Mrs. B---, when about fourteen years of age, being at a boarding-school, a mile or two from her father's, dreamed she was on top of the church steeple, when a man came up, and threw her down to the roof of the church. Yet she seemed not much hurt, till he came to her again, and threw her to the bottom. She thought she looked hard at him, and said, "Now you have hurt me sadly, but I shall hurt you worse"; and waked.

A week after, she was to go to her father's. She set out early in the morning. At the entrance of a little wood, she stopped, and doubted whether she should not go round, instead of through it.

But, knowing no reason, she went straight through, till she came to the other side. Just as she was going over the style, a man pulled her back by the hair. She immediately knew it was the same man whom she had seen in her dream. She fell on her knees, and begged him "For God's sake, do not hurt me any more." He put his hand round her neck, and squeezed her so, that she instantly lost her senses. He then stripped her, carried her a little way and threw her into a ditch.

Meantime her father's servant, coming to the school, and hearing she was gone without him, walked about. Coming to the style, he heard several groans, and, looking about, saw many drops of blood. He traced them to the ditch, whence the groans came. He lifted her up, not knowing her at all, as her face was covered with blood, carried her to a neighbouring house, and running to the village, quickly brought a Surgeon. She was just alive; but her throat was much hurt, so that she could not speak at all.

Just then a young man of the village was missing. Search being made, he was apprehended in an alehouse two miles off. He had all her clothes with him in a bag, which, he said, he found.

It was three months before she was able to go abroad. He was arraigned at the Assizes. She knew him perfectly, and swore to the man. He was condemned, and soon after executed.

EDITOR'S NOTE

Strange on several levels. Sorry--the pun was unconscious. Levels. She dreams she climbs high, a hostile man pulls her down to a middle level, hurting her some, then down to a lower level, hurting her more. She swears she'll get revenge.

Then while climbing a stile [the current spelling; a short stepladder between fields where there is no gate] the man in her dream pulls her down by the hair--painful but not seriously injuring her, just like her steeple-fall in the dream. The second fall, from ground level to the ditch, and his choking her, is serious, though not fatal--to her, at least. Her revenge takes time, but she survives, testifies, and he hangs for it.

So her dream foresaw his attack--but why not just warn her away from the wood? Although she did feel uneasy, and nearly did skirt it. But she overrode this second warning too. To her cost. Again, why?

As a shamanic dreamer, I see a possibility ESP skeptics and true believers might both miss. Her unconscious may have found the risk acceptable to get rid of a repeat predator endangering her whole community--the other girls in her school, for example. After all, if a dream can foresee an attack, it might also foresee she'd suffer but likely survive. Using herself as bait may sound drastic, but consider what she tells him in her dream:

"Now you have hurt me sadly, but I shall hurt you worse."

That's no victim. That's a fourteen-year-old Beowulf.

--Chris Wayan

SOURCE: The Dream World by Rodolphe L. Megroz, p. 242-3. His source: John Wesley's journal, 1772/11/17.

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