Strange Tales of Yester Year - No.1, Part 1 - Paper Premonitions

Toutin Premonition Illustration, 1973

 I'm guessing that a high percentage of people reading this, will at some point or another in their lives, have experienced the phenomena know as Deja-Vu (already seen).  That feeling you get where you feel as if you've visited a place before, or know someone already that you've only just met, or even how a conversation is going to play out for the next few sentences.....

I'm also guessing that a much lower percentage of you will, at some point, have had a dream which then becomes true later that day or in the next few days.  It can be something as simple as going to the place in your dream, or meeting a person unexpectedly who appeared in your dream the night before.  But what seems to be more often the case, is that your precognitive dream warns you of some potential threat.  Sometimes, it won't even be a dream...just a strange feeling of foreboding......

The frequency of these dreams and premonitions has always fascinated me. I've had many of them over the years, and they're well documented as happening to hundreds of other people.  And yet the unpredictable nature of them makes them almost impossible to properly study, which means a lot of people remain sceptical of such dreams being a thing at all, and put any accuracy within the dreams to prediciting later events, as down to coincidence or chance.  Until, of course, they have one themselves.....

To me, it's definitely a subject that warrants more study, although I have no idea how you would go about it.  Any dreams that I've had (and I'll tell you all about some of these in a later post) have happened sporadically and are of course not provable as being premonitions until the events they predict come to pass.  But from personal experience, there is one aspect that sets them apart from usual dreams...and for me that is the feeling that you absolutely must tell someone about them, or write them down.  You just get a sense that something about the dream is noteworthy......

Today then, I decided to hunt down as many experiences as I could find of precognitive dreams and premonitions from old newspaper reports, to see what I could find.  And this turned up a surprisingly large number of hits.....here are just a few of the many reports...

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From the Evening Dispatch, dated Tuesday, January 22nd 1884

A Victim Who Had a Premonition of Death.

NORTHBORO, Mass., January 22. - The body of Helon Brooks,  of this town,  a victim of the Gay Head wreck,  has arrived home.  Brooks had a premonition of disaster prior to his departure.  He regulated all his financial matters and talked freely as to the course to be pursued by relations in case he should not return alive.

On the morning after President Lincoln was assassinated Mr. Brooks gave the boys in camp with him,  being then in the army,  an account of a dream he had in relation to that tragedy,  which was corroborated by intelligence received soon after he related his dream.

(* DF Note - Lincoln himself also famously had a premonition about his assassination. *)

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From the Oakland Tribune, dated Tuesday, July 23rd 1907

GIRL SAILS ON COLUMBIA UNDER SPELL OF DEATH

Beautiful Young Texas Woman Writes to Friends of Premonition of Disaster---Among the Saved

BERKELEY, July 23. -  Miss Nannie McLennan, a beautiful girl whose home is in Waco,  McLennan county, Texas,  and whose family is among the most prominent in the South,  left Berkeley for the north on the Columbia, and before her departure had an extraordinary premonition of death on the steamer.  She is reported safe,  however,  at Eureka.

Her forebodings were expressed in letters written by her last week to friends in Texas while she was a guest in the home of W. R. Ellis at 2238 Grove Street.  On postal cards mailed from the Ellis home Miss McLennan expressed the fear she felt that the trip on the Colombia would end in death for her.

"If the steamer goes down with me on board," wrote Miss McLennan, "do not be surprised.  That will just about be my fate."

The letters were a subject of bantering conversation in the Ellis home during all of last week.  In spite of the banter Miss McLennan's cousin,  Mrs. James N. Brooks,  also a guest in the Ellis home,  decided that she would not make the trip in the steamer,  although she had originally planned to do so.  Mrs. Brooks went by rail to Portland,  while Miss McLennan went by steamer,  not withstanding all her forebodings.  They were to meet in Seattle.

ANOTHER ONE

Miss Constantine Walker heeded a foreboding similar to that which Miss McLennan entertained.  Miss Walker is visiting with friends at 1632 Belton Street.  She had engaged passage on the Columbia,  but at the last moment changed here mind and canceled her order for a state room,  having a nervous dread of taking the voyage,  although a sea trip was no new experience for her,  and she knew the Captain of the Columbia as a personal friend.

(* DF Note - The article continues on with an update on some of the missing passengers.  Interestingly, there is mention of another two passengers who changed their minds about making the trip at the last moment.... *)

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From the Brooklyn Union, dated Monday, July 9th 1877

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Feom the Tampa Tribune, dated Friday, September 4th 1925

Airship Commander Had a Premonition Of Death, Is Claim

By Universal Service -

LAKEWOOD, N. J., Sept. 3 - Lieutenant-Commander Zachary Lansdowne had a premonition of his death,  Mrs. Lansdowne tearfully said today :

"The night before he left Commander Lansdowne told me it would be his last trip.  He meant this in more ways than one.  He was due for sea duty December 15, but he said that it would be his last trip,  because of unfavourable weather conditions in the Ohio Valley.

"He said that he wanted to go on this trip because he wanted to die when the ship crashed.

"Six weeks ago when the trip was planned, he asked secretary Wilbur to postpone the trip until October 15, when the weather would be more favourable.  The secretary refused,  and said this was the time,  because it was the right time for publicity which would be gained by the ship's flight.  Had he know what kind of publicity was to be received by his orders!"

Mrs. Lansdowne said she,  too,  had a premonition of disaster.  At 6am today she awoke suddenly,  went to her sister's room and told her she felt something must have happened.

(DF - Picture shows the Shenandoah, Commander Lansdowne's ship, whick killed him and 13 others when it crashed in a storm in 1925)

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From the Winona Daily News, dated Sunday, April 15th 1973

Painful dream

On May 6, 1971,  Mrs. Agnes Toutin, aged 30, was having a restless night.  As she tossed and turned, a dream began to play before her mind.  Then,  suddenly,  with a scream of terror,  she bolted upright in bed. 

"I dreamed that a stranger was in our house,  and that he shot me in the stomach," she told her startled husband,  William.

William Toutin calmed his wife with the usual assurances that her nightmare was only a dream,  nothing to worry about.  Somewhat mollified,  but still frightened,  Mrs. Toutin managed to fall into fitful slumber.

The next morning,  Mrs. Toutin,  who lives in Glanford Township,  Ontario,  told her frightening dream to her neighbor,  Mrs. Hilda Foote.  After their visit,  Agnes Toutin returned to her home and resolved to put the dream from her mind.

That afternoon,  Mrs. Toutin was upstairs getting some material to cover a chair when she heard an unexplained noise in the living room.  Coming downstairs,  she surprised a burglar in the act of ransacking her home.  The man,  a complete stranger,  pointed a gun and demanded money.  When Mrs. Toutin protested that she had none,  the man cocked the pistol and fired a shot into her stomach.

After the man had fled,  Mrs. Toutin managed to crawl to the telephone and place a call to her neighbor,  Mrs. Foote.  Hilda Foote telephoned her husband,  Harvey,  and he called an ambulance.  After two hours of surgery,  Mrs, Agnes Toutin was declared to be in a satisfactory condition.

Precognitive dreams,  that is,  dreams that foretell the future,  are the most common means of predicting the future.  The professional psychic has many methods at his disposal for parting the veil,  but the person who is not so psychically attuned can learn to rely upon his dreams.

Very often, we will dream of the day ahead of us,  and accurately too.  In fact,  most of the time precognitive dreams deal with these mundane affairs of daily living,  and we are so unimpressed by them that we forget them by the morning light.  Other times,  as in the case of Mrs. Toutin,  dramatic events in our lives are presented to us in our sleep with startling clarity.

Our dreams can trick us, too, though. Oftentimes we will have a particularly vivid dream of some dire tragedy and the dream,  far from being precognitive,  will instead reveal hidden hostilities and fantasies directed against others and ourselves.  This is an ego trap,  which gives us a sense of control over some other person's life.

The only way to determine the degree of truth in your "precognitive" dreams is to thoroughly know yourself,  or simply to let time verify them for you by bringing the event to pass.

The business of dreaming the future is tricky, at best or as Mrs. Toutin's neighbor,  Mrs. Foote,  would say, "She told me at 10AM that she dreamed last night a stranger would shoot her in the stomach.  It's real strange.  The good Lord doesn't usually doesn't let you know what's going to happen to you."

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From the Blackwell Journal Tribune, dated Tuesday, June 23rd 1953

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From the Daily News, and an article by actress Sophia Loren, dated Thursday, March 22nd 1979

Among her many talents :  ESP

I AM A WITCH.  I have acute extrasensory perception.  Eerie premonitions.  Haunting superstitions.  I always have something red on me, even though it may be out of sight, ever since I was a little girl - witch's red.  I have always believed that red would bring me good luck and ward off negative, evil forces.  Many other superstitions.  On one occasion I was making a film, "The Miller's Beautiful Wife," with Marcello Mastroianni and Vittorio de Sica, when, after a very animated scene,  I dropped the mirror my makeup man had handed to me and it broke.  I was stricken as if the set had fallen on me.  All day long I waited for the disaster the shattered mirror presaged.  By the end of the day I was a wreck.  I had barely been able to perform.  The effect of my superstition actually was the bad luck I had anticipated.

My premonitions:  I was once invited to a gala charity ball in Brussels.  The day before I was to go,  I had an overwhelming feeling of impending disaster.  I immediately cancelled my appearance.  My place was taken by Marcella Mariani,  a former Miss Italy,  who was a rising young actress.  On her return to Rome,  the plane I would have been on crashed,  killing Mariani and all aboard.

A year or so ago I had an eerie fire premonition.  In the evening,  I often light a candle in the living room,  which my secretary routinely extinguishes before she goes to bed.  On this particular night,  after I had gone to bed,  I felt impelled to go to the living room.  The candle was still burning, my secretary (for the first and last time) having forgotten to put it out.  As I snuffed out the flame,  I had a vision of a raging fire.  I put it out of my mind and went to bed.

In the predawn hours of the following morning I was awakened by cries of "Fire!"  The lower floors of the building where we lived in Paris were in flames and dense smoke was pouring into our apartment.  It was terrifying.  Carlo was out of town.  Since descent was impossible, the governess and I wrapped the children in blankets and climbed the smoke-filled stairs to the roof.  I broke a window with my shoe,  and we somehow managed to get out on the roof,  where later we were rescued by firemen.

I had to spend the day in the hospital, where I was treated for smoke intoxication - smoke from the fire I had clearly seen seven hours before it broke out.

On another occasion in Paris,  Carlo and I were having dinner together when I felt compelled to ask him if our villa in Rome had insurance.  He was startled by my question,  since ordinarily I have no interest in such things.

"Are we insured against theft?"

"Yes, of course, but why are you asking?"

"I don't know.  It's just something that has come into my mind.  Our getting robbed at Marino."

"Well,  don't worry.  We are insured, and we are protected."

The next morning we received word that the Villa Marino had indeed been robbed by a band of thieves who stole,  among other things,  my Oscar and a prized collection of antique boxes that Carlo had collected from all over the world.

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From the Evening Express, dated Thursday, August 25th 1921, in an article telling news of the crash of the British R 38 Airship

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From The Daily Republican, dated Thursday, October 20th 1927

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From the Evening Chronicle, dated Saturday, June 14th 1930

Premonitions of Death

DOES FATE WARN US OF IMPENDING DOOM

Asks Air Commodore Samson.

As yet little attention seems to have been paid by scientific and psychic investigators into the causes of what might be called "the premonition of evil."  It cannot be doubted that almost daily instances of this mysterious power occur which are put down to coincidence,  yet that is an explanation which is in no way satisfactory for all times.

I should think that I am one of the most un-psychic persons in the world,  yet I have known many cases where neither I nor anyone else could account for unheard warnings which appear to come direct from "the other side."

There was the case,  for instance,  when some years ago I was in command of the Royal Naval Flying School at Eastchurch.  I had been home for a week-end,  and one of my officers,  a paymaster lieutenant,  called in for breakfast with us before we returned together by train.  On the journey he was so silent that I taxed him with it.

"I've got a premonition," he replied.  "Something pretty awful is going to happen.  Don't ask me how or why - I just KNOW!"

*****

Grim Fulfilment.

I did not press him further,  since at that moment I was experiencing the same feeling!  Some inner voice was warning me "Do not fly to-day!" and,  do what I could,  I was unable to escape a feeling of impending doom.

Yet I realised that it was out of the question to allow that creeping terror to dominate me,  and immediately we arrived at the Flying School I ordered out a machine.  As I taxied off I wondered whether I should ever return alive,  and for ten minutes every nerve was strained for a false note in the engine or a twang of an important wire,  the breaking of which would send the machine spinning earthwards.

Yet nothing happened.  I landed,  only to meet a white-faced sailor who rushed up to say that the Paymaster Lieutenant had been killed.  In the centre of a little crowd I found the poor fellow,  who had been standing in front of an aeroplane and had been caught by the propeller as it started off.

"Don't leave me old man - don't let go!" he muttered as I kneeled beside him and gripped his hand.  The pilot of the machine was standing beside us,  with the tears rolling down his face,  for the Lieutenant was one of the most popular men on the Station.

Within an hour he was dead,  and I was left wondering what could have been the cause of that premonition which had been fulfilled in so ghastly a manner.  Possibly from fear of being ridiculed I mentioned my premonition to no one,  but within a fortnight it returned more strongly than before.

This time it was so strong that I actually considered the issue of orders cancelling all flying practice for that day!  Then I realised that this would be impossible.  It would create a sort of mental precedent involving an inferiority complex,  and each time the feeling returned I should feel a stronger inclination to give way before the unuttered warning.

*****

Once Again.

Thus it was that routine went on as usual,  and not one of my officers or men knew of that secret fear which lurked behind an impassive exterior.  Yet that decision proved fatal.  Throughout the morning I had been on tenterhooks,  expecting each moment to hear of an accident,  but it was not till the afternoon that it actually ocurred.  The same pilot officer who had been concerned in the previous fatality spun to the ground from a height of 200 feet,  and once again my mysterious premonition of evil proved true.

It is possible that these two incidents were purely fortuitous,  the result of coincidence,  and they may have worked on my mind to such an extent that I went about "looking for trouble."

But it is curious that only a short while later that inexplicable feeling returned a third time,  heralding the death of one of my men,  who was also killed by a propeller.  It was then that I promised myself to stop all flying for the day if ever these premonitions occurred again.  Oddly enough they never did,  at least not until I was in the operations at the Dardanelles.

One morning it appeared like magic out of a blue sky,  accompanied by the thunder of big guns.  There was no reason for it,  but I would have sworn on oath some terrible evil was about to befall me or one of my friends.  This time it was one of my old Eastchurch pilots,  who went up on reconnaissance and crashed to his death before our very eyes on the edge of the aerodrome.

*****

An Extra Sense.

Possibly airmen are gifted with some extra sense denied to others,  for within my own knowledge there have been several cases where pilots have admitted to a premonition of disaster.  Yet I have never known an instance where,  on account of that,  they have made the slightest effort to escape duties which,  as they felt,  would involve their deaths.  

It amy be that the dangers they run key their nerves up to a pitch so receptive that they receive "messages" to which the ordinary man remains deaf,  but there is also the problem which faced me as,  time after time,  those premonitions proved true.  Ought I have stopped all flying,  and should I thus have saved valuable lives for the country?

For some years I was free from this "influence," yet not long ago it occurred once more when I was in command  of all the Fighting Squadrons whose headquarters were at Kenley Aerodrome.  I had been in London when assailed by that black depression,  and as I motored back I decided this time to obey the warning.  Alas,  it was too late.  When actually arriving at the aerodrome I saw one of my pilots dive vertically to earth within a few hundred yards of my car!

To my mind there is little doubt that many ordinary people are susceptible to messages which,  often through fear of ridicule,  they ignore or keep silent about.

Perhaps within a few years psychical research will bring us enlightenment on this point,  but in the meanwhile I shall take no further chances if and when that terrible feeling of foreboding returns.  I shall immediately take steps to warn my friends of their peril.

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It's interesting that Commodore Samson brought up the point about airmen maybe having an extra sense, as there were an unusually high amount of precognitive dreams and premonitions to do with air transport.  Is this because of the dangers involved in such travel,  or is there something else going on?  

I'm not sure what the next part of this is going to be...whether I post more premonitions from newspapers or whether I get into my own fountain of weirdness with such things.  Both seem like good calls, but join me later in the week to see which one wins through, when we return with Part Two!

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I would of course also love to hear from anybody who has had premonitions themselves.  If you've had any such occurrences,  and don't fear ridicule,  please let me know in the comments below,  as this is one of my favourite topics and one which I would love to study more!

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