Page:The Naturalisation of the Supernatural.pdf/107

Rh which Mr. H. B. had actually written on the Monday was not sent, through fear of ridicule. Sometimes it is a feeling of quite a different order which stands in the way of a written note being made. Thus, Miss G. had a dream of her brother dying in his berth on board ship. Miss G. was so convinced that her brother was dead (in fact he died about twelve hours later), that she ceased to send her usual letters to him; but, in place of making a written note of an experience which she felt too sacred for the purpose, she kept an invitation card to a children's party to remind her of the exact date. In another case, in which a child of fourteen saw the apparition of a young man of about nineteen on the day of his death, the percipient told no one of her experience, save her sister who was present at the time; and adds, "Although I wished to put it down in my diary (which I had not kept for some time), I was afraid to do so; I therefore made marks to remind myself."

In the last case, it will be observed, the vision was a waking hallucination, a much more impressive experience than a dream, and one much more likely therefore to be recorded. But we have some statistics to show that even hallucinations are very rarely recorded beforehand. Out of sixty-two hallucinations coincident with a death, obtained through the Census enquiry, a written note is said to have