Before any supernormal theory, we must admit the possibility of a normal communication, however far-fetched it may seem. In each of the instances about to be related the fact of the dream was either recorded by the dreamer or related to a friend before the fact of any coincidence was suspected.
One of the best-known cases is that of Canon Warburton, who writes:
"Somewhere about the year 1848 I went up from Oxford to spend a day or two with my brother, Acton Warburton, then a barrister, living at 10 Fish Street, Lincoln's Inn. When I got to his chambers I found a note on the table apologising for his absence, and saying that he had gone to a dance somewhere in the West End, and intended to be home soon after one o'clock. Instead of going to bed I dozed in an arm-chair, but started up wide awake exactly at one, ejaculating: 'By Jove! he's down!' and seeing him coming out of a drawing-room into a brightly illuminated landing, catching his foot in the edge of the top stair, and falling headlong, just saving himself by his elbows and hands. (The house was one which I have never seen, nor did I know where it was.) Thinking very little of the matter, I fell a-doze again for half-an-hour and was awakened by my brother suddenly coming in and saying, 'Oh, there you are! I have just had as narrow an escape of breaking my neck as I ever had in my life. Coming out of the ballroom I caught my foot, and tumbled full-length down the stairs.'
"That is all. It may have been 'only a dream,' but I always thought it must have been something more."
A member of the Society for Psychical Research narrates that on 7th October 1900 he woke abruptly in the small hours of the morning with a painful conviction upon him that his wife, who was that night sleeping in another part of the house, had burst a varicose vein in the calf of her leg, and that he could feel the swelled place three inches long:
"I wondered whether I ought to get up and go down to her room on the first floor, and considered whether she would be able to come up to me; but I was only partly awake, though in acute distress. My mind had been suddenly roused, but my body was still under the lethargy of sleep. I argued with myself that there was sure to be nothing in it, that I should only disturb her, and so shortly went off to sleep again.
"On going to her room this morning I said I had had a horrid dream, which had woke me up, to the effect that she had burst a varicose vein, of which just now care has to be taken. 'Why,' she replied, 'I had just the same experience. I woke up at 2.15, feeling sure the calf of my leg was bleeding, and my hand seemed to feel it when I put it there. I turned on the light in alarm, noticing the time, and wondered if I should be able to get up to thee, or whether I should have to wake the housekeeper. Thou wast in the dream out of which I woke, examining the place.'
"Though I did not note the hour, two o'clock is about the time I should have guessed it to be; and the impression on my mind was vivid and terrible, knowing how dangerous such an accident would be."
The foregoing is thus corroborated by the lady:
"I felt twinges of pain in my leg off and on in my sleep without being entirely roused till about 2.15 A.M. Then, or just before, I dreamt or had a vivid impression that a vein had burst, and that my husband, who was sleeping in another room up another flight of stairs, was there and called my attention to it. I thought it felt wet, and trickling down the leg as if bleeding, passed my hand down, and at first thought it seemed wet; but on gaining fuller consciousness found it all right, and that it was not more painful than often when I got out and stood on it. Thought over the contingency of its actually bursting, and whether I could so bandage it in that case as to make it safe to go up to my husband's room, and thought I could do so.
"Looking at my watch, found it about 2.20."
As to dreams in which a death occurs there is a vast mass of testimony. The late Dr Hodgson, on 19th July 1897, received the following letter:—
"Dear Hodgson,—Five minutes ago Mr J. F. Morse, who has all his life had dreams which were more or less verified later, came to my room and said: 'I believe my wife died last night, for I had a dream of a most remarkable nature which indicates it. I shall be able to let you know soon, for I shall get word at my office when I reach there. I will then send you word.' His wife is in a country place in Delaware Co. Pa. She is ill, but he had no idea she would not live for months, as the enclosed letter of July 15th will show; but she was ill, and would be likely to decline slowly and gradually. I will get this off or in the mail before I hear any more.
"Mr Morse in his appearance looks like one who had just lost a dear friend, and is in a state of great mental depression, with tears in his eyes....
"M. L. Holbrook."