The critical reader, especially one who believes in the reality of so-called supernormal dreams, may take exception to what the writer has dealt with in this chapter; he may state, and rightly, that there are any number of recorded dreams much more worthy of being considered prophetic than the above. However, the writer has no particular object in attempting to disprove these dreams. Horace said long ago: "Don't call in a God unless the knot is worthy of such an untier." It is for the reason that many of us look upon natural phenomena as supernatural, simply because we inherently are attracted toward that which appears mysterious, and because we do not properly understand normal and abnormal, though natural, psychic phenomena that an effort has been made to explain a few of the many incidents which strike us as being due to factors outside the range of ordinary understanding.

Of late years there has been an increasing interest in what is termed the supernormal. The term supernormal has replaced to a great extent what was formerly called the supernatural, the term being that of the Society for Psychical Research which considers all that happens as natural though out-of-the-ordinary. Classed among supernormal phenomena are telepathy, clairvoyance, spiritism, etc. Obviously, a suitable discussion of these subjects would be beyond the scope of this work, but since it is believed that the supernormal manifests itself more often in sleep than in the waking state, it might be profitable to consider some of its supposed phenomena briefly.

By telepathy is meant the communication of one mind with another by some means other than the ordinary sensory channels. Popularly it is known as thought-transference, mind-reading, second sight. How it operates, if it does so, is unknown; there are no satisfactory laws, or theories even, to support it, though some have likened it to a wireless telegraph system; possibly its supernormal quality would explain why, if the latter theory were true, we do not intercept messages intended for others, just as it is possible, having the proper outfit, to intercept ordinary wireless messages. Each of us has the apparatus by which telepathy is supposed to work, namely the brain.

Myers considers telepathy a distinct faculty of what he termed the subliminal self. The subliminal self is that portion of the thoughts, feelings, emotions, etc., which seldom merges into supraliminal consciousness. Modern psychologists would consider the subliminal self as identical with what is now known as the unconscious mind; supraliminal consciousness, with conscious mind.

Telepaths believe that in order for a message to be transmitted from one mind to another the message must be of a strong emotional tone, in order to overcome the other emotional elements of the subliminal self which are ever striving to enter supraliminal consciousness. It is for this reason that messages are received at times of emotional distress, as accident, illness, danger, death. The faculty is also said to be particularly manifested between relatives. As an aid to percipiency, a state of mental dissociation seems necessary, as trance, sleep, absent-mindedness, at which times subliminal thoughts enter supraliminal consciousness more easily.

The person who sends the message is called the sender or agent; the one who receives the message is called the percipient. The agent may will to send the message to some person, but it is considered unnecessary that there be an express desire that the message be forwarded. Usually, messages are received by one person, though it is claimed that there may be several percipients. Another term used in connection with telepathy is veridical, which is applied to instances when the message corresponds to an event to which it refers, as the apparition of a dying relative. When the event and the hallucination correspond in point of time the term veridical coincidence is often used.

Not infrequently the message is received into consciousness days or longer after the event to which it was related occurred. This is termed deferred percipience, and is ascribed to the submergence of the message in subliminal consciousness until such a time as favouring conditions, e.g., sleep, permit its emergence above the threshold.

Clairvoyance implies an ability to see distant scenes and events as if one were actually present. This is explained by some as a flight through space of the clairvoyant 's astral body, which is, we are told, a fluidic double which is able to detach itself from the physical structure and act independently of it. This would lead us to believe that we have two bodies, and reminds one of the old belief that one had two souls, one of which wandered away and actually experienced all that occurred in dreams. The astral body has served a convenient purpose in explaining the physical manifestations of spiritualism, as knockings, table liftings, etc., which were ascribed to the activities of the limbs of the medium's fluidic double. In justice to telepaths and others, it might be said that the astral body feature is not considered plausible by many of the foremost disciples of the phenomena; further, that the physical manifestations of spiritualism are not regarded by some as weighty evidence in favour of survival.

While many look upon clairvoyance as entirely distinct from telepathy, others consider it as a specialised form of the latter, differing from it in the greater amount of detail and the percipient's feeling of being actually present at the scene. It depends, according to this view, upon the percipient's receiving an impression from some agent, as in telepathy proper. Independent clairvoyance, in which it is considered unnecessary to have an agent, is recognized. When clairvoyance is regarded as a form of telepathy, the alleged abilities of mediums are due to their receiving messages from the sitter's subliminal self rather than from spirits.