevertheless, there are considerable difficulties attending this theory. A great proportion of the prophetic dreams we hear of are connected with the death of some friend or relative. Some, it is true, regard unimportant matters, as visits, and so forth; but this is generally, though not exclusively, the case only with persons who have a constitutional tendency to this kind of dreaming, and with whom it is frequent; but it is not uncommon for those who have not discovered any such tendency, to be made aware of a death: and the number of dreams of this description I meet with is very considerable. Now, it is difficult to conceive what the condition is that causes this perception of an approaching death; or why, supposing, as we have suggested above, that, when the senses sleep, the untrammelled spirit sees, the memory of this revelation, if I may so call it, so much more frequently survives than any other, unless, indeed, it be the force of the shock sustained—which shock, it is to be remarked, always wakes the sleeper; and this may be the reason that, if he fall asleep again, the dream is almost invariably repeated.
I could fill pages with dreams of this description which have come to my knowledge, or been recorded by others.
Mr. H——, a gentleman with whom I am acquainted—a man engaged in active business, and apparently as little likely as any one I ever knew to be troubled with a faculty of this sort—dreamed that he saw a certain friend of his dead. The dream was so like reality, that, although he had no reason whatever to suppose his friend ill, he could not forbear sending in the morning to inquire for him. The answer returned was, that Mr. A—— was out, and was quite well. The impression, however, was so vivid, that, although he had nearly three miles to send, Mr. H—— felt that he could not start for Glasgow, whither business called him, without making another inquiry. This time his friend was at home, and answered for himself, that he was very well, and that somebody must have been hoaxing H——, and making him believe otherwise. Mr. H—— set out on his journey, wondering at his own anxiety, but unable to conquer it. He was absent but a few days (I think three); and the first news he heard on his return was, that his friend had been seized with an attack of inflammation, and was dead.
A German professor lately related to a friend of mine, that, being some distance from home, he dreamed that his father was dying, and was calling for him. The dream being repeated, he was so far impressed as to alter his plans, and return home, where he arrived in time to receive his parent’s last breath. He was informed that the dying man had been calling upon his name repeatedly, in deep anguish at his absence.
A parallel case to this is that of Mr. R—— E—— S——, an accountant in Edinburgh, and a shrewd man of business, who relates the following circumstance as occurring to himself. He is a native of Dalkeith, and was residing there, when, being about fifteen years of age, he left home on a Saturday, to spend a few days with a friend at Prestonpans. On the Sunday night he dreamed that his mother was extremely ill, and started out of his sleep with an impression that he must go to her immediately. He even got out of bed with the intention of doing so, but, reflecting that he had left her quite well, and that it was only a dream, he returned to bed, and again fell asleep. But the