(115) "I some time ago had rather a remarkable vision, but it was of the living. I have an only son, about 20, always in robust health, then in lodgings in London. Never were mother and son more to one another than we are. One night I awoke heartbroken by seeing him in bed very ill. I stood weeping by his bed, lifting his white face in my two hands, and saying he must be dying. On my husband waking I told him it all, and those at breakfast next morning, and said, ' Let us see if it's only a dream.' A week passed, and my usual letter did not come from my son. After a time one came saying he had been ill in bed a week, too ill to let me know, and the landlady had nursed him through it.

"Jane E. Fielding".

In answer to inquiries, Mrs. Fielding adds: -

" I found my son's letter telling of the illness I spoke of, and find it was written on the 15th July, 1882, a Saturday, and my vision-dream - for it was too distinct for a common dream; yet I was not wide awake, and could not vouch I had seen the picture consciously, yet it was most real - took place either on the night of 12th or 13th July, and I find both my husband and son-in-law remember my speaking of it, though the dates escape them. I now quote from my son's letter: ' I go back to the City on Monday, but I thought it was no use telling you, to make you anxious, of my attack of quinsy till I was better; and the doctor and my landlady nursed me most carefully, and now I can swallow.' It has much pain, this complaint, and it was that look of pain I saw on his face in my vision that gave me such pain. I can swear to the vision having been before the letter came. Were I in the least dubious, I should be the first to say so, having a glimpse of the meaning of the word science. I can't recall any other such 'clear-seeing.' I never had a dream like this before".

I have seen Mrs. Fielding's better to her son, dated Monday July 24th, in which she says, "On Thursday morning [i.e., July 13th] when I came down to breakfast, I said to Tom and Arthur [her son-in-law with whom she now lives], 'I hope Charlie is well; for I had such a queer dream of finding him lying in bed on his face, and when I turned it round, it was ghastly pale and ill-looking - and I was so sighing all day after, and expected to hear, as I did, you were ill.' Now that's funny! Shows how our souls are closely united. Arthur is just saying to me he 'quite remembers my telling him my dream.' "

[This practically proves that Mrs. Fielding is accurate in saying that her dream was described before the news was known. But the force of the coincidence is of course weakened by the fact that the illness extended over several days].

In the next case the form of a vision - a figure at the bedside - suggest, not so much a genuine dream as the sort of semi-waking hallucination which will be considered in the next chapter (compare also Mr."Wingfield's case, p. 142). The narrator is Mrs. L. H. Saunders, of St. Helen's, near Ryde, who was concerned in case 44.

"March 18th, 1885.