The Book of Dreams and Ghosts

The Book of Dreams and Ghosts,
by Andrew Lang

The Project Gutenberg eBook, The Book of Dreams and Ghosts, by
Andrew Lang
This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or
re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.net

Title: The Book of Dreams and Ghosts
Author: Andrew Lang
Release Date: June 14, 2004 [eBook #12621]
Language: English
Character set encoding: US-ASCII
***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE BOOK
OF DREAMS AND GHOSTS***

Transcribed by David Price, email [email protected]

THE BOOK OF DREAMS AND GHOSTS

PREFACE TO THE NEW IMPRESSION
Since the first edition of this book appeared (1897) a considerable
number of new and startling ghost stories, British, Foreign and Colonial,
not yet published, have reached me. Second Sight abounds. Crystal
Gazing has also advanced in popularity. For a singular series of such
visions, in which distant persons and places, unknown to the gazer,
were correctly described by her, I may refer to my book, The Making
of Religion (1898). A memorial stone has been erected on the scene of
the story called "The Foul Fords" (p. 269), so that tale is likely to
endure in tradition.
July, 1899.

PREFACE TO THE FIRST EDITION
The chief purpose of this book is, if fortune helps, to entertain people
interested in the kind of narratives here collected. For the sake of
orderly arrangement, the stories are classed in different grades, as they
advance from the normal and familiar to the undeniably startling. At
the same time an account of the current theories of Apparitions is
offered, in language as free from technicalities as possible. According
to modern opinion every "ghost" is a "hallucination," a false perception,
the perception of something which is not present.
It has not been thought necessary to discuss the psychological and
physiological processes involved in perception, real or false. Every
"hallucination" is a perception, "as good and true a sensation as if there
were a real object there. The object happens not to be there, that is all."
{0a} We are not here concerned with the visions of insanity, delirium,
drugs, drink, remorse, or anxiety, but with "sporadic cases of
hallucination, visiting people only once in a lifetime, which seems to be
by far the most frequent type". "These," says Mr. James, "are on any
theory hard to understand in detail. They are often extraordinarily
complete; and the fact that many of them are reported as veridical, that

is, as coinciding with real events, such as accidents, deaths, etc., of the
persons seen, is an additional complication of the phenomenon." {0b}
A ghost, if seen, is undeniably so far a "hallucination" that it gives the
impression of the presence of a real person, in flesh, blood, and usually
clothes. No such person in flesh, blood, and clothes, is actually there.
So far, at least, every ghost is a hallucination, "that" in the language of
Captain Cuttle, "you may lay to," without offending science, religion,
or common-sense. And that, in brief, is the modern doctrine of ghosts.
The old doctrine of "ghosts" regarded them as actual "spirits" of the
living or the dead, freed from the flesh or from the grave. This view,
whatever else may be said for it, represents the simple philosophy of
the savage, which may be correct or erroneous. About the time of the
Reformation, writers, especially Protestant writers, preferred to look on
apparitions as the work of deceitful devils, who masqueraded in the
aspect of the dead or living, or made up phantasms out of "compressed
air". The common-sense of the eighteenth century dismissed all
apparitions as "dreams" or hoaxes, or illusions caused by real objects
misinterpreted, such as rats, cats, white posts, maniacs at large,
sleep-walkers, thieves, and so forth. Modern science, when it admits
the possibility of occasional hallucinations in the sane and healthy, also
admits, of course, the existence of apparitions. These, for our purposes,
are hallucinatory appearances occurring in the experience of people
healthy and sane. The difficulty begins when we ask whether these
appearances ever have any provoking mental cause outside the minds
of the people who experience them--any cause arising in the minds of
others, alive or dead. This is a question which orthodox psychology
does not approach, standing aside from any evidence which may be
produced.
This book does not pretend to be a convincing, but merely an
illustrative collection of evidence. It may, or may not, suggest to some
readers the desirableness of further inquiry; the author certainly does
not hope to do more, if as much.
It may be urged that many of the stories here narrated come from
remote times, and, as