|
our waking state. If Emerson had been requested to supply a character
reference on Rupert, he probably would have given him a glowing
recommendation. But Emerson was not fooled in his dreams; here he
recognized Rupert for the nasty character that he actually was beneath
the surface. When Rupert eventually reveals his true colors and
slaps his spouse about or absconds with the company funds, the dreams,
as Emerson noted, "Turn out prophecy a year later"
Here is a dream that at first glance is suggestive of ESP. This dream comes from a collection of dreams that appeared in The London Sun on February 6, 1975: "After I lost my opal ring, I dreamed that it was in our chicken run. As soon as it was light, I ran to the chicken run, but could not find my ring. Two days later one of the hens was killed for our dinner, and there, in its crop, was the lost ring." On the surface of it, this dream seems to have psychic overtones. The dreamer apparently had no knowledge of where her ring was and her conscious mind pronounced the verdict that it was "lost." Her dreaming mind, however, seemed to tune in on the correct location of the missing opal as being somewhere in the chicken run, as it must have been for it to make its belated appearance in one of the feathered inhabitant's crop. Although the circumstances involved in the loss of the opal are unknown, it seems reasonable to conjecture that the dreamer could have subliminally felt the ring slipping from her finger during an earlier visit to the chicken run, but the bell of awareness didn't ring in her waking mind at the time. The ability of the dream to recall this circumstance from the earlier visit and to reveal that the opal ring was located in the chicken run would therefore not be considered a psychic dream, because the information could have been subliminally available to the dreamer. Although subliminal perception is often involved in cases of apparent psychic dreaming, there are many accounts of psychic dreaming in which subliminal perception doesn't seem to be involved. A Documented Case of Psychic DreamingJames Chaffin was a farmer in Davie County, North Carolina. He was married and had four sons. On November 16, 1905, Chaffin made a will, duly attested by two witnesses, giving his farm to his third son, Marshall, whom he appointed sole executor. The widow and the other three sons were left unprovided for. Later it appeared that he 88
|