On the following morning Miss L—— learned that her aunt had died in the night. The brother died some little time afterward.
A gentleman who had been a short time visiting Edinburgh, was troubled with a cough, which, though it occasioned him no alarm, he resolved to go home to nurse. On the first night of his arrival he dreamed that one half of the house was blown away. His bailiff, who resided at a distance, dreamed the same dream on the same night. The gentleman died within a few weeks.
“This symbolical language, which the Deity appears to have used” (witness Peter’s dream, Acts ii., and others) “in all his revelations to man, is in the highest degree, what poetry is in a lower, and the language of dreams, in the lowest, namely, the original natural language of man; and we may fairly ask whether this language, which here plays an inferior part, be not, possibly, the proper language of a higher sphere, while we, who vainly think ourselves awake, are, in reality, buried in a deep, deep sleep, in which, like dreamers who imperfectly hear the voices of those around them, we occasionally apprehend, though obscurely, a few words of this divine tongue.” (Vide Schubert.)
This subject of sleeping and waking is a very curious one, and might give rise to strange questionings. In the case of those patients abovementioned, who seem to have two different spheres of existence, who shall say which is the waking one, or whether either of them be so? The speculations of Mr. Dove on this subject merited more attention, I think, than they met with when he lectured in Edinburgh. He maintained that, long before he had paid any attention to magnetism, he had arrived at the conclusion that there are as many states or conditions of mind beyond sleep as there are on this side of it; passing through the different stages of dreaming, revery, contemplation, &c., up to perfect vigilance. However this be, in this world of appearance, where we see nothing as it is, and where, both as regards our moral and physical relations, we live in a state of continual delusion, it is impossible for us to pronounce on this question. It is a common remark, that some people seem to live in a dream, and never to be quite awake; and the most cursory observer can not fail to have been struck with examples of persons in this condition, especially in the aged.
With respect to this allegorical language, Ennemoser observes, that, “since no dreamer learns it of another, and still less from those who are awake, it must be natural to all men.” How different too, is its comprehensiveness and rapidity, to our ordinary language! We are accustomed, and with justice, to wonder at the admirable mechanism by which, without fatigue or exertion, we communicate with our fellow-beings; but how slow and ineffectual is human speech compared to this spiritual picture-language, where a whole history is understood at a glance! and scenes that seem to occupy days and weeks, are acted out in ten minutes. It is remarkable that this hieroglyphic language appears to be the same among all people; and that the dream-interpreters of all countries construe the signs alike. Thus, the dreaming of deep water denotes trouble, and pearls are a sign of tears.
I have heard of a lady who, whenever a misfortune was impending, dreamed that she saw a large fish. One night she dreamed that this fish had bitten two of her little boy’s fingers. Immediately afterward a schoolfellow of the child’s injured those two very fingers by striking him with a hatchet; and I have met with several persons who have learned, by experience, to consider one particular dream as the certain prognostic of misfortune.
A lady who had left the West Indies when six years old, came one night, fourteen years afterward, to her sister’s bedside, and said, “I know uncle is dead. I have dreamed that I saw a number of slaves in the large store-room at Barbadoes, with long brooms, sweeping down immense cobwebs. I complained to my aunt, and she covered her face and said, ‘Yes, he is no sooner gone than they disobey him.’ ” It was afterward ascertained that Mr. P—— had died on that night, and that he had never permitted the cobwebs in this room to be swept away, of which, however, the lady assures me she knew nothing; nor could she or her friends conceive what was meant by the symbol of the cobwebs, till they received the explanation subsequently from a member of the family.
The following very curious allegorical dream I give, not in the words of the dreamer, but in those of her son, who bears a name destined, I trust, to a long immortality:—
“Wooer’s Abbey-Cottage, Dunfermline-in-the-Woods, }
“Monday morning, 31st May, 1847. }