The San Francisco call. [volume], May 04, 1913, Page 8, Image 8

About The San Francisco call. [volume] (San Francisco [Calif.]) 1895-1913

Image provided by: University of California, Riverside; Riverside, CA

                
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▼ M HE SCIENTIFIC STUDY OF
X-^B-;.'-.. sleep,, particularly as showing the
JAI close relationship between dreams
and disease, has resulted within the
past few years in discoveries of
great practical importance. No less
important are the discoveries that
have been made through the investigation —as yet
only in its beginnings -—of the peculiar semi-
waking, semi-sleeping condition that immediately??
precedes and immediately follows actual sleep.
Most people have next to no knowledge of this
"borderland state," for the reason that it is usually
,so fleeting as to be inappreciable. But careful exper
iment and observation have demonstrated its exist
ence and, moreover, it is now known that instead of
being a merely passive condition, it often is char
acterized by a degree of mental activity that makes
an understanding of it peculiarly interesting.
Through its investigation much; new light has
been thrown on the nature of those weird hal- '
lucinations frequently experienced •by normal,
healthy ?j persons, and taking the form of phan- ■■'X'
tasms of the living or the dead; such as, for ex
ample, the "ghost" seen by Lewis C. Bruce, while
spending a night in a lonely Scotch farmhouse.
He had been sailing all day, had been caught in
a calm, and did not arrive at the farmhouse until
after midnight. Before turning in he ate a hearty
supper, and then, having been shown to his room,
undressed as quickly as he could,:arid soon was*
sound asleep. The bed he occupied was one of
those old-fashioned, heavily-curtained affairs so
common in the Highlands. About two o'clock in
the morning? he awoke with a start and with an
uneasy feeling; that he was not alone. Looking
up, he beheld to his horror a face gazing at him
I from the opening in the curtains. This apparition
lasted from ten to fifteen seconds.
"It was a face," Mr. Bruce afterwards said,
"that I had never seen before. My hair stood
up on my head, and I felt cold. But reason pre
vailed as I thought of my late and heavy supper,
and soon again I was fast asleep."
Judge of his amazement when, dressing in the
morning, he noticed on the wall a small portrait
which he instantly recognized as that of the face
he had seen gazing through the curtain. It was
the portrait, he learned at breakfast, of a man
who had formerly lived in the farmhouse, arid had
died in the room in which Mr. Bruce had slept.
COMPARE with this the extraordinary experi
ence of an Englishman, John E. Husbands, as
a guest at a hotel in Madeira. He had gone to bed,
one ) bright moonlight night, and; had been sleep
ing for some time when, precisely like Mr. Bruce,
he awoke with a feeling that somebody was in the
room with him. Opening his eyes he saw, standing
at the side of his bed and pointing at the spot where
he was lying, ; a young fellow of about twenty-five,
dressed in flannels. Mr. ? Husbands's first; thought
was ; that \ the \ intruder; had entered by | the window;
which he knew he had left open, and 'he called out
angrily, asking him what he wanted. Then, as. the
other made no reply, he sat up [in bed and struck at
him with his fist. xAs he did so, j his ■• unexpected
visitor, still -pointing toward the bed, slowly faded
into nothingness.
The next day, Mr. Husbands told what he had
6een to several other guests at the J hotel, including
a Miss; Falkner arid her brother. Both fancied that
they recognized in his
description of he; flan- X
clad apparition a
young friend of theirs
who had died in that
room some months be- ,
THE SEMI-MONTHLY MAGAZINE SECTION
THE BORDERLAND OF SLEEP
ILLUSTRATIONS tVG'H* I HELL
H. ADDINGTON BRUCE
fore. But they said nothing of this to Mr. Hus
bands until nearly a week later, when Miss Falkner
abruptly showed him a photograph of the dead man.
Instantly he exclaimed:
"Why, that is the very chap I saw in my room.
Only he was dressed differently. He had on a
cricket or tennis suit, fastened at the neck with a
sailor knot." . ....,.,..'
"And," added Miss Falkner, in relating the inci
dent, "it so happens that this was the kind of dress
our friend often wore. But I can not understand
how he came to appear to Mr. Husbands, who is
most practical, and the last man one would expect
a 'spirit' to visit."
Still more striking was an uncanny visitation
vouchsafed to a commercial traveler from Boston
during a trip in the Middle West. In fact, his nar
rative of his experience, as reported by? him to the
American Society for; Psychical Research, with cor
roborative documents, constitutes- one of the most
remarkable ? "true ghost stories" I have ever heard,?
and can properly be told only in his own words.
. "In 1867," he says, "my only? sister, a young lady
of [eighteen years, died suddenly of cholera in St.
Louis.; My attachment for her was very strong, and
the blow a severe one to me. A year or so after her
death I became a commercial traveler, and it was in?
1876, while ?on one of my Western trips, that the
event; occurred.
"I had 'drummed' the city of St. Joseph, Mo., and
v had gone to my room at the Pacific House to send
in my orders, which were unusually large ones, so
that I was in a very happy frame of mind indeed.
The hour was high noon, and the sun was shining
cheerfully into my room. - While busily smoking a
cigar and writing out my orders, I suddenly became
conscious that some one was sitting 1 on my: left, with
one arm resting on the table. Quick as a flash I
turned and distinctly saw the form of my dead sis
ter, and for a brief second or so looked her squarely?
in the face and so sure was I that it was she that I
sprang forward in delight, calling her by name; and,
as I did so, the apparition instantly vanished.
Naturally I was startled and-dumfounded, almost
doubting my senses; but from the cigar in my mouth,
and the pen in my hand, with the ink still moist on
my letter, I satisfied myself; I had not been dreaming
and was wide awake.
"Now comes the most remarkable confirmation
of my statement. This visitation, or whatever j
you may call it, so impressed me that I took the
next train home; and in the presence of my j
parents and others I related what had occurred.
My father was inclined to ridicule me, as he saw
how earnestly I believed what 1 stated but he, •
too, was amazed when-. I told them of a bright red
v' line or scratch on the right-hand side of my
sister's face, which I had distinctly seen. : .--:
"TATHEN I mentioned this, my mother rose
"» trembling and nearly fainted away; and
as soon as she sufficiently recovered her self-pos
session, wit h tears st reaming down her face,; she I
exclaimed that I had indeed seen my sister, as, no
-living mortal but herself; was aware of that
scratch, which she had accidentally made while
doing some little act of kindness after my sister's*?
death. She said she well remembered how I
pained she was to think she should have, ?
unintentionally, marred the features of ?
her dead daughter, and that, unknown to
fall, how she had carefully obliterated all £
traces of the slight scratch with the aid
of; powder, etc., and that she had never
mentioned it to a human being from that
day to this. In proof, neither my father
nor any of our family had detected it, and
positively were unaware of the mc iderit ;"1
yet I saw the scratch as bright as if just?
made."'". ' - ■••'■••/,*:
here was, iurther, a curious sequel to
this singular adventure, for within a few
days after her son's return, the mother
herself passed away, "happy in the belief
that she would rejoin her favorite daugh
ter in another world." To the entire fam
ily it seemed certain that the dead daugh
ter had .been aware of her mother's
approaching end, and had contrived to
appear to her brother as a means of sending him
home in time to take a last farewell.
"Ghosts," of course, are often seen at the mo
ment when, or not long after, the person whose
phantasmal form appears is dying, or passing
through some serious crisis, at a distance from the
place of apparition. I am able to cite an astonish
ing instance of this sort, on the authority of a clergy-*,
man, the Rev. Arthur Bellamy. His wife, it seems, y
as a young girl had made a compact with a friend
that whichever of them died first should endeavor to
manifest herself in spirit form to i the survivor.
Many years later Mrs. Bellamy, who in the mean
time had lost all track of her friend, casually heard
of the hitter's death. The news reminded her of
jX their compact, and, be
coming nervous, she
told her husband of it.
Mr. Bellamy declares he
had never known the
friend in life, nor had