Human Personality and its Survival of Bodily Death Part 12

[The last words are in answer to the question whether he had had similar vivid visions which had _not_ corresponded with any real event.]

The impression here produced is as though a jerk were given to some delicate link connecting the two brothers. The brother suffering the crisis thinks vividly of the other; and one can of course explain the incident, as we did on its first publication, as the endangered man's projection of the scene upon his brother's mind. The pa.s.sive dozing brother, on the other hand, feels as though he were suddenly _present_ in the scene,--say in response to some sudden call from the brother in danger,--and I am here bringing into relief _that_ aspect of the incident, on account of its a.n.a.logy with cases soon to be quoted. But the main lesson no doubt may be that no hard and fast line can be drawn between the two explanations.[51]

And here I feel bound to introduce a sample of a certain cla.s.s of dreams,--more interesting, perhaps, and certainly more perplexing than any;--but belonging to a category of phenomena which at present I can make no attempt to explain. I mean precognitive dreams;--pictures or visions in which future events are foretold or depicted, generally with more or less of symbolism,--and generally also in a mode so remote from the previsions of our earthly sagacity that we shall find ourselves driven, in a later discussion, to speak in vague terms of glimpses into a cosmic picture-gallery;--or of scenic representations composed and offered to us by intelligences higher and more distant than any spirit whom we have known. I give in Appendix IV. C, a thoroughly characteristic example;--characteristic alike in its definiteness, its purposelessness, its isolated unintelligibility.

Dr. Bruce's narrative, which I next give in Appendix IV. D, written by an intelligent man, while the facts were yet fresh, seems to me of high importance. If we accept the rest of his story, we must, I think, suppose that the sense of spiritual presence with which the incident began was more than a mere subjective fancy. Shall we refer it to the murdered man's wife;--with whom the dreamer seemed afterwards to be in telepathic relation? Or shall we interpret it as a kind of summons from the dying man, drawing on, as it were, his friend's spirit to witness the actual murder and the subsequent scene? The fact that another friend, in another locality apparently, had a vision of similar nature, tells somewhat in favour of the supposition that the decedent's spirit was operative in both cases; since we very seldom--if ever--find an agent producing an impression in two separate places at once--or nearly so--except at or just after the moment of death.

In this view, the incident resembles a scene pa.s.sing in a spiritual world. The dying man summons his brother-in-law; the brother-in-law visits the scene of murder, and there spiritually communicates with his sister, the widow, who is corporeally in that scene, and then sees further details of the scene after death, which he does not understand, and which are not explained to him.

Fantastic though this explanation seems, it is not easy to hit on a simpler one which will cover the facts as stated. Could we accept it, we should have a kind of transition between two groups of cases, which although apparently so different may form parts of a continuous series.

I mean the cases where the dreamer visits a distant scene, and the cases where another spirit visits the dreamer.

Taking, then, Dr. Bruce's case to bridge the interval between these two groups, I go on to a case which properly belongs to the _second_, though it still has much in common with the _first_. I shall quote Mrs.

Storie's narrative at full length in the text; because the case is, in my judgment, both evidentially very strong, and also, in the naivete of its confusion, extremely suggestive of the way in which these psychical communications are made. Mrs. Storie, who is now dead, was, by the testimony of Edmund Gurney, Professor Sidgwick, and others, a witness eminently deserving of trust; and, besides a corroboration from her husband of the manifestation of a troubled dream, before the event was known, we have the actual notes written down by her, as she informed us, the day, or the day after, the news of the fatal accident arrived, solely for her own use, and unmistakably reflecting the incoherent impressiveness of the broken vision. These notes form the narrative given in _Phantasms of the Living_ (vol. i. p. 370) which I reproduce here. The fact that the deceased brother was a _twin_ of Mrs. Storie's adds interest to the case, since one clue (a vague one as yet) to the causes directing and determining telepathic communications lies in what seems their exceptional frequency between _twins_;--the closest of all relations.

HOBART TOWN, _July 1874_.

On the evening of the 18th July, I felt unusually nervous. This seemed to begin [with the occurrence of a small domestic annoyance]

about half past eight o'clock. When I went to my room I even felt as if some one was there. I fancied, as I stepped into bed, that some one _in thought_ tried to stop me. At 2 o'clock I woke from the following dream. It seemed like in dissolving views. In a twinkle of light I saw a railway, and the puff of the engine. I thought, "What's going on up there? Travelling? I wonder if any of us are travelling and I dreaming of it." _Some one_ unseen by me answered, "No; something quite different--something wrong." "I don't like to look at these things," I said. Then I saw behind and above my head William's upper half reclining, eyes and mouth half shut; his chest moved forward convulsively, and he raised his right arm. Then he bent forward, saying, "I suppose I should move out of this." Then I saw him lying, eyes shut, on the ground, flat. The chimney of an engine at his head. I called in excitement, "That will strike him!" The _some one_ answered "Yes--well, here's what it was"; and immediately I saw William sitting in the open air--faint moonlight--on a raised place sideways. He raised his right arm, shuddered, and said, "I can't go on, or back, _No_."

Then he seemed lying flat. I cried out, "Oh! Oh!" and others seemed to echo, "Oh! Oh!" He seemed then upon his elbow, saying, "Now it comes." Then as if struggling to rise, turned twice round quickly, saying, "Is it the train? _the train, the train_," his right shoulder reverberating as if struck from behind. He fell back like fainting; his eyes rolled. A large dark object came between us like panelling of wood, and rather in the dark something rolled over, and like an arm was thrown up, and the whole thing went away with a _swish_. Close beside me on the ground there seemed a long dark object. I called out, "They've left something behind; it's like a man." It then raised its shoulders and head, and fell down again.

The same _some one_ answered, "_Yes, sadly_." [? "_Yes_," sadly.]

After a moment I seemed called on to look up, and said, "Is that _thing_ not away yet?" Answered, "_No_." And in front, in light, there was a railway compartment in which sat Rev. Mr. Johnstone, of Echuca. I said, "What's he doing there?" Answered, "He's there." A railway porter went up to the window asking, "Have you seen any of----." I caught no more, but I _thought_ he referred to the _thing_ left behind. Mr. Johnstone seemed to answer "_No_"; and the man went quickly away--I thought to look for it. After all this the _some one_ said close to me, "Now I'm going." I started, and at once saw {a tall dark figure at my head} {William's back at my side. } He put his right hand (in grief) over his face, and the other almost touching my shoulder, he crossed in front, looking stern and solemn. There was a flash from the eyes, and I caught a glimpse of a fine pale face like ushering him along, and indistinctly another. I felt frightened, and called out, "Is he angry?"

"Oh, no." "Is he going away?" Answered, "_Yes_," by the same _some one_, and I woke with a loud sigh, which woke my husband, who said, "What is it?" I told him I had been dreaming "something unpleasant"--named a "railway," and dismissed it all from my mind as a dream. As I fell asleep again I fancied the _some one_ said, "It's all gone," and another answered, "I'll come and remind her."

The news reached me one week afterwards. The accident had happened to my brother on the same night about half past 9 o'clock. Rev. Mr.

Johnstone and his wife were actually in the train which struck him.

He was walking along the line which is raised two feet on a level country. He seemed to have gone 16 miles--must have been tired and sat down to take off his boot, which was beside him, dozed off and was very likely roused by the sound of the train; 76 sheep-trucks had pa.s.sed without touching him, but some wooden projection, likely the step, had touched the _right_ side of his head, bruised his right shoulder, and killed him instantaneously. The night was very dark. I believe now that the _some one_ was (from something in the _way_ he spoke) William _himself_. The face with him was white as alabaster and something like this [a small sketch pasted on] in profile. There were many other thoughts or words seemed to pa.s.s, but they are too many to write down here.

The voice of the _some one_ unseen seemed _always above_ the figure of William which I saw. And when I was shown the compartment of the carriage with Mr. Johnstone, the _some one_ seemed on a line between me and it--_above_ me.

[In an account-book of Mrs. Storie's, on a page, headed July 1874, we find the 18th day marked, and the words, "Dear Willie died," and "Dreamed, dreamed of it all," appended.

The first letter, from the Rev. J. C. Johnstone to the Rev. John Storie, announcing the news of the accident, is lost. The following are extracts from his second and third letters on the subject:--]

ECHUCA, _10th August 1874_.

The place where Hunter was killed is on an open plain, and there was consequently plenty of room for him to escape the train had he been conscious; but I think Meldrum's theory is the correct one, that he had sat down to adjust some bandages on his leg and had thoughtlessly gone off to sleep. There is only one line of rails, and the ground is raised about 2 feet--the ground on which the rails rest. He had probably sat down on the edge, and lain down backwards so as to be within reach of some part of the train. It was not known at the time that an accident had occurred. Mrs.

Johnstone and myself were in the train. Meldrum says he was not very much crushed. The top of the skull was struck off, and some ribs were broken under the armpit on one side. His body was found on the Sunday morning by a herd-boy from the adjoining station.

_August 29th, 1874._

The exact time at which the train struck poor Hunter must have been about 9.55 P.M., and his death must have been instantaneous.

[The above corresponds with the account of the inquest in the _Riverine Herald_ for July 22nd. The _Melbourne Argus_ also describes the accident as having taken place on the night of Sat.u.r.day, the 18th.

The following remarks are taken from notes made by Professor Sidgwick, during an interview with Mrs. Storie, in April 1884, and by Mrs. Sidgwick after another interview in September 1885:--]

Mrs. Storie cannot regard the experience exactly as a dream, though she woke up from it. She is sure that it did not grow more definite in recollection afterwards. She never had a series of scenes in a dream at any other time; and she has never had anything like a hallucination. They were introduced by a voice in a whisper, not recognised as her brother's. He had sat on the bank as he appeared in the dream. The engine she saw behind him had a chimney of peculiar shape, such as she had not at that time seen; and she remembers that Mr. Storie thought her foolish about insisting on the chimney--unlike (he said) any which existed; but he informed her when he came back from Victoria, where her brother was, that engines of this kind had just been introduced there. She had no reason to think that any conversation between the porter and the clergyman actually occurred. The persons who seemed to lead her brother away were not recognised by her, and she only saw the face of one of them.

Mr. Storie confirms his wife having said to him at the time of the dream, "What is that light?" Before writing the account first quoted, she had just mentioned the dream to her husband, but had not described it. She desired not to think of it, and also was unwilling to worry him about it because of his Sunday's work. This last point, it will be observed, is a confirmation of the fact that the dream took place on the Sat.u.r.day night; and "it came out clearly" (Mrs. Sidgwick says) "that her recollection about the Sat.u.r.day night was an independent recollection, and not read back after the accident was known." The strongly nervous state that preceded the dream was quite unique in Mrs. S.'s experience. But as it appeared that, according to her recollection, it commenced at least an hour before the accident took place, it must be regarded as of no importance evidentially. The feeling of a presence in the room was also quite unique.

"Here," says Gurney, "the difficulty of referring the true elements of the dream to the agent's mind [is very great]. For Mr. Hunter was asleep; and even if we can conceive that the image of the advancing engine may have had some place in his mind, the presence of Mr.

Johnstone could not have been perceived by him. But it is possible, of course, to regard this last item of correspondence as accidental, even though the dream was telepathic. It will be observed that the dream followed the accident by about four hours; such _deferment_ is, I think, a strong point in favour of telepathic, as opposed to independent, clairvoyance."

I propose as an alternative explanation,--for reasons which I endeavour to justify in later chapters,--that the deceased brother, aided by some other dimly discerned spirit, was endeavouring to present to Mrs. Storie a series of pictures representing his death--as realised _after_ his death. I add this last clause, because one of the marked points in the dream was the presence in the train of Mr. Johnstone of Echuca--a fact which (as Gurney remarks) the dying man could not possibly know.

I have dwelt on these two cases of Dr. Bruce and Mrs. Storie, because the reader will, I think, come to feel, as our evidence unrolls itself, that he has here complex experiences which are confirmed at various points by simpler experiences, in such a way as to make these stories seem a confused but an intimate transcript of what other narratives show in hints and glimpses alone.

In Mrs. Storie's case the whole experience, as we have seen, presented itself as a _dream_; yet as a dream of quite unusual type, like a series of pictures presented to the sleeper who was still conscious that she was lying in bed. In other cases the "psychical invasion" of the spirit either of a living or of a deceased person seems to set up a variety of sleep-waking states--both in agent and percipient. In one bizarre narrative a man dreaming that he has returned home is _heard_ in his home calling for hot water--and has himself a singular sense of "bilocation" between the railway carriage and his bedroom.[52] In another curious case is recorded a kind of _encounter_ in dreamland, apparently more or less remembered by both persons.[53]

An invasion of this type coming upon a sleeping person is apt to induce some change in the sleeper's state, which, even if he regards it as a complete awakening, is generally shown not to be so in fact by the dreamlike character of his own recorded feelings and utterances. Gurney called these "Borderland Cases," and the whole collection in _Phantasms of the Living_ will repay perusal. I introduce one such case in Appendix IV. E, as being at once very perplexing and, I think, very strongly attested. I knew Mr. and Mrs. T., who certainly were seriously anxious for complete accuracy, and who had (as the narrative shows) made a brief memorandum and consulted various persons on the incident at the time.

These cases of invasion by the spirits of living persons pa.s.s on into cases of invasion by the dying, the impression being generally that of the presence of the visitant in the percipient's surroundings.[54]

Sometimes the phantasm is seen as nearly as can be ascertained at the time of death. But there is no perceptible break in the series at this point. Some appear shortly after death, but before the death is known to the percipient. [See Appendix IV. F]. Finally, there are cases when the appearance takes place some time after death, but presents features unknown to the percipient.[55]

We have now briefly reviewed certain phenomena of sleep from a standpoint somewhat differing from that which is commonly taken. We have not (as is usual) fixed our attention primarily on the _negative_ characteristics of sleep, or the extent to which it lacks the capacities of waking hours. On the contrary, we have regarded sleep as an independent phase of personality, existing with as good a right as the waking phase, and dowered with imperfectly expressed faculties of its own. In investigating those faculties we have been in no wise deterred by the fact of the apparent uselessness of some of them for our waking ends. _Useless_ is a pre-scientific, even an anti-scientific term, which has perhaps proved a greater stumbling-block to research in psychology than in any other science. In science the _use_ of phenomena is to prove laws, and the more bizarre and trivial the phenomena, the greater the chance of their directing us to some law which has been overlooked till now. In reviewing the phenomena of sleep, then, we found in the first place that it possesses a specific recuperative energy which the commonly accepted data of physiology and psychology cannot explain. We saw that in sleep there may be an increased co-ordination or centralisation of muscular control, and also an increased vividness of entencephalic perception, indicating a more intimate appreciation of intra-peripheral changes than is manifest in waking life. In accordance with this view, we found that the dreaming self may undergo sensory and emotional experiences apparently more intense than those of vigilance, and may produce thereby lasting effects upon the waking body and mind.

Similarly again, we saw that that specific impress on body and mind which we term memory may in sleeping or hypnotic states be both wider in range and fuller in content than the evocable memory of the waking day.

Nay, not memory only, but power of inference, of argument, may be thus intensified, as is shown by the solution in sleep of problems which have baffled waking effort.

All these are fragmentary indications,--useless for practical purposes if you will,--of sleeping faculty exercised on the same order of things as waking faculty, and with comparable or even superior power. But we were bound to push our inquiry further still--we were bound to ask whether the self of sleep showed any faculty of a quite different order from that by which waking consciousness maintains the activity of man.

We found that this was so indeed; that there was evidence that the sleeping spirit was susceptible of relations unfettered by spatial bonds; of telaesthetic perception of distant scenes; of telepathic communication with distant persons, or even with spirits of whom we can predicate neither distance nor nearness, since they are released from the prison of the flesh.

The inference which all this evidence suggests is entirely in accordance with the hypothesis on which my whole work is based.

I have a.s.sumed that man is an organism informed or possessed by a soul.

This view obviously involves the hypothesis that we are living a life in two worlds at once; a planetary life in this material world, to which the organism is intended to react; and also a cosmic life in that spiritual or metetherial world, which is the native environment of the soul. From that unseen world the energy of the organism needs to be perpetually replenished. That replenishment we cannot understand: we may figure it to ourselves as a protoplasmic process;--as some relation between protoplasm, ether, and whatever is beyond ether, on which it is at present useless to speculate.

Admitting, for the sake of argument, these vast a.s.sumptions, it will be easy to draw the further inference that it may be needful that the soul's attention should be frequently withdrawn from the business of earthly life, so as to pursue with greater intensity what we may call its protoplasmic task,--the maintenance of the fundamental, pervading connection between the organism and the spiritual world. Nay, this profounder condition, as responding to more primitive, more fundamental needs, will itself be more primitive than the waking state. And this is so: sleep is the infant's dominant phase: the pre-natal state resembles sleep rather than waking; and so does the whole life-condition of our lowly ancestors. And as the sleeping state is the more _primitive_, so also is it the more _generalised_, and the more _plastic_. Out of this dreamy abeyance between two worlds, the needs of the material world are constantly developing some form of alert activity, some faculty which was _potential_ only until search for food and the defence against enemies compelled a closer heed to "the life of relation," lest the relation should become only that of victim to devourer.

We shall thus have two phases of personality developing into separate purposes and in separate directions from a parent stem. The waking personality will develop external sense organs and will fit itself progressively for the life of relation to the external world. It will endeavour to attain an ever completer control over the resources of the personality, and it will culminate in what we term _genius_ when it has unified the subliminal as far as possible with the supraliminal in its pursuit of deliberate waking ends.

The sleeping personality will develop in ways less easy to foresee.

What, on any theory, will it aim at, beyond the familiar intensification of recuperative power? We can only guess, on my theory, that its development will show some increasing trace of the soul's less exclusive absorption in the activity of the organism. The soul has withdrawn from the specialised material surface of things (to use such poor metaphor as we can) into a realm where the nature of the connection between matter and spirit--whether through the intermediacy of the ether or otherwise--is more profoundly discerned. That same withdrawal from the surface which, while it diminishes power over complex muscular processes, increases power over profound organic processes, may at the same time increase the soul's power of operating in that spiritual world to which sleep has drawn it nearer.

On this view of sleep, be it observed, there will be nothing to surprise us in the possibility of increasing the proportion of the sleeping to the waking phase of life by hypnotic suggestion. All we can say is that, while the soul must insist on at least the minimum quant.i.ty of sleep needful to keep the body alive, we can see no superior limit to the quant.i.ty of sleep which it may choose to take,--the quant.i.ty of attention, that is, which it may choose to give to the special operations of sleep as compared with those of waking life.

At this point we must for the present pause. The suggested hypothesis will indeed cover the actual facts as to sleep adduced in this chapter.

But it covers them by virtue of a.s.sumptions too vast to be accepted without further confirmation. It must necessarily be our duty in later chapters to trace the development of the sleeping personality in both the directions indicated above;--in the direction of organic recuperation through the hypnotic trance, and in the direction of the soul's independent operation through that form of trance which leads to possession and to ecstasy. We shall begin at once in the next chapter to trace out that great experimental modification of sleep, from which, under the names of mesmerism or of hypnotism, results of such conspicuous practical value have already been won.

CHAPTER V

HYPNOTISM