The Night-Side of Nature; Or, Ghosts and Ghost-Seers

by Catherine Crowe

In the histories of the Old Testament we constantly find instances of prophetic dreaming, and the voice of God was chiefly heard by the prophets in sleep; seeming to establish that man is in that state more susceptible of spiritual communion, although the being thus made the special organ of the Divine will, is altogether a different thing from the mere disfranchisement of the embodied spirit in ordinary cases of clear seeing in sleep. Profane history, also, furnishes us with various instances of prophetic dreaming, which it is unnecessary for me to refer to here. But there is one thing very worthy of remark, namely, that the allegorical character of many of the dreams recorded in the Old Testament, occasionally pervades those of the present day. I have heard of several of this nature, and Oberlin, the good pastor of Ban de la Roche, was so subject to them, that he fancied he had acquired the art of interpreting the symbols. This characteristic of dreaming is in strict conformity with the language of the Old Testament, and of the most ancient nations. Poets and prophets, heathen and Christian, alike express themselves symbolically, and, if we believe that this language prevailed in the early ages of the world, before the external and intellectual life had predominated over the instinctive and emotional, we must conclude it to be the natural language of man, who must, therefore, have been gifted with a conformable faculty of comprehending these hieroglyphics; and hence it arose that the interpreting of dreams became a legitimate art. Long after these instinctive faculties were lost, or rather obscured, by the turmoil and distractions of sensuous life, the memories and traditions of them remained, and hence the superstructure of jugglery and imposture that ensued, of which the gipsies form a signal example, in whom, however, there can be no doubt that some occasional gleams of this original endowment may still be found, as is the case, though more rarely, in individuals of all races and conditions. The whole of nature is one large book of symbols, which, because we have lost the key to it, we can not decipher. “To the first man,” says Hamann, “whatever his ear heard, his eye saw, or his hand touched, was a living word; with this word in his heart and in his mouth, the formation of language was easy. Man saw things in their essence and properties, and named them accordingly.”

There can be no doubt that the heathen forms of worship and systems of religion were but the external symbols of some deep meanings, and not the idle fables that they have been too frequently considered; and it is absurd to suppose that the theology which satisfied so many great minds had no better foundation than a child’s fairy tale.

A maid-servant, who resided many years in a distinguished family in Edinburgh, was repeatedly warned of the approaching death of certain members of that family, by dreaming that one of the walls of the house had fallen. Shortly before the head of the family sickened and died, she said she had dreamed that the main wall had fallen.

A singular circumstance which occurred in this same family, from a member of which I heard it, is mentioned by Dr. Abercrombie. On this occasion the dream was not only prophetic, but the symbol was actually translated into fact.

One of the sons being indisposed with a sore throat, a sister dreamed that a watch, of considerable value, which she had borrowed from a friend, had stopped; that she had awakened another sister and mentioned the circumstance, who answered that “something much worse had happened, for Charles’s breath had stopped.” She then awoke, in extreme alarm, and mentioned the dream to her sister, who, to tranquillize her mind, arose and went to the brother’s room, where she found him asleep and the watch going. The next night the same dream recurred, and the brother was again found asleep and the watch going. On the following morning, however, this lady was writing a note in the drawing-room, with the watch beside her, when, on taking it up, she perceived it had stopped; and she was just on the point of calling her sister to mention the circumstance, when she heard a scream from her brother’s room, and the sister rushed in with the tidings that he had just expired. The malady had not been thought serious; but a sudden fit of suffocation had unexpectedly proved fatal.

This case, which is established beyond all controversy, is extremely curious in many points of view; the acting out of the symbol, especially. Symbolical events of this description have been often related, and as often laughed at. It is easy to laugh at what we do not understand; and it gives us the advantage of making the timid narrator ashamed of his fact, so that if he do not wholly suppress it, he at least insures himself by laughing, too, the next time he relates it. It is said that Goethe’s clock stopped the moment he died; and I have heard repeated instances of this strange kind of synchronism, or magnetism, if it be by magnetism that we are to account for the mystery. One was told me very lately by a gentleman to whom the circumstances occurred.

On the 16th of August, 1769, Frederick II., of Prussia, is said to have dreamed that a star fell from heaven and occasioned such an extraordinary glare that he could with great difficulty find his way through it. He mentioned the dream to his attendants, and it was afterward observed that it was on that day Napoleon was born.

A lady, not long since, related to me the following circumstance: Her mother, who was at the time residing in Edinburgh, in a house one side of which looked into a wynd, while the door was in the High street, dreamed that, it being Sunday morning, she had heard a sound which attracted her to the window; and, while looking out, had dropped a ring from her finger into the wynd below; that she had, thereupon, gone down in her night-clothes to seek it, but when she reached the spot it was not to be found. Returning, extremely vexed at her loss, as she re-entered her own door she met a respectable looking young man, carrying some loaves of bread. On expressing her astonishment at finding a stranger there at so unseasonable an hour, he answered by expressing his at seeing her in such a situation. She said she had dropped her ring, and had been round the corner to seek it; whereupon, to her delighted surprise, he presented her with her lost treasure. Some months afterward, being at a party, she recognized the young man seen in her dream, and learned that he was a baker. He took no particular notice of her on that occasion; and, I think, two years elapsed before she met him again. This second meeting, however, led to an acquaintance, which terminated in marriage.

Here the ring and the bread are curiously emblematic of the marriage, and the occupation of the future husband.

Miss L⁠——, residing at Dalkeith, dreamed that her brother, who was ill, called her to his bedside and gave her a letter, which he desired her to carry to their aunt, Mrs. H⁠——, with the request that she would “deliver it to John.” (John was another brother, who had died previously, and Mrs. H⁠—— was at the time ill.) He added that “he himself was going there also, but that Mrs. H⁠—— would be there before him.” Accordingly, Miss L⁠—— went, in her dream, with the letter to Mrs. H⁠——, whom she found dressed in white, and looking quite radiant and happy. She took the letter, saying she was going there directly, and would deliver it.