10,000 Dreams Interpreted | Page 6

must either deny these facts or admit that they must have had an intellectual
and spiritual cause of the psychic order, and I recommend sceptics who do not desire to
be convinced, to deny them outright; to treat them as illusions and cases of a fortuitous
coincidence of circumstances. They will find this easier. Uncompromising deniers of
facts, rebels against evidence, may be all the more positive, and may declare that the
writers of these extraordinary narratives are persons fond of a joke, who have written
them to hoax me, and that there have been persons in all ages who have done the same
thing to mystify thinkers who have taken up such questions.
``These phenomena prove, I think, that the soul exists, and that it is endowed with
faculties at present unknown. That is the logical way of commencing our study, which in
the end may lead us to the problem of the after-life and immortality. A thought can be
transmitted to the mind of another. There are mental transmissions, communications of
thoughts, and psychic currents between human souls. Space appears to be no obstacle in
these cases, and time sometimes seems to be annihilated.''
A few years ago a person whom I will designate as ``A'' related a dream to me as follows:
``I take no interest in pugilism or pugilists, but I saw, in a dream, every detail of the
Corbett and Fitzsimmons mill, four days before it took place out West. Two nights before
the fight I had a second dream in which a favorite horse was running, but suddenly, just
before the judge's stand was passed, a hitherto unobserved little black horse ran ahead
and the crowd shouted in my ears, `Fitzsimmons wins!' ''
``B'' relates the following as a dream: ``I saw the American soldiers, in clay-colored
uniform, bearing the flag of victory two weeks before the Spanish-American war was
declared, and of course before any living being could have known the uniform to be
adopted. Later I saw, several days before the actual occurrence happened, the destruction
of Cervera's fleet by the American navy.'' Signed ``B.''
``Just after the South African hostilities began, I saw in a dream a fierce struggle between
the British and Boers, in which the former suffered severe losses. A few nights after I had
a second dream in which I saw the contending forces in a long-drawn contest, very

disastrous to both, and in which neither could claim a victory. They seemed to be fighting
to a frazzle.'' Signed ``C.''
``D'' related to me at the time of the occurrence of the dream the following: ``It had been
suggested to me that the two cereals, corn and wheat, were too far apart, and that I ought
to buy corn. At noon I lay down on a lounge to await luncheon; I had barely closed my
eyes before a voice whispered: `Don't buy, but sell that corn.' `What do you mean?' I
asked. `Sell at the present price, and buy at 23 7/8.' '' The foregoing dream was related to
me by a practical, successful business man who never speculates. I watched the corn
market and know it took the turns indicated in the dream.
In this dream we find the dreamer conversing with some strange intelligence possessed of
knowledge unknown to objective reason. It could not, therefore, have been the waking
thoughts of the dreamer, for he possessed no such information. Was the message
superinduced through the energies and activities of the waking mind on the subjective
mind? This could not have been, because he had no such thoughts; besides, the
intelligence given was free from the errors of the calculating and anxious waking mind.
We must therefore look to other sources for an explanation. Was it the higher self that
manifested to Abraham in the dim ages of the world? Was it the Divine Voice that gave
solace to Krishna in his abstraction? Was it the unerring light that preceded Gautama into
the strange solitudes of Asia? Was it the small voice that Elijah heard in the desert of
Shurr? Was it the Comforter of Jesus in the wilderness and the garden of distress? Or,
was it Paul's indwelling spirit of this earthly tabernacle? One thing we may truthfully
affirm--that it did not proceed from the rational, objective mind of the rank materialist,
who would close all doors to that inner life and consciousness where all true religion
finds its birthmark, its hope, its promises and its faith; which, rightly understood, will
leave to the horrors of the Roman crucifixion the twin thieves, superstition and scepticism,
while the angel of ``Goodwill'' will go free to solace the world with the fruit and
fragrance of enduring power and promise{.} The steel chains that fasten these
hydra-headed crocodiles of sensuous