DREAM-STORIES.
rTo THE EDITOR OF THE "SPECTATOR:1 Sin,—In the Spectator of September 28th "T." says that the Society for Psychical Research in April, 1888, "issued a circular pointing eat that the reality of apparitions was even in their view not sufficiently proved." Perhaps they did not precisely say that! All apparitions are "real," even those of delirium tremens. The apparitions appear; they are genuine perceptions. In the theory, not of the Society for Psychical Research, which as a Society has no theory, but of the Literary Committee, or some of its members, " apparitions " are hallucinations, and as such are real perceptions,--without objective basis. Writers like Mr. Gurney never held that apparitions are" real" in the sense of being space-filling entities, if that is what "T." means by " reaL" They wanted evidence for coincidental and veridical hallucinations, I think, not for a "real" apparition filling space, as material objects do. And they, that is, the Committee on Hallucinations, later thought, rightly or wrongly, that they had got the desired evidence. I am unaware that the Society accepts as valid tales like the parental dream about a son at the front; or that a census of the dreams of people with relations in the war has been held, with the result that there has been culy one "approach to a coincidence," as "T." seems to suppose. But dozens of coincidences, in the circumstances, would only be on a par with dreams picking out winners of races. These are only curious in such cases as that of Favonius, "which,, as you have probably heard it, I do not proceed to narrate." Not being a member of the Society for Psychical Research, I only write as
a reader of its publications.—I am, Sir, &c., A. Laza, 1 Marloes Bowl, W.
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