'The last proof which I can give on the vanity of dreams is my surviving after one that I experienced on the 22nd of September, 1679. I awoke on that day at five o'clock in the morning, and having fallen asleep again half an hour after, I dreamt that I was in my bed, and that the curtain of it was undrawn at the foot (two circumstances which were true), and that I saw one of my relations, who had died several years before, enter the room, with a countenance as sorrowful as it had formerly* been joyous. She seated herself at the foot of my bed, and looked at me with pity. As I knew her to be dead, as well in the dream as in reality, I judged by her sorrow that she was going to announce some bad news to me, and perhaps death; and foreseeing it with sufficient indifference - "Ah well!" said I to her, "I must die then?" She replied to me, "It is true." "And when?" retorted I, "immediately?" "Today," replied she.

'I confess the time appeared short; but, without ' being concerned, I interrogated her further, and asked her "in what manner?" She murmured some words which I did not understand, and at that moment I awoke. The importance of a dream so precise made me take notice of my situation; and I remarked that I had lain down upon my right side, my body extended, and both hands resting upon my stomach. I rose to commit my dream to writing, for fear of forgetting any part of it; and, finding it accompanied by all the circumstances which are attributed to mysterious and Divine visions, I was no sooner dressed than I went to tell my sister-in-law that, if serious dreams were infallible warnings, she would have no brother-in-law in twenty-four hours. I told her afterwards all that had happened to me, and likewise informed some of my friends, but without betraying the least alarm, and without changing in any respect my usual conduct, resigning myself to the entire disposal of Providence.

'Now, if I had been weak enough to give up my mind to the idea that I was going to die, perhaps I should have died, and it would have happened to me, as to those men of whom Procopius, the Greek historian, has spoken, who, when the plague prevailed, were struck with this scourge from God, for having only dreamt that demons touched them, or said to them that they would be soon in the tomb. I likewise should have paid by the shortening of my days for yielding up my belief to these dreams, and violating the law of God, which forbids such a superstition. At least it is certain that a Canadian would not have escaped; for he would have even had recourse to precipices, or to his own hands, in order that his dream might not be a futile one. For the people of that country are absolutely persuaded that they cannot dream of anything which ought not to happen as a matter of course.' - Le Mercure Gallant, January, 1690.