Book Clipping of the Day

"The Nightmare," Henry Fuseli

This strange and extremely creepy narrative was included in Edmund Gurney's "Phantasms of the Living" (1886.)  It gives a sinister twist to that old saying about "meeting the man of your dreams."

From Miss L.A.W., whose only reason for withholding her name from publication is that she is sure that her family would object to its appearance.

She begins by saying that when she was 19 or 20, she had a spell of indifferent health, caused, it was thought, by over-study. During this time, from March in one year till June in the next, she was much troubled at intervals by singular dreams, which she recorded in a note-book, and also described to one of her sisters. The main feature in these dreams was the appearance of a particular person. "I was not in love, nor indeed had I been; and certainly no feeling but that of a mysterious repugnance (and at the same time an inability to avoid or escape from the influence of the person of whom I dreamt) actuated me. He was someone I had never in all my life wittingly seen, though I had reason to think afterwards that he had seen me at a Birmingham musical festival. On that occasion I had apparently fainted, and it was attributed to the heat and the excitement of the music. I hardly knew if it were or not. I only knew I felt all my pulses stop, and a burning and singing in my head, and that I was perfectly conscious of those around me, but unable to speak and tell them so. To return to my dreams. I always knew as I slept when the influence was coming over me, and often in my dream I commenced it by thinking, 'Here it is, or here he comes again.' They were not always disagreeable dreams in themselves, but the fascination was always dreadful to me, and a kind of struggle between two natures within me seemed to drag my powers of mind and body two ways. I used to awake as cold as a stone in the hottest nights, my head having the queer feeling of a hot iron pressing somewhere in its inside. I would shiver and my teeth chatter with a terror which seemed unreasonable, for there was, even in the subjects of my dreams, seldom anything wicked or terrifying."

The dreams ceased after a course of medical treatment. In the next year but one Miss W. was visiting in Liverpool. "I had enjoyed two or three good dances, and was sitting out one, by the lady of the house, when not suddenly, but by degrees, I felt myself turning cold and stony, and the peculiar burning in my head. If I could have spoken I would have said, 'My dreams! my dreams!' but I only shivered, which attracted the notice of my companion, who exclaimed, 'You are ill, my dear. Come for some wine, or hot coffee.' I rose, knowing what I was going to see, and as I turned, I looked straight into the eyes of the facsimile of the being who had been present to my sleeping thoughts for so long, and the next moment he stepped forward from the pillar against which he was leaning behind the lace curtain, and shook hands with my companion. He accompanied us to the refreshment room, attended to my wants, and was introduced to me. I declined dancing, but could not avoid conversation. His first remark was, 'We are not strangers to each other. Where have we met?' I fear I shall scarcely be believed when I say, that (setting my teeth, and nerving myself to meet what I felt would conquer me, if I once submitted in even the slightest degree) I answered that I never remembered meeting him before, and to all his questionings returned the most reserved answers. He seemed much annoyed and puzzled, but on that occasion did not mention dreams.

"I took an opportunity of asking my sister if she remembered my description of the man of my dreams, and upon her answering 'Yes,' asked her to look round the rooms and see if any one there resembled him, and half-an-hour later she came up, saying, 'There is the man, he has even the mole on the left side of his mouth.'"

Miss W. subsequently met this gentleman at almost every party she went to. "He was sometimes so gloomy and fierce at my determined avoidance of any but the most ordinary conversation, that I felt quite a terror of meeting him. He frequently asked if I believed in dreams; if I could relate any to him; if I had never seen him before; and would say, after my persistent avoidance of the subject, 'I can do nothing, so long as you will not trust me.'"

Miss W. says that she has several pages, in her note-book, of entries of dreams in which she seemed to be accompanying her visitor in a flight through the world. "When conversing with him in the flesh, he asked me if I had 'ever travelled.' I said 'No.' He showed surprise, and began to dilate on the wonders of such and such a place or scene, all of which I felt sure I had seen with him, and entered in my note-book. It was deeply interesting, and I was totally absorbed in his recitals, time after time, when he abruptly stopped, saying, 'But have you never had scenes such as these before you?' and I replied, 'Yes, in my dreams I have.' Such, or similar remarks, I know I have noted down, and his eagerness to make me admit similar experiences was at times almost fierce. I had a great longing at times to tell him everything, but an innate sense that by so doing I should be as completely his slave and tool as I had been in dreams, always stopped me."

The effort of these conversations was so exhausting to Miss W. that she wrote home to get herself recalled, a fact which her strange acquaintance seems to have intuitively divined, and for which he bitterly reproached her. She has never seen him since. She says, in answer to inquiries: "You are right in your conjecture that he inferred [? implied] he had seen me in dreams. He often talked as if he were perfectly aware that I knew it, but that I would not go beyond a certain limit in admitting anything." She adds that her sister remembers all the circumstances the dreams, their frequency, and the correct description of the man subsequently met; but we have not been able to procure the sister's written confirmation. Miss W. says that she cannot spare the time to make extracts from her diary for publication.