A woman in California who had a couple of pure-bred dogs sometimes sent puppies to a kennel some distance away in the southern part of the state. Although she had corresponded occasionally with the owners of the kennel, she had never met them. Then one night she says she dreamed:

I was wandering in a crowd of very happy people when a man came up to me and took my hand. He was laughing and seemed so pleased to see me. He said, "I've always wanted to meet you as I do so enjoy your letters." I said, "I don't know you, do I?" He said, "Yes, you do, because of the little dogs. Remember that? Because of the little dogs." I said, "I don't know what you mean about the dogs." He said, "Remember about the little dogs and you must tell her you saw me, as it will comfort her."

I awoke and told my dream to several people and my husband. The dream was so vivid I could not shake it and so I told it several times. After two weeks I got a letter from the wife of the kennel owner telling me that when her husband had gone to pick up my puppies he had died from a heart attack while in the station. Before he left the house he hadn't felt well, but had told her he must go to get the little dogs. I wrote her of my dream, describing the man who spoke to me.

Both she and her son wrote back telling me that the man in my dream was their husband and father beyond a doubt.

EDITOR'S NOTES

Rhine found this case intriguing partly because this dreamer had no personal motive to dream as she did--no financial gain, as in Insurance, nor a friendship with the bereaved wife, nor even any conscious knowledge of the dog-buyer's death. Rhine argued that if you accept the reality of ESP at all, then those who get messages from apparent ghosts (in dreams or otherwise) may have unconsciously used their own sixth sense to detect useful information, then projected it on a ghostly speaker. Paradoxically, accepting the possibility ESP is real weakens much evidence for an afterlife, by providing an alternative explanation!

But in a case like this one, the dreamer has no strong motive, conscious or un-, to invent this stranger; the apparent ghost is the one with a clear motive--and its agenda isn't really with the dreamer at all. So even though this ghost reveals no extraordinary secrets, it's better evidence of the survival of consciousness than many such accounts.

--Chris Wayan

SOURCE: Hidden Channels of the Mind by Louisa E. Rhine, 1961, p. 242-3. Account untitled, author's name witheld; title & byline added only as search aids.

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