This mysterious perception of scenes and events which, after perhaps years, come before the dreamer or enter into his life, is supported by ample testimony.
In the Spiritual Magazine, 1871, the author, speaking of this dream, gives further curious details:
“In a vision at sea, some thousand miles from Melbourne, I not only clearly saw my brother’s home and the landscape around it, but also saw things in direct opposition to news received before leaving England. It was said that all the men were gone to the gold-fields, and that even the Governor and Chief-Justice had no men-servants left. But I now saw abundance of men in the streets of Melbourne, and many sitting on doorsteps asking employment.... When in the street before my brother’s house, we saw swarms of men, and some actually sitting on steps, seeking work. All was so exactly as I had described, that great was the astonishment of my companions.”
If we were to regard sleep, after the common usage, as a simple state, dreams, visions, thought transference, and the appearance of a person while living at a distance, become a mass of irreconcilable details. But this is a wholly erroneous view of the character of sleep. It is one of the most complex and changeful conditions, ranging from the disturbed doze of the overweary, to the most sensitive clairvoyance. It will be seen that many of the so-called dreams are really visions received in a more sensitive condition than is furnished during the waking hours.
Dreams.
Sensitiveness During Sleep.—There are dreams and dreams. When greatly fatigued, mentally or physically, the partially awakened faculties often become impressed with strangely distorted thoughts. Then there are the terrible dreams from indigestion, the peculiar interpretations of bodily discomfort, as dreams of frosts and snows, when chilled during sleep, or of burning forests when over-heated. Galen gives examples of such dreams in the case of a man who dreamed that his right leg was turned to stone, and soon after lost the use of it by palsy; and another patient who dreamed that he was in a vessel filled with blood, which the physician accepted as a sign that the man ought to be bled, by which a serious disease under which he labored was cured.
In perfect sleep dreams do not occur, because all the mental faculties are dormant. The conjecture that the mind always dreams, but fails to remember, is not true. A hearty supper, by inducing indigestion, is a prolific cause of bad dreams.
Derangement of the perfect correlation of the mental faculties, in sickness or the weakness of age, is a frequent cause of the wildest and most incoherent visions. All these causes may be well considered, and after their influences have been eliminated, there remains an order distinct and inexplicable by known causes. The dreamer may not be sensitive to psychic influences while awake, but during sleep may become exceedingly so. Night favors sensitiveness because of its negative influence. All nervous diseases are aggravated by the coming of twilight, and midnight is the hour when the most perfect negativeness is reached, as high noon is that of extreme positiveness.
It would be an easy task to fill volumes with dreams that have been received as premonitions of future events, or forecasts of desired information, which was otherwise impossible to obtain. I do not desire to crowd these pages with any more than will serve to illustrate the various characters of the true psychic dream, and show how the extra sensitiveness acquired in sleep explains this subject. It is misleading, however, to employ the word sleep in this connection, for in sound sleep there is dreamless rest. Sleep is the repose of the faculties, and impressions are not recognized. The peculiar condition in which these dreams occur, is mistaken for sleep, but is nearer trance. The silence of the night and its soothing negative quality, enhances this state, and impressions are borne into the receptive mind on the psycho-ether. Dreams that reach into the future and foretell events concealed from human ken, and which no reasoning or forethought can predict, are of interest as revealing glimpses of a new field of thought—that of prophecy.