Place withheld · 1885-12-01 · from the PHANTASMS archive
Frettons, Danbury, Chelmsford. December 31st, 1885. On the night of the 26th October (i.e., 26-27), I dreamt I saw my brother lying on the ground, his face bleeding and dark ; he was quite unconscious. I called to him, but he did not answer, and was stooping towards him, calling him by name, when I awoke. It was so vivid a dream that it produced a great impression upon me, and I felt as though some accident had befallen him. I cannot tell at all what time in the night it was. In the morning I told my sister, and put down the date, also mentioning it to one or two others ; but to my sister I described it in the same words that I have now used. I am not at all accustomed to having bad dreams about friends ; indeed, I never remember having had one before. Neither am I superstitious, but, nevertheless, I felt convinced that something untoward had occurred. So when the letter came, just three weeks after the accident, I knew it was the confirmation of my fears.
Do you know it is the oddest thing, but on the 26th of October I dreamt that I saw you lying on the ground quite unconscious, your face bleeding and looking so dreadful. I woke up calling to…
the accounts read alike, found by meaning rather than by shared details
I do not think I am given to vivid dreams. That about my husband was exceptionally vivid. I call exceptionally vivid a dream that takes hold of me, and that I cannot forget all the next day.…
the accounts read alike, found by meaning rather than by shared details
The fact is she only woke for an instant, and as she is 9 years younger than myself, and I saw she believed I had only been dreaming this, I spared her. I had not fallen asleep. I did not ar…
the accounts read alike, found by meaning rather than by shared details
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This is a witness statement collected in the 1880s by Edmund Gurney, Frederic Myers and Frank Podmore of the Society for Psychical Research, and published in Phantasms of the Living (1886), the first large scientific collection of such testimony. Witnesses signed their statements and were often corroborated by others, whose statements appear as their own accounts. The book is in the public domain; the text is verbatim save for scanning artifacts, and the full volumes are at archive.org.
Anomaly