Plutarch writes of the dream of Agariste, announcing the birth of her son Pericles.
Sabellus, of the dream of Accia, the mother of Augustus.
The splendid impostures, as I confess them, of Mahomet, were ushered in by a dream of Cadiga, that the sun entered her house, and that his beams illumined every building in Mecca.
In later days, the mother of Joan of Arc dreamed that she brought forth a thunderbolt; and Arlotte, the mother of the Conqueror, that her intestines covered the whole land of Normandy.
But I waive a host of ancient dreams, as those of Astyages, the last king of Media; Ertercules, and Antigonus, and Simonides, and others, for I study to be brief, and pass to the professors of more modern belief.
Of Pascal Paoli, Boswell, in his account of Corsica, thus writes:
“Having asked him one day, when some of his nobles were present, whether a mind so active as his was employed even in sleep, and if he used to dream much; Signor Casa Bianca said, with an air and tone which implied something of importance, ‘Si, si sogna,’ Yes, he dreams. And upon my asking him to explain his meaning, he told me that the general had often seen in his dreams what afterwards came to pass. Paoli confirmed this by several instances. Said he, ‘I can give you no clear explanation of it,—I only tell you facts. Sometimes I have been mistaken, but in general these visions have proved true. I cannot say what may be the agency of invisible spirits; they certainly must know more than we do; and there is nothing absurd in supposing that God should permit them to communicate their knowledge to us.’ ”
In Walton’s life of Sir Henry Wotton, we read that his kinsmen, Nicholas and Thomas Wotton (whose family, by the by, were celebrated for their dreamings) had foretold their death most accurately.
In the beginning of the 18th century, a person in the west of England dreamed that his friend was on a journey with two men, whose persons were strongly pictured in his dream, and that he was robbed and murdered by these companions. It chanced that in a short time he was about to journey with two men, the very prototypes of his friend’s dream. His earnest caution against this expedition so planned was slighted, and, on the spot marked in the dream, was this traveller robbed and murdered, and by the vivid description of the dreamer, the two men were identified and executed.
In other cases, the dream has been the means of retribution; for instance, by the discovery of a murderer. In “Baker’s Chronicle” we read of the conviction of Anne Waters, for the murder of her husband, through the circumstantial dream of a friend.