THOUGHT-TRANSFERENCE IN DREAMS.
The following interesting letter appeared in The Phrenological Magazine (p. 260, April, 1890), and as I know of the bona-fides of the writer, I have much pleasure in reproducing it:—
“Dear Sir,—This morning, at a little before four o’clock, I awoke as the outcome of great mental distress and grief through which I had just passed in a dream, my body trembling and in a cold perspiration. I had been walking with my little boy, aged five and a half years, and some friends. A heavy rain overtaking us, we stood up for shelter; and venturing forth into a maze of streets, I missed my two friends, who, threading among the people, had turned into a side street without my noticing. Looking for them, my boy slipped from me, and was lost in the crowd. I became bewildered by the strange labyrinth of streets and turnings, and quickly taking one of them which gave an elevated position, I looked down on the many windings, but could nowhere see my boy. It was to me an unknown locality, and, running down among the people, I was soon sobbing aloud in my distress, and calling out the name of the child, when I awoke. With wakefulness came a sense of relief and thankfulness. Gladly realising that the whole was only a dream, and still scarcely awake, I was startled by a cry of terror and pain from an adjoining bedroom—such a cry as could not be left unheeded. It came from the same child, and pierced me with a distinct sense of pain. I was immediately by his side. My voice calmed him. ‘I thought I was lost’ was all he could say, and doubtless he was soon composed and asleep again. To me the coincidence was too remarkable and without parallel in my own experience. Later on, at breakfast, the child gave further his dream that he had been out with me and was lost. I am only familiar with such things in my reading. Mr. Coates’s article in last month’s Phrenological Magazine (page 143) mentions that, ‘when the Prince Imperial died from assegai thrusts in Zululand, his mother in England felt the intensity of his thoughts at the time, felt the savage lance pierce her own side, and knew or felt at the time that she was childless.’ But I am not of the spirituelle type, with only a thin parchment separation between this life of realities and the great beyond, of those who, privileged to live in close touch with the future, are the subjects of premonitions and warnings. My spirituality 4 to 5 and reflectives 6 point rather the other way, but I shall, nevertheless, hold tight to the lad. What is the underlying cause of the coincidence? Which of the two minds influenced the other, if either?—Yours truly,
“G. Cox.
“16 Bramfield Road,
Wandsworth Common, April 20, 1890.”
In this case of thought-transference, I am inclined to the opinion that the father’s mind influenced that of the boy, the son being the more sensitive of the two. Mr. Cox dreamt an ordinary but pretty vivid dream, which aroused from its nature vivid and intense anxiety on his part. A similar train of thought was awakened in the child. If thought-transference occurs in waking life, why not in sleep, when, as abundant telepathic instances testify, the phenomenon is of most frequent occurrence.