When the body sleeps, as Tertullian remarks,[112] it takes its own peculiar refreshment, but that refreshment not being adapted to the soul, which does not rest, she during the inactivity of the bodily members employs her own. Then in his treatise “On the Soul,”[113] he proceeds to distinguish between the hallucination of dreaming and insanity. Dreaming is agreeable to the course and order of Nature, he maintains; but he rejects the doctrine of Epicurus, in which dreams are disparaged as idle and fortuitous. He further expresses his conviction that future honours, dignities, medical remedies, thefts and treasure have been revealed by dreams—testimonies to which are both numerous and strong. Many dreams, specially those which are vain, frivolous, impure, and turbulent, may be attributed to demons. Others, again, proceed from God or holy angels, as one portion of prophecy.
Lactantius, in a short passage of his well-known “Tract,”[114] expresses his conviction of divine agency in dreams. He maintains that the undoubted testimony of History presents mankind with several most remarkable verifications of dreams; and he repeats what Tertullian had already maintained, viz. that part of the economy of prophecy depends upon them. He holds that Virgil’s evidence may be admitted, that dreams are neither always true nor always false.
Again, S. Cyprian states that he was divinely instructed in a dream to mix a little water with the wine for the Holy Eucharist.[115] On the general subject, S. Basil warns those who may be ready to attribute too great importance to dreams, to rest contented with the written revelation of Almighty God in Holy Scripture.[116] S. Bernard, the last of the Fathers, treats of dreams at great length in his remarkable sermon “On Sleep,” which is full of sage advice of the same nature as that set forth by S. Basil; and so does S. Thomas Aquinas, who discusses the subject with singular breadth, fulness, and system, arriving at the conclusion that it is unreasonable to deny anything—the truth of which is affirmed by general experience; and he adds that general experience affirms that dreams very frequently give indications of coming events; and therefore, concludes that it is lawful to interpret and endeavour to comprehend them.[117] But at this point, he goes on to maintain that only those dreams which are suggested by angels may be investigated and interpreted, those suggested by demons and evil spirits being left alone. But unfortunately he provides no criterion by which the one class may be safely and truly distinguished from the other; nor is it easy to supply the deficiency.
From another point of view, a thoughtful modern writer[118] has remarked that “dreams are uniformly the resuscitation or re-embodiment of thoughts which have formerly, in some shape or other, occupied the mind. They are old ideas revived, either in an entire state, or heterogeneously mingled together. I doubt if it be possible,” he continues, “for a person to have in a dream, any idea whose elements did not, in some form, strike him at a previous period. If these break loose from their connecting chain, and become jumbled together incoherently, as is often the case, they give rise to absurd combinations; but the elements still subsist, and only manifest themselves in a new and unconnected shape.”
This, and such as this, may be quite true; but yet whatever theories the scientific may propound which seem to oppose the facts of man’s experience, will not in the long run command that adhesion which for awhile they may possibly obtain. And now for examples:
The Dream of the so-called “Swaffham Tinker”[119] is singular, and may well be here reproduced, because it represents an example of the practical results of dreaming, which is quite worthy of consideration:—
“This Tinker, a hard-working, industrious man, one night dreamed that if he took a journey to London, and placed himself at a certain spot on London Bridge, he should meet one who would tell him something of great importance to his future prospects. The Tinker, on whom the dream made a deep impression, related it fully to his wife in the morning; who, however, half-laughed at him and half-scolded him for his folly in heeding such idle fancies. Next night he is said to have re-dreamed the dream; and again on the third night, when the impression was so powerful on his mind that he determined, in spite of the remonstrances of his wife and the ridicule of his neighbours, to go to London and see the upshot of it. Accordingly he set off for the metropolis on foot, reached it late on the third day (the distance was ninety miles), and, after the refreshment of a night’s rest, took his station next day on a part of the Bridge answering to the description in his dream. There he stood all day, and all the next, and all the third, without any communication as to the purpose of his journey; so that towards night, on the third day, he began to lose patience and confidence in his dream, inwardly cursed his folly in disregarding his wife’s counsel, and resolved next day to make the best of his way home. He still kept his station, however, till late in the evening, when, just as he was about to depart, a stranger who had noticed him standing stedfastly and with anxious look on the same spot for some days, accosted him, and asked him what he waited there for. After a little hesitation, the Tinker told his errand, though without acquainting him with the name of the place whence he came. The stranger enjoyed a smile at the rustic’s simplicity, and advised him to go home and for the future to pay no attention to dreams. ‘I myself,’ said he, ‘if I were disposed to put faith in such things, might now go a hundred miles into the country upon a similar errand. I dreamed three nights this week that if I went to a place called Swaffham in Norfolk, and dug under an apple-tree in a certain garden on the north side of the town I should find a box of money; but I have something else to do than run after such idle fancies! No, no, my friend; go home, and work well at your calling, and you will find there the riches you are seeking here.’ The astonished Tinker did not doubt that this was the communication he had been sent to London to receive, but he merely thanked the stranger for his advice, and went away avowing his intention to follow it. Next day he set out for home, and on his arrival there said little to his wife touching his journey; but next morning he rose betimes and began to dig on the spot he supposed to be pointed out by the stranger. When he had got a few feet down, the spade struck upon something hard, which turned out to be an iron chest. This he quickly carried to his house, and when he had with difficulty wrenched open the lid, found it, to his great joy, to be full of money. After securing his treasure, he observed on the lid of the box an inscription, which, unlearned as he was, he could not decipher. But by a stratagem he got the description read without any suspicion on the part of his neighbours by some of the Grammar School lads, and found it to be—
‘Where this stood
Is another twice as good.’
And in truth on digging again the lucky Tinker disinterred, below the place where the first chest had lain, a second twice as large, also full of gold and silver coin. It is stated that, become thus a wealthy man, the Tinker showed his thankfulness to Providence by building a new chancel to the church, the old one being out of repair. And whatever fiction the marvellous taste of those ages may have mixed up with the tale, certain it is that there is shown to this day a monument in Swaffham Church, having an effigy in marble, said to be that of the Tinker with his Dog at his side and his tools and implements of trade lying about him.”
Among the various histories of singular dreams and corresponding events, the following, which occurred in the early part of the eighteenth century, seems to merit being here placed on record. Its authenticity will appear from the relation; and it may surely be maintained that a more extraordinary concurrence of fortuitous and accidental circumstances can scarcely be produced or paralleled:—