But God has a few of us whom He whispers in the ear; The rest may reason and welcome.

- Browning

Introduction

[For more reasons than one I could not deem myself capable of dealing adequately with dreams that convey premonitions or telepathic sensations. Apart from reasons that are too obvious to the reader to want explaining, I felt keenly an incapacity due to want of faith. I am far from being a dogmatic disbeliever in telepathy and premonition, whether in dreams or in the widest - awake state. A very distinguished member of the Psychical Research Society (alas that he has passed to the other side of that veil which he tried so hard to lift while in life) and one who approached its problems from so rationalistic a point of view that "materialist" was sometimes thought none too hard a name for him, told me that the evidence collected by the Psychical Society for the apparition of persons at the point of death, to others at a distance, was so strong as to amount in his opinion to scientific proof. I think I can hurt no one by mentioning the name of my in formant, the late Professor Sidgwick, and certainly the mention of the name guarantees the value of the opinion. "Scientific" proof, as I imagine, means something considerably removed from "mathematical" proof, belonging more nearly to the class of what logicians call "moral" proof - in popular talk, substantial proof, at all events.

Professor Sidgwick's opinion went a great way in disposing me to think that the premonitions and telepathic communications said to be received in dreams might have something much more than a fancied, that is to say a subjective, reality. It is at least certain that the attitude of dogmatic disbelief is almost always that of the fool, so let us try to avoid it But in the effort I, personally, am able to go no further in this matter than agnosticism. The agnostic attitude is very near the indifferent attitude. It is very difficult to simulate or to stimulate zeal in a subject towards which ones attitude is indifferent Therefore, all other reasons apart, it seemed to me far better to seek a collaborator who had a lively faith, and the zeal that comes from faith, in these dreams of the telepathic and premonitory kinds.

Science perhaps, finds it hard to recognise any possible truth in these telepathies and premonitions of which she is incapable of giving an account; but science had her hard knuckles so badly rapped over her once scornful rejection of the since proved facts of hypnotism, that she is more careful now, adopting an attitude not quite so unscientific towards that which she is not able to explain.

I cannot possibly express too strongly my thanks to the Psychical Research Society for the very liberal use that my collaborator has been allowed to make of instances communicated to, and tested by them, of dreams of a telepathic and of a premonitory kind. -

H. G. H.]

Although most of our ordinary dreams can be explained, or partly explained, by the theory "Imagination run riot," a thorough study of the subject will soon show us that this theory cannot hold good in every case.

Very many instances of premonitory and telepathic dreams have been noted and thoroughly investigated, only to bring us up against a door on which is written "Here lies the threshold of another world".

Premonitory dreams we will deal with in another chapter; and, as far as is possible in a small space, try to give here a compilation of dreams which can only be interpreted on the theory of telepathy and dual consciousness.

Wireless telegraphy is now an acknowledged fact Two finely sensitive instruments are so tuned in complete sympathy that a message sent by one will vibrate on its fellow through miles of space.

Now it is well known that the human brain is more sensitive than any instrument made by hands in existence. Is it not possible to conceive of two brains being so tuned in sympathy that the thought in one will send its message through waves of space till it reaches its fellow instrument and conveys its meaning to that delicate machinery? There is nothing "supernatural" about this; it is but natural. True, we are but seeing dimly through the veil as yet, but some day it will be lifted, and we shall know what at present we can only vaguely guess at.

There are many cases where an experience of a friend at a distance has conveyed itself more or less clearly to the mind in sleep. This is telepathy.

"The word telepathy was brought into use by us," says Professor Sidgwick, "toexpress the (scientifically speaking) novel conclusion - which several different lines of inquiry have tended to establish - that thoughts and feelings in one mind are sometimes caused by the influence of another mind, conveyed somehow otherwise than through the recognised channels of sense. The word by its derivation suggests that the influence in question operates across a considerable distance of space. . . . Now there can be no doubt that the general acceptance of telepathy, in this sense, as a fact of nature, must importantly modify the current scientific view of the relation of mind to matter."

A phenomenon more difficult to explain is the revelation of an event taking place at a distance (the said event being unconnected with any friend who might have sent a thought wave to the sleeper) to a dreamer who notes the details and the time, only to find that his dream was true in every particular. May this not be explained by dual personality?

Mr. Frederick Greenwood in his interesting book Imagination in Dreams remarks: "It is easy to imagine the mind of man dual - its faculties supplied in a double set. Duality seems to be a common law in nature. The brain which is the mind - machine, is itself a dual organ; and nearly all the difficulty of understanding dreams would disappear if we could believe that our mental faculties are duplex, and that though the two sets work together inseparably and indistinguishably while we live our natural lives in the waking world, they are capable of working apart, the one under the observation of the other more or less, when all are out of harness by the suspension of the senses in sleep."