Telepathy and the Subliminal Self

by R. Osgood Mason

“Singular coincidence! Yet, when one reflects on the vast number of dreams which night after night pass through our brains, the number of coincidences between the vision and the event are perhaps fewer and less remarkable than a fair calculation of chances would warrant us to expect. Nor is it surprising, considering the variety of thoughts in sleep, and that they all bear some analogy to the affairs of life, that a dream should sometimes coincide with a contemporaneous, or even with a future, event. This is not much more wonderful than that a person whom we have had no reason to expect should appear to us at the very moment we have been thinking or speaking of him. So common is this, that it has for ages grown into the proverb, ‘Speak of the devil.’ I believe every such seeming miracle is, like every ghost story, capable of explanation.”

I have introduced in full Lord Brougham’s statement of the case and his method of reasoning upon it; let us for a moment analyze each.

I have also introduced Harriet Hosmer’s experience along with that of Lord Brougham, because they are both notable persons whose evidence regarding matters of fact could not be impugned, and whose strength of character, honesty of purpose, and knowledge of affairs enables us to throw out of account any idea of imposture or self-deception in either case. These cases, then, must be received as having actually occurred as related; and being so received they render all the more credible other cases reported by persons less well known.

What was the character of the apparitions or appearances which were presented; were they, properly speaking, dreams? In Miss Hosmer’s statement she stoutly affirms that she was awake, and she gives good reasons for so believing, namely, before she saw anything, but only felt that some one was in the room, she awoke from a sound sleep; she reasoned with herself regarding the possibility of any one getting into the room; she called out: “Who’s there?” She saw the furniture, heard the clock strike, and counted five; and in another account which I also have, she heard the familiar noises about the house of servants at their usual work, and she resolved to get up. All this before she saw anything unusual; then turning her head she saw Rosa. Clearly this was not a dream but a vision occurring possibly in a condition of reverie.

Taking up Lord Brougham’s case: in simply recording the facts in his diary he speaks of his experience as a vision and the idea that it was a dream was evidently an after-thought. He was enjoying the heat; he was about to get out of the bath; he turned his head. He describes the sensations and actions of a man who is awake, or certainly not in a condition to have dreams disconnected with his actual surroundings. After all this, looking toward the chair upon which he had deposited his clothes—still a part of his surroundings, of which he was perfectly conscious—he saw G. on the chair looking calmly at him.

Now to have dreamt of G., his old school-fellow and friend, looking calmly at him, would not have been anything shocking nor even surprising; it would not have been even uncommon among dreams—it would have been nothing out of the ordinary course of nature. Dreams seldom shock or even surprise us—surely not unless there is something intrinsically shocking represented by them; but when we see the phantasm of a person whom we know cannot be there—that is unusual, that is not in the ordinary course of nature, as we are accustomed to observe nature, and it surprises us, shocks us, perhaps frightens us; but it does so because we are awake and can reason about it and compare its strangeness with the usual order of things.

Lord Brougham was awake, he did so reason, and was accordingly shocked.

So vivid was the apparition that he tumbled out of the bath and fainted. It is only some time after this, when writing up his diary, that he has no doubt that he had fallen asleep. Preconceived theories about apparitions now come up in his mind and get him into trouble; he must explain his vision.

Now for the explanation. Lord Brougham finds, on returning to Scotland, that his former friend is dead, and that the time of his death corresponded with the time at which he had seen his apparition in Sweden, December 19th.

“Singular coincidence!” That is Lord Brougham’s explanation; and that is the usual explanation; but it is ill-considered—it is weak—it does not cover the ground.