Mr. Edmund Halley, R.S.S., was carried on with a strong impulse to take a voyage to St. Hellens, to make observations of the southern constellations, being then about twenty-four years old.

Before he undertook his voyage, he dreamt that he was at sea, sailing towards that place, and saw the prospect of it from the ship in his dream, which he [afterward] declared to the Royal Society to be the perfect representation of that island, even as he had it really when he approached to it.

NOTES

• Halley: yes, this is "Halley's Comet" Halley!
• St. Hellen's: today called St. Helena, this volcanic island is in the South Atlantic.
• 24 years old: Wikipedia dates Halley's trip to 1676-8, which would make Halley more like 20. If Aubrey's right, the dream would date to 1680 or 81.
• SOURCE: Miscellanies upon Various Subjects by John Aubrey, 1696. Aubrey, a fellow member of the Royal Society (England's first archeologist, pioneering the study of Stonehenge) was an eclectic scientist who found dreams and the paranormal quite as fascinating as archeology.