424. The single dream which a man has noted down in all his life stands evidentially in almost as good a position as a single waking hallucination. Compare the single dream noted down in all his life by Mr. (now Sir Edward) Hamilton, Journal S.P.R., vol. iii. p. 267, which may fitly be quoted here in illustration, although perhaps not precisely of the same type. It suggests rather the projection of the suffering brother's conception of himself, especially if he were writing to the brother at home at the time.

1 These three words were added above the line after the subsequent receipt of the letter. But there must apparently have been some misunderstanding; as the evidence which follows seems conclusive as to the hour of the death.

Park Lank Chambers, Park Lane, W., April 6tA, 1888.

On Tuesday morning, March 20th, 1888, I woke up with the impression of a very vivid dream. I had dreamt that my brother, who had long been in Australia, and of whom I had heard nothing for several months, had come home; that after an absence of twelve years and a half he was very little altered in appearance, but that he had something wrong with one of his arms; it looked horribly red near the wrist, his hand being bent back.

When I got up that morning the dream recurred constantly to my thoughts, and I at last determined to take a note of it, notwithstanding my natural prejudices against attaching any importance to dreams, to which, indeed, I am not much subject. Accordingly, in the course of the day, I made in my little Letts's Diary a mark thus: X, with my brother's name after it.

On the following Monday morning, the 26th March, I received a letter from my brother, which bore the date of the 21st March, and which had been posted at Naples (where the Orient steamers touch), informing me that he was on his way home, and that he hoped to reach London on or about the 30th March, and adding that he was suffering from a very severe attack of gout in the left arm.

The next day I related to some one this curious incident, and I commented on the extraordinary coincidence of facts with the dream with all but one detail, and that was, that the arm which I had seen in my dream did not look as if it were merely affected with gout: the appearance it had presented to me was more like extremely bad eczema.

My brother duly reached England on the 29th, having disembarked at Plymouth, owing to the painful condition of his arm. It turned out that the doctor on board ship had mistaken the case; it was not gout, but a case of blood-poisoning, resulting in a very bad carbuncle or abscess over the wrist joint.

Since my brother's return, I have endeavoured to ascertain from him the exact hour at which he wrote to me on March 21st. He is not certain whether the letter to me was written before noon or after noon of that day. He remembers writing four short letters in the course of that day - two before luncheon and two after luncheon. Had the note addressed to me been written in the forenoon, it might nearly have coincided in time with my dream, if allowance be made for the difference of time between Greenwich and Naples; for, having no recollection of the dream when I woke, according to custom, at an early hour on the morning of the 21st, I presume I must have dreamt it very little before eight o'clock, the hour at which I am called.

I may add that, notwithstanding an absence of twelve years and a half, my brother has altered very little in appearance; and that I have not to my knowledge ever noted a dream before in my life. E. W. Hamilton.

[Gurney adds: - ]

April 12th, 1888.

I have seen the diary with the entry (X, Clem.) under Tuesday, March 20th, 1888, though, as Mr. Hamilton says, "it was early the next morning that I had the dream; for I generally consider all that appertains to bed relates to the day on which one gets into it".

I have seen the letter, signed Clement E. Hamilton, and dated Naples, March 21st, 1888, which says, "Am suffering from very severe attack of gout in left arm." - E. G.

Somewhat similar again, is a case which I give in 424 A, where a little boy of four years old absent from his home, with his father, becomes aware, while asleep, of the unexpected fact that "there is a little baby in bed with mamma." "What makes you think that?" asked the father, to whom, probably, rather than to little Hughie, the mother might have wished to send this information. " Because I saw it laying beside her in the bed," was the ungrammatical, but decisive reply.

Next I quote in 424 B, a case where a wife between sleeping and waking sees her husband carried wounded off the field of battle, and hears his voice saying, "Take this ring off my finger and send it to my wife".

A third case which I also give (in 424 C), exemplifies the communication of an emotional distress from a lady to her distant husband, who was waked by hearing her call him on the night after she had heard of a dangerous accident to her nephew.