Dreams or Dreamers? Part Two

This fossil fish recovery of information is good, but debunkers would say he was lucky or the dream was a fiction created to promote himself or his place of work. In many cases they are right about these suppositions, in the cases they are wrong they say no one can know for sure. Surely nothing is certain but reasonable judgement can be made when enough evidence supports it. Dreams are real; informational exchanges do occur across boundaries difficult to traverse physically, and the overwhelming experience of people is a great reason to say something is going on. How many people experience 'deja vu' or other psychic realities? Most do at some time in their life. Are we all crazy or is the scientists’ bent on ‘what can't be seen doesn't exist' crazier?

"The dream of Prof. Hilprecht, the Babylonian scholar who vainly tried to decipher two small pieces of agate, is more complicated and belongs to the clairvoyant order. {Working on decrees in dream state is a necessity for success. I have won cars, and had many answers to my decrees when they are right for the good of all. The car was a demonstration for others who I told I would win in a nationwide raffle for a whole month before it happened.} As reported in the 'Proceedings' of the Society for Psychical Research (August 1900) he went to sleep tired out in vain speculation and dreamed of a tall, thin priest of the old pre-Christian Nippur who led him to the treasure-chamber of the temple and went with him into a small low-ceiled room without windows in which there was a large wooden chest, while scraps of agate and lapis-lazuli lay scattered on the floor.

Here he addressed him as follows: 'The two fragments which you have published separately belong together, and their history is as follows: King Kruigalzu (c.1300 BC.) once sent to the temple of Bel, among other articles of agate and lapis-lazuli {Modern and ancient esoteric stone from which blue scarabs or beetles make great symbolic ritual and talismanic pieces.}, an inscribed votive cylinder of agate. Then we priests suddenly received the command to make for the statue of the god Nidib a pair of ear rings of agate. We were in great dismay, since there was no agate as raw material at hand. In order for us to execute the command there was nothing for us to do but cut the votive cylinder into three parts, thus making three rings, each of which contained a portion of the original inscription. The first two served as ear rings for the statue of the god; the two fragments which have given you so much trouble are portions of them. If you will put the two of them together you will have a confirmation of my words.'

The continuation of the story is given by Mrs. Hilprecht who testified to having seen Prof. Hilprecht jump out of bed, rush into the study and cry out: 'It is so, it is so.'

There are many authenticated cases of strange bits of information obtained in dreams. Professor William James was very deeply impressed by the Enfield case in which the discovery of the body of a drowned woman was affected through a dream of Mrs. Titus of Lebanon, a stranger to the scene.

Prof. Charles Richet mentioned the following instance of dream cognition: 'I saw Stella on the 2nd of December during the day, and on leaving I said 'I am going to give a lecture on snake poison.' She at once replied: 'I dreamt last night of snakes, or rather of eels.' Then, without of course giving any reason {This story seems to be ESP.}, I asked her to tell me her dream, and her exact words were: 'It was about eels more than snakes, two eels, for I could see their white shining bellies and their sticky skin; and I said to myself I do not like these creatures, but it pains me when they are hurt.' This dream was strangely conformable to what I had done the day before December 1. On that day I had, for the first time in twenty years, experimented with eels. Desiring to draw from them a little blood, I had put them on the table and their white, shining, irridescent, viscous bellies had particularly struck me.'

An authenticated case of dream clairvoyance, possibly under spirit influence, is the following: Miss Loganson, a girl of Chicago, age nineteen, saw in a dream the assassination of her brother, Oscar, who was a farmer of Marengo, about fifty miles northwest of Chicago. She was accusing a farmer neighbor named Bedford for days, without any attention being paid to her. At length she was permitted to send a telegram {Silly woman, trying to spend money foolishly!}, the reply to which was 'Oscar has disappeared.' Starting for Oscar's farm, accompanied by another brother and by the police she went directly to the house of Bedford. Traces of blood were found in the kitchen. Proceeding to the hen house the yard of which was paved the girl said: 'My brother is buried here.' Owing to the insistence of the girl and her terrible agitation consent was given to dig. Under the pavement they first found the brother's overcoat and five feet down they came upon the body. Bedford was arrested at Ellos, Nebraska and hanged in due course. Miss Loganson, in explanation, said that the spirit of her brother haunted her continually for seven days in dream.

Lost objects are frequently found in dreams. In most cases subconscious memory sufficiently explains the mystery. There are, however, more complicated types. Hercules appeared. {Herakles, a De Danaan or Danaus, is an actual historic personage of the lineage claimed by Ptolemy in Manetho's somewhat questionable history of Egypt.} in a dream to Sophocles and indicated where a stolen crown would be found. Sophocles got the reward which was promised to the finder.

The supernormal character is the clearest in telepathic and prophetic dreams. They usually produce an impression lasting for days. Sweating and trembling is often noticeable on waking from a dream of this character. They tend, too, to be repeated. One of the best authenticated cases of prophetic dreams announced the murder of Chancellor Perceval. It was thus narrated by Abercrombie: 'Many years ago there was mentioned in several of the newspapers a dream which gave notice of the murder of Mr. Perceval. Through the kindness of an eminent medical friend in England I have received the authentic particulars of this remarkable case, from the gentleman to whom the dream occurred. He resides in Cornwall, and eight days before the murder was committed, dreamt that he was in the lobby of The House of Commons, and saw a small man enter, dressed in a blue coat and white waistcoat. Immediately after, he saw a man dressed in a brown coat with yellow basket metal buttons draw a pistol from under his coat, and discharge it at the former, who instantly fell; the blood issued from a wound a little below the left breast. He saw the murderer seized by some gentlemen who were present, and observed his countenance; and on asking who the gentleman was that had been shot, he was told that it was the Chancellor. He then awoke, and mentioned the dream to his wife, who made light of it; but in the course of the night the dream occurred three times without the least variation in any of the circumstances. He was now so much impressed by it, that he felt much inclined to give notice to Mr. Perceval, but was dissuaded by some friends whom he consulted, who assured him that he would only get himself treated as a fanatic. On the evening of the eighth day after, he received the account of the murder. Being in London a short time after, he found in the print-shops a representation of the scene, and recognised in it the countenance and dresses of the parties, the blood on Mr. Perceval's waistcoat, and the yellow basket buttons on Bellingham's coat, precisely as he had seen them in his dreams.'

Prof. Richet quoted a remarkable predictive dream of Mgr. Joseph de Lanyi, Bishop of Nagyvarad. He dreamed on the morning of June 28, 1914, at 4 a.m. of seeing a black-edged letter on his study table bearing the arms of the Archduke Frederic. The Bishop was professor of Hungarian language to the Archduke. In his dream he opened the letter and at its head saw a street into which an alley opened. The Archduke was seated in a motor car with his wife; facing him was a general and another officer by the side of the chauffeur. There was a crowd about the car and from the crowd two young men stepped forward and fired on the royal couple. The text of the letter ran: 'Your Eminence, dear Dr. Lanyi, my wife and I have been victims of a political crime at Sarajevo, June 28, 1914, 4 a.m.' 'Then,' stated Mgr. de Lanyi, 'I woke up trembling; I saw that the time was 4:30 a.m. and I wrote down my dream reproducing the characters that had appeared to me in the Archduke’s letter…” (13)

Of course most of these are mere anecdotal references, even if the last one is a political event of great import and intrigue. The bottom line is that there are interesting things to explore and the facts when presented in advance can't be put down to mere hit and miss luck by people accustomed to making prophecies. Many are they who I've met and heard about such things as the clock stopping when their mother died, etc. It won't matter much for me to say that these things happen according to real science that most scientists are in 'denial' about, at this juncture; but I hope they are enough to open the mind to the possibilities that will continue to be presented from all facets of life experience.