The Book of Dreams and Ghosts - Andrew Lang (best ebook reader ubuntu .TXT) 📗

sleep are universal and countless, “dreams” in waking hours are extremely rare—unique, for instance, in Lord Brougham’s own experience.  Therefore, the odds against chance coincidence are very great.

Dreams only form subjects of good dream-stories when the vision coincides with and adequately represents an unknown event in the past, the present, or the future.  We dream, however vividly, of the murder of Rizzio.  Nobody is surprised at that, the incident being familiar to most people, in history and art.  But, if we dreamed of being present at an unchronicled scene in Queen Mary’s life, and if, after the dream was recorded, a document proving its accuracy should be for the first time recovered, then there is matter for a good dream-story. {8}  Again, we dream of an event not to be naturally guessed or known by us, and our dream (which should be recorded before tidings of the fact arrive) tallies with the news of the event when it comes.  Or, finally, we dream of an event (recording the dream), and that event occurs in the future.  In all these cases the actual occurrence of the unknown event is the only addition to the dream’s usual power of crumpling up time and space.

As a rule such dreams are only mentioned after the event, and so are not worth noticing.  Very often the dream is forgotten by the dreamer till he hears of or sees the event.  He is then either reminded of his dream by association of ideas or he has never dreamed at all, and his belief that he has dreamed is only a form of false memory, of the common sensation of “having been here before,” which he attributes to an awakened memory of a real dream.  Still more often the dream is unconsciously cooked by the narrator into harmony with facts.

As a rule fulfilled dreams deal with the most trivial affairs, and such as, being usual, may readily occur by chance coincidence.  Indeed it is impossible to set limits to such coincidence, for it would indeed be extraordinary if extraordinary coincidences never occurred.

To take examples:—

THE PIG IN THE DINING-ROOM

Mrs. Atlay, wife of a late Bishop of Hereford, dreamed one night that there was a pig in the dining-room of the palace.  She came downstairs, and in the hall told her governess and children of the dream, before family prayers.  When these were over, nobody who was told the story having left the hall in the interval, she went into the dining-room and there was the pig.  It was proved to have escaped from the sty after Mrs. Atlay got up.  Here the dream is of the common grotesque type; millions of such things are dreamed.  The event, the pig in the palace, is unusual, and the coincidence of pig and dream is still more so.  But unusual events must occur, and each has millions of dreams as targets to aim at, so to speak.  It would be surprising if no such target were ever hit.

Here is another case—curious because the dream was forgotten till the corresponding event occurred, but there was a slight discrepancy between event and dream.

THE MIGNONETTE

Mrs. Herbert returned with her husband from London to their country home on the Border.  They arrived rather late in the day, prepared to visit the garden, and decided to put off the visit till the morrow.  At night Mrs. Herbert dreamed that they went into the garden, down a long walk to a mignonette bed near the vinery.  The mignonette was black with innumerable bees, and Wilburd, the gardener, came up and advised Mr. and Mrs. Herbert not to go nearer.  Next morning the pair went to the garden.  The air round the mignonette was dark with wasps.  Mrs. Herbert now first remembered and told her dream, adding, “but in the dream they were bees”.  Wilburd now came up and advised them not to go nearer, as a wasps’ nest had been injured and the wasps were on the warpath.

Here accidental coincidence is probable enough. {10}  There is another class of dreams very useful, and apparently not so very uncommon, that are veracious and communicate correct information, which the dreamer did not know that he knew and was very anxious to know.  These are rare enough to be rather difficult to believe.  Thus:—

THE LOST CHEQUE

Mr. A., a barrister, sat up one night to write letters, and about half-past twelve went out to put them in the post.  On undressing he missed a cheque for a large sum, which he had received during the day.  He hunted everywhere in vain, went to bed, slept, and dreamed that he saw the cheque curled round an area railing not far from his own door.  He woke, got up, dressed, walked down the street and found his cheque in the place he had dreamed of.  In his opinion he had noticed it fall from his pocket as he walked to the letter-box, without consciously remarking it, and his deeper memory awoke in slumber. {11a}

THE DUCKS’ EGGS

A little girl of the author’s family kept ducks and was anxious to sell the eggs to her mother.  But the eggs could not be found by eager search.  On going to bed she said, “Perhaps I shall dream of them”.  Next morning she exclaimed, “I did dream of them, they are in a place between grey rock, broom, and mallow; that must be ‘The Poney’s Field’!”  And there the eggs were found. {11b}

THE LOST KEY

Lady X., after walking in a wood near her house in Ireland, found that she had lost an important key.  She dreamed that it was lying at the root of a certain tree, where she found it next day, and her theory is the same as that of Mr. A., the owner of the lost cheque. {11c}

As a rule dreams throw everything into a dramatic form.  Some one knocks at our door, and the dream bases a little drama on the noise; it constructs an explanatory myth, a myth to account for the noise, which is acted out in the theatre of the brain.

To take an instance, a disappointing one:—

THE LOST SECURITIES

A lady dreamed that she was sitting at a window, watching the end of an autumn sunset.  There came a knock at the front door and a gentleman and lady were ushered in.  The gentleman wore an old-fashioned snuff-coloured suit, of the beginning of the century; he was, in fact, an aged uncle, who, during the Napoleonic wars, had been one of the English détenus in France.  The lady was very beautiful and wore something like a black Spanish mantilla.  The pair carried with them a curiously wrought steel box.  Before conversation was begun, the maid (still in the dream) brought in the lady’s chocolate and the figures vanished.  When the maid withdrew, the figures reappeared standing by the table.  The box was now open, and the old gentleman drew forth some yellow papers, written on in faded ink.  These, he said, were lists of securities, which had been in his possession, when he went abroad in 18--, and in France became engaged to his beautiful companion.

“The securities,” he said, “are now in the strong box of Messrs. ---;” another rap at the door, and the actual maid entered with real hot water.  It was time to get up.  The whole dream had its origin in the first rap, heard by the dreamer and dramatised into the arrival of visitors.  Probably it did not last for more than two or three seconds of real time.  The maid’s second knock just prevented the revelation of the name of “Messrs. ---,” who, like the lady in the mantilla, were probably non-existent people. {13}

Thus dream dramatises on the impulse of some faint, hardly perceived real sensation.  And thus either mere empty fancies (as in the case of the lost securities) or actual knowledge which we may have once possessed but have totally forgotten, or conclusions which have passed through our brains as unheeded guesses, may in a dream be, as it were, “revealed” through the lips of a character in the brain’s theatre—that character may, in fact, be alive, or dead, or merely fantastical.  A very good case is given with this explanation (lost knowledge revived in a dramatic dream about a dead man) by Sir Walter Scott in a note to The Antiquary.  Familiar as the story is it may be offered here, for a reason which will presently be obvious.

THE ARREARS OF TEIND

“Mr. Rutherford, of Bowland, a gentleman of landed property in the Vale of Gala, was prosecuted for a very considerable sum, the accumulated arrears of teind (or tithe) for which he was said to be indebted to a noble family, the titulars (lay impropriators of the tithes).  Mr. Rutherford was strongly impressed with the belief that his father had, by a form of process peculiar to the law of Scotland, purchased these teinds from the titular, and, therefore, that the present prosecution was groundless.  But, after an industrious search among his father’s papers, an investigation among the public records and a careful inquiry among all persons who had transacted law business for his father, no evidence could be recovered to support his defence.  The period was now near at hand, when he conceived the loss of his law-suit to be inevitable; and he had formed the determination to ride to Edinburgh next day and make the best bargain he could in the way of compromise.  He went to bed with this resolution, and, with all the circumstances of the case floating upon his mind, had a dream to the following purpose.  His father, who had been many years dead, appeared to him, he thought, and asked him why he was disturbed in his mind.  In dreams men are not surprised at such apparitions.  Mr. Rutherford thought that he informed his father of the cause of his distress, adding that the payment of a considerable sum of money was the more unpleasant to him because he had a strong consciousness that it was not due, though he was unable to recover any evidence in support of his belief.  ‘You are right, my son,’ replied the paternal shade.  ‘I did acquire right to these teinds for payment of which you are now prosecuted.  The papers relating to the transaction are in the hands of Mr. ---, a writer (or attorney), who is now retired from professional business and resides at Inveresk, near Edinburgh.  He was a person whom I employed on that occasion for a particular reason, but who never on any other occasion transacted business on my account.  It is very possible,’ pursued the vision, ‘that Mr. --- may have forgotten a matter which is now of a very old date; but you may call it to his recollection by this token, that when I came to pay his account there was difficulty in getting change for a Portugal piece of gold and we were forced to drink out the balance at a tavern.’

“Mr. Rutherford awoke in the morning with all the words of the vision imprinted on his mind, and thought it worth while to walk across the country to Inveresk instead of going straight to Edinburgh.  When he came there he waited on the gentleman mentioned in the dream—a very old man.  Without saying anything of the vision he inquired whether he ever remembered having conducted such a matter for his deceased father.  The old gentleman could not at first bring the circumstance to his recollection, but on mention of the Portugal piece of gold the whole returned upon his memory.  He made an immediate search for the papers and recovered them, so that Mr. Rutherford carried to Edinburgh the documents necessary to gain the cause which he was on the verge of losing.”

The story is reproduced because it