The lady had died during that night; and it was subsequently ascertained, that the circumstances delineated in the dream, simulated those which had occurred by the death-bed.
What are the circumstances of this case?—A mother dangerously ill—her children away from home. What more likely to occur to a child cognisant of these facts, than the train of thought which engendered and caused this dream? The events attending a death-bed scene under such circumstances were all but inevitable, and we cannot, justifiably, consider this case in any other light than that of a "simple coincidence."
Many physiologists and metaphysicians are of opinion, and there is much ground for the belief, that every sensation which has been actually experienced, may become the subject of perception at some future time, although, in the interval, all trace of its existence may have been lost, and it is beyond the power of the will to recall.
The phenomena upon which this opinion has been principally founded, have been observed in the delirium of certain febrile diseases, and in dreaming.
There is a case on record of a woman, who, during the delirium of fever, repeated long passages in the Hebrew and Chaldaic tongues. When in health she was perfectly ignorant of these languages; and it was ascertained, that the sentences she spoke in her delirium, were correct passages from known writers in them. It was subsequently discovered, that at one period of her life she had lived with a clergyman who was in the habit of walking up and down the passage, reading aloud from Hebrew and Chaldaic works, and it was the sensations thus derived, and retained unconsciously to herself, which had been revivified by the changes induced during the progress of the fever.
A case is also recorded by Dr. Abercrombie, in which a servant-girl who had manifested no "ear" for, or pleasure in music, during sleep was heard to imitate the sounds of a violin, even the tuning, and to perform most complicated and difficult pieces of music. This girl had slept for some time, and much to her annoyance, in a room adjoining that occupied by an itinerant violinist who was somewhat of an enthusiast in his art, and was accustomed to spend a portion of the night in practising difficult pieces of music, often preventing this female from sleeping. The music she had thus heard, registered in the mind, so to speak, was repeated, unconsciously, during the disturbed action of the brain consequent upon imperfect health and dreaming.
The principle which has been deduced from these and similar cases, gives a ready explanation to numerous stories which it has been customary to regard as coming within the pale of the supernatural.
Those instances in which, during a dream, the places in which documents of value, which had been lost or misplaced, have been revealed, are examples of revivified sensations which had been lost sight of, and of which the return had been determined by the protracted exercise of the mind to recover the missing traces.
Sir Walter Scott, in his notes to "The Antiquary," relates the following highly interesting illustration:—
"Mr. R——d, of Bowland, a gentleman of landed property in the vale of Gala, was prosecuted for a very considerable sum, the accumulated arrears of tiend (or tithe), for which he was said to be indebted to a noble family, the titulars (lay improprietors of the tithes). Mr. R——d was strongly impressed with the belief, that his father had, by a form of process peculiar to the law of Scotland, purchased those lands from the titular; and therefore, that the present prosecution was groundless. But after an industrious search among his father's papers, an investigation of the public records, and a careful inquiry among all persons who had transacted law business for his father, no evidence could be recovered to support his defence. The period was now near at hand, when he conceived the loss of the lawsuit to be inevitable, and he had formed his determination to ride to Edinburgh next day, and make the best bargain he could in the way of compromise. He even went to bed with this resolution, and with all the circumstances of the case floating upon his mind, had a dream to the following purpose.