425 C. In some cases the premonitory dream, although it may have made a vivid impression, and perhaps have even been narrated to others, is then apparently clean forgotten until the moment of its fulfilment.

Mrs. Sidgwick has justly urged (of a similar case) that this looks rather as though we were dealing with a pseudo-memory, created by the very circumstance which seems merely to revive it.1 There may, however, be another explanation. We know that when a suggestion is given to a good subject in the hypnotic trance to the effect that he will (say) open the window half-an-hour after awaking, he passes that half-hour in unconsciousness of the order, which order nevertheless he fulfils at the right minute. Well, while he is thus fulfilling it, or just before he fulfils it, he lapses into a state more akin to the hypnotic state in which he received the order than to the waking state in which he has since remained. The memory of what he has to do comes to him only just in time, and derives its efficacy from a partial recrudescence of the condition in which he was when he accepted the order. Even thus, perhaps, we might by analogy consider the condition of the dreamer of a precognitive dream as a secondary state, the recollection of which has a tendency to fade from the waking mind, but which is partially revived when the prefigured incident - which belongs in a sense to the secondary state - suddenly presents itself in the waking day.

The following case, from a lady known to me, is interesting in this connection; since a dream is at first remembered so impressively as to affect action, is then apparently forgotten, and finally revives in memory just in time to enable the dreamer to avert its complete fulfilment. I quote the case from Proceedings S.P.R., vol. xi. p. 497.

On the second occasion my warning in dream did probably prevent a rather serious accident. We were living in about 188 - , in Hertford Street, Mayfair. One day I determined that on the morrow I would drive to Woolwich in our brougham, taking my little child and nurse, to spend the day with a relation. During the night I had a painfully clear dream in vision of the brougham turning up one of the streets north of Piccadilly; and then of myself standing on the pavement and holding my child, our old coachman falling on his head on the road, - his hat smashed in. This so much discomposed me that when in the morning I sent for the coachman to give him his orders, I almost hoped that some obstacle to the drive might arise, so that I might have an excuse for going by train. The coachman was an old and valued servant. I asked him if he would have the carriage ready to drive to Woolwich at ten. He was not given to making difficulties; but he hesitated, and when I suggested eleven instead, he said that he would prefer that hour. He gave no reason for his hesitation, and said that the horse was quite well.

I told him almost eagerly that I could quite well go by train; but he said that all was right.

1 See her article, " On the Evidence for Premonitions," Proceedings S.P.R., vol. v. p. 317.

We went to Woolwich and spent the day. All went well until we reached Piccadilly on the return journey. Then I saw that other coachmen were looking at us; and looking through the glass front of the brougham I saw that the coachman was leaning back in his seat, as though the horse were pulling violently, of which, however, I felt no sign. We turned up Down Street. He retained his attitude. My dream flashed back upon me. I called to him to stop, jumped out, caught hold of my child, and called to a policeman to catch the coachman. Just as he did so the coachman swayed and fell off the box. If I had been in the least less prompt, he would have fallen just as I saw him in my dream. I found afterwards that the poor man had been suffering from a serious attack of diarrhoea on the previous day, and had gradually fainted from exhaustion during the drive home. He was absolutely sober; and his only mistake had been in thinking that he was strong enough to undertake the long drive. In this case my premonitory dream differed from the reality in two points. In my dream we approached Down Street from the west; in reality we came from the east. In my dream the coachman actually fell on his head; the crushing of his hat on the road being the most vivid point of the dream.

In reality this was just averted by the prompt action which my anxious memory of the dream inspired. Signed [Lady Z].

The aversion of the fulfilment, by reasonable precaution, is here an important feature. Another dream of the same lady's presents us with a fatal fulfilment occurring in spite of the dreamer's aroused anxiety. But in that case no precautions were taken, - nor indeed could they have been easily taken, - to avert the calamity.

I am not usually a great dreamer; but on two occasions, and two occasions only in my life, I have acted on dreams or impressions, and in each case there seems to have been some meaning in the impression which I received.

In or about the year 1866, Lord Z. and I were inhabiting a house in Charles Street, Mayfair. We had built out a bedroom into the small court behind. This bedroom was separated only by a narrow passage or strip of court from our neighbour Mrs. L.'s kitchen, which was built out into the court in the same fashion, and was of one storey only.

In the middle of a very cold night I was suddenly awakened by a heavy fall into this passage outside our bedroom wall, as if some heavy body had fallen into it from the roof of Mrs. L.'s kitchen. I listened, much alarmed, and heard groans from the passage. I thought that some burglar had slipped from the kitchen roof down on to the pavement and was lying there injured. I begged Lord Z. to get up and look; but he could hear nothing, and told me that I had been dreaming. I went to sleep again at length; but was again awakened by a similar thud in the passage. I now begged Lord Z. so earnestly to look that he got up and partially dressed and opened a door on the ground floor which led into this passage. The moon was shining brightly, and there was no trace whatever of anything unusual. Much perplexed, I again went to sleep. After I had left the bedroom in the morning, a servant came to ask me whether he might get ready a bedroom to receive a workman who had come to work on the roof of Mrs. L.'s kitchen, and had fallen into the passage from the kitchen-roof, just as I had thought that I heard a man fall some few hours previously.

The premonition, if such it was, was here of no special use. It seemed as though I had received an intimation of a coming fact which only concerned me by its mere physical nearness. Signed [Lady Z].

Lord Z. is no longer living, so that his corroboration of this incident could not be obtained.