Page:The Naturalisation of the Supernatural.pdf/100

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80
Spontaneous Thought Transference

of this kind to telepathy. Again, a neighbour of mine on the night of June 24–25, 1894, dreamt that President Carnot had been assassinated, and told his family before the morning paper which announced the news had been opened. But in a case of that kind it seems possible that the information may have reached the sleeper in his dreams from the shouts of a newsboy, or even from the conversation of passers-by in the street.

The reader will be able to judge for himself how far the examples which follow conform to the standard set up, and how far it is probable that the coincidences described have been due to normal causes.

In the first case to be quoted, two friends, at a distance of some miles from each other, had similar dreams.

The incident bears some resemblance to an experiment in the transference of an imaginary scene. Dr. Gleason's dream, as shown by the entry in her diary, occurred between 2 and 3 a.m. on Wednesday, January 27, 1892. The other percipient's account unfortunately leaves it doubtful whether his dream occurred, as would naturally be inferred from his opening sentence, on the night of Tuesday-Wednesday, or on the night of Monday-Tuesday. In any case it seems clear that both the dreams had already taken place before the dreamers met: and the details of the dreams are so bizarre that it is difficult to suppose that they could both arise independently.