WARNING IN DREAMS

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume LXXVI, Issue 18230, 15 July 1921, Page 2

WARNING IN DREAMS

The belief in prophetic dreams is probably as old as mankind. There have been wonderful instances when dreams have been found to have foretold accurately a future occurrence. Perhaps the most remarkable one is historical. On May 11, 1812, Spencer Perceval, then Prime Minister and Chancellor of the Exchequer, was assassinated in the Lobby of the House of Commons by John Bellingham, an imbecile with an imaginary grievance connected with a'term of imprisonment he had suffered in Russia. A week before Mr Perceval was murdered the tragedy was enacted in a dream to a Cornishman named Williams. Mr Williams, of Scorrier, was uninterested in politics. As he himself said, he “had no leisure to pay any attention to political matters, and hardly knew at the time who formed the administration of the country." About the second or third day of May, 1812, he dreamed he was in the Lobby of the House of Commons. He knew the Lobby well, and he saw a small man (Perceval) in a blue coat and white waistcoat come in. Then he taw another man (Bellingham) take a pistol from under his snuff-stained coat, and Are. The bullet entered under the Prime‘Minister’s left breast and he fell to the ground. The murderer was seized by the members present. Three times did John Williams have this dream, and would have gone to London to warn the Premier of his danger had not his relations and friends dissuaded him. » After the event he visited the House of Commons and pointed to the exact spot where Bellingham had stood when he fired. A MYSTERY OF THE SEA. The following is evidence given on oath during the inquiry into the mysterious disappearance of the Waratah, the vessel which, in July, 1909, disappeared completely, and ha§ never been heard of to this day. A passenger on the ill-fated ship dreamt three times of a man wearing a peculiar dress and holding a long sword in his blood-stained hand. “It is a warning,” said a fellow-pas-senger, and the man left the boat at Durban, sacrificing part of his pas-sage-money but having his life. In 18 92 the late Captain Robert Marshall was stationed at Halifax, Yorkshire. On the eve of the Derby he dreamt that he saw the race won, as in fact, it was, by the outsider Sir Hugo, which started at 40 to 1. A few years later he was, stationed at the same place. One morning, shortly before the St. Leger, a newly joined subaltern came down to breakfast and asked whether there was a horse called Wildfowler in the big race. Told that there was, he explained that in'a dream the previous night he had seen a race run, and on asking the jockey the name of his mount had been told Wildfowler. Wildfowler upset the odds-on favourite and won at 10 to 1. Among other authenticated dreams that came' true is the following, told by the Rev. Freeman Wills: As a child he had been badly scalded about the knee, with the result that one of his legs became permanently bent —at least, so the doctors declared. One night, when being put to bed, he cried bitterly about not being able to play like other children, and was told that he must pray to God to make him well. He did so, and in the night he dreamed that a,n angel came aiid touched the afflicted part. In the morning his leg was straight and strong again. A remarkable prophetic dream concerns the wreck of the Empress of Ireland. Mr A. B. Tapping dreamt that he saw in a room—which he afterwards identified from a picture as the saloon of the Empress of Ireland—the late Sir Henry Irving and his son Laurence, with a numbef of other people. Sir Henry was dying, and suddenly disappeared as though death had claimed him. The people then began to leave the room, and Laurence Irving walked quietly and mournfully with them. The latter’s call to go seemed to .come suddenly and unexpectedly. “The dream haunted me all day, | and when 1 it became known that Laurence Irving and his wife had actually sailed on the Empress of Ireland the news quite unnerved me, as I felt certain that it was a message that the young actor and/ his wife had perished.” A few hours later Mr Tapping learnt the awful truth. , The late Dord Dufferin dreamed one night that he was in a hearse on its way to the cemetery. A day or two later he was entering the lift at an hotel when the recognised the attendant as the driver of the hearse he had seen in his dream. He stepped back and the lift ascended without him. As it neared the top something broke and it crashed to the bottom, killing everyone in it. At the time of the Jameson Raid people at the Cape were surprised to find that Joseph Chamberlain knew more about Dr. Jameson’s movements than the High Commissioner or Cecil Roberts. As a matter of fact, one of his subordinates, who was closely associated with African affairs, had a dream that Dr. Jameson had decided to make his raid across the frontier. He was so impressed that he telegraphed the details to the Colonial Secretary. Chamberlain was not the man to be impressed by such a story, but subsequent events proved that the dreamer was right. z Two years ago, during a deadly influenga epidemic, Mr George Bean, a fitter in Chatham Dockyard, nying at Gillingham, dreamt that he saw his daughter in her coffin. Nine days later the girl died from pneumonia. A few months ago Mr Bean dreamt that his seventeen-year-old son was lying dead in his coffin? A day or two later this son, who was learning the motor business, started from home to motor cycle to Canterbury. His father, having a presentiment that evil would befall him, tried to persuade him not to go. But the boy started, and near Sittingbourne collided with a cyclist, was thrown under the wheels of a traction engine, and was killed instantly. Many psychologists declare that dreams do not foretell the future. The foundations of our modern knowledge of dreams were laid-down about 20 years ago in Professor Siegmund Freud’s “The Interpretation of Dreams.” Dreams, according to him, are due to repressed wishes. Again, many people are of opinion that memory alone causes us to dream, while others say that it is either telepathy or indigestion!