(174) "An attack of rheumatism and nervous prostration left me far from well for some weeks last spring, and one night I had a strange unaccountable vision which has left a vivid impression upon my memory. I had gone to bed early and was lying awake alone, with a night-light burning in order in some degree to dispel the gloom. Suddenly across the lower end of the room passed Major G.'s figure, dressed in his usual everyday costume, neither his features nor his figure any whit altered. It was no dream, nor was I in the least delirious or wandering, therefore a conviction seized me that something must have occurred; in consequence I particularly marked the hour, when the clock struck 11 shortly afterwards. The next morning I was not the least surprised when my sister handed me a note from Miss G. announcing her brother's death, and was fully prepared before reading it to find that he had passed away before 11 the previous evening - which presentiment, strange to say, was fully verified; Major G. having died at a quarter to 11. Major G, had returned in a bad state of health from Egypt, where he had been serving in the campaign of 1883. For some time he appeared to recover and was able to go about and enter into society during the winter, but during the last month the old symptoms had returned, and gradually he grew worse and worse, until no hopes of his recovery were entertained.

Though not personally intimate with him, we were well acquainted with his family, and naturally his case formed a topic of conversation among us. We had also received bad accounts a few days before and were aware that he was in a critical condition; nevertheless at the time of his death he had been quite out of my thoughts and mind. I had never before had any apparition of any description whatsoever, nor has this one been followed by any other.

"C. P." Miss Scott Moncrieff, of 44, Shooter's Hill Road, Blackheath, says: -

"As I was at [the town where Miss P. lives] at the time, I can myself so far confirm the story as to mention that, on the day after it occurred, we heard that the young lady had been so shaken in her nerves by her illness that she had been seeing what you would call a ' hallucination,' and was going to Malvern for change of air".

She adds that Miss P. was staying with her when the above account was written, and that as to the date, "both she and I remembered that it was on a Thursday near the end of March or beginning of April".

We find from an obituary notice that Major G. died on Thursday, April 3rd, 1884.

In an interview with Mr. Myers, December 26th, 1885, Miss P. added the following details: -

"Major G.'s phantom was in his ordinary walking costume - hat and ulster - in which Miss P. was accustomed to see him. The figure passed quickly across the end of the room without turning its head, but the face as well as the figure were distinctly recognisable. The figure made no noise, and disappeared as it reached the wall. 1Miss P. at once conjectured that Major G. must be passing away; but she felt no fear. Although Major G. was known to be fatally ill, there was no expectation of his death from day to day. He was not prominently before Miss P.'s mind. Miss P. was somewhat out of health at the time, but never suffered from any kind of hallucination of sight or hearing. She did not mention the incident to her family for fear of ridicule.

1 This was "an unrecognised figure, which seems curiously to have corresponded in aspect with a person who, unknown to her, had recently died in the room in which it appeared; but it has been impossible to obtain corroboratory evidence of this incident." See reply by Gurney to Professor Peirce. Proceedings of American Society for Psychical Research, 1885-9, vol. i., p. 160. - Ed].

Miss P.'s sister (to whom the incident was first told) said that she remembered receiving next morning the letter as to Major G.'s death; and also remembered that some time later Miss P. told her of the incident.

[Here the knowledge of the percipient that Major G. was in a critical state is, of course, an element of weakness; but it remains a remarkable coincidence that she should have had her one experience of a sensory hallucination at the exact hour of his death].

The next account is from Mr. Runciman, of Oak Villa, Geraldine Road, Wandsworth.

"May 5th, 1884.

(175) "On the morning of December 2nd, 1883, at about 7 o'clock in the morning, I had a dream which merged into a waking hallucination as follows: - I dreamt Mr. J. H. Haggit was lying on my bed, beside me, outside of the bedclothes. I dreamt I saw him there, and I also thought I saw him there after dreaming. I arose and rested on my right elbow, looking at him in the dusky light. There was a very small jet of gas burning in the room. I reflected, 'Am I awake, or is this a dream?' I cannot yet answer this question to my own satisfaction; I cannot tell when my dream merged in my waking thoughts. I only am sure that as the figure disappeared I was as wide awake as I am now. He was dressed in grey tweed, as I had been used to see him actually dressed.2 He was turned from me so that I could only partially see his face. Yet I was certain it was he. I was alarmed and shocked to find my dream a reality - as I then thought it. I was about to speak when, in a twinkling, the image of Mr. H. was gone. I was leaning on my right arm and half raised from the bed. It was only half light, our gas burning but turned low.

I mentioned the matter on that day to Mr. G. Aynsley, of No. 3, Glover Terrace, South Shields. I was oppressed during the whole day by the unusual experience of the morning, and hence spoke to the above and another twice about the incident.

"I had a note, next day I think, saying that Mr. H. died about 6 hours after his fancied presence in my bed.

"I knew that Mr. H. was afflicted, as he had been for 8 years or so, by bronchial asthma. As he had lived so long in spite of great suffering, I quite thought he would live longer. I had no idea he was near death.

"I believe this was a merely natural occurrence. I am not orthodox in religion. "Thomas Runciman".

1 The mode of movement and of disappearance here described are not infrequent in visual hallucinations. In my collection (p. 254), besides about a dozen cases where the disappearance was through a door, behind a curtain, into a corner, and so on, I find four where it was respectively through the wall, into the wall, through the window, and into a bookcase. Movement of some sort, as will be seen later, is an extremely frequent feature of both subjective and telepathic phantoms.

2See pp. 351-2.

We find the date of the death confirmed by the obituary of the Darlington and Stockton Times.

Mr. Aynsley corroborates as follows, on May 10, 1884: -

"3, Glover Terrace, South Shields. "I remember hearing Mr. Thomas Runciman speak of a vivid dream and hallucination which he had had on the day that Mr. Haggit died. He told me that he dreamt that he saw him lying on the bed beside him, in his ordinary dress, but very pale and haggard. He was so impressed that he awoke, and saw him quite plainly there. I ascertained afterwards that he had died about 6 hours after, on the day that Mr. Runciman related the circumstance. "George Aynsley".

In answer to inquiries, Mr. Runciman writes: -

"With regard to my having had any other hallucination, I have had others, but lapse of time and inattention have quite dimmed the remembrance of them. They were of a different kind to this last case. They were, I should say, simply 'nightmare' or ' daymare.' That is, they were such, that I quite believe I was asleep while experiencing them. In the last case I had not a peculiar sense of breaking out of sleep at once, and with a snap, as it were. I render my idea but imperfectly in the preceding sentence - perhaps I would more truly describe myself as breaking free, not from what was sleep, but from a tyrannous mistake as to my circumstances at the time. This sense was absent in the last case. I believe I might be awake, I even think I was awake, with the image of a dream still strongly on my mind. But in the earlier cases I concluded long ago that I was asleep and vividly dreaming till the image disappeared. Briefly, I cannot be sure in the latter case that I was asleep, although all experience would go to say I was. In the earlier cases many years ago I concluded that waking had caused what looked real to disappear. But do not think for one moment that I consider the last case any less a delusion than the former. I only try to describe my experience and belief at the moment of hallucination.

It is difficult to define the difference in these cases".

In conversation with our colleague, Mr. R. Hodgson, Mr. Runciman mentioned that he found afterwards from the servant that at the time of his hallucination Mr. Haggit was apparently suffering intense agony. The figure was not part of his dream at all; he saw it when he woke. It appeared to be lying almost on its right side, between Mr. Runciman and his wife, with the left side-face exposed and eye open, but the body was motionless, though it seemed to Mr. Runciman to be alive. In addition to the low gaslight, the dusky light of the morning was coming through the window, the blind of which was up. The light was sufficient for Mr. Runciman to see the time by his watch. He tells us that he made a written note of the experience, but does not remember whether this was done before he heard of the death. He has searched for the note, but cannot find it, and thinks that it must have been lost at the time of a removal.