“I woke with a start, feeling I had a hard blow on my mouth, and a distinct sense that I had been cut under my upper lip, and held my handkerchief to the part as I sat up in bed, and after a few seconds, when I removed it, I was astonished not to see any blood, and only then realized that it was impossible that anything could have struck me, and so I thought it was only a dream. I looked at my watch and saw it was seven, and finding Arthur (my husband) was not in the room, I concluded he had gone out on the lake for a sail as it was fine.
“At breakfast (half-past nine) Arthur came in rather late, and I noticed he rather purposely sat farther away from me than usual, and put his handkerchief to his lip in the way I had done. I said: ‘Arthur, why are you doing that? I know you have hurt yourself; but I’ll tell you why afterwards.’ He said: ‘Well, when I was sailing, a sudden squall came, throwing the tiller suddenly around, and it struck me a hard blow in the mouth under the upper lip and it has been bleeding a good deal and won’t stop.’ I then asked: ‘At what time did it happen?’ He answered: ‘It must have been about seven o’clock.’ I then told what had happened to me, much to his surprise and all who were at the table.”
Rev. J. M. Wilson, head master of Clifton College (in J. S. P. R., March, 1884), presents a fact which, while admitting of telegraphic explanation, may be referred to a higher source:
“I was at Cambridge at the end of my second term in full health, boating, football playing, and the like, and by no means subject to hallucinations or morbid fancies. One evening I felt very ill, trembling with no apparent cause; nor did it seem to me at the time to be a physical illness, or chill of any kind. I was frightened; I was totally unable to overcome it. I remember a struggle with myself, resolving that I would go on with my mathematics, but it was in vain. I became convinced that I was dying. I went down to the room of a friend, who was on the same staircase. He exclaimed at me before I spoke. He pulled out a whisky bottle and backgammon board, but I could not face it. We sat over the fire, and he brought some one else to look at me. Toward eleven, after some three hours, I got better, went to bed and after a time to sleep, and next morning was quite well. In the afternoon came a letter stating that my twin brother had died the evening before in Lincolnshire.”
Rev. Canon Warburton, Winchester, England (J. S. P. R., May 1884), relates the following, which is of interest as an example of transference of thought and of sensation:
“I went from Oxford to stay a day or two with my brother, then a barrister at 10 Fish Street, Lincoln’s Inn. When I reached his chambers I found a note on the table apologizing for his absence, and saying he had gone to a dance, and intended to be at 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 the drawing room into the brightly illuminated landing, catching his foot in the edge of the top stair and falling head-long, just saving himself by his elbows and hands. (The house was one I had never seen, and I did not know where he was.) I again fell adoze for half an hour, and was awakened by my brother suddenly coming in and saying: ‘Ah! 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 stairs.’”
The following is vouched for by Miss Millicent Ann Page, sister of the Rev. A. Shaw Page, Vicar of Lesly, England, to whom it was related by Mrs. Elizabeth Broughton, Edinburgh:
“Mrs. Broughton aroused her husband, telling him something dreadful had happened in France. He begged her to go asleep again. She assured him that she was not asleep when she saw what she insisted in then telling him. First, a carriage accident, which she did not see, but she saw the result: a broken carriage, collected crowd, a figure gently raised and carried into the nearest house, and then a figure lying on the bed, which she recognized as the Duke of Orleans. Gradually friends collected around the bed, among them several members of the royal family—the Queen, then the King—all tearfully, silently watching the dying Duke. One man, she could see his back, but did not know who he was, was a doctor. He stood bending over the Duke, feeling his pulse with his watch in his other hand. Then all passed away. In the morning she wrote down in her journal all she had seen. It was before the days of the telegraph, and two or more days passed before the Times announced the death of the Duke of Orleans.
“A short time after, she visited Paris, recognized the place of the accident, and received an explanation of her impression. The doctor who attended the Duke was an old friend of hers; and as he watched by the bed he said his mind was constantly occupied with her and her family. The reason, therefor, was the remarkable likeness between the members of her family and those of the royal family then present. ‘I spoke of you and yours when I reached home, and thought of you many times that evening,’ said the doctor. ‘The likeness between yourself and the royal family was never so strong. Here was a link between us, you see.’”
Certain dreams may be explained by thought-transference, which is liable to take place during the varying moods of slumber as while awake. Rev. J. C. Learned writes (J. S. P. R.): “It was in 1883 that I took charge of the Unitarian Church in Exeter, N. H. Five miles away, Rev. A. M. Bridge was preaching at Hampton Falls, with whom I sometimes exchanged pulpits. After a year or so he gave up the work in this little parish, and somewhat later entered upon an engagement in the town of East Marshfield, Mass., as the railroad runs, eighty miles from Exeter.