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Dreams 
 
 and 
 
 itions 
 
 BY L. W. ROGERS 
 
 
 l»os Angeles 
 THEOSOPHICAL, BOOK CONCERN 
 
!Z6 
 
 Copyright, 1916, By L. W. Rogers. 
 
 10" 
 
 OCT "IS 1916 
 
 GI.A4388SG 
 
Introduction 
 
 Dreams and premonitions are the most common of 
 all psychic phenomena, but they are nevertheless but 
 little understood. Modern psychology has accumu- 
 lated an immense array of facts which very conclu- 
 sively show that the consciousness of the human being 
 is something vaster, deeper and altogether more re- 
 markable than has generally been supposed. But just 
 there the psychologists stop, on the very threshold of 
 great discoveries. They are puzzled by the remark- 
 able facts and are baffled in their attempts to co-relate 
 them" and satisfactorily explain them. 
 
 The facts that have been collected and verified 
 show that while some dreams are fantastic, contradic- 
 tory and illogical, others are not only coherent and 
 logical, but present a marvelous depth of wisdom 
 which, when compared to ordinary human knowledge, 
 seems almost like omniscience. They sometimes solve 
 problems that are impossible of solution by the wak- 
 ing consciousness, and frequently actually forecast the 
 future by accurately describing an event which has 
 not yet occurred but which is to be. Thus people 
 have dreamed of their approaching death, or of the 
 death of others, stating exactly the nature of the acci- 
 dent that would cause it, and describing in detail the 
 scenes of the coming tragedy. Yet again the impend- 
 
DREAMS AND PREMONITIONS 
 
 ing event presented to the consciousness in the dream 
 state may represent only the most trivial of circum- 
 tances. Sometimes dreams give warnings about dan- 
 gers that are threatening but of which the waking 
 consciousness is wholly oblivious. In other cases a 
 dream has enabled one to become a rescuer and life- 
 saver in some approaching disaster. Occasionally in a 
 dream accurate knowledge is obtained of some tragedy 
 that is occurring at a distance, or of a crime that has 
 been committed, while again missing people have been 
 located and lost objects have been recovered through 
 dreams. 
 
 The truth of these astounding facts is beyond all 
 question. The problem is to explain the facts. Mod- 
 ern psychology talks rather vaguely of the subcon- 
 scious mind and of the subliminal self, but this really 
 explains nothing. We do not advance toward the 
 understanding of a mystery simply by applying to it 
 a new name. What is that thing called the subcon- 
 scious, or the subliminal, and what are its powers and 
 its limitations? Unless science can satisfactorily answer 
 such questions it has done little indeed toward solving 
 these psychological puzzles. 
 
 The most striking characteristic of the recent work 
 of writers on dreams is the strong tendency toward a 
 purely materialistic interpretation of the phenomena 
 observed. Hampered by the wholly inadequate hy- 
 pothesis that dreams are caused either by impressions 
 made on the physical senses or by desires of the wak- 
 ing consciousness, they fill their pages with a discus- 
 sion of the class of dreams that may thus be explained 
 
INTRODUCTION 
 
 and carefully avoid the dreams that are really worthy 
 of investigation just because they present facts that 
 no such hypothesis can dispose of. It is some cause 
 for congratulation, however, that after devoting much 
 space to a description of the dreams which illustrate 
 the well-known fact that slight external stimuli often 
 cause exaggerated brain impressions — as, for exam- 
 ple, a drop of water on the face causing a dream of a 
 violent rainstorm — these writers often devote a closing 
 paragraph to the admission that neither physical nor 
 mental causes are sufficient to account for the dreams 
 that occasionally forecast the future. Now, it is pre- 
 cisely those occasional dreams which the materialistic 
 hypothesis can not explain that it is important to 
 understand, for they alone can give some clue to the 
 real nature of human consciousness. We shall surely 
 learn but little by going many times over the .beaten 
 path of admitted facts while neglecting to look beyond 
 to the unexplored fields so full of fascinating possi- 
 bilities. The merest glance is sufficient to show that 
 there are two distinct classes of dreams ; that one class 
 constitutes a memory, on awakening, of something 
 that is related to impressions made on the physical 
 senses ; that the other class clearly has no such origin 
 and that, instead of being distorted and fantastic, such 
 dreams sometimes embody profound wisdom or accu- 
 rate knowledge of future events. These two classes 
 of dreams no more arise from the same causes than 
 the noise made by the revolving record of a phono- 
 graph has the same origin as the song of intelligence 
 and emotion that flows from it. The one is purely 
 
DREAMS AND PREMONITIONS 
 
 mechanical, while the other is purely mental and spir- 
 itual, transmitted through a material mechanism. And 
 that is the true distincton between the dream arising 
 from a physical cause and the dream which owes its 
 origin to the higher activities of unfettered conscious- 
 ness. The one is produced by the mechanism of con- 
 sciousness — the physical brain and its etheric counter- 
 part — automatically responding to external stimuli and 
 putting together fragmentary brain pictures. The 
 other is the result of the activity of the ego impressing 
 the physical brain with transcendental truth. 
 
 Psychologists should not be slower than the most 
 progressive of physical scientists in accepting the fact 
 of clairvoyance and recognizing the part it plays in 
 occult research. There is so much of reliable evidence 
 on record involving the use of clairvoyance that it 
 would be almost as much a waste of time to argue its 
 existence as to contend that there is a state of con- 
 sciousness known as trance. Those who are familiar 
 with the clairvoyant faculty and with the remarkable 
 powers of the scientifically trained clairvoyant, will 
 need no argument to convince them that here is a 
 means of ascertaining the truth about the various 
 states of consciousness and their relationship to the 
 physical mechanism through which they are ex- 
 pressed. But it is of secondary importance whether 
 the reality of clairvoyance be admitted or denied; for 
 from the phenomena clairvoyantly observed and cata- 
 logued it is possible to construct the hypothesis that 
 will explain the facts, and all of the known facts, re- 
 lated to dreams. Any hypothesis that can do that, 
 
INTRODUCTION 
 
 legitimately holds its place, and must be regarded as 
 sound until a fact is produced that it can not explain. 
 The method of acquiring the knowledge from which a 
 hypothesis is constructed is of little importance. The 
 only question to be considered is whether the hypothe- 
 sis can explain the admitted facts. On its ability to 
 do that it must stand or fall. 
 
 There is a working hypothesis that logically and 
 satisfactorily explains all the remarkable facts, tragic 
 or trivial, presented by dreams and premonitions ; that 
 will enable us to classify and comprehend them; that 
 will assign to each dream neither less nor more im- 
 portance than the facts warrant, and that will give to 
 those interested in the subject a key to these mysteries 
 of the mind. The purpose of the following chapters 
 is to present this hypothesis, together with the neces- 
 sary facts to fully illustrate the psychic principles in- 
 volved in the remarkable dreams herein recorded. 
 
CHAPTER I 
 
 The Dreamer 
 
 Before we can hope to comprehend dreams we 
 must understand the nature and constitution of the 
 dreamer. We must free ourselves of some of our 
 materialistic conceptions and consider the question of 
 what the human being really is. It is the popular 
 error of regarding man as being nothing more than a 
 physical body and brain that has so sadly retarded 
 progress in this field of research. The very phe- 
 nomena with which psychology deals should long ago 
 have destroyed such an untenable premise, for by that 
 materialistic hypothesis it is utterly impossible to ac- 
 count for the facts in hand. 
 
 The work of such scientists as Crookes and Lodge 
 and Richet has finally turned public attention in the 
 right direction. They have presented evidence in over- 
 whelming abundance to show that the consciousness 
 is not dependent on the physical body for its continu- 
 ity; that after bodily death the consciousness survives, 
 and that during the life of the physical body the con- 
 sciousness may also function quite independently of 
 it. So conclusive are the facts gathered by varied and 
 long-continued experiments that Sir Oliver Lodge was 
 led to declare in a lecture before the Society For The 
 Advancement of Science that the. continent of a new 
 
10 DREAMS AND PREMONITIONS 
 
 world had been discovered, and that already a band 
 of daring investigators had landed on its treacherous 
 but promising shores. 
 
 This new ''continent" belongs, of course, to the in- 
 visible world, and these pioneers of the scientific 
 army are not the first to explore it. They are only 
 the vanguard of the physical scientists. The occult 
 scientists were long ahead of them, and had explored 
 and studied the invisible realms. Naturally enough 
 they hail the advent of the physical scientists with the 
 greatest satisfaction, for they are rapidly confirming 
 what the occultists long have taught about the con- 
 stitution of man. 
 
 It is only when we have fully before us these 
 facts about the real nature of man, and understand 
 that he is essentially a spiritual being, a minor part 
 only of whose energies come into action in the mate- 
 rial realms, that we shall be able to comprehend the 
 phenomena of dreams and premonitions. Let us turn 
 our attention, then, to the occult side of the problem 
 and examine the working hypothesis that satisfac- 
 torily explains the facts. 
 
 This hypothesis is that the human being is an in- 
 dividualized portion of the universal mind which, in 
 turn, is but one expression of the Supreme Being; 
 that man is "an image of God'' in the very literal 
 sense of having potentially within him the attributes, 
 the power and the wisdom of the deity to which he is 
 thus so directly related; that his evolution is going 
 forward in a world that has both its spiritual and 
 physical regions; that he is essentially a soul ,or cen- 
 
THE DREAMER 11 
 
 ter of consciousness, functioning through a physical 
 body which is but the temporary vehicle of the real 
 man in the same sense that an automobile is one's 
 vehicle, and that this material body — which is in real- 
 ity but the clothing of the soul, as the glove is the 
 clothing of the hand — is discarded at death without 
 in any degree affecting the life and consciousness that 
 has temporarily used it for gaining experience in the 
 material realms. Man is, therefore, a soul possessing 
 a material body that enables him to be conscious and 
 active in the physical world. This hypothesis reverses 
 the old materialistic conception completely. This is 
 man's temporary life. He existed as an intelligence 
 before he came down into these material regions 
 through birth in a physical body, and when that body 
 dies he resumes his relationship to his home plane, 
 the spiritual world. But this spiritual world is not 
 merely a realm of thought. It is a world of form and 
 a life of activity, of deeper, wider knowledge than the 
 physical, an ethereal world, but still a world of 
 thought, of action and of enterprise. It is a world of 
 tenuous matter, a huge globe, not distant in space 
 but enclosing and interpenetrating our own as the 
 ether, postulated by science, surrounds and interpene- 
 trates all physical objects. It is sometimes called the 
 astral world. This ethereal world as a whole natur- 
 ally has its sub-divisions, but for the purpose of under- 
 standing the phenomena of dreams it is not necessary 
 to introduce details. It is necessary, however, to com- 
 prehend the relationship between the physical and 
 astral regions, and between the physical and astral 
 
12 DREAMS AND PREMONITIONS 
 
 portions of the mechanism of consciousness. The rela- 
 tionship of the former is that of a world within a 
 world — the astral globe being composed of matter so 
 tenuous that it encloses the physical globe, interpene- 
 trates it throughout, and extends far beyond it in 
 space. As a ball of fibrous matter might be immersed 
 in liquid matter, saturated with it, and completely 
 surrounded by it, so the physical globe is interpene- 
 trated and enveloped by the matter of the astral 
 world. The astral world, then, is not remote but is 
 here in the midst of us, about us, through us and be- 
 yond us. 
 
 The relationship of the physical and astral bodies 
 of a human being are of a like nature. The tenuous 
 matter of the astral body is within and without the 
 physical body, extending somewhat beyond it, and 
 constituting an exact duplicate of it: Of course,; 
 neither of these bodies is in any sense the man. Both 
 are parts of the complex mechanism through which 
 he manifests himself, and the astral body is a higher 
 and fuller expression of the man than the physical 
 body is. Indeed, the latter is merely the body of 
 action. It is only the instrument of the man, which 
 enables him to be present in the physical world, while 
 the astral body is that with which he feels and through 
 which thought and emotion are sent downward, or 
 outward, into the physical body. The physical body 
 has no part in the generation of thought. It is merely 
 the means by which thought and emotion are ex- 
 pressed in the material world. Therefore, thought and 
 
THE DREAMER 
 
 emotion do not come to an end when the physical 
 body is inactive on account of either sleep or death. 
 
 These two encasements of the real man — the phys- 
 ical and astral bodies — separate from each other under 
 certain conditions, the latter being used as a vehicle 
 of consciousness while the former is quiescent. A 
 diver uses a boat and a diver's suit. Both are neces- 
 sary for the work he is to do. But he may leave the 
 boat and use only the diving suit for a time. The 
 boat served the purpose of enabling him to go from 
 point to point on the surface. The diving suit en- 
 ables him to explore a region in which the boat is 
 not available. Neither is the man. They are merely 
 the mechanism that he uses. So it is with his visible 
 and invisible bodies. The visible physical body may 
 be discarded and the invisible astral body may then 
 be used as the vehicle of the consciousness, or soul — 
 the man himself — in the more ethereal regions. 
 
 But what are the conditions under which the con- 
 sciousness withdraws from the physical body and 
 functions through the astral body? One is sleep and 
 the other is death. Sleep always indicates the sepa- 
 ration of the visible from the invisible body. Whether 
 the sleep is natural, or is induced by hypnotism or 
 trance, it indicates the reparation of the bodies. There 
 can be no such separation without sleep and no sleep 
 without such separation. Sleep is simply the absence 
 of the man from his physical body. That is why it 
 is asleep. It is not being used by the man. His 
 intelligence is not flowing through it. He is not 
 there. 
 
14 DREAMS AND PREMONITIONS 
 
 But how, then, it may be asked, does the breathing 
 continue and the heart beat if the body is without 
 its tenant? How does the worm entombed within 
 the chrysalis become the butterfly? How do creatures 
 below the line of intellect in the evolutionary scale 
 live without thinking? Our physical bodies are not 
 dependent upon our intellects. We do not con- 
 sciously direct the beating of the heart nor the 
 processes of digestion during the waking hours. The 
 activities necessary to the life and well-being of the 
 body go on until its death whether we think of them 
 or do not, and whether the consciousness is functioning 
 through the body or is withdrawn from it. 
 
 Death is the other cause of the separation of the 
 astral body from the physical body, and the only 
 difference between sleep and death is that in sleep 
 the man withdraws his consciousness temporarily 
 from the physical body and later returns to it. The 
 act of withdrawing is what we call falling asleep. 
 Returning is what we call awakening. The instant 
 the consciousness is withdrawn the physical body is 
 asleep. That is what sleep is — the separation of the 
 astral body from the physical body. The soul, the 
 real man, has temporarily laid down his instrument 
 of activity in the visible world. It is then like a 
 vacant house with drawn curtains until its absent 
 tenant returns to it, and begins to send his conscious- 
 ness through it. During his absence he has been 
 using his astral body as his vehicle of consciousness, 
 just as the diver temporarily abandoned his boat for 
 his diving suit. 
 
THE DREAMER 15 
 
 In death the consciousness has been withdrawn 
 from the physical body for the last time. The absence 
 is permanent. The body has worn out or has been 
 injured beyond the possibility of repair. The soul, 
 the real man, can not return to it because it no longer 
 serves the purpose for which it came into existence. 
 It is a worthless machine, worn out through long 
 use, broken suddenly by violence or wasted slowly 
 by disease, as the case may be. During all the tem- 
 porary absences called sleep there was a magnetic 
 connection between* the astral and physical bodies of 
 the man. But when death comes the tie between the 
 soul and the material bod)' is broken and there is no 
 possibility of returning to it. And that is what death 
 is — the severing of the bond between the visible and 
 invisible bodies. The physical body is then dead and 
 disintegration begins. But the real man, the indi- 
 vidual consciousness, has not ceased to live. He has 
 merely lost the instrument that connected him with 
 the material world, and which enabled him to move 
 about on it and be known to others there. He is 
 physically dead because he has lost the physical body. 
 He is not mentally and emotionally dead because he 
 has not lost that part of his mechanism of conscious- 
 ness which is the seat of^ thought and emotion. The 
 physical body enabled him to express his life in the 
 visible world but it was no more the man than a 
 phonograph is the person who sings into it. If the 
 phonograph is broken the only change to the singer 
 is that he has lost the instrument of his expression, 
 not his consciousness. 
 
16 DREAMS AND PREMONITIONS 
 
 It may, at first thought, seem grotesque to speak 
 of a man as possessing more than one body. Being 
 to many an unaccustomed thought it may sound as 
 bizarre as to say that a person may occupy two 
 houses at one and the same time. But nevertheless 
 the idea represents scientific accuracy. As a matter 
 of fact we do live in two houses whenever we live in 
 any house. Science asserts that every physical atom 
 has its duplicate in etheric matter, by which it is 
 surrounded and interpenetrated. Every building, 
 every brick and board, has its counterpart in unseen 
 matter. The immobile mountains, the flowing streams, 
 the swaying tree-tops, the waving fields of grain, 
 the placid lakes and the ocean tempest tossed, all 
 have their exact counterparts in the invisible matter 
 that reproduces the world in phantom form. 
 
 So much science is able to demonstrate and the 
 very nature of this truth compels us to postulate still 
 other and rarer grades of matter than the ether. It is 
 the next rarer grade of invisible matter that the 
 scientists almost brought within the catalog of ascer- 
 tained facts by discovering the electron and proving 
 that the atom is a minute universe in itself. 
 
 When we hold a pebble in the hand we do not see 
 all of the pebble. It consists of its visible and invis- 
 ible parts, and sight and touch can deal with but one 
 of them. The trained clairvoyant would see what 
 others see and also the grades of subtile matter 
 surrounding it and interpenetrating it. Now, since 
 this surrounding and interpenetrating relationship of 
 seen and unseen matter is as true of one object as 
 
THE DREAMER 17 
 
 another, the physical body is no exception. Dupli- 
 cating it exactly in form and feature is the tenuous 
 matter of a rarer grade, surrounding and permeating 
 it. The consciousness functions through these two 
 bodies as one complex instrument, yet they are 
 separable. An aeroplane is equipped for movement 
 both on the ground and through the air. It may 
 lose its wheels without losing its power to soar. It 
 has merely lost that part of its mechanism that en- 
 abled it to operate in connection with the grosser 
 element. So with man. When he loses his physical 
 body it limits his field of activities but does not 
 change the man himself nor impair his ability to 
 function elsewhere. 
 
 The dreamer, then, is vastly more than a physical 
 body with a mysterious brain. We are not dealing 
 with a machine, a portiori of which "secretes thought 
 as the liver secretes bile," as a scientist of a past 
 generation ventured to guess, but with a spiritual 
 being functioning through a material body containing 
 a brain that is at once an instrument of thought and 
 a limitation of consciousness; for if thought and 
 emotion have a superphysical origin a large percentage 
 of their original energy must be expended in attaining 
 material expression. Therefore the dreamer, in his 
 waking hours, is expressing but a faint reflection of 
 his true consciousness, which is necessarily limited 
 by its material media. As a fragment of the universal 
 mind he- possesses within his unfettered self a wisdom 
 wholly foreign to his physical existence. The home 
 plane of his being is above the limitations of those 
 
18 DREAMS AND PREMONITIONS 
 
 conditions of consciousness which we know as time 
 and space. He is temporarily blinded by matter 
 while functioning through the material body. He 
 identifies himself with it and loses conscious con- 
 nection with his higher estate. But when he escapes 
 the limitations of the physical body, either in sleep or 
 in death, and begins to function through his astral 
 body he is a stage nearer to reality and has, in some 
 degree, a transcendental grasp of human affairs. In 
 the case of sleep he returns, at the moment of awaken- 
 ing, from the higher state of consciousness to the 
 lower level of physical plane consciousness and is 
 again subjected to the limitations of the physical 
 brain. But the physical brain has its counterpart in 
 astral matter and it is the astral form in which the 
 consciousness, the real man, has been functioning 
 during the hours of sleep. His experiences during 
 that time have given rise to thoughts and emotions 
 which are not impressed upon the physical brain 
 because it has had no part in them. They have set 
 up vibrations only in the subtiler portions of the 
 mechanism of consciousness. Ordinarily upon the 
 re-uniting of the astral and physical bodies the 
 vibrations of the tenuous astral matter are not com- 
 municated to the matter of the physical brain and 
 there is no memory of what has occurred during the 
 period of slumber. Occasionally, however, there is a 
 rare combination of physical, astral and mental, 
 conditions that makes memory possible and the 
 recollection is called a dream. But all memories of 
 the sleeping hours are not recollections of astral 
 
THE DREAMER 19 
 
 events and it is only after some effort and experience 
 that it becomes possible to distinguish between the 
 memories which represent the adventures of the soul 
 in the astral region and the brain pictures caused by 
 the automatic activity of the physical brain, in which 
 external stimuli sometimes play a most dramatic 
 part. Nevertheless the two distant classes of dreams, 
 those caused by automatic physiological activity, 
 occasionally associated with excitation outside the 
 body, and those which represent the experiences of 
 the man himself in the ethereal realms, are, as analysis 
 will show, as different in their characteristics as are 
 the causes which produce them. 
 
CHAPTER II 
 
 The Materialistic Hypothesis 
 Is Inadequate 
 
 Some modern writers have labored mightily to 
 show that dreams may be explained by a purely 
 materialistic hypothesis. Coincidence has been put 
 under such stress as to raise the accidental to the 
 dignity of the causal. Telepathy has been relied upon 
 to cover a multitude of lame conclusions. To explain 
 strange facts we have been given far-fetched solutions 
 that require more credulity for their acceptance than 
 any fairy tale of our childhood days. A writer will 
 cheerfully set out to give a satisfactory material solu- 
 tion for any and all dreams and will explain that 
 the reason why a certain lady dreamed of the correct 
 number of an unknown address was possibly because 
 she had seen that particular number on the paging 
 of a book the day before ! Another relates the story 
 of a dinner party being interrupted by one of their 
 number being suddenly impressed with the feeling 
 that he must go immediately to a barn not far away; 
 that an undefinable "something" was wrong there. 
 He had no idea what it might be but he had an inner 
 impulsion with the barn as a destination. It was an 
 unreasonable but irresistible impulse to go imme- 
 diately to examine the barn, and apparently for no 
 
22 DREAMS AND PREMONITIONS 
 
 reason at all. None of the others shared the feeling 
 but upon reaching the barn they were astonished to 
 find that a small blaze had started in some unknown 
 way and there would have been a conflagration but 
 for their timely arrival. 
 
 Here we have a phenomenon not easily explained. 
 But it does not trouble the writer who presents it in 
 order to show how simple it all is. "He smelled the 
 smoke !" triumphantly exclaims this Sherlock Holmes 
 of psychic riddles. And when, in such a case, it is 
 shown that the feeling of anxiety positively antedated 
 the starting of the blaze by some minutes he falls 
 back on the final resort of the "subconscious self," 
 quite overlooking the fact that that is begging the 
 question and really explains nothing. 
 
 In one of the leading monthly periodicals a well- 
 known psychologist for a time conducted a department 
 on psychology and the announced purpose was to 
 explain away puzzling psychic experiences in daily 
 affairs. The thoughtful reader will find it difficult to 
 believe that the people who propounded the questions 
 were satisfied with the answers but they are appar- 
 ently the best that modern psychology is prepared 
 to give them. However, if the "solutions" serve no 
 other purpose they are at least useful in illustrating 
 the trivial arguments presented and the astounding 
 conclusions reached. 
 
 It was not so long ago that the fact of telepathy 
 was struggling for slight recognition and was knock- 
 ing almost unheard at the door of modern psychology. 
 Slowly its status changed from the condition of an 
 
MATERIALISTIC HYPOTHESIS INADEQUATE 23 
 
 outcast to tardy recognition of its usefulness, and the 
 rapidly accumulating mass of psychic facts is likely 
 to raise it soon to the importance of becoming the last 
 hope of the ultra-materialist. Our psychologist of the 
 periodical above mentioned had not proceeded far 
 with his department until he opened his monthly 
 digest with this declaration : 
 
 u In the many letters received by me since I began 
 to discuss psychical problems in these columns, one 
 fact has been increasingly evident — the actuality of 
 telepathy or thought transference. Even if I had 
 started with a disbelief in telepathy — which I assur- 
 edly did not — I could not have retained my skepticism 
 after studying the letters my readers have sent me. 
 
 "From every State in the Union, from Canada, 
 England, France, and other European countries, has 
 come evidence, testifying with cumulative force that 
 in some mysterious way one mind can in truth com- 
 municate directly with another mind, though half 
 the world apart." 
 
 Without the fact of telepathy the attempt of the 
 psychologist to explain some of the dreams submitted 
 would, indeed, put him in hard case ; for even with 
 telepathy, and telepathy strained and twisted out of 
 all semblance to its legitimate self, his hypothesis is 
 still hopelessly weak and utterly inadequate. 
 
 Telepathy — the communication between mind and 
 mind without material means — has been demonstrated 
 by the simple method of one person acting as the 
 ''sender" and being handed a written word or a 
 simple drawing upon a piece of paper supplied by 
 
24 DREAMS AND PREMONITIONS 
 
 the experimenter, who has himself at that moment 
 conceived it. The ''sender" fixes his attention upon it. 
 At that moment another person who is acting as the 
 "receiver," stationed at a distance of, let us say, a 
 hundred miles, waiting with pencil in hand, repro- 
 duces the word or drawing with more or less accuracy 
 as the case ma}^ be. By the hypothesis laid down in 
 Chapter I the explanation is as simple as wireless 
 telegraphy. Thought is a force as certainly as elec- 
 tricity is a force. When a mental picture is formed 
 in the mind, grades of subtile matter rarer than that 
 of the brain are thrown into vibration and reproduce 
 themselves in the mind of the "receiver" after the 
 fashion of the vibrations initiated by the sending 
 instrument of wireless telegraphy. But telepathy has 
 its limitations as certainly as telegraphy has. A 
 thought, a feeling, a mood, an emotion may be tele- 
 pathically communicated from one person to another 
 and apparently regardless of any intervening space 
 which the limits of the earth can impose. In the 
 case of people with minds well developed and capable 
 of forming strong and clear mental images a more 
 extended communication would conceivably be pos- 
 sible. The scientific experiments thus far made have, 
 however, resulted in no such accomplishment. The 
 most that can be said to be proved for telepathy is 
 that communication is a truth of nature and that it 
 may occur in cases where, although the parties are 
 widely separated, there is either strong effort to com- 
 municate or where there is a bond of sympathy 
 between them. When people are together and their 
 
MATERIALISTIC HYPOTHESIS INADEQUATE 25 
 
 minds are running along the same lines it may occur 
 under the most ordinary circumstances. But we must 
 not overlook the part played by facial expression in 
 reading the thoughts of others, nor of the physical 
 conditions that shape thought in a common mold as, 
 for example, when your friend rises to open a window 
 before you can utter the request that is in your mind. 
 He may have thought of it because he was moved by 
 your thought or only because he, too, was uncom- 
 fortable. There are other cases not at all susceptible 
 to such explanation. One often gets telepathically the 
 thought of another who is near him but it is partial 
 and fragmentary. He does not get a complete in- 
 ventory of the content of the other's mind. So far 
 as casual experience and scientific experiment have 
 gone it has been made fairly clear that while telepathy 
 is common it marks out an extremely narrow -field in 
 psychological phenomena. Deprived of the connecting 
 link of personal presence and conversation, or ties of 
 close sympathy, it seems to be effective only when 
 the thought is stimulated by some powerful emotion 
 like sudden and serious illness, accident or death. 
 When we go beyond that we are in the realm of 
 assumption and speculation. To assume that because 
 one mind can catchy a thought or emotion from 
 another telepathically, one person therefore gets from 
 another's mind without effort or desire all the details 
 relating to something that individual has seen or 
 heard, is as absurd as to assume that because wireless 
 telegraphy brings a message that has pessed through 
 the mind of the sending operator the message might 
 
26 DREAMS AND PREMONITIONS 
 
 in some mysterious way give a knowledge of every- 
 thing else known to that individual. And yet just 
 such fantastic and groundless assumption is what our 
 psychologist is forced to, in the effort to explain some 
 of the cases submitted. Here is an example : 
 
 "A trifle over a year ago, contemplating a trip 
 East, I decided to rent my furnished six-room apart- 
 ment. It was taken by two young ladies, one 
 employed, the other the homekeeper. Some three 
 weeks later I had the most distressing dream. I 
 thought I went over to my apartment, only to find 
 everything in most dreadful confusion. The sun 
 porch had been converted into a temporary bedroom, 
 and in my own bedroom, where usually stood the 
 dressing table (now on the porch) stood a small iron 
 bed, white, with everything upset and dirty. In my 
 dream I also saw that the young ladies had taken in 
 as boarders a married couple with two little ones. 
 Well, I immediately forgot the dream, but several 
 nights later had the same dream again. Imagine my 
 surprise at learning after my return home, that just 
 what I had dreamed had actually occurred, even to 
 the little white bed." 
 
 Then follows the psychologist's explanation. He 
 says: 
 
 "On the facts as stated this dream must be regarded 
 as telepathic. There is, of course, a possibility that 
 the dreamer, before leaving home, had, without being 
 aware of it, heard her prospective tenants talking about 
 their plans for taking in boarders, changing the furni- 
 
\ 
 
 MATERIALISTIC HYPOTHESIS INADEQUATE 27 
 
 ture, etc. The dream would then be merely the 
 emergence of a subconscious memory." 
 
 The theory of telepathy in this case is so obviously 
 inadequate that our psychologist hastens to add that 
 there is another possible explanation and then falls 
 back upon the safe vagueness of the subconscious 
 memory. But is his explanation even within the 
 realm of probability? There may be the possibility, 
 he argues, that she had heard talk of taking in board- 
 ers and changing the furniture S But even if that had 
 happened and even if we were to grant some connection 
 between that fact and the dream, how could she have 
 obtained from the knowledge that they would take 
 boarders the fact that the boarders would be a man 
 and his wife and two little children? and if we grant 
 that she unconsciously and in some mysterious way 
 absorbed the information that they would change the 
 furniture, how could that possibly enable her to know 
 that her dressing table would be moved to the porch 
 and that a small white iron bed would be put in its 
 place? 
 
 There is no evidence, however, that she had heard 
 such conversation, or had the slightest hint that any 
 such thing was contemplated. Indeed, there is good 
 ground for the belief that it was all a most disagreeable 
 surprise to her. She describes the discovery as a 
 "most distressing dream." The reasonable assump- 
 tion from the language employed by her is that she 
 was astonished and annoyed and was very much 
 disappointed in her tenants. Clearly neither of the 
 
 \ 
 
28 DREAMS AND PREMONITIONS 
 
 explanations of the psychologist really explains this 
 dream. * 
 
 Our psychologist turns his attention to premoni- 
 tions with no better results. One of his correspondents 
 submits to him the following experience : 
 
 "One Sunday evening during the 'Maine rum war' 
 the pastor of my church announced that Dr. Wilbur 
 F. Krafts, then touring the State in the interests of 
 prohibition, would speak the next day at noon in the 
 public square. Though interested like many others in 
 keeping the prohibitory law, it was by that time, I 
 suppose, 'on my nerves,' and I wanted to hear no more 
 on the subject and left the church as soon as possible. 
 That night I dreamed of returning from my work at 
 noon, hearing the sound of music — 'Marching Through 
 Georgia' — and going to the public square. There I 
 saw a crowd surrounding a group of three or four 
 men. Near the speaker stood my pastor, who, noticing 
 me, made his way through the crowd and spoke to me. 
 At that point I awoke. 
 
 "On the forenoon following I had no recollection of 
 my dream and at noon heard music, evidently in the 
 public square. As I started for the square I noticed 
 that the air was 'Marching Through Georgia.' Before 
 I reached the square the music changed to another 
 air as in my dream, which I then remembered. In the 
 square I recognized in Dr. Krafts the speaker of my 
 dream. My pastor was near him and, noticing me, 
 came to me with a message from his wife. Until then 
 I had never seen Dr. Krafts, nor heard anything in 
 
MATERIALISTIC HYPOTHESIS INADEQUATE 29 
 
 particular about him, never had him in mind at all 
 and do not think I had ever seen his picture." 
 
 To this the psychologist replies : 
 
 "Some psychologists, contrasting the complete 
 forgetf ulness until noon with the vividness and full- 
 ness of the dream detail recalled by happenings in the 
 square, would insist that the whole dream memory 
 was an unconscious fabrication. But the likelihood 
 is that since, as she says, the prohibition campaign 
 was on her nerves, she did dream something about 
 the meeting to take place the next day. She may 
 easily have dreamed of Dr. Krafts himself for, in spite 
 of her disclaimer, it would be strange indeed if she 
 had never seen a newspaper or poster portrait of him 
 printed in connection with the campaign. If she did 
 dream of Dr. Krafts she would be all the more likely, 
 because of her surprise at recognizing him in the 
 square, to fuse the true details of her dream memory 
 with details of which she had not really dreamed." 
 
 Perhaps nothing could appear more absurd to one 
 who has had such an experience than to call it "uncon- 
 scious fabrication." If that is what such evidence 
 would be called by "some psychologists" they have 
 certainly not been qualified for their work by any 
 personal experience. One of the outstanding facts 
 about such dreams is their vividness and lifelike 
 reality. That she did not remember the dream during 
 the forenoon is no evidence whatever against its 
 reality. What followed was perfectly natural. When 
 she heard the same airs played by the band in the 
 same sequence and saw the same figures she had seen 
 
30 DREAMS AND PREMONITIONS 
 
 in the dream it is impossible that she could fail to 
 recall it. To say that she may have "fused" the true 
 details of her dream with the details of the events that 
 followed is a far-fetched possibility with no relation- 
 ship to probability, and a theory is weak indeed that 
 must rely on such an assumption. Akin to it is the 
 hazard that she must have seen Dr. Kraft's picture 
 and forgotten it. Yet if seeing his forgotten picture 
 had enabled her to identify the man, would not seeing 
 the man enable her to remember having previously 
 seen his picture? But the identity of the speaker, 
 which is so unsatisfactorily explained, is of no more 
 importance than the movements of the pastor. In 
 the dream he notices her, comes through the crowd 
 and speaks to her, at which point she awakens. In 
 the events of the next day he does precisely the same 
 thing. There is apparently no sound reason what- 
 ever for doubting any part of the evidence. 
 
 In another premonitory dream the account runs 
 as follows: 
 
 a My mother, an Englishwoman and a deeply re- 
 ligious woman, dreamed she saw my sister lying 
 dead, with two doctors in white beside her. My 
 mother was greatly distressed over this, but as the 
 weeks passed she gradually forgot it, until one day, 
 several months after the dream, my sister had to go 
 to Dublin for a slight operation. Just before com- 
 mencing they allowed mother to see her and her 
 dream was before her. She recognized it instantly. 
 My sister was unconscious and on the operating table, 
 while a doctor stood on each side." 
 
MATERIALISTIC HYPOTHESIS INADEQUATE 31 
 
 Which the psychologist thus explains : 
 
 "And, no doubt, at the time of the dream the 
 sister's health was such that her mother would con- 
 sciously or subconsciously be aware that an operation 
 might some day be necessary. Out of this conscious 
 or subconscious knowledge the dream would logically 
 develop, featuring the attending physicians in the 
 regular costume of the operating room." 
 
 Suppose that for the sake of the argument we 
 were to grant the overworked theory of ''subconscious 
 knowledge," and then for good measure were to throw 
 in the admission of the asssumption — for which there 
 is no fact in evidence — that the daughter's health was 
 bad at the time of the dream. How, even then, can 
 the dream be thus satisfactorily explained? If the 
 mysterious "subconscious knowledge" furnished the 
 information that there would be an operation, fhen 
 what put two doctors in the dream instead of one, or 
 three? When relatives are admitted to see patients 
 before an operation they usually see them just before 
 the ether is administered. In this instance there must 
 have been some unexpected delay in arriving or some 
 other miscalculation which changed the ordinary 
 course. How did it happen that in the dream the 
 mother saw her daughter apparently dead, lying 
 between the two doctors, with which details the later 
 event exactly corresponded ? 
 
 If the dream in this case was the waking memory 
 of the ego's dramatization of approaching events it 
 is easy to understand why the mother thought her 
 daughter was dead. Having taken the anaesthetic 
 
32 DREAMS AND PREMONITIONS 
 
 she appeared to lie dead. But if the dream came 
 because the mother was "consciously or subcon- 
 sciously aware that an operation would sometime 
 be necessary" why did she not dream that her 
 daughter was not dead but had merely taken ether? 
 
 None of the explanations of our psychologist will 
 pass the test of analysis. No thoughtful person can 
 fail to observe that, in almost every case, he is 
 obliged to assume facts that are not in evidence, and 
 that he proceeds to build up an imaginary structure 
 and surround the case with conditions which there 
 is no reason to believe really exist. When the facts 
 which are in evidence are antagonistic to his hypothe- 
 sis he calmly ignores the facts and holds that the 
 witnesses are mistaken ! He is a poor attorney who 
 could not win a case were he permitted to be judge 
 and jury as well as advocate. 
 
 The ease with which our psychologist can dispose 
 of a difficulty is well illustrated by the following case 
 and explanation : 
 
 "My mother tells the following story. When I 
 was several months old she one night put me to sleep 
 in my cradle sound and well as usual, and then went 
 to sleep herself. In the night she was awakened by a 
 dreadful nightmare. She dreamed she was standing 
 over my newly made grave. Getting out of bed, she 
 rushed to my cradle. I was as pale as a sheet, my 
 breath came fast and heavy, and she could not wake 
 me for some time. By the time the doctor arrived 
 I had gone into violent convulsions. My mother to 
 
MATERIALISTIC HYPOTHESIS INADEQUATE 33 
 
 this day says her dream had saved my life. Can you 
 explain it?" 
 
 And here is his explanation : 
 
 "What undoubtedly had happened was that the 
 noise, however slight, made by the stricken child, had 
 disturbed the watchful mother's sleep, giving rise to the 
 symbolical and most fortunate nightmare." 
 
 Now, observe that the child had been put to bed 
 in her usual health. There was nothing to cause the 
 mother the slightest uneasiness. Had the psycholo- 
 gist said that any slight noise made by the child would 
 awaken the mother the statement could easily be ac- 
 cepted. But when he asserts that what must have 
 happened was that some slight noise from the child 
 caused the mother to have a most fortunate nightmare, 
 the statement would be of greater value in the col- 
 umns of a humorous paper than in a serious study of 
 psychology. 
 
 The laughable extremity to which our psychologist 
 is pushed in his determination to explain everything 
 from the material viewpoint comes out well in another 
 case which is not a dream at all, but which furnishes a 
 fine example of his method. The experience is stated as 
 follows : 
 
 ''One summer a party of us were walking along 
 a mountain trail, Indian fashion. I was the last in 
 line, and kept my eyes on the group ahead. We came 
 to a clump of trees beside the path. The rest kept 
 right on, but something prompted me to turn to the 
 left and leave the path. I did so, and going around 
 the clump I heard screams, and all ran back. Coiled, 
 
34 DREAMS AND PREMONITIONS 
 
 ready to strike, was a large rattler that disappeared 
 into the bushes. If I had gone on, instead of around 
 the trees, I should surely have been bitten by the 
 snake." 
 
 Then comes his explanation : 
 
 "A capital instance, this, of the power of the eye — 
 or, in this case, perhaps the ear — to perceive more than 
 one consciousl}' comprehends, and* by this perceiving, 
 to impel to action which seems to be quite without 
 reason and consequently mysterious/' 
 
 We are here asked to believe that a person sees or 
 hears a rattlesnake near the path, and acts upon the 
 knowledge to avoid the danger without being con- 
 scious of the existence of the reptile! Could the de- 
 mand upon credulity go further than that? One of 
 the most remarkable things about the psychologist of 
 the materialistic type is that while he constantly warns 
 against w r hat he regards as the blind and unreasoning 
 faith of those who see intelligence and purpose in all 
 forces, however apparently chaotic in their expres- 
 sions, he nevertheless offers explanations of phenom- 
 ena that set at naught all common sense experience 
 and place an impossible tax upon credulity. A 
 hypothesis accepted by such scientists as Crookes. 
 Lodge, Wallace, Flammarion, Richet and others of 
 equal standing in the scientific world, is disregarded, 
 while, in order to account for all that occurs by the 
 employment of purely physical factors, special con- 
 ditions are assumed, witnesses are discredited, facts 
 are ignored, and in the name of science conclusions 
 
MATERIALISTIC HYPOTHESIS INADEQUATE 35 
 
 are drawn that represent nothing less than the most 
 arrant nonsense. 
 
 With the vague, elusive and undefined "subcon- 
 sciousness" to fall back upon in an emergency, there 
 is always a safe retreat. And that assurance may be 
 doubly sure our psychologist says : 
 
 "Let me urge my readers never to forget that any- 
 thing which has ever got into the mind, may, under 
 special conditions, be externalized as an hallucination, 
 or may crop up into the recollection in the form of a 
 dream." 
 
 When we add to that declaration the privilege of 
 assuming the "special conditions" that may be neces- 
 sary to make any particular case fit the materialistic 
 interpretation, it certainly ought to go a long way 
 in helping our psychologist to harmonize his theory 
 with the facts! 
 
 There is no danger of defeat in the arena of logic 
 if there is some byway permitting retirement beyond 
 the reach of logic at any critical moment. Forty 
 years ago when the idea of evolution was getting a 
 foothold in the thought of western civilizaton I knew 
 an estimable and pious old gentleman whose mind 
 was somewhat scientific in trend but ultra-orthodox 
 in faith. He would notdeny a scientific fact or prin- 
 ciple, as he understood it, but he clung tenaciously 
 to the old idea of the literal interpretation of the Bible 
 which the evolutionary hypothesis was invalidating, 
 and when he was asked to explain how a certain thing 
 could be so and so, as alleged, when it was in viola- 
 tion of the scientific facts he would reply, "Well, it is 
 
36 DREAMS AND PREMONITIONS 
 
 the Lord's way." No matter what altogether impos- 
 sible or utterly contradictory matter had to be ex- 
 plained it was met with the solemn declaration that 
 ''It is the Lord's way." And all the time the old gen- 
 tleman evidently believed that to be conclusive, and 
 appeared to be serenely unconscious of the fact that 
 anything imaginable can be justified by the man who 
 merely has to declare "it is the Lord's way." 
 
 Our psychologst is equally safe. His line of re- 
 treat to "subconsciousness" is always open. If a 
 dream accurately forecasts the future it is because 
 the dreamer knew of some fact which, by the won- 
 derful alchemy of the subconsciousness, supplied the 
 future details. If one is in a strange country which 
 he has never before visited, and suddenly becomes 
 aware that it is all as familiar as his own garden, and 
 then proceeds to describe to his friends what lies 
 ahead along the road, it is because he has somewhere 
 had a glimpse of a picture — and forgotten it — and that 
 wonderful subconsciousness accounts for the rest. If 
 one is moving in the darkness toward a precipice a 
 yard away, in perfect ignorance of its existence, and 
 feels himself suddenly bodily pushed backward when 
 there is no living being near him, why, its a halluci- 
 nation representng ideas latent in his consciousness. 
 If you are meandering along a forest path, and are 
 suddenly seized with an impulse to leave it for no 
 imaginable reason, and come back to it a few feet 
 further on, and then discover that you thus probably 
 escaped death, it is because your subconsciousness 
 managed the matter. You saw or heard the snake, 
 
MATERIALISTIC HYPOTHESIS INADEQUATE 37 
 
 but didn't know it, or you would have known why 
 you turned aside. If you have a dream of future 
 events as they afterward really transpire, it is only 
 a coincidence unless the details are all in agreement 
 with the dream, and if they are then you didn't 
 dream them ; not because you are consciously fabri- 
 cating, but because the mysterious subconsciousness 
 that previously saved you from snakes is now leading 
 you to "fuse" the details and appear in the role of an 
 unconscious liar ; and, finally, if you have a dream that 
 presents facts which cannot possibly be explained by 
 the material hypothesis, you are simply mistaken 
 about it — you only thought you had a dream, because 
 if you really had had such a dream it would not be 
 in agreement with the materialistic theory! 
 
 It is, of course, true that some dreams and appar- 
 ent premonitions can be explained by material facts. 
 It is equally true that a great many dreams can not 
 be thus explained. A close study of them will at once 
 make this apparent and show the utter inadequacy 
 the materialistic hypothesis. Any hypothesis is serv- 
 iceable only so long as it can explain the known facts. 
 The moment it fails to explain an established fact it 
 falls to the ground, no matter how many other facts 
 it may have satisfactorily explained. The belief that 
 the world was flat and stationary was at one time gen- 
 eral. That theory satisfactorily explained the known 
 facts. But when other facts were discovered that 
 could not be thus explained the theory instantly col- 
 lapsed. The only question involved was whether 
 there were really new facts to be dealt with. The 
 
38 DREAMS AND PREMONITIONS 
 
 world discovered that it had been considering only 
 part of the facts. Additional facts destroyed the old 
 hypothesis; and that is precisely the case in the mat- 
 ter here under discussion. The facts have not all been 
 considered. They have either been completely ignored 
 or have been waived aside with the assumption that 
 the most trivial and far-fetched explanations are suffi- 
 cient to dispose of them. 
 
 The dreams that are utterly beyond explanation 
 by the materialistic hypothesis constitute evidence as 
 reliable as the others, and are furnished by witnesses 
 who differ in no way from those who have furnished 
 the details of the few dreams that involve no super- 
 physical factors. A glance at some of these dreams 
 will show how hopelessly the old theory breaks down 
 in their presence. Many of them are dreams of dis- 
 covery which bring to light that which is lost and 
 under circumstances that eliminate telepathy and 
 vague hints at subconscious possibilities. Others are 
 in the nature of warnings of impending danger which 
 does not exist at the time the warning is given. 
 Sometimes they enable the dreamer after awakening 
 to give life-saving assistance to other people. The 
 fact that some dreams can be fully and satisfactorily 
 explained on purely material grounds does not throw 
 a single ray of light upon the mystery of other dreams 
 in which the dreamer obtains detailed knowledge of 
 what transpired during the night at a distance, or 
 the dream that foreshadows an approaching tragedy. 
 
CHAPTER III 
 
 Dreams of Discovery 
 
 Most people who are able to give testimony upon 
 such matters are unwilling to be personally mentioned 
 for a double reason; they dread the possible ridicule 
 of the unthinking, and they dislike the task of reply- 
 ing to letters of inquiry which the publicity of the 
 facts may call out. Fortunately there are some who, 
 in the interest of truth, are willing to be witnesses 
 for it regardless of the unpleasantness involved. The 
 extremely interesting and remarkable dream selected 
 to open this chapter was related to me by Mrs. 'Reeves 
 Snyder, a well-known resident of Springfield, Ohio, 
 with permission to use her name. Her mother had 
 died rather suddenly after a short illness. When the 
 time arrived for adjusting the financial accounts it 
 was discovered that certain bonds were missing. They 
 were not in the strong box at the bank where they 
 were supposed to be, nor had any member of the 
 family the slightest knowledge that could lead to 
 their recovery. They well knew that they would not 
 have been disposed of without their consent and ad- 
 vice. Every conceivable nook and cranny of the 
 house was searched and re-searched, but the mystery 
 of the missing bonds remained unsolved. The loss 
 was a large one, and as time passed without develop- 
 
40 DREAMS AND PREMONITIONS 
 
 ing the slightest clue to the missing property the 
 daughter's anxiety grew. 
 
 One night Mrs. Reeves Snyder dreamed. She 
 found herself in the presence of her dead mother, who 
 smilingly said, ''Don't worry any more about those 
 bonds, you'll find them in the morning. I had them 
 at the house just before I was taken ill, and had them 
 in my hand when I went up to the garret floor, and 
 laid them aside while busy there. I forgot them when 
 leaving — and then came the illness and confusion that 
 followed. But they are there, and you will find them 
 in an old tomato can, covered with a board, near the 
 end of the large black trunk." 
 
 Awakening, the dreamer related the startling story 
 to her husband, who was wholly incredulous. But 
 she herself had not the slightest doubt that she had 
 seen and conversed with her recently departed 
 mother. We can easily imagine the impatience with 
 which she awaited the coming of morning, and with 
 which she hurried to her mother's late residence at 
 the earliest possible moment. As she approached the 
 house her father and sister appeared on the verandah. 
 Now it seems that Mrs. Reeves Snyder had the repu- 
 tation of being a dreamer of remarkable dreams, and 
 her father, who was strongly inclined to conservatism, 
 called out as she approached, "Have you had another 
 dream?" To this she replied that she had dreamed of 
 her mother. Pie interrupted her with the remark 
 that her sister also had dreamed of her mother, and 
 added that before her sister spoke of it at all he 
 wished to hear her full story. It was related to him 
 
DREAMS OF DISCOVERY 41 
 
 as above given, and then the amazed skeptic said that 
 her sister had just told him of her own dream, which 
 was identical in every detail. She had also dreamed 
 that her dead mother came to her during the night, 
 recounting the same story of the lost bonds, with the 
 same minute instructions for recovering them. To- 
 gether the three made their way to the place desig- 
 nated and there, in an empty tin can covered with a 
 board, lay the missing bonds ! 
 
 It requires no argument to show that the explana- 
 tion of these facts is utterly beyond the possibilities 
 of the materialistic hypothesis. But if it be true, as 
 set forth in the hypothesis stated in Chapter I, that 
 sleep and death differ only in that one is temporary 
 and the other permanent release from the physical 
 body, and that in each case the consciousness is then 
 functioning through a vehicle of astral matter, then 
 communication between the "dead" and the living is 
 a perfectly natural thing during the hours of sleep. 
 With some people this memory of the meeting may 
 be vivid and realistic. With others it may be vague, 
 unsubstantial and fleeting. With still others there 
 may be no memory at all impressed upon the physical 
 brain, yet the experience may have been as impressive 
 to the person's consciousness at the moment as in the 
 case of the others who did remember upon awakening. 
 
 In what other possible way can the facts be ex- 
 plained? The only person who knew where the bonds 
 rested had been dead some weeks. No other person 
 even knew that the bonds had been removed from 
 their accustomed place of security. They were in a 
 
42 DREAMS AND PREMONITIONS 
 
 place where nobody would have thought for a moment 
 of searching for them. They would have been safe 
 from the most painstaking burglar. It required defi- 
 nite instruction to find them. How did that detailed 
 information get into the consciousness of the two sis- 
 ters, sleeping in different houses, at the same time? 
 
 Another dream of discovery presents precisely the 
 same principles but differs most interestingly in its 
 details. The facts were given to me by Dr. L. H. 
 Henley, who was at the time, and still is, chief sur- 
 geon of the Texas & Pacific Railway hospital at 
 Marshall, Texas. His friends, a Mr. and Mrs. Moore, 
 lived on a farm four and a half miles from Atlanta, 
 Texas, at the time of the financial panic of 1907. Mr. 
 Moore had deposited to his account at his bank about 
 five thousand dollars. It will be remembered that 
 during that brief financial stringency the banks were 
 permitted to limit the amount that could be drawn 
 out by depositors and that for some time only a 
 small percentage of any balance could be checked out 
 within a stated period. This experience of being 
 unable to get his money when he wanted it seems to 
 have raised a question in the mind of Mr. Moore 
 about the wisdom of patronizing banks at all, and 
 he evidently resolved that as soon as the restrictions 
 had been removed he would withdraw his money 
 and put it in a safe place. Just what happened 
 between the resumption by the banks of the custom- 
 ary rules of procedure and the unexpected death of 
 Mr. Moore soon afterward, nobody knows. But when 
 his wife went to the bank, in closing up the estate, 
 
DREAMS OF DISCOVERY 43 
 
 expecting to find about five thousand dollars to the 
 credit of her late husband, she was astounded when 
 informed that he had withdrawn the entire sum and 
 closed the account. Now that five thousand dollars 
 was the total of their little fortune and she faced 
 grim poverty alone. She was obliged to abandon the 
 home and go to live with a married daughter at 
 Texarkana. More than two years passed. She sup- 
 posed that her husband had invested or deposited 
 the money somewhere, and neglected to mention the 
 matter to her, and she could only vaguely hope that 
 it would sometime in some way be brought to her 
 attention and that she would at last learn the truth. 
 She finally did learn the truth, — the strange and im- 
 probable truth — and in a most astounding manner. 
 She dreamed one night that she was with her husband 
 and that he told her the secret of the missing money. 
 He had said to her in the dream that he drew the 
 money from the bank in gold and silver coin and 
 that on a day when nobody but himself was at home 
 he had buried the treasure full three feet below the 
 surface of the ground, on a line running from a 
 certain corner of the house to a certain corner of a 
 shed, and exactly midway between the two points. 
 
 So vivid and realistic was the dream that Mrs. 
 Moore had absolute confidence that it presented the 
 facts; but when she related it to her daughter's hus- 
 band and asked him for the money necessary to make 
 the journey to the village of Atlanta he ridiculed the 
 whole thing so mercilessly that Mrs. Moore began 
 to lose her confidence. But again she dreamed of it 
 
44 DREAMS AND PREMONITIONS 
 
 and again her husband showed her the exact spot of 
 the buried coin, urging her to recover it. The repeti- 
 tion of the dream, however, did not move the skeptic. 
 He declined to furnish money for such an apparently 
 absurd investment. But again and again the dream 
 recurred and Mrs. Moore could no longer endure the 
 suspense. Concealing the purpose of the loan she 
 casually asked her son-in-law to lend her five dollars, 
 which he readily did. She hurried to the station and 
 purchased a ticket for Atlanta. Alighting at the 
 village she was fortunate enough to find the old negro 
 who had been employed on the farm. He obtained 
 a spade and they drove out to the old home. Care- 
 fully measuring the distance according to the dream 
 directions the exact spot where the money was alleged 
 to be secreted was ascertained and the negro began 
 to dig. In due time he unearthed the carefully pro- 
 tected coin, three feet below the surface. Mrs. Moore 
 returned in triumph with nearly five thousand dollars. 
 In this interesting case with its happy denouement 
 the question naturally arises, "If this dream really 
 represented a meeting of the consciousness of the 
 dead husband and that of the living wife, why did 
 he delay so long about giving the information?" The 
 answer is that by the hypothesis the delay was not 
 in giving the information but was probably caused 
 by the inability of Mrs. Moore to impress it upon her 
 physical brain and thereby bring it through into her 
 waking consciousness. Apparently only after long 
 continued effort did she finally triumph ; but once 
 she had succeeded in bringing the memory through 
 
DREAMS OF DISCOVERY 45 
 
 into the waking state she was able to repeat it any 
 number of times. 
 
 Another case of treasure recovered presents quite 
 different circumstances. At the time of the discovery 
 of the gold the old miser who had buried it had been 
 dead more than seventy years and there was nothing 
 that we know of to cause the dreamer to be thinking 
 of him, or of a hidden fortune. The story was 
 printed January 21, 1908, by the New York World, 
 whose reporter went very fully into the details : 
 
 ''Miss Lucy Alvord of Taylortown, N. L, told her 
 brother Claude on Sunday morning that her grand- 
 father, who died in 1837, came to her in a dream the 
 night before, appearing so natural that, although she 
 had never seen a picture of him. she recognized him 
 from her mother's description. Pie was middle-aged 
 and wore a beard. In the dream he seemed to shake 
 Miss Alvord and arouse her. She stared at him and 
 was about to speak, but he indicated silence and 
 motioned her to follow him. She followed him into 
 the kitchen of the house, a wing that was built long 
 before the Revolution. The house itself has been 
 occupied by the AJvord family for five generations. 
 Stepping to the north side of the great room the man 
 opened the iron door orthe brick oven alongside the 
 fireplace. He stepped inside the big oven and reap- 
 peared with a stone jar which he set on the table 
 in the middle of the room. He then seemed oblivious 
 to the presence of Miss Alvord, and to her, in the 
 dream, his conduct seemed perfectly natural. He dug 
 his hands into the crock and brought them out filled 
 
46 DREAMS AND PREMONITIONS 
 
 with gold pieces. He emptied the crock on the table 
 and began to stack and count the money. He made 
 separate stacks of English and American coins and of 
 the different denominations. He made figures on a 
 slip of paper, which he totalled and put in his pocket. 
 "Then the visitor put the money back into the 
 crock and crawled into the oven. Miss Alvord peered 
 in and saw him wall up the crock with bricks and 
 mortar. The oven is six feet deep and the wall was 
 scarcely noticeable in the great depth. When all had 
 been secured the man closed and locked the iron door. 
 Then Miss Alvord woke up. When she met her 
 brother at breakfast she told him the story. The 
 vividness of her dream had frightened her. But she 
 insisted that her brother attack the wall of the oven. 
 She was confident that he would find the stone crock 
 and the treasure. He laughed at her, but to humor 
 her went at the wall with a crowbar. The first light 
 blow went through the wall. A few blows demol- 
 ished it, and there lay a crock such as the woman had 
 seen in her dream. The excitement of the sister and 
 brother knew no bounds. They dragged out the 
 crock and opened it, and before their eyes lay gold. 
 They emptied it on the kitchen table — a table made 
 generations ago out of a slab of pine. They counted 
 the money. In the heap of gold was four thousand 
 and some odd dollars. The hoard belonged to Silas 
 Alvord, the grandfather, in all probability. He was 
 the last of the family to work an iron forge on the 
 place. H,e made anchors, anchor chains and other 
 implements. When he died, in 1837, it was thought 
 
DREAMS OF DISCOVERY 47 
 
 he had a fortune. Apparently, however, he left noth- 
 ing but the farm, valuable in itself. Then his relatives 
 thought he had lost his money in wildcat banks. Miss 
 Alvord's story of the strange dream and of the finding 
 of the hoard of gold was told about the countryside, 
 and all day yesterday neighbors heard her repeat it 
 and looked in the oven and saw where the bricks had 
 been removed." 
 
 Still another dream of discovery, resulting in the 
 recovery of several thousand dollars in gold coin, is 
 reported from Lancaster, Pennsylvania, which indi- 
 cates that while the physical body is asleep the 
 consciousness escapes its material confinement, and 
 may bring back to the waking hours information 
 which it has acquired in the ethereal regions. The 
 following story appeared in the Associated Press 
 dispatches sent out from Lancaster June 19, 1916 and 
 was widely reprinted throughout the country: 
 
 "When John Bellman, farmer, near Brickerville, 
 died six months ago, very little money was found, 
 though the widow knew he had a substantial amount. 
 In April, William Heil took possession of the farm, 
 and he, too, made fruitless searches for Bellman's 
 money. Tuesday night he dreamed that Bellman 
 came to his bedside ancttold him that the money was 
 buried in the hay-mow. Yesterday morning he and 
 his wife searched in that place and found a box, deep 
 hidden in the hay, and upon opening it, found thou- 
 sands of dollars in five, ten and twenty dollar gold 
 pieces. The widow of Bellman was notified, and 
 took possession of the wealth. Those interested will 
 
48 DREAMS AND PREMONITIONS 
 
 not tell the amount, but reports have it from $5,000 
 to $15,000." 
 
 On September 25, 1909, the New York Evening 
 Journal published this : 
 
 "More than five years ago Myra Auld, the half- 
 grown daughter of S. M. Auld, living near New Wil- 
 mington, Pennsylvania, dreamed that on the farm 
 next to that on which her father lived there had been 
 buried a pot of gold. She induced her father to buy 
 this farm when opportunity offered, and since that 
 time she has been searching for the gold which she 
 saw in her dreams. To-day her perseverance was 
 rewarded when she brought up from the bottom of 
 an old, abandoned well on the farm $8,000 in gold, 
 which had been buried for evidently twenty years. 
 The farm had been owned by James Buchanan, a 
 rather eccentric farmer, who died some years since. 
 He had the reputation of being a miser and was 
 always in great fear of robbers. Some years before 
 his death Buchanan told some of his neighbors that 
 he had buried some gold where those who did not 
 deserve it would not find it. It had evidently been 
 the intention of Buchanan to make some mention of 
 this in a will which he intended to have written before 
 his death, but he died suddenly, and the will which 
 he had made some years before stood. The gold 
 money was in an old powder can and it was filled 
 level full with the gold, and the lid had been roughly 
 soldered on and the whole affair wrapped in an old 
 gunny sack. Miss Auld declares that she had searched 
 every square foot of the farm at least twenty different 
 
DREAMS OF DISCOVERY 49 
 
 times in the last five years, and that this was her 
 tenth trip into the old well. Some animal had bur- 
 rowed in the earth by the can and had exposed part 
 of the old sack which enwrapped the can of gold. 
 William Hays, administrator of the Buchanan estate, 
 admits the finding of the gold and says he will lay 
 claim to it in the name of the estate." 
 
 This case is not so strong as the preceding ones, 
 but it is worthy a place in the ever-growing catalogue 
 of facts which reveal the real nature of human con- 
 sciousness. In this case the miser had told some of 
 his neighbors that he had buried the gold, presumably 
 on his farm, and the skeptical will argue that the 
 girl had heard these stories and, believing them, had 
 induced her father to purchase the farm. This is 
 possible and it reduces the value of the evidence to 
 the testimony of Miss Auld. That should be given 
 the same weight that it would have in any other 
 matter. She asserts that she saw the gold in her 
 dreams, but evidently could not definitely locate it, 
 and says that because of her dreams she induced her 
 father to secure the farm. There seems to be no 
 possible motive for telling the dream story unless 
 it is true. There was nothing to be gained by it. If 
 the tales told by neighbors, of the miser's hidden gold, 
 led to the purchase of the farm there appears to be 
 no conceivable reason for fabricating the dream story. 
 But the case lacks the strength of the preceding ones, 
 in which the sequel furnishes overwhelming evidence 
 and leaves us with no possible alternative conclusion. 
 
 A case in which a dream was the means of recov- 
 
50 DREAMS AND PREMONITIONS 
 
 ering the body of a lost son is given in the New 
 York American, of October 18, 1915, under the title 
 "Mother's Dream Saves Son From Potter's Field." 
 The story follows : 
 
 "A mother's graphic dream in which she saw the 
 body of her long missing son being lowered into a 
 pauper's grave has led to the discovery of the body. 
 It marks one of the strangest incidents in local police 
 history. Harry Kauffman, of No. 264 Cherry Street, 
 disappeared June 30. His body was found July 4 and 
 buried the same day among unidentified dead. The 
 only record aside from mere description was that 
 death had been due to drowning. Last week Mrs. 
 Liba Kauffman dreamed all the details of the recovery 
 and burial of her son's body. She informed her 
 husband. He went to the Bureau of Unidentified 
 Dead. The details as made known to his wife in 
 the dream tallied in essentials with the actual inci- 
 dents connected with the burial of Kauffman's body. 
 It was soon learned that the body buried on July 4 
 really was that of the missing boy. Orders were then 
 given to have it exhumed. Yesterday the funeral was 
 held from the Kauffman home." 
 
 In this case about three months pass and the 
 mother, who no doubt had been thinking daily of 
 her son and mourning for him, at last brings the 
 knowledge of the facts into her waking consciousness. 
 Many another mother may have had a similar expe- 
 rience, and may have longed as earnestly for a clue 
 to the mysterious disappearance of her boy, and yet 
 failed to get it. One of the world's greatest psycholo- 
 
DREAMS OF DISCOVERY 51 
 
 gists, who enjoys the advantage of highly developed 
 clairvoyance to facilitate his studies, remarks that 
 there is nothing strange about the fact that a very 
 small percentage of astral experiences are brought 
 through into the waking state, but that the greater 
 wonder is that anything at all is brought through on 
 account of the fact that in order to do so there must 
 be the rare combination of astral, mental and physical 
 conditions that make it possible. The factors in- 
 volved are, naturally enough, many and varied but 
 the degree of sensitiveness represented by the dreamer 
 is certainly a most important one. 
 
 Among dreams of discovery one of the most 
 dramatic is that connected with the Wilkins case at 
 San Francisco in 1908. When the mystery of the 
 missing woman could not be explained and^ when, 
 with Wilkins in their hands, the officers of the law 
 could get no tangible evidence to support the well- 
 grounded suspicion that he had killed his wife, a neigh- 
 bor came forward with a dream clue. Mrs. Wilkins 
 had long before disappeared and her husband had 
 given contradictory and improbable explanations of 
 her prolonged "visit in the east." But absence and 
 suspicion are not evidence and there was an embar- 
 rassing halt in the "proceedings. Wilkins would 
 undoubtedly have been liberated on account of the 
 lack of evidence had not Mrs. Anderson urged the 
 authorities to begin excavations in the barn. She 
 declared that in repeated dreams she had seen the 
 missing woman walk slowly to the barn, where an 
 open grave was pointed out. The suggestion of the 
 
Y 
 
 f2 DREAMS AND PREMONITIONS 
 
 dreamer was finally reluctantly acted upon and the 
 dead body was discovered and exhumed. 
 
 . A more recent case in which a dream led to the 
 discovery of a crime is reported by the Spokesman Re- 
 view, Spokane, Washington, of May 23, 1916. The story 
 follows : 
 
 "After a dream in which he saw his son, Dallas 
 Greene, who had been missing for nearly a month, 
 killed by a man, J. W. Greene, of W. 1002 Seventh 
 Avenue, visited Troy, Mont., Saturday, and after a 
 search with officers found his son's body buried in a 
 dense thicket of brush on Callahan creek, about a 
 mile from town. The circumstances indicated that 
 murder had been committed, and Jack Miller, with 
 whom Greene is said to have been camped near the 
 spot of the supposed murder, and who is alleged to 
 have sold horses which formerly belonged to Greene, 
 was placed under arrest and now is in the jail at 
 Libby." 
 
 On July 18, the Missoula Sentinel published a dis- 
 patch from Libby, Montana, giving the following addi- 
 tional information : 
 
 "John C. Miller, arrested for the murder of Dallas 
 A. Greene, was brought before a jury in the district 
 court yesterday for trial. The discovery of the mur- 
 der came about when W. J. Greene, father of the dead 
 man, dreamed he saw his son being killed. Frightened 
 by the dream, the father came to this place from 
 Spokane, leading the Sheriff to the spot where the 
 body was concealed. Miller was arrested while trying 
 to sell the deceased's live stock. He told friends that 
 
DREAMS OF DISCOVERY 53 
 
 Greene had given him the horses to settle up an old 
 debt." 
 
 Whether it transpires that Dallas Greene was 
 murdered by Miller, or not, the value of the dream 
 remains unchanged. Somebody killed Greene and hid 
 the body in the thicket. The young man's father 
 dreamed that his son had been murdered and was 
 sufficiently impressed by the dream to begin the 
 search immediately. 
 
 A case in which it required repeated efforts to 
 attain success is related by the Denver Post, of Octo- 
 ber 24, 1915. This is the story: 
 
 "A woman's faith in a dream and her adherence 
 to injunctions given there by her father may be the 
 means of winning a $14,233 law suit for that father's 
 former partner and of saving the partner from a jail 
 judgment. On successive nights last week Mrs. Carl 
 F. Vote, 2531 Stout Street, dreamed that her father, 
 Charles F. Leimer, came to talk to her. Mr. Leimer 
 died a year ago. The first two dreams were identical. 
 In each she told her father exactly how she had 
 disposed of her property since he had died, and asked 
 his advice. The father attempted to tell her what 
 to do — and she woke up. The third night she 
 dreamed the same, but did not wake up. Her father 
 advised her as to the care of the property, and further 
 told her to look in an old trunk in the attic for some 
 papers. These he told her to take to his former 
 partner, Sylvester Knuttel, a real estate man. The 
 next morning she had almost decided not to heed the 
 admonition, for she had gone through the trunk many 
 
54 DREAMS AND PREMONITIONS 
 
 times before and was sure that nothing worth while 
 had been left there. But she was convinced from the 
 three dreams that the spirit of her father was trying 
 to communicate something of importance. She 
 looked, found the papers, but did not realize their 
 significance until she took them to Knuttel. He was 
 overjoyed to receive them, and told her they would 
 prove conclusively his title to eight lots in Berkeley 
 and some land in Jefferson county, which are the 
 basis of a suit by Mrs. Eva May Strong for $14,233. 
 Leimer, he said, had been taking care of the papers 
 for him, and at his death they were lost. Mrs. Strong, 
 who is the daughter-in-law of the late millionaire, 
 Samuel Strong, is suing for title to the lots and for 
 heavy punitive damages from Knuttel, also demanding 
 that Knuttel be sent to jail until any judgment 
 returned against him is satisfied." 
 
 This is a case in which there was certainly good 
 reason for making strenuous and sustained effort to 
 impress upon the mind of the dreamer the where- 
 abouts of the missing papers. 
 
 What can the materialistic hypothesis possibly do 
 with the facts presented in these dreams of discovery? 
 Before the testimony of these witnesses the adherents 
 of that outgrown hypothesis stand silent. They can 
 neither deny the facts nor explain them. 
 
 A recent writer on the mystery of dreams remarks 
 that "dreams locating lost articles may be but drafts 
 on the marvelous storehouse of subconscious mem- 
 ory/' That would at least be a possible explanation 
 where one loses a pocketknife or a key, searches in 
 
DREAMS OF DISCOVERY 55 
 
 vain for the lost article, and then dreams of its exact 
 location. But how can it explain the finding of things 
 which the dreamer did not lose, of which there can be, 
 neither consciously nor subconsciously, a memory 
 record, and of which the dreamer knows nothing 
 whatever beyond what he learns from the dream 
 state? In at least two of these cases (Reeves Snyder 
 and Moore) information unknown to any living being 
 is obtained during the hours of sleep, is immediately 
 put to the test, and results in the recovery of valua- 
 bles. In these two cases alone we have evidence of 
 the soundness of the hypothesis laid down in Chapter 
 I, which is not merely convincing in its character but is 
 also conclusive in its facts. 
 
CHAPTER IV 
 
 Varieties of Dreams 
 
 While many dreams may be traced to material 
 causes there are many others which undoubtedly owe 
 their origin to the activities of the ethereal world 
 where, functioning in his astral body while the phys- 
 ical body sleeps, the dreamer is more or less awake 
 to, and conscious of, what is going on about him. 
 To people who have thought but little upon such 
 subjects there will, at first, be no apparent difference 
 between a dream which results from the automatic 
 action of the idle physical brain and its etheric coun- 
 terpart, and the dream which is the result of astral 
 activities, recalled at the moment of awakening. 
 Each is but a memory, a mental picture associated 
 with various emotions. But there is nevertheless a 
 distinction and although it is often slight and elusive 
 at first it grows to definiteness with experience. Upon 
 first entering a garden filled with a profusion of 
 blossoms it is difficult to distinguish between the 
 various delicate perfumes but after a little experience 
 one is able to separate and recognize the different 
 odors. And somewhat thus it is in the subtle regions 
 of the dream. What is at first elusive becomes definite 
 and unmistakable with experience. 
 
 Every dreamer is aware that there are, broadly 
 
58 DREAMS AND PREMONITIONS 
 
 speaking, two general classes of memories which he 
 calls dreams. In one the dream is more or less 
 chaotic, disjointed, illogical and fantastic. Such 
 dreams are usually the result of the automatic action 
 of the brain. They lack coherence and logic because 
 the thinker, the ego, is not there. He has withdrawn 
 his consciousness with the separation of the astral 
 body from the physical body and is either dreamily 
 drifting about in his astral vehicle or is alert to his 
 surroundings, according to his stage of evolution. 
 The physical body has temporarily lost its tenant as 
 certainly as a suit of clothes abandoned before re- 
 tiring has lost its occupant. When the ego returns 
 to it's tenement of clay and the center of consciousness 
 is transferred once more to the physical brain, the 
 fragmentary brain pictures become a part of the 
 memory. 
 
 These more or less fantastic thought images some- 
 times owe their origin in part to external stimuli, and 
 the brain, without the directing intelligence of the 
 ego, may magnify the pressure of a button into the 
 stab of a dagger, or the sound of a rolling marble 
 into the roar of artillery. In such dreams the most 
 ludicrous situations cause no mirth and the most 
 impossible transactions call out no challenge from 
 the reason, because no intellect is present to protest 
 against the riot of chaos. There is a total absence 
 of relationship between cause and effect, while all 
 laws of space and matter, have disappeared. The 
 dreamer is at one moment walking through the quiet 
 country lanes near his home and the next instant 
 
VARIETIES OF DREAMS 59 
 
 may be seated on the throne of Siam. He changes 
 personality with equal facility and may become, in a 
 twinkling, one of his neighbors or his own grand- 
 father without the slightest suspicion that it is a 
 rather remarkable transformation. He may pass 
 swiftly from a pleasant chat with a friend to a furious 
 quarrel in which his friend changes into a bandit and 
 slays him; and, after calmly looking down on his 
 own corpse for a moment he rises from the dead, 
 drags his murderer into court and gives testimony 
 about his own assassination without for a moment 
 being aware that there is anything either illogical or 
 impossible in the whole affair. 
 
 The other class of dreams differs from all this as 
 intelligence differs from stupidity, or mental balance 
 differs from insanity. This class of dreams consists 
 of either the experiences of the man in the astral 
 region while the abandoned physical body is asleep, 
 or else of some truth of nature or some premonition 
 which the ego attempts, with more or less success, 
 to impress upon the physical brain and which is in 
 some degree remembered upon awakening. Such 
 dreams are akin to the activities of the waking con- 
 sciousness in that they are orderly, coherent and 
 logical. Different people will recall the events with 
 varying degrees of success, some being able to re- 
 member only a very little while others review all the 
 details with as vivid recollection as the occurrences 
 of yesterday's waking hours. But, whether the mem- 
 ory grasps little or much, all that is recalled will be 
 reasonable and natural. The dreamer remembers 
 
60 DREAMS AND PREMONITIONS 
 
 that he has been to some place, which may or may 
 not be a place that he knows in his waking conscious- 
 ness; or he may remember that he has visited some 
 friend, whether dead or living matters not, for when 
 his living friend is asleep, he, also, is functioning in 
 his astral body. The dreamer on awakening may 
 sometimes have a memory of a conversation with 
 somebody and, if so, it will be a sane and logical con- 
 versation, quite as able, or perhaps abler, than any- 
 thing he is capable of in his waking state; for in the 
 astral realm the center of his consciousness is nearer 
 the ego and the thought is therefore a fuller and freer 
 expression of himself than it is when expressed 
 through the physical brain. This fact explains why 
 occasionally some great poem is written, or invention 
 is made, or problem is solved, by thought brought 
 through into the waking consciousness from the 
 sleeping hours. 
 
 It not infrequently happens that one who has 
 recently lost a very dear companion or friend remem- 
 bers upon awakening to have been with him. If the 
 memory is vivid and the event seems realistic there 
 is very strong probability that the dream is the 
 memory of an astral experience. Quite often the 
 dreamer will bring back a memory of the emotions 
 aroused by renewed association with the departed, — 
 a lingering memory of joy and exaltation. Such 
 memories from the ethereal world are, with some 
 people, full and complete, while with others they are 
 the merest fragments. As a rule the}'- come at widely 
 separated periods, and months may elapse between 
 
VARIETIES OF DREAMS 61 
 
 them. This is not in the least because the association 
 is not renewed night after night, for it invariably is, 
 but wholly because the dreamer is unable to impress 
 the memory of it upon the brain consciousness. It is 
 possible to cultivate the ability to do so and slowly 
 but steadily to expand the consciousness until one is 
 enabled to bring a full and vivid memory of the astral 
 activities into the daily life; but a full discussion of 
 the details essential to success in the undertaking 
 can best be left for a following chapter. 
 
 The dreams that are the result of the automatic 
 activity of the physical brain or of vagrant vibrations 
 drifting through its etheric counterpart, may be dis- 
 missed as being of no importance whatever. It is 
 necessary to classify them only to eliminate them. 
 The dreams that are memories of the hours spent in 
 the ethereal regions may be extremely important to 
 one who will take the trouble to understand them 
 because they are the activities of his consciousness 
 working on higher levels. That higher state of con- 
 sciousness is so radically different from its expression 
 conditioned by physical matter that it is impossible 
 to comprehend it fully, but the fragments of it that 
 come through into the Avaking state at least prove its 
 almost omniscient character. 
 
 Having eliminated the dreams arising from phys- 
 ical causes we may now classify the remainder. These 
 may be divided into two classes and be designated 
 as dreams that are the memories of astral experiences 
 and dreams that are the result of the attempt of the 
 ego to impress ideas or facts upon the brain conscious- 
 
62 DREAMS AND PREMONITIONS 
 
 ness. Dreams of the latter variety are often symbolical 
 for, as has been well said, symbology is the language 
 of the soul. 
 
 Obviously, facts or ideas impressed on the brain 
 consciousness by the ego himself are likely to be of 
 the greatest importance. The ideas may represent 
 profound truths of nature and the facts may disclose 
 the future or contain a warning that it may be ex- 
 tremely desirable to fully comprehend. The success 
 of the ego's attempt, however, necessarily depends 
 upon a number of things and a little thought on the 
 subject will suffice to show why failure is common. 
 C. W. Leadbeater, in his valuable little volume, 
 Dreams, says: 
 
 "A result which follows from the ego's super- 
 normal method of time-measurement is that in some 
 degree prevision is possible to him. The present, 
 the past, and, to a certain extent, the future lie open 
 before him if he knows how to read them; and he un- 
 doubtedly thus foresees at times events that will be of 
 interest or importance to his lower personality, and 
 makes more or less successful endeavors to impress 
 them upon it. 
 
 "When we take into account the stupendous 
 difficulties in his way in the case of an ordinary 
 person — the fact that he is himself probably not yet 
 even half awake, that he has hardly any control over 
 his various vehicles, and cannot, therefore, prevent 
 his message from being distorted or altogether over- 
 powered by the surgings of desire, by the casual 
 thought-currents in the etheric part of his brain, or 
 
VARIETIES OF DREAMS 63 
 
 by some slight physical disturbance affecting his 
 denser body — we shall not wonder that he so rarely 
 fully succeeds in his attempt. Once, now and again, 
 a complete and perfect forecast of some event is 
 vividly brought back from the realms of sleep; far 
 more often the picture is distorted or unrecognizable, 
 while sometimes all that comes through is a vague 
 sense of some impending misfortune, and still more 
 frequently nothing at all penetrates the denser body. 
 
 "It has sometimes been argued that when this 
 prevision occurs it must be mere coincidence, since 
 if events could really be foreseen they must be fore- 
 ordained, in which case there can be no free-will for 
 man. Man, however, undoubtedly does possess free- 
 will; and therefore, as remarked above, prevision is 
 possible only to a certain extent. In the affairs of 
 the average man it is probably possible to a very 
 large extent, since he has developed no will of his 
 own worth speaking of, and is consequently very 
 largely the creature of circumstances ; his karma 
 places him amid certain surroundings, and their action 
 upon him is so much the most important factor in his 
 history that his future course may be foreseen with 
 almost mathematical certainty. 
 
 "When we consider the vast number of events 
 which can be but little affected by human action, 
 and also the complex and widespreading relation of 
 causes to their effects, it will scarcely seem wonderful 
 to us that on the plane where the result of all causes 
 at present in action is visible, a very large portion of 
 the future may be foretold with considerable accuracy 
 
64 DREAMS AND PREMONITIONS 
 
 even as to detail. That this can be done has been 
 proved again and again, not only by prophetic dreams, 
 but by the second-sight of the Highlanders and the 
 predictions of clairvoyants; and it is on this forecasting 
 of effects from the causes already in existence that 
 the whole scheme of astrology is based. 
 
 "But when we come to deal with a developed 
 individual — a man with knowledge and will — then 
 prophecy fails us, for he is no longer the creature of 
 circumstances, but to a great extent their master. 
 True, the main events of his life are arranged before- 
 hand by his past karma; but the way in which he 
 will allow them to affect him, the method by which 
 he will deal with them, and perhaps triumph over 
 them — these are his own, and they cannot be foreseen 
 except as probabilities. Such actions of his in their 
 turn become causes, and thus chains of effects are 
 produced in his life which were not provided for by 
 the original arrangement, and, therefore, could not 
 have been foretold with any exactitude." 
 
 It is not easy to comprehend in the physical brain 
 consciousness how events can be known before they 
 occur. May not the explanation be that they have 
 occurred so far as inner planes are concerned, but 
 that only as they work outward from the realm of 
 causation and become materialized in what we call 
 an event, can the limited physical consciousness be- 
 come aware of them? If physical matter is a limita- 
 tion of consciousness it must necessarily give rise to 
 illusory ideas of the superphysical realms, where what 
 we call past, present and future may represent entirely 
 
VARIETIES OF DREAMS 65 
 
 different conditions than we are now able to conceive. 
 Sir Oliver Lodge says : 
 
 "A luminous and helpful idea is that time is but 
 a relative mode of regarding things; we progress 
 through phenomena at a certain definite pace, and this 
 subjective advance we interpret in an objective man- 
 ner, as if events moved necessarily in this order and 
 at this rate. But that may be only one mode of 
 regarding them. The events may be in some sense 
 in existence always, both past and future, and it may 
 be we who are arriving at them, not they which are 
 happening." 
 
 Whether or not we are able to harmonize our 
 conceptions of the matter with the evidence of our 
 senses, the evidence still remains. "However strange 
 may be the phenomenon of precognition," says Pro- 
 fessor Charles Richet, "we must not let ourselves be 
 diverted from the truth by the strangeness of appear- 
 ances. A fact is a fact, even though it may upset 
 our conception of the universe; for our conception of 
 the universe is terribly infantile." 
 
 It is scarcely possible to overemphasize the im- 
 portance of the fact that people who have premonitory 
 dreams represent a very wide range of mental and 
 physical conditions and that in the impressions made 
 upon the waking consciousness we must naturally 
 expect corresponding complexity. Some people are 
 prone to assert that since they have had dreams which 
 have accurately forecast the future all their succeed- 
 ing dreams should prove equally reliable and should 
 be regarded as infallible authority. But this by no 
 
66 DREAMS AND PREMONITIONS 
 
 means follows. Until one has reached that advanced 
 point in his evolution where the ego is in control of 
 his vehicles of consciousness, and the physical and 
 astral bodies have become fairly obedient to the will, 
 it is idle to talk of the infallibility of such psychic im- 
 pressions. It should be remembered that with the 
 average person the memories of both astral experiences 
 and egoic impressions are, at best, fragmentary. They 
 are limited and very partial expressions of the higher 
 consciousness. Such dreams, therefore, are not some- 
 thing which, even with fuller understanding and fur- 
 ther development, can be used for our guidance in 
 the affairs of daily life. They are fragmentary and 
 partial, their expression is not within the control of 
 the will, and they may at any time be distorted by 
 the physical brain conditions of the moment and thus 
 be rendered fantastic or ambiguous. This being true 
 we cannot positively know the truth or falsity of such 
 premonitions until the event they refer to has oc- 
 curred. In one instance the event transpires in perfect 
 conformity to the dream while in another we find, 
 perhaps, that what we expected to happen to ourself 
 really befalls a friend, or does not happen to anybody, 
 so far as our physical plane knowledge goes. 
 
 The reason for the failure of the premonition may 
 be found in one of the foregoing explanations, or in 
 still other possibilities as, for example, the fact that 
 the waking consciousness has brought through only 
 a part of the entire drama, dropping out vital factors 
 that would have modified or set aside that which we 
 
VARIETIES OF DREAMS 67 
 
 remember, and thus we have mistaken a fragment for 
 the whole. 
 
 But regardless of the fact that we cannot always 
 use such flashes from the ego to shape a course in 
 daily life, they are none the less useful and valuable 
 in revealing the true nature of our consciousness; 
 and although we cannot harness them to rules and 
 exceptions they occasionally play an important and 
 beneficent part in our lives. Furthermore, by care- 
 fully studying them we can arrive finally at a point 
 where we can rely upon them because we shall thus 
 have hastened the arrival of that period in our evolu- 
 tion where the waking and sleeping hours are united 
 in unbroken consciousness; where the distorting fac- 
 tors in brain transmission will have disappeared and 
 the unshadowed wisdom of the ego will come freely 
 through into the physical life. 
 
CHAPTER V 
 
 Premonitory Dreams 
 
 The. ego is the source of most premonitions. The 
 dream may be a warning to one's self or may be 
 intended for another; or it may convey some informa- 
 tion about the future. It may be vivid in detail or it 
 may merely leave a very vague impression of impend- 
 ing events. But whatever its character and degree of 
 efficiency it is usually the result of the effort of the 
 ego to convey important information to the waking 
 consciousness. 
 
 Premonitory dreams are comparatively rare. They 
 usually relate to some very important matter that is 
 not far ahead in the physical life of the dreamer, or 
 some one closely associated with him; and as such 
 events are not numerous the premonitions are corre- 
 spondingly few. Naturally enough, accidents and 
 death are the subjects with which premonitions fre- 
 quently deal. 
 
 There have been mahy notable examples and one 
 which will come instantly to mind is Abraham Lin- 
 coln's premonition of approaching death. We have 
 very definite information on the subject and know 
 that he spoke to his bodyguard of the matter the 
 evening before the assassination, and made some 
 philosophical remarks about death. It is said that 
 
70 DREAMS AND PREMONITIONS 
 
 he interrupted the last cabinet meeting he ever held 
 to speak of a dream and Gideon Welles, Lincoln's 
 secretary of the navy, wrote down the details in his diary. 
 
 Lincoln was a great dreamer and appears to have 
 attached much importance to what he dreamed. In 
 a series of articles entitled Lincoln and Booth, by 
 Winfield M. Thompson, which were widely published 
 by a newspaper syndicate in 1915, Mr. Thompson 
 writes as follows of Lincoln's last dreams : 
 
 "A few days before his death Lincoln related to 
 his wife and a few friends the story of a strange 
 dream that had disturbed him the night before. In 
 his dream, he said, he went from room to room in the 
 White House, and everywhere heard sounds of pitiful 
 sobbing though no living being was in sight, 'until I 
 arrived at the east room. Before me was a catafalque, 
 on which rested a corpse. Around it were stationed 
 soldiers. There was a throng of people, some gazing 
 sorrowfully upon the corpse whose face was covered, 
 others weeping pitifully. Who is dead in the White 
 House? I demanded of one of the soldiers.' 
 
 ' 'The President/ was his answer. 'Lie was killed 
 by an assassin.' Then came a loud burst of grief 
 from the crowd, which woke me from my dream.' ,; 
 
 "On the afternoon of Friday, April 14, a few r hours 
 before he fell under the assassin's bullet, Lincoln held 
 his last cabinet meeting. It was remarkable for two 
 things — the depth of charity and love displayed by 
 Lincoln in a discussion on the return to the Union of 
 the seceded states and a curious vein of mysticism 
 the President displayed in describing a premonitory 
 
PREMONITORY DREAMS 71 
 
 dream he had had the night before. General Grant, 
 who had just arrived from Appomattox, was invited 
 to attend the meeting and did so. Grant was anxious 
 about Sherman, who was confronted by the army of 
 General Joseph E. Johnston in the vicinity of Golds- 
 boro, N. C., and expressed a desire for news from him. 
 The President responded by saying that he thought 
 that all was well with Sherman — a dream had caused 
 him to feel so. He then described the dream. His 
 manner while doing so made a deep impression on 
 most of the men about him." 
 
 Gideon Welles' diary gave in extended detail what 
 was said about the dream which had reference to the 
 approach of important events and which, Lincoln de- 
 clared, did not herald success but merely indicated 
 that something very important was approaching. The 
 record by Secretary Welles runs thus : 
 
 "The president remarked that news would come 
 soon and come favorably, he had no doubt, for he had 
 last night his usual dream, which had preceded nearly 
 every great event of the war. We inquired the par- 
 ticulars of this remarkable dream. He said it was in 
 my element — it related to the water; that he seemed 
 to be in a singular and indescribable vessel, but always 
 the same, and that he was moving with great rapidity 
 toward a dark and indefinite shore; that he had had 
 this same singular dream preceding the firing on 
 Sumter and battles of Bull Run, Antietam, Gettys- 
 burg, Stone River, Vicksburg, Wilmington, etc. 
 General Grant remarked with some emphasis and 
 asperity that Stone River was no victory — that a few 
 
72 DREAMS AND PREMONITIONS 
 
 such victories would have ruined the country and 
 that he knew of no important results from it. The 
 President said that perhaps he should not altogether 
 agree with him but whatever might be the facts, his 
 singular dream preceded that fight. Victory did not 
 always follow his dream but the event and results 
 were important. He had no doubt that a battle had 
 taken place or was about to be fought 'and Johnston 
 will be beaten ; for I had this strange dream again 
 last night. It must relate to Sherman; my thoughts 
 are in that direction and I know of no other very 
 important event which is likely just now to occur/ " 
 
 On March 13, 1915, Col. W. H. Crook, disbursing 
 officer of the White House, died at an advanced age, 
 after fifty years of continuous government service. It 
 was early in 1865 that he became Lincoln's bodyguard. 
 His passing revived the stories he used to tell of his 
 association with the great statesman and among those 
 that appeared with the announcement of his death 
 was this testimony about the dream that foretold the 
 President's death : 
 
 "Col. Crook told often of how, on the afternoon 
 before Lincoln's assassination, the President had 
 come to him in confidence and said that on successive 
 nights he had dreams which foretold his murder. 
 Crook thereupon begged the President not to go to 
 the theatre that evening as planned. Lincoln insisted, 
 and furthermore would not hear of Crook accompany- 
 ing him. He ordered Crook to go home and rest." 
 
 An interesting case of premonition of approaching 
 death is that of Dr. I. F. Bacon, of San Francisco. 
 
PREMONITORY DREAMS 73 
 
 who was killed in the earthquake of 1906. He was 
 not able to bring into his waking consciousness any 
 of the details but he had been sufficiently impressed 
 with the truth of the approaching calamity to have an 
 unchangeable conviction that death was just ahead. 
 The following account appeared in the San Francisco 
 Examiner, May 3, 1906 : 
 
 "For two days before the earthquake Dr. J. F. 
 Bacon was haunted by a premonition of sudden 
 death. He was killed by the collapse of the house in 
 which he lived. Dr. Bacon was well known in San 
 Francisco. He was a prominent practitioner, and 
 also the proprietor of a drug store at 303 Folsom St. 
 Several times during the day immediately preceding 
 the disaster he mentioned his fears to his friends. 
 Instinctively he felt that a terrible fate was impending 
 for him, and while he had no idea what was the nature 
 of the threatened accident, he declared that it would 
 kill him. To A. W. Vance, a real estate dealer, who 
 was graduated from College in Dr. Bacon's class, he 
 spoke of the morbid idea which possessed him. 'I 
 can't tell what it is,' he said, 'but I know that I will 
 meet a sudden death within a day or two. It is im- 
 possible to explain.' When the tremblor struck San 
 Francisco the house in which Dr. Bacon was sleeping 
 at Sixth and Folsom, fell to the ground, burying him 
 in the debris. Deceased was a graduate of the class 
 of 1876 of the Medical College of the Pacific." 
 
 Two years later another prominent citizen of San 
 Francisco died suddenly after a premonition of the 
 approaching close of physical life. From the Berkeley 
 
74 DREAMS AND PREMONITIONS 
 
 Gazette of August 25, 1908, the following account is 
 taken : 
 
 ''When Eugene Grace, once a leader in the South- 
 ern colony and prominent in San Francisco business 
 circles, dropped dead while running to catch a train 
 in Berkeley Monday evening, it was but the working 
 out of a premonition of death he had received twenty- 
 four hours before. So strongly was he influenced by 
 this innate knowledge of his approaching end that he 
 had made a final disposition of his effects and re- 
 quested that his body be shipped to his sister in 
 Atlanta, Georgia. It was in the Regent Hotel, 562 
 Sutter Street, San Francisco, where he lived, that he 
 received the inkling of death in the near future. He 
 disposed of his property and asked John F. Shea to 
 ship his body south. He spoke of his affairs, saying 
 that what remained of a life insurance policy of a 
 thousand dollars, after the funeral expenses had been 
 deducted, should be given to his nephew and name- 
 sake in Atlanta. Then, having done all that was 
 necessary on this earth, he bravely thrust away the 
 subject of death. At one time Grace was a leading 
 figure in San Francisco. Courtly, chivalrous, kind- 
 hearted, a typical southern gentleman, he was 
 immensely popular everywhere." 
 
 In studying the phenomena of premonitions the 
 question naturally arises, "Why does the ego impress, 
 or try to impress, a warning upon the waking con- 
 sciousness?" The reason appears to be plain enough. 
 When a physician knows that death must soon come 
 to his patient he discloses the truth to him. He never 
 
PREMONITORY DREAMS 75 
 
 permits death to come suddenly and unexpectedly 
 upon him if he can prevent it, but gives him time to 
 arrange his affairs and "put his house in order." From 
 the purely physical viewpoint there is excellent reason 
 for this course. 
 
 If death is inevitable it is clearly much better to 
 know it a short time in advance. (To be advised of 
 the fact too far in advance of the event would ob- 
 viously not be an advantage.) So even if death is 
 unavoidable the premonition is of great value. But 
 deaths or accidents which are the subjects of pre- 
 monitions sometimes are avoidable and have been thus 
 escaped. When we remember the difficulties with 
 which the ego must deal in impressing the lower mind 
 with such warnings it is easy to understand how very 
 partial and insufficient most of them must be to the 
 brain consciousness. A premonition that is intended 
 to be full and vivid in detail may register in the brain 
 merely as a vague impression of impending danger, 
 Or perhaps as an unshakable conviction of approaching 
 death, as in the case of Dr. Bacon, but be utterly 
 lacking in details that can lead to a course of action. 
 In the case of Eugene B. Grace, above mentioned, 
 who can say that deatk might not have been avoided 
 if he had known just where the danger lay? Had Dr. 
 Bacon known that an earthquake would raze the 
 building in which he was accustomed to sleep, would 
 he have left the city the day before it occurred? To 
 what extent accident and death might be avoided if 
 the people who have premonitions were more sensi- 
 tive, would be a difficult guess. 
 
76 DREAMS AND PREMONITIONS 
 
 Cases are not wanting in which the ego appears, 
 by repeated and prolonged efforts, to be endeavoring 
 to impress the danger of a situation upon the brain 
 so firmly that it will be realized in the waking hours. 
 This seems to have been the case with Thomas W. 
 Ewing, of Pueblo, Colorado, a locomotive engineer 
 employed on the Denver and Rio Grande railway, in 
 1908. Mr. Ewing's run was westward from Pueblo. 
 For several successive nights he dreamed of a terrible 
 accident in which he seemed to be killed. So vivid 
 and realistic were these dreams that he could not go 
 to sleep again after awakening on account of the 
 nervous condition they caused. He discussed the 
 matter with his wife but, not believing in premoni- 
 tions, they decided that overwork or some unknown 
 nerve disorder must be responsible for the remarkable 
 dreams. On the day following the last of the dreams, 
 while his locomotive was standing on a siding at 
 Florence, Colorado, the boiler exploded, instantly 
 killing both Ewing and his fireman. Had the ego 
 been endeavoring to impress upon the lower mind in 
 this case the fact that the locomotive was in danger- 
 ous condition and picturing the consequences that 
 must soon follow if they were not avoided? It seems 
 rather remarkable that a dream repeated so per- 
 sistently and impressively should have been ignored 
 even if details were not brought through into waking 
 consciousness. 
 
 A case in which the premonition did serve the 
 purpose is that of Mrs. Hugh Larue, of Briceville, 
 Tennessee. On December 9, 1911, occurred the dis- 
 
PREMONITORY DREAMS 77 
 
 astrous explosion in the Cross Mountain coal mine. 
 On the next day the New York Herald published the 
 following account : 
 
 "After a terrific explosion, that shook the earth 
 for a wide area, 207 men were entombed today in 
 the Cross Mountain coal mine of the Knoxville Iron 
 Company. Hugh Larue, a miner employed in the 
 shaft, owes his life to a dream his wife had last night. 
 When he arose this morning and prepared to go to 
 his daily task Mrs. Larue refused to prepare his 
 lunch for him to carry to the mines. She did not 
 want him to work today. She then recited a dream 
 she had. In her dream she saw scores of miners 
 with their heads blown off being carried out of the 
 mine entrance as she and her little children stood 
 at the mine's mouth. Larue had not missed a day 
 from his work for many months, but he was prevailed 
 upon to remain out of the mines. It was only a 
 short time after Mrs. Larue told her story that the 
 explosion occurred." 
 
 A great disaster usually furnishes several examples 
 of premonitions. Where several hundred people are 
 concerned it may reasonably be expected that a few 
 among them are sensitive enough to be impressed 
 with the doom that awaits them. The Titanic disaster 
 furnished several cases, each possessing more or less 
 evidential value, dependent upon circumstances and 
 upon whether or not the principals involved men- 
 tioned the facts to others prior to the sailing of the 
 ship. Among the strong cases is that of the Hon. J. 
 Cannon Middleton. The Titanic was scheduled to 
 
78 DREAMS AND PREMONITIONS 
 
 sail April 10. It appears from the evidence that Mr. 
 Middleton purchased his ticket on March 23. A few 
 days later he dreamed that the great steamer was 
 wrecked and in the dream he saw her surrounded by 
 passengers and crew swimming about her. When 
 the dream recurred the following night he began to 
 feel decidedly uneasy about it but said nothing, prob- 
 ably for fear of uselessly alarming his family. For- 
 tunately for him a cablegram arrived six days before 
 the ship sailed, suggesting a postponement of the 
 journey on account of business conditions. Supplied 
 now with what seemed to him a tangible reason he 
 had his ticket cancelled and then told his wife and 
 several friends of the dreams. The books of the 
 White Star company and the cancelled ticket, which 
 Mr. Middleton retains, furnish part of the evidence. 
 
 Nobody will deny that when there is an elaboration 
 of details, coincidence is an impossible explanation. 
 If a dream is vague in outline and lacking in detail, 
 and later something occurs that corresponds in a 
 general way with the dream, we may reasonably 
 enough dismiss it as mere coincidence. One dreams, 
 let us say, that a fortune is inherited and soon after 
 a relative dies bequeathing property to the dreamer; 
 or one dreams of being seriously injured and later 
 has an arm broken in a railway wreck. While such 
 dreams may, or may not, be actually connected with 
 the succeeding events, coincidence is a possible ex- 
 planation. But when the dream presents a wealth of 
 details, and the following event corresponds exactly, 
 then coincidence is an absurd and impossible explana- 
 
PREMONITORY DREAMS 79 
 
 tion. It is coincidence that Mr. A., in Chicago, is 
 telling an amusing story of a man whom he once 
 saw under hypnotic influence, at the same time that 
 Mr. B., in St. Louis, is making himself ludicrous in 
 a series of hypnotic antics. But it is impossible that 
 every word and gesture and facial expression of Mr. 
 B. and the man of whom Mr. A. speaks can be 
 identical. Coincidence can explain the concurrence of 
 two general events but never an identity of details. 
 Now, it is impossible to deny that dreams sometimes 
 forecast the, minutest details. An acquaintance gives 
 me the following personal experience but without 
 permission to use her name. 
 
 "I rarely dream, but several weeks before my 
 husband passed on I dreamed of his death. I seemed 
 to be taken into our living room where the casket 
 was placed and saw him surrounded by floral pieces 
 bearing the customary cards. As my husband was 
 a splendid type of physical strength and had never 
 been ill, except for an occasional cold, the dream 
 made little impression upon me. I had no confidence 
 in the reality of any kind of dreams and, after casually 
 mentioning it to an intimate friend, I thought no 
 more about it. Some weeks later my husband con- 
 tracted pneumonia and died suddenly. My dream 
 came vividly before rne then, for every floral piece, 
 every card, and the arrangement of the room, was 
 identical with the dream." 
 
 Every student of psychology is familiar with the 
 fact that dreams are very commonly expressed in 
 symbology. It is the method of the ego, apparently, 
 
80 DREAMS AND PREMONITIONS 
 
 and it is definitely expressive of the^ ideas to be im- 
 pressed upon the lower mind. Attention has already 
 been directed to the fact that the inner planes are 
 nearer to reality than the physical life. This symbol- 
 ical language of the soul illustrates the point. As 
 symbols are to words, the higher consciousness is to 
 the lower. A story that would require a thousand of 
 our clumsy words for its presentation may be ex- 
 pressed very briefly by symbols. But it must not be 
 supposed that because a dream is symbolical it is, 
 therefore, an accurate description and presents the 
 facts with invariable certainty. Its reliability depends, 
 as with any dream, upon the clearness of the transla- 
 tion in the lower mind and the freedom from confusion 
 with the vibrations of the dense brain and its etheric 
 counterpart. 
 
 Sometimes people who are interested in the study 
 of dreams ask if there is some code in symbology 
 which, when understood, will enable one to compre- 
 hend a dream expressed in symbols. The fact seems 
 to be that symbols convey different meanings to 
 different people and that each person who dreams in 
 that fashion attaches to the symbols a significance of 
 his own. He has, however, not the least doubt about 
 the meaning of any particular symbol, and probably 
 for the reason that the ego impresses its special 
 significance as everything else is impressed. One 
 person associates success, or an "all's well" feeling, 
 with the symbol of a flag; another with flowers; one 
 knows that dark water signifies danger, while another 
 sees an animal or a reptile as the symbol of impending 
 
PREMONITORY DREAMS 81 
 
 danger or misfortune. Is it not probable that the ego 
 uses, for expressing facts to the lower consciousness, 
 the symbols which that particular person can best 
 understand? If one has a fear of water that would 
 be the line of least resistance in impressing the idea 
 of coming calamity. Another may feel perfectly at 
 ease when about, or in, the water but may be rilled 
 with apprehension at sight of a mouse or a spider. 
 In that case the symbol of water would convey no 
 warning, and serve no purpose in arousing and 
 steadying the personality against a coming shock, 
 while the symbol of the animal or the insect would. 
 Therefore the meaning of the symbol varies with the 
 temperament and experience of the individual. 
 
 A good illustration of the symbolical dream., in 
 which the ego is first endeavoring to warn and fortify 
 the lower mind against approaching trouble and later 
 to impress the encouraging fact that the danger has 
 passed, is contained in three dreams related to me 
 by Mrs. Robert K. Walton, of NordhorT, California. 
 
 In the early part of January, 1915, she dreamed 
 that while with her husband a dangling black spider 
 appeared and that both of them began to fight it. 
 Mrs. Walton had not beeri in really good health for 
 several years but at the time of the dream fehe was in 
 her usual health except for a slight fever which was 
 thought to be the result of a trifling indisposition. 
 Nothing was farther from her mind than the thought 
 that the fever indicated anything serious. In the 
 dream she felt that the spider must be killed. Instead, 
 however, it disappeared. The scene suddenly changed 
 
S2 DREAMS AND PREMONITIONS 
 
 and she found herself in a new, clean room, such as 
 spiders are not likely to inhabit, and she experienced 
 a feeling of relief. But suddenly she became aware 
 that instead of having left her when it disappeared, 
 the loathsome insect was now beneath her clothing! 
 
 This dream Mrs. Walton related to her husband 
 in the morning. A few days passed and as the slight 
 fever did not leave her a physician was called in. 
 He announced at once that her condition was such 
 that she must go to a hospital the following day. It 
 proved to be the beginning of an illness which con- 
 tinued several months. She had not been long in the 
 hospital when a large abscess formed and, in due 
 course, was lanced. This, and her general condition, 
 gave weeks of pain and marked a distinct stage in 
 her long illness. The doctor and nurse cheered her 
 up with hopeful talk and she was looking forward 
 to early recovery when the second dream occurred. 
 
 It was now the latter part of May. Mrs. Walton 
 dreamed that she was in a garret and that in passing 
 out of the door she put her hand in a spider's web. 
 An enormous, vicious looking spider ran up her wrist, 
 filling her with a feeling of horror. She awoke gasp- 
 ing with terror. This dream was related to the nurse 
 with the prediction that it portended great trouble. 
 The nurse made light of the matter, as nurses always 
 do. But a few days later the doctor gently announced 
 to the patient that a capital operation was necessary. 
 It followed, and for some weeks she was a pawn in 
 the game played by life and death. Life finally won 
 and she arose and went out into the world again. 
 
PREMONITORY DREAMS S3 
 
 But meantime a third dream had cheered her with its 
 forecast of the truth, and no doubt helped in her 
 recovery, as the others had helped to fortify her 
 against approaching trouble. 
 
 It was only two or three days after the operation 
 that the third dream occurred. Mrs. Walton dreamed 
 that she was sitting in an arbor talking with her sur- 
 geon, not her physician. The surgeon looked about 
 him. Overhead was an enormous spider. He pulled it 
 down and flung it into a fire where it was consumed by 
 the flames. It was the operation, notwithstanding its 
 great danger, that finally closed the chapter of suffer- 
 ing and now for the first time in fourteen years she 
 is enjoying good health. This series of dreams is, I 
 am inclined to think, one of the most interesting on 
 record. A little careful study of its details will reveal 
 to the student of dream lore a better understanding of 
 the watchfulness of the ego over the personality, and 
 will indicate the extent to which helpful impressions 
 would be received by everybody if they were more 
 sensitive to them. 
 
 While the more tragic things of life are usually 
 the subjects of premonitions there are, of course, ex- 
 ceptions to the rule. Sometimes, when apparently the 
 astro-physical conditions are most favorable, common- 
 place things may be impressed on the brain and be 
 clearly retained in the waking memory. It may occa- 
 sionally descend from the commonplace even to the 
 trivial. But instances in which only the ordinary 
 drama of life, and that at least devoid of tragedy for 
 the dreamer himself, is outlined in its immediate 
 
84 DREAMS AND PREMONITIONS 
 
 future, are fairly common. A case of this kind oc- 
 curred recently in an eastern city. In June, 1916, a 
 lady residing near me received a letter from Robert 
 Donovan, of Brooklyn, N. Y., describing a premoni- 
 tory dream. Mr. Donovan has an intimate friend 
 whose profession is teaching. His family consisted of 
 his elderly parents and a sister. The sister did the 
 housekeeping and looked after the parents during the 
 absence of her brother, who went daily to his school. 
 He was expecting to be married in the near future 
 and this was well known to his friends. One night in 
 March, 1916, Mr. Donovan dreamed that he was in 
 conversation with his friend, the teacher, who told 
 him that he would be married on May 20. In his 
 dream Mr. Donovan glanced at the calendar and, 
 observing that May 20th came on Saturday remarked 
 that it was an unusual day for a wedding. "Why 
 don't you wait till the school term has closed?" he 
 asked his friend. The teacher replied that he could 
 not do so but if he gave any reason the dreamer 
 could not remember it. In the morning he related 
 his dream to his mother who laughed at its improba- 
 bility. Two weeks later the teacher's sister fell dead, 
 and a difficult situation presented itself. There was 
 nobody to stay with the parents while the teacher 
 was absent. In this emergency the date of the mar- 
 riage was advanced and the teacher wrote Mr. 
 Donovan that, as the result of the unexpected develop- 
 ments, and of his professional engagements, the 
 wedding would take place on Saturday, May 20. 
 
PREMONITORY DREAMS 85 
 
 While the ego is undoubtedly responsible for most 
 of the premonitory dreams there are apparently cases 
 in which the forecast of the future may be communi- 
 cated by some entity of the ethereal regions. There 
 are also on record some cases which appear to indicate 
 that when the ego is unable to impress the lower mind 
 the information is indirectly conveyed through an- 
 other person who can be impressed ; and it would 
 appear that this sometimes occurs when there is 
 nothing more important to be revealed than an im- 
 pending set of circumstances which may cause dis- 
 appointment and great annoyance, the distress of 
 which may be somewhat softened by the knowledge 
 that it is inevitable. 
 
 Much has been written about dreams which have 
 enabled students to find the solution of perplexing 
 mathematical or other problems. Many stories are 
 told of inventions, poems and musical compositions 
 coming from the dream state and being written out 
 immediately upon awakening. By our hypothesis the 
 explanation may be either that the dreamer gets the 
 ideas from his own less restricted consciousness in 
 higher realms, or that he gets them from others whom 
 he meets in the astral regions and, in either case, is 
 fortunate enough to retain the memory when he 
 awakens. 
 
 Robert Louis Stevenson, who appears to have 
 known very much about the occult, tells us in Travels 
 and Essays that the most original of his stories were 
 sketched or composed in dreams — that he not only 
 thus got perfect plots but saw it all dramatized. The 
 
86 DREAMS AND PREMONITIONS 
 
 dream state was apparently his final resort when the 
 waking consciousness could not supply the necessary 
 material. He had long tried, he says, to write some- 
 thing on dual personality, but in vain. Then he 
 dreamed the essentials of The Strange Case of Dr. 
 Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. And this was only an incident 
 in many years of similar work. Olalla was "given" 
 to him, he asserts, "in bulk and detail." He says that 
 he merely added the external scenery and that the 
 moral itself, of the story, came in the dream. 
 
 In what degree the ego, with marvelous grasp of 
 the verities of nature, might illuminate the lower 
 mind, and to what extent premonitions would warn us 
 and guide us if we were all highly sensitive, and re- 
 sponsive to the delicate vibrations sent down into 
 the physical brain, it is impossible to guess. The 
 evidence furnished by the many well authenticated 
 cases of premonitory dreams certainly indicates that 
 the ego is continually endeavoring to impress ideas 
 and facts upon the lower mind, but usually with no 
 very great success. 
 
CHAPTER VI 
 
 Memories of Astral 
 Experiences 
 
 Excluding the trivial and fantastic dreams — those 
 which are automatically produced by the physical 
 mechanism of consciousness — by far the larger part of 
 the remainder are the memories of astral experiences. 
 Premonitions and also the dream — if it may properly 
 be called a dream — in which the lower mind is im- 
 pressed with some truth of nature not previously 
 understood, naturally constitute a very small propor- 
 tion of dream activities. Dreams which are the memo- 
 ries of what one has seen and heard and said and 
 done in the astral consciousness during the time when 
 the physical body sleeps are greater in number be- 
 cause they represent the ordinary affairs of life. Such 
 dreams may come to any person who has attained that 
 point in human evolution where the mind and emo- 
 tions are fairly well controlled. The conditions are 
 then present that render a recollection of the astral 
 experiences at least possible, but it must not be for- 
 gotten that there must be a necessary combination of 
 physical, astral and mental relationships that permit 
 the vibrations of the astral matter to register them- 
 selves in the physical brain. It therefore commonly 
 happens to the person who has reached the stage 
 
88 DREAMS AND PREMONITIONS 
 
 in 
 
 where he is conscious and active in the astral real 
 at night that he only occasionally recalls the experi- 
 ences through Avhich he has passed. AVhen he attains 
 this stage of his evolution, however, he will seldom, if 
 ever, experience the old order of confused dream due 
 to the senseless automatic activity of the physical 
 brain. On the contrary, he will very probably have 
 no dream memories at all upon awakening in the 
 morning, except upon the infrequent occasions when 
 he brings through a recollection of the astral experi- 
 ences. The frequency of this increases as his evolu- 
 tion proceeds, and he ultimately remembers all the 
 astral experiences — a gratifying result that can be 
 greatly hastened by giving studious attention to the 
 matter. 
 
 If we put aside the effort from the material side to 
 bring back the memory and consider the matter in its 
 relationship to the average person, then we may say 
 that in premonitions we have a class of dreams that 
 represents the direct efforts of the ego to impress the 
 lower mind, while in dreams that are the results of 
 astral experiences we have the memories which float 
 through simply because, so to speak, all the interven- 
 ing gates happen to be open at the same instant. 
 
 As more and more facts about dreams are col- 
 lected the hypothesis here invoked to explain them 
 will become stronger. Occasionally somebody has a 
 unique dream that throws new light on the true nature 
 of the dream state. In his lecture on Shakespeare (p. 
 45), Robert G. Ingersoll relates the following dream: 
 
 "I once had a dream, and in this dream I was dis- 
 
MEMORIES OF ASTRAL EXPERIENCE 89 
 
 cussing a subject with another man. It occurred to 
 me that I was dreaming, and I then said to myself: 
 If this is a dream I am doing the talking for both 
 sides — consequently I ought to know in advance what 
 the. other man is going to say. In my dream I tried 
 the experiment. I then asked the other man a ques- 
 tion, and before he answered made up my mind what 
 the answer was to be. To my surprise the man did 
 not say what I expected he would, and so great was 
 my astonishment that I awoke." 
 
 What Col. Ingersoll remembered as a dream was 
 probably an actual conversation. Had he been famil- 
 iar with the idea that while the physical body sleeps 
 the consciousness functions through a subtler body, 
 he could not have been surprised at the actual conver- 
 sation in which the other man furnished his own ideas 
 as he would do in the physical body. His memory of 
 the incident on awakening was evidently a confused 
 blending of the astral experience and his physical 
 ideas of what dreams are. 
 
 In Chapter I the difference between sleep and 
 death was discussed, and the freedom of the soul, or 
 consciousness, in etherial realms while the physical 
 body sleeps was pointed out. Since the relationship 
 of physical and astral matter is that of interpenetra- 
 tion, as in the case of a sponge surrounded by water 
 which both envelops it and permeates it, passing into 
 the astral region is not necessarily a journey in space. 
 But it may mean that, and may represent movement 
 of the astral body that is extraordinarily rapid as com- 
 pared with anything of which we know in the physical 
 
96 DREAMS AND PREMONITIONS 
 
 world. But however far afield one may journey in the 
 astral body there remains a magnetic connection with 
 the physical body. Clairvoyant investigations reveal 
 the fact that in the case of people of low evolutionary 
 development the astral body remains during sleep in 
 the immediate vicinity of the physical body, while 
 with the person of average mental and moral develop- 
 ment it moves freely through the astral regions as 
 the vehicle of his consciousness. The experiences 
 gained naturally present great variety. 
 
 Mrs. Ella R. Tuttle, of Rochester, N. Y., furnishes 
 two dreams in which the accuracy of the waking 
 memory was promptly sustained by physical facts. 
 In 1898 she dreamed that her mother, who was dead, 
 came to her as a messenger asking assistance for a 
 sick relative who lived about thirty miles away. She 
 said, "Aunt Mary is very ill and needs you at once. 
 Your father will send you a telegram tomorrow noon 
 and you must go to her." 
 
 Mrs. Tuttle evidently accompanied her mother to 
 the home of the sick relative. She saw her aunt lying 
 in bed and observed that it was covered with a quilt 
 having a certain peculiar pattern. She awoke; but 
 had, of course, no means of immediately verifying the 
 dream. About two o'clock on the afternoon of the 
 following day she did receive a telegram from her 
 father conveying the information that her aunt was 
 ill, and requesting her immediate presence. She went, 
 and found her aunt, Mrs. Mary Tinklepaugh, of Sodus, 
 N. Y., very much in need of her assistance, as only a 
 young and inexperienced girl was in charge. Upon 
 
MEMORIES OF ASTRAL EXPERIENCES 91 
 
 entering the sickroom the visitor observed upon the 
 bed a quilt with the pattern she had seen in her 
 dream. 
 
 At a much later date Mrs. Tuttle was interested 
 in the project of beautifying the grounds of an estate 
 belonging to a society of which she was a member: 
 Reading in a magazine an announcement that con- 
 tributions to a tree-planting fund would be received 
 she wrote a letter, enclosing a donation and addressed 
 it to Mrs. R., an officer of the society, but did not 
 get the letter in the mail that evening. That night 
 she dreamed that she visited the estate, over two 
 thousand miles distant, and saw and conversed with 
 several people there. One of them called her atten- 
 tion to the fact that she had addressed the letter to 
 the wrong person, and that if it went to Mrs. R. the 
 money would go into a fund to be used for a totally 
 different purpose. It should, her informant said, be 
 addressed to Mr. W. But the dreamer was not con- 
 vinced and argued the point. The conversation closed 
 with this advice: "Look again in the magazine and 
 you will see your mistake." In the morning Mrs. 
 Tuttle related her dream to her daughters, and the 
 magazine was looked up. Examination showed that 
 she had been in error in addressing the donation to 
 Mrs. R. and that the dream information was correct. 
 The letter was re-written and properly addressed. 
 
 The dream terror of murderers is well known. If 
 our hypothesis is sound the reason is simple, for sleep 
 would again bring the murderer face to face with his 
 victim for the time being. If the murderer be one 
 
92 DREAMS AND PREMONITIONS 
 
 sensitive enough for the impression to register in 
 the physical brain the experience would be remem- 
 bered on awakening. If he be less sensitive he might 
 only have a vague sensation of terror instead of the 
 vivid memory of details, as Macbeth apparently did 
 when he referred to "these terrible dreams that shake 
 us nightly." If the murderer be of a very unimpres- 
 sionable type he would probably be quite undisturbed 
 by anything except physical plane affairs and the fear 
 of legal consequences. 
 
 From Providence, R. I., a case is reported in which 
 the dream agony of a murderer led to his arrest. 
 Henry Kelly, seventy years old, was found murdered. 
 The police searched systematically for the perpetrator 
 of the crime but, being unable to find a single clue 
 to the mystery, the case was finally abandoned. Mean- 
 time the murderer's remembered astral experiences 
 were so completely destroying his peace of mind that 
 confession was inevitable. One day Frank T. Lyons, 
 twenty-two years old, walked into the police head- 
 quarters and surrendered to the authorities. A Provi- 
 dence reporter quotes the self-accused murderer as fol- 
 lows: 
 
 "I was haunted by his ghost, and I had to con- 
 fess. I killed him, though I didn't mean to. Then I 
 went to my room, but I couldn't sleep. I had strange 
 dreams, and in them I saw the old man coming 
 toward me. He seemed to be lame, and to be coming 
 toward me all the time, as if he wanted to say some- 
 thing to me. I couldn't stand it any longer. I fully 
 understand the meaning of this to me. I suppose that 
 
MEMORIES OF ASTRAL EXPERIENCES 93 
 
 it means I will be electrocuted or hanged, but I can't 
 help it. I simply had to tell." 
 
 Just how great was the horror created by the 
 "strange dreams" only those who have been able to 
 bring into the waking consciousness astral impres- 
 sions of the undesirable sort will be able to compre- 
 hend. They must, indeed, have been terrible to lead 
 to a confession that might forfeit life, and the sentence 
 "I couldn't stand it any longer" indicates that the 
 limit of human endurance had been reached. 
 
 The vivid reality of an astral experience at the 
 moment it comes through into the waking conscious- 
 ness is such that the just-awakened dreamer some- 
 times has difficulty, for a moment, in believing that 
 he has not seen the event with the physical eyes. An 
 interesting example of this is reported from Stock- 
 holm. It would be well worth while to have the 
 sequel to the story, but it was not possible to follow 
 it up for further details. A press despatch sent out 
 from Stockholm under date of September 29, 1915, 
 tells the story: 
 
 "The identification of a murderer by a man who 
 never saw the prisoner, but who claims to have seen 
 the murder committed in a dream, will be attempted 
 by the local police department just as soon as General 
 Bjorn, who is now critically ill in the west of Sweden, 
 is strong enough to look at the photographs of the 
 anarchist who assassinated his friend General Beck- 
 man, on the night of June 26. At the very hour that 
 the crime was committed, but many miles from the 
 scene of it, General Bjorn, raving in delirium, saw 
 
94 DKEAMS AND PREMONITIONS 
 
 in a fever-inspired vison his old friend shot down in 
 a street in Stockholm. Suddenly he shouted: 'Drop 
 that, you scoundrel/ Then : 'The shots are explod- 
 ing/ When the nurse sought to calm him he became 
 angry and tried to spring out of bed. 'Can't you 
 hear?' he cried. 'Can't you see the smoke? They 
 have murdered General Beckman. Don't you see the 
 blood on the street?' He raved all night, but at day- 
 break grew calmer and slept an hour. When he 
 woke he said: 'You will find that General Beckman 
 has been murdered. I am sure of it.' He even de- 
 scribed the crime in detail. At 9 o'clock the papers 
 arrived telling of the assassination of General Beck- 
 man." 
 
 Another case in which the details of what is occur- 
 ing elsewhere are vividly remembered is reported in 
 the Daily Telegram, of Portland, Oregon, of July 2, 
 1916: 
 
 "As he lay dreaming that his brother was dying 
 and that he was vainly trying to restore him, M. E. 
 Lillis, member of the Portland Police Bureau, was 
 awakened by the persistent ringing of the telephone 
 in his home, 565 Hoyt street, this morning. When he 
 awoke and answered, the word came over the wire 
 that his brother, William P. Lillis, special agent of 
 the Portland Railway, Light and Power Company, 
 had died unexpectedly at Seaside at an early hour. 
 When Lillis left for his vacation at Seaside about a 
 week ago, he was in excellent health, although his 
 constitution had been somewhat weakened by a severe 
 attack of la grippe. It is believed that heart trouble 
 
MEMORIES OF ASTRAL EXPERIENCES 95 
 
 due to the grippe was the cause of death. The body 
 will be shipped to Portland today and funeral ar- 
 rangements will be made this afternoon." 
 
 Three dreams by three people on the same night, 
 and presenting the same details in practically the same 
 language, led to the famous Sutton investigation case 
 at Annapolis. The first chapter of the story is told 
 in a press dispatch from Portland, Oregon, the home 
 of the ill-fated lieutenant's parents, under date of 
 August 11, 1909. It reads: 
 
 'Two nights after the tragic death at Annapolis 
 of Lieutenant James M. Sutton, of the United States 
 Marine Corps, each of three women had a dream in 
 which the young man appeared before them and in- 
 formed them that he had been murdered. 'The son 
 of a gun sneaked up behind me and struck me on the 
 back of the head. The first I knew that I had been 
 shot was when I woke up in eternity.' That is the 
 exact language used by the boy in the dream as he 
 stood before each woman. The persons to whom the 
 young man appeared in dream form are Mrs. J. N. 
 Sutton, his mother, at the family residence in Port- 
 land; Mrs. Margaret S. Ainsworth, his aunt, on her 
 farm in Wasco Co., Oregon, and Miss Rose Sutton, 
 his sister, who was then on an Oregon Short Line 
 train speeding to Annapolis. Each woman had the 
 dream Tuesday night, October 15, 1907. Young Sut- 
 ton died about one o'clock Sunday morning, October 
 13, 1907." 
 
 With this triple corroboration the mother of the 
 dead lieutenant determined to clear her son's name 
 
96 DREAMS AND PREMONITIONS 
 
 of the suicide charge. Nearly two years passed before 
 she finally had the satisfaction of appearing before 
 the court of inquiry and hearing Dr. Edward M. 
 Shaffer, formerly coroner in the city of Washington, 
 testify that in his opinion as an expert it was quite 
 impossible that Lieutenant Sutton could have fired 
 into his own head the bullet that killed him. After 
 the first dream, and before the official inquiry was 
 held, the mother had other dreams. To a reporter 
 for the San Francisco Examiner, on the eve of the 
 opening of the inquiry August 9, 1909, she said that 
 her dead son had said to her : 
 
 " 'Mother, dear, don't you believe it. I never killed 
 myself. They beat me to death and then shot me to 
 hide the crime.' He told me how they laid the trap 
 for him, how he walked into it, how one of them 
 grabbed him to pull him out of the automobile, how 
 they held him and beat him ; about his forehead being 
 broken; his teeth knocked out, and the lump under 
 his jaw, and how when he was lying on the ground 
 someone kicked him in the side and smashed, his 
 watch. He begged me to live to clear his name. 
 Well, after three weeks I proved some things he told 
 me were true, and after repeatedly demanding the 
 evidence, I got it and within the last month I have 
 proved everything he told me." 
 
 An instance in which medical aid was given on 
 account of a dream was told me by Dr. J. S. Devries, 
 now residing at Fremont, Nebraska. In the year 
 of 1898 he was practicing his profession in Fontenelle, 
 Nebraska, and had among his patients the little daugh- 
 
MEMORIES OF ASTRAL EXPERIENCES 97 
 
 ter of Henry Hue, a farmer residing several miles 
 from the town. The doctor, hard driven by a large 
 practice, came home one evening, and retired much 
 exhausted. He had seen his little patient at noon 
 the previous day, and was intending to call again at 
 the same hour on the following day. After sleeping 
 a short time he awoke with an uncertain memory of 
 imminent danger to the little girl, who was afflicted 
 with scarlet fever. While the details were not clear, 
 his apprehension was great, and he felt an irresistible 
 impulse to go to her immediately. Notwithstanding 
 his physical exhaustion, and the complete absence of 
 any tangible evidence that he was needed, he never- 
 theless ordered his carriage out and drove rapidly to 
 the farmer's home. He arrived at midnight and found 
 the household in commotion, the child exhibiting 
 alarming symptoms, and a messenger just ready to 
 leave to summon him. 
 
 Attention has already been called to the fact that 
 one whose physical body is asleep may, in his astral 
 body, visit places at a distance. If his friends are 
 asleep at the same time he may be with them astrally 
 although their sleeping physical bodies may be hun- 
 dreds of miles apart. v If he is asleep, and they are 
 awake he may visit them but could not communicate 
 with them unless they were clairaudient or unless 
 there, were some other method for the interchange of 
 intelligence, such as the planchette, and the waking 
 friend or friends were sufficiently responsive to operate 
 it. A case that illustrates the principles here involved 
 came to my attention soon after its occurrence. A 
 
98 DREAMS AND PREMONITIONS 
 
 party of six persons, live of whom were my personal 
 friends, were chatting together at the Ansonia Hotel, 
 New York, one evening in June, 1914. The conversa- 
 tion turned to the subject of getting communications 
 from the living by automatic writing. One of the 
 party had had some success in that line, and pencil 
 and paper were procured. Mr. S. thought of Mrs. T., 
 who had sailed for England three days previously, 
 and would therefore be somewhere in mid-ocean. It 
 was then about 10:30 p. m. in New York, and would 
 be well into the night in Mrs. T.'s longitude, and she 
 would presumably be asleep. The group of experi- 
 menters got a message about the voyage, and then 
 Mrs. B said to the invisible visitor : "Will you try 
 to remember this experience and put it in a letter to 
 Mr. S. in the morning?" The response, slowly spelled 
 out, was, "I will. Sorry, I have to leave you." About 
 twelve days later Mr. S. received a letter from Mrs. 
 T. Avhich had been written at sea, and was dated on 
 the morning following the experiment. Mrs. T. wrote : 
 
 "I had a queer experience last night. I suddenly 
 awoke about 2 a. m. The door of my cabin had 
 blown open and was banging. / remembered distinctly 
 of being zvith you in a circle of people:" 
 
 Kvidently Mrs. T. could not recall the details of 
 her astral visit. She had no memory of her promise 
 to write a letter about it, but she did remember being 
 with Mr. S. in a circle of people, and this was so 
 unexpected and perplexing that she called it "a queer 
 experience," and felt impelled to write about it. Mr. 
 S. adds that a careful calculation of the variation in 
 
 i 
 
MEMORIES OF ASTRAL EXPERIENCES 99 
 
 time indicates that the hour mentioned by Mrs. T. 
 corresponded with the meeting in New York. 
 
 An interesting case of bringing very clearly into 
 the waking consciousness what is transpiring at a dis- 
 tance is a dream of Dr. L. H. Henley, chief surgeon 
 of the Texas and Pacific Railway hospital at Marshall, 
 Texas, who sends me an affidavit with the following 
 story : 
 
 "On the morning of January 8, 1910, I awoke 
 about 3 o'clock from a dream about my sister, Mrs. 
 Henry W. Parker, who was living in Randolph Co., 
 N. C. I had not heard from her for some time. I said 
 to my wife, 'Sister Lou is dying — literally choking 
 to death.' Mrs. Henley spoke lightly and reassuringly 
 of the matter. I wrote at once to my sister, inquiring 
 about her health. The following day I received a let- 
 ter from her that had been written January 7, only 
 a day before my dream occurred, saying that all were 
 well except for severe colds. I showed this letter 
 to my wife, who warned me about being too hasty 
 in telling my dreams! Again at about 3 a. m., Janu- 
 ary 10, I awakened, and told Mrs. Henley that my 
 sister was dying, sitting in a willow rocking chair, 
 and that her husband^ Henry W. Parker, was near 
 death in the adjoining room. This announcement 
 after the very recent letter asserting that the family 
 was well, with the exception of bad colds, led mj' wife 
 to make some facetious remarks about my sanity. 
 
 "No reply ever came to my letter of inquiry, but at 
 10 a. m., January 16, I received the following tele- 
 gram: 'Asheboro, N. C, January 15. Dr. L. H. 
 
100 DREAMS AND PREMONITIONS 
 
 Henley, Marshall, Texas. Your sister Lou died Friday 
 and was buried. Henry Parker, her husband, died 
 today. Three children sick and cannot recover. Pneu- 
 monia. Come. — Levi V. Lowe.' 
 
 "Mr. H. E. Lewis, money order clerk in the post 
 office, Mr. H. E. Behymer and Mrs. Henley were 
 present when the telegram arrived. They had just 
 been joking me about my alarm founded on a dream. 
 I silently handed the telegram about to my friends. 
 I felt quite as certain that the children would not die 
 as I had felt the sad truth about their parents. Later 
 the dream details about my sister's death were verified. 
 The children recovered, and are now living at Edora, 
 Kansas, the two elder ones being Mr. Lindley Parker 
 and Miss Mary Parker." 
 
 These dreams have the element of prevision. One 
 of the dreams occurred five days and the other three 
 days before the death of Mrs. Parker, and each of 
 them gave some of the details of her death, as well as 
 the fact that Mr. Parker was near death. 
 
 The Messina earthquake, like all great disasters, 
 furnished a number of interesting cases, and one of 
 the best attested was that of the young sailor whose 
 dream revealed to him the spot where his fiance was 
 imprisoned in the ruins, although the most diligent 
 search in his waking consciousness had been unavail- 
 ing. A press dispatch told the story thus: 
 
MEMORIES OF ASTRAL EXPERIENCES 101 
 
 "A curious case of rescue was that in which a 
 sailor on board the Italian battleship Regina Elana 
 found his sweetheart. He was granted leave to search 
 for the girl in Messina, with whom he was engaged 
 to be married. After having sought for her in vain 
 for four days in the ruins he returned to the ship ex- 
 hausted and fell asleep. He dreamed that his fiance 
 said to him, 'I am alive. Come, save me.' On awaken- 
 ing he obtained fresh leave from the commander of 
 the ship, gathered together several friends, and went 
 to the spot of which he had dreamed. The party pried 
 apart the ruins of a house and found the girl unin- 
 jured." 
 
 If he searched four days in vain he could not have 
 had any particular place in mind where he expected 
 to find her. Yet when he succeeded in bringing the 
 memory of the sleeping hours through into waking 
 consciousness he went immediately to the place where 
 she was imprisoned by the ruins. He not only remem- 
 bered conversing with the girl, but he evidently had 
 a clear memory of the locality, which enabled him 
 to go to it. The telepathic theorists will hardly ven- 
 ture to argue that he got in telepathic touch with the 
 landscape! Only the hypothesis that the conscious- 
 ness is functioning in the astral vehicle while the 
 physical body is asleep seems to furnish a satisfactory 
 explanation. 
 
102 DREAMS AND PREMONITIONS 
 
 Another case which was widely published also tells 
 the story of a life-saving mission, but under very dif- 
 ferent circumstances. It occurred in April, 1912, and 
 is given as follows in the press dispatches from At- 
 lanta, Georgia : 
 
 "Awakened from a sleep in which he had dreamed 
 that a nearby railway trestle on the Southern Railroad 
 had been w r ashed away, O. T. Kitchens, a section fore- 
 man, although suffering from illness, arose from his 
 bed and w^ent to South River, six miles from here, 
 before dawn yesterday, and found that his dream was 
 a reality. The stream, swollen by heavy rains, had 
 carried away a trestle spanning a sixty-five foot 
 chasm. He knew that a passenger train was soon due to 
 arrive at the opposite side of the river, but had no 
 means of reaching that point to warn the engine 
 driver of the danger, and the river is three-quarters 
 of a mile wide. Standing on jthe bank Kitchens put 
 his hands to his lips and repeatedly shouted for half 
 an hour. Finally he heard an answering shout, and 
 he called out a warning to J. E, Daniel. Daniel 
 flagged the train as it neared the brink of the stream." 
 
 How can the advocates of the materialistic hypoth- 
 esis possibly explain this? In the Messina case there 
 was the possibility of explaining a part of what oc- 
 curred by telepathic communication, but in the 
 Kitchens' dream there is no chance whatever of lug- 
 
MEMORIES OF ASTRAL EXPERIENCES 103 
 
 ging in telepathy. In the other case somebody knew 
 of at least a part of the facts necessary for the rescue. 
 But here we have a case of a bridge suddenly giving 
 way and imperiling the lives of a trainload of people 
 who knew nothing of the danger that confronted 
 them. Not a human being knew of the collapse of 
 the bridge, not even Daniels, who lived nearby. It 
 was late in the night, towards dawn, and the inhabit- 
 ants of the countryside were sleeping. Telepathy is 
 absolutely out of the case. There was nobody whose 
 mind contained the information. Kitchens' dream 
 must have been an impelling one. He was ill, and 
 the night was stormy, but in spite of the difficulties 
 in the way his dream resulted in stopping the train, 
 and very probably in saving many lives. 
 
CHAPTER VII 
 
 How to Remember Dreams 
 
 For the same reason that it is possible to evolve 
 into higher development any faculty or quality which 
 we possess it is also possible to cultivate the art of 
 bringing the memory of our experiences during sleep 
 through into the waking consciousness. But it is of 
 little use for one to attempt it unless one is willing 
 to devote considerable time and thought to it. There 
 is no mystic process by which it can be instantane- 
 ously accomplished. We are all familiar with the" fact 
 that muscular strength can be developed by almost 
 everybody. But it requires time and attention. A 
 little effort will result in a little muscular gain. But 
 if a man has the ambition to become an athlete he 
 should be willing to put forth patient and long con- 
 tinued exertion in developing physical strength. And 
 just so it is in the matter of evolving the control of 
 the mechanism of consciousness. A little attention 
 to it will be of some value, but one who would fully 
 succeed must resolve in advance to work faithfully at 
 the task. 
 
 It seems to be the order of nature that, at the 
 level of evolution represented by the average human 
 being, the activities of consciousness in the waking 
 state, and those of the wider consciousness of the 
 
106 DREAMS AND PREMONITIONS 
 
 astral realm, shall be separate existences. But as evo- 
 lution proceeds, and the lessons which can best be 
 learned in the limited physical consciousness are 
 largely acquired, the separating walls slowly dissolve, 
 and ultimately the two states of consciousness are 
 merged in one. When a person has evolved far 
 enough for that happy consummation he no longer 
 "sleeps" in the ordinary meaning of the word. His 
 physical body sleeps, but to his consciousness there 
 is no period of apparent oblivion. He is conscious of 
 lying down to sleep, conscious of his physical body 
 lying on the bed as he moves away from it in his 
 astral body, conscious of all that he sees and hears 
 and does in the ethereal regions during the night, and 
 conscious of his return to his physical body when, in 
 the morning, he takes it up for the activities of the 
 material world once more. His advance in evolution 
 has united the separated fragments that he has called 
 days into a continuous whole, and night has ceased 
 to exist for him, just as it would for one if one could 
 travel rapidly enough to keep always in sight of the 
 sun. 
 
 But that marks a fairly high stage in human evolu- 
 tion, and those who have reached it have evolved very 
 desirable mental and moral qualities. The rest of us 
 can at least approximate it, with the requisite effort, 
 and can acquire a sufficient degree of control of the 
 mind and the emotions to bring much more of the 
 astral experiences into the daily life. Those who are 
 willing to take the trouble, and who will be patient 
 
HOW TO REMEMBER DREAMS 107 
 
 and persevering, can have personal proof of the truth 
 of this. 
 
 The first step is to control the process of thinking 
 during the waking hours. Most people let the mind 
 wander idly from one thing to another. The current 
 of their thought is directed almost wholly by external 
 things. When the mind is not thus stimulated to 
 action it is likely to get its initiative, quite un- 
 consciously of course, from the mental activity of 
 others in their vicinity — the vagrant thoughts which 
 drift through the brain. Such passive indifference to 
 mental control is fatal to the extension of conscious- 
 ness. One must learn to think about what one is think- 
 ing, and acquire the habit of controlling one's thoughts. 
 When one begins thus to turn the consciousness back 
 upon itself there comes the opportunity for the. ego 
 to make its influence felt in the lower mind. Gradu- 
 ally the mind can thus be brought under control and 
 the connection between the two states of conscious- 
 ness be strengthened. The truth in that is obvious. 
 Every thoughtful person knows that much thinking 
 about any subject brings knowledge of that subject. 
 It is undoubtedly the natural order of things that the 
 ego, which is the true self, is constantly endeavoring 
 to impress the brain consciousness, is exerting a steady 
 evolutionary pressure, and the degree of success must 
 necessarily be dependent upon the stability of the 
 lower mind. 
 
 There are two ways in which the mind receives 
 impressions during sleep — from within and from 
 without. The former are from the ego, and the latter 
 
108 DREAMS AND PREMONITIONS 
 
 are the vibrations set up by contact with others' 
 vagrant thoughts, or are the automatic action of the 
 brain reproducing its own thought images of the day. 
 If the mind is thus occupied there is little probability 
 that it will be susceptible to the unaccustomed vibra- 
 tions from the ego. Only when, through thought 
 control during the waking hours, the mind has be- 
 come responsive to the higher influences, will there 
 be anything from the sleeping state worth remember- 
 ing. It then becomes possible for it to register the 
 higher vibrations instead of initiating the lower ones. 
 
 But mind control alone is not enough. There 
 must also be control of the emotions. The waking 
 thoughts and emotions have a powerful and deter- 
 mining influence upon the activities of the conscious- 
 ness during the hours when the physical body is 
 asleep. The trivial in thought and the gross in emo- 
 tion are foreign to the ego and widen the gulf that 
 separates the lower mind from it. The work in hand 
 is to establish the closest possible connection between 
 the two, and success will depend largely upon the 
 extent to which the daily life can be brought into 
 harmony with the life of the ego. Therefore serenity 
 of mind and purity of emotions must be cultivated. 
 
 While it is important to have this desirable state of 
 mind maintained throughout the waking hours, there 
 is perhaps no other moment of them all that is so 
 essential to success as the instant of falling asleep at 
 night. It seems that the last thought, as one sinks 
 into slumber, has an influence out of all proportion 
 to the time it occupies the mind. By it the trend ap- 
 
HOW TO REMEMBER DREAMS 100 
 
 pears to be given to the mental and emotional activi- 
 ties of the night. If the thought is a sensuous one 
 it seems to attract its gross affinities from its environ- 
 ment, and the mind becomes impervious to higher 
 things. But if the mind is deliberately set upon a pure 
 and lofty theme, as one falls asleep, the channel is 
 open for impressions from the ego which may be re- 
 called upon awakening. 
 
 If we reflect a moment upon the fact that there 
 can be no memory of an astral experience unless the 
 delicate vibrations of astral matter have made their 
 impress upon the physical brain, we shall see at once 
 the necessity for the most tranquil and favorable con- 
 ditions in the lower mind. Worry, and all other 
 forms of mental and emotional disturbance, should be 
 absent. 
 
 As the instant of sinking into slumber is important 
 so, too, that of awakening is another golden moment 
 to be improved. We are then nearest to the conscious 
 activities of the night, and it is the most propitious 
 time for recalling them. The delicate traces of the 
 astral vibrations are then at their best, but when the 
 physical plane vibrations begin to sweep through the 
 brain the astral impressions may soon be obliterated. 
 One may write on the smooth sand at the seashore, 
 and it is perfectly legible at the time; but when the 
 tide comes in the boisterous waves erase it and not 
 a trace remains. And so it is with the astral record 
 on the physical brain. The vibrations of the workaday 
 world ordinarily erase them unless they are the record 
 of something that has deeply moved us. Hence the 
 
110 DREAMS AND PREMONITIONS 
 
 necessity of a little quiet retrospection at the moment 
 of awakening, before the mind has been turned to 
 the business of the waking hours. 
 
 But while what we can thus recall will help to 
 hold the memory of our astral activities, it is not 
 usually sufficient to anchor it securely in the waking 
 consciousness and, though we may have a vivid recol- 
 lection when we first awaken, it is extremely likely 
 gradually to fade out until, instead of being able to 
 remember the event, we can only remember that there 
 was something we wished to remember, while every 
 detail of it has vanished in oblivion ! Let the reader 
 try the experiment and he will soon discover that the 
 instances in which he can remember throughout the 
 day the dream incidents that were clear in the morn- 
 ing do not constitute the rule, but the exceptions 
 to it. 
 
 Now, it is not only the bringing through of the mem- 
 ory into the waking state, but also the retention of 
 the memory that assists one in uniting the two states 
 of consciousness. Means should therefore be em- 
 ployed of anchoring the astral experiences firmly in 
 the mind. This is not so difficult as would at first 
 appear, as the method by which it is accomplished 
 is very simple. It consists merely of writing down 
 the memory upon awakening. If a pad of paper and 
 pencil are left the night before on a stand within 
 easy distance one will soon form the habit of reaching 
 for them with the first gleam of physical conscious- 
 ness. Indeed, the writing is so frequently begun be- 
 fore the consciousness is in full possession of the 
 
HOW TO REMEMBER DREAMS 111 
 
 physical body that the lines are often difficult to read 
 afterward. But the more immediately it is begun the 
 better. In advance of the experiment it will not seem 
 probable to the beginner that merely having recorded 
 the memory will enable him to retain it if he could 
 not remember it without the memorandum. He will 
 find by experience, however, that with the notes he 
 can readily recall it all, while without them he is quite 
 helpless. 
 
 The probability of success in recalling the experi- 
 ences of the night upon awakening in the morning 
 can be greatly increased by resolving before falling 
 asleep the night before that the moment the waking 
 consciousness returns the memorandum will be made. 
 This pre-resolution may also be used to determine 
 what one shall do during the night in the astral 
 regions. It would appear from careful clairvoyant 
 investigations of the matter, that when a person 
 strongly resolves before going to sleep that he will 
 enter upon a certain course of action he is extremely 
 likely to do so. In this way one may begin to make 
 his nights, as well as his days, useful to others and to 
 himself. He may visit and encourage the ill and the 
 despondent among his living friends and, after suffi- 
 cient experience, he may have the satisfaction of not 
 only bringing the memory of it through into the 
 waking hours, but also of being able to establish the 
 truth of it by material evidence. One of the simple 
 methods by which this is sometimes done is to write 
 down in the morning a detailed description of some 
 place one has visited often during the sleeping state, 
 
112 DREAMS AND PREMONITIONS 
 
 but has never seen, or to note the changes that have 
 occurred in some place he has seen — as new build- 
 ings erected or trees cut down — and then to verify it 
 all by physically traveling to the place and inspect- 
 ing it. 
 
 If the experimenter is in earnest, and is diligent in 
 his efforts to control h^s mind and emotions, he will 
 in good time achieve at least some degree of success, 
 and that should furnish the motive for farther progress. 
 But he should never fall into the error of believing 
 that because he is beginning to understand the 
 rationale of dreams and is acquiring some accuracy 
 in remembering astral experiences he may therefore 
 safely use his dream consciousness as a guide in 
 physical plane affairs. Of course if there should 
 come to him some warning premonition he will use 
 his common sense in determining what, if anything, 
 he will do. But it would be folly to subordinate the 
 reason to astral impressions and thus set aside sober 
 judgment in deciding upon a course of action. Only 
 when one has succeeded in unifying the physical and 
 astral life to the point where he has no break of 
 consciousness at all when the body sleeps, can he 
 be certain that he may not bring back to the waking 
 state a confused memory. He may, or he may not, 
 correctly translate the astral experiences in the phys- 
 ical brain. He may study the phenomena and he 
 may steadily extend the horizon of his consciousness; 
 but since he cannot positively know whether his 
 memory of a premonition is accurate until the event 
 
HOW TO REMEMBER DREAMS 113 
 
 has occurred, it is obvious that he can only use it 
 for what it may be worth as a suggestion. 
 
 An extended discussion of the details of the dream 
 state is beyond the limits of this little volume but 
 there is one characteristic error of translation that 
 deserves attention. The dreamer, by sympathetic 
 association, often merges his consciousness with that 
 of another whom he is observing. Let us say that 
 while in the dream state he sees an accident. A 
 switchman is run down by a locomotive and an arm 
 is cut off. The dreamer upon awakening recalls the 
 scene with himself as chief actor in the accident and, 
 as he remembers it, his own arm was severed. This 
 sympathetic substitution is one of the well established 
 points in dream translation and the student of the sub- 
 ject often finds corroboration of the fact in the public 
 prints. A case in point is the dream of Mrs. Anderson 
 mentioned in Chapter III. Only brief reference is 
 there made to it but the press reports at the time 
 quoted Mrs. Anderson as saying, "On Thursday 
 morning I had that awful dream. I dreamed w r e were 
 arguing over papers and I thought I was his wife 
 and would not sign. Then he grabbed me, raised 
 his hand and struck me with a knife." Such substitu- 
 tion seems to be common with untrained observers. 
 One may possibly dream of seeing himself in his own 
 coffin, only because he has in reality seen the funeral 
 of another. Only when he becomes skillful in bring- 
 ing the memory of his astral experiences through 
 into the waking state can he be certain that no errors 
 are involved. 
 
114 DREAMS AND PREMONITIONS 
 
 The element of time is also a cause of confusion. 
 When one has a premonition there is often not the 
 slightest clue to indicate exactly when the event 
 may be expected to occur. This may very possibly 
 be because only fragments of the vision have been 
 brought through into the brain memory. But what- 
 ever the cause the fact remains that the event fore- 
 seen may occur the next day or may perhaps be far 
 in the future. It is therefore often impossible to base 
 any action upon the information. Such fragmentary 
 and indefinite information is in the same class with the 
 forecast of the future so commonly furnished by the 
 untrained clairvoyant or psychic. It may contain 
 some truth and yet be absolutely inadequate as a 
 basis of action. The point may be illustrated by the 
 experience of one of my friends. He was told that 
 there was a very desirable position for him at the 
 state capitol which he was to fill. This information 
 came to him at a time when his fortunes were at 
 low tide and he was much in need, not so much of 
 "a very desirable position," as of any employment at 
 all that might be secured. Filled with new hope he 
 borrowed a sufficient sum of money for the long 
 journey, went to the capitol building and exhausted 
 every possibility that would lead to the fulfillment of 
 the prophecy. The result was failure and bitter dis- 
 appointment. Several years later he was caught up 
 in a popular political movement and was elected 
 lieutenant-governor of the state. He then went to 
 the capitol building for a term of office and the vision 
 of the clairvoyant was justified by the fact. 
 
HOW TO REMEMBER DREAMS 115 
 
 Among the similar cases that have come under 
 my observation is that of a mining prospector and 
 his partner who were told that great wealth was 
 ahead of them and they went rejoicing to their 
 work. Years of the most commonplace experience 
 followed in which, like thousands of other gold 
 seekers, they managed barely to exist. Finally one of 
 them became discouraged and disgusted and aban- 
 doned the enterprise. The other man leased and 
 worked small claims for several more years when, 
 quite unexpectedly, a "pocket" was uncovered and he 
 retired with considerable wealth. Whether or not 
 the clairvoyant really foresaw this denouement the 
 information, as in the instance above given, was 
 misleading and worthless. Thousands of people are 
 continually following the advise of pseudo-psychics 
 to their sorrow, quite overlooking the fact that, 
 although the predictions may often contain some 
 truth, physical affairs cannot usually be directed by 
 them. And precisely so it is with dreams. Their 
 utility lies chiefly in the fact that they disclose to 
 us the real nature of human consciousness. They 
 sometimes give a useful warning, and often furnish 
 much consolation, but, because it is usually impossible 
 for the average person to bring them through into 
 the waking consciousness with accuracy, they can be 
 profitably acted upon only when due allowance has 
 been made for their limitations. 
 
CHAPTER VIII 
 
 Dreams of the Dead 
 
 Perhaps there is no direction in which the correct 
 understanding of dreams can prove so useful as in 
 relation to our departed friends. Anything that can 
 in some degree lessen the sorrow caused by their 
 absence is certainly worthy of careful study. 
 
 As a matter of fact the so-called dead are not 
 dead at all, but they are none the less separated from 
 the living or, to put it more accurately, the living 
 are separated from their departed friends; but only 
 because, during the waking hours the consciousness 
 is confined to the physical brain, which is both its 
 instrument and its limitation. During the waking- 
 hours the human being is functioning through his 
 astral body plus his physical body, the latter being 
 surrounded and interpenetrated by the matter of the 
 former. When he falls asleep the dense body is left 
 behind. He is then functioning through his astral 
 body, which is whal: the miscalled dead are also 
 doing. The living and the "dead" are, therefore, 
 again together. If, fortunately, the bereaved person 
 remembers it in the morning, he thinks he has had a 
 dream. 
 
 Now, since dreams are ot two kinds — memories 
 of astral experiences and memories of impressions 
 
118 DREAMS AND PREMONITIONS 
 
 caused by the automatic activity of the physical brain 
 and its etheric counterpart — this memory of the de- 
 parted may be either the one or the other. If the 
 cause of the dream is the brain pictures, they are 
 likely to be related to scenes through which the 
 dreamer has recently passed, possibly the events of 
 the last days of the departed. If the dream is the 
 memory of an astral experience, a visit to the 
 departed — it is likely to be more vivid and realistic. 
 In such a case the experience is life-like, the time 
 passes joyously and the dreamer often awakens with 
 a feeling of blissful exaltation, for he has really been 
 with the loved one and the joy he has felt is reflected 
 in the waking consciousness. Unfortunately, with 
 the person, who does not understand the facts as 
 they are, this uplifting emotion is immediately 
 quenched by the gloomy belief that it is all a phantasy 
 of the brain. 
 
 This belief is unfortunate for more than one 
 reason. It prevents the dreamer cultivating the art 
 of bringing the memory of such association more 
 fully into the waking state, while the depression of 
 the bereaved person acts disastrously upon the one 
 who is mourned as dead and lost. It is, of course, 
 natural that the belief that one is separated from 
 those he loves for the remainder of this life should 
 cause great sorrow. If the fact were known that the 
 separation is only on the part of the one who remains 
 behind, and that that is confined to the hours of 
 waking consciousness, the grief would be greatly 
 modified. To know that whether we remember it or 
 
DREAMS OF THE DEAD 119 
 
 not, whether we dream or do not dream, we are 
 always with the departed during the hours of sleep, 
 if there is an attracting tie of love between us, would 
 soon bring permanent serenity instead of the hope- 
 less despair that is so common and so unfortunate 
 for everybody concerned. Depressing emotions are 
 bad enough for the living but very much worse for 
 those for whom they mourn. As the physical body 
 is the instrument of action, the astral body is the 
 vehicle of emotion. In the waking state an emotion 
 arises in the astral body and passes outward into the 
 physical mechanism, a large percentage of its energy 
 being exhausted in setting the physical particles in 
 motion. Consequently emotions are very much 
 keener in the astral life than in the physical. It is 
 no exaggeration to say that a given cause will pro- 
 duce a very great deal more of either joy or sorrow 
 in the astral life than in the physical. Therefore 
 when bereaved people give way to unrestrained 
 sorrow and despair they are doing the worst thing 
 possible for their departed friends. 
 
 We have only to reflect upon the fact that we are 
 all more or less affected by the elation and the de- 
 pression of people about us to understand that emo- 
 tions are contagious. Persons who habitually indulge 
 that form of depression commonly knoAvn as "the 
 blues" are injuriously affecting all who come near 
 them in proportion to the sensitiveness of their 
 victims. Life may thus be made quite miserable for 
 those who are extremely sensitive. Multiply that 
 effect many times and it will give some idea of the 
 
120 DREAMS AND PREMONITIONS 
 
 disastrous results to their "dead" friends of the grief 
 and despair of which they are the helpless cause. 
 Such mourning, in the last analysis, is not on account 
 of any fate that awaits them but is caused by our sense 
 of personal loss; and when we reflect upon the fact that 
 such grief on our part brings still greater sorrow to them 
 the value of a knowledge of the facts becomes apparent. 
 
 There is but one sensible attitude to assume 
 toward those who have passed on. We should think 
 of them as cheerfully as possible and never with 
 longing regret and the desire that they should be 
 with us again. They are with us every night that we 
 sleep and a little patient consideration of that fact 
 will be likely to bring to most people an increasing 
 serenity and joy. 
 
 If people were better able to bring accurate 
 memories of astral experiences into the waking life 
 it would no doubt often be of the greatest satisfaction 
 to those who have passed over to the other life as 
 well as to the dreamer. There are a number of cases 
 on record in which those who have passed on sud- 
 denly, without leaving full information about their 
 affairs behind them, have endeavored for a long time 
 to pass such knowledge back before they succeeded. 
 Who shall say how many never succeed at all ? The 
 Reeves Snyder case and the Moore case, in Chapter 
 III, are examples of the recovery of valuables which, 
 especially in the Moore case* would probably have 
 been forever lost to the surviving relatives but for 
 the fortunate dream. It was more than two years 
 
DREAMS OF THE DEAD 121 
 
 after the death of Mr. Moore that the buried coin 
 was recovered. Who can guess how long he had been 
 endeavoring to reveal the hiding place of the little 
 fortune to his wife and what he suffered by the long 
 delay, and the fear that his failure to impart the 
 information at the time the money was secreted 
 might be the cause of continued poverty? 
 
 Very much of the heartache caused by death 
 would disappear if the truth about the "dead" were 
 known and the facts about sleep and dreams were 
 understood. The least that we can do for our part 
 is to recognize the relationship that exists in conscious- 
 ness between our departed friends and ourselves and, 
 by study of the facts and by serious efforts at the 
 control of the mind and the emotions, bring about 
 the conditions that will enable us to get much 
 consolation from the truth instead of remaining 
 ignorant of it. 
 
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