421 B. The next case also points to an extension of the dreamer's perception. It is taken from the Journal S.P.R., vol. iv. p. 210. Mr. Podmore, who obtained the account, wrote: -

Mr. Watts, who told me the incident immediately before writing it down at my request, is quite unable to find any explanation of the matter. He is quite clear that he had no opportunity to tell any one beforehand, that the image of the broken statue had actually come into his mind at the moment when he was brushing his hair, and the violent shock which he seems to have felt when he saw his dream realised is strong evidence that he is not mistaken on this point.

From Mr. J. Hunter Watts, of 39 Seething Lane, E.C.

July 16th, 1889. I will endeavour to commit to paper the little episode which I related to you verbally. About six years ago I was with my brother George in Paris, where he bought for some eight or ten francs a plaster-of-Paris "Venus de Milo" - a ghastly copy of the original. I protested against the purchase as I had to share the bother of bringing the thing home, and as it was some four or five feet high our fellow-travellers imagined we had with us a corpse rolled up in paper. Arrived home I would not consent to the house being disfigured with the thing, so as a compromise my brother planted it on the summit of a fern rockery in the corner of the garden, where it stood for many months, and I had forgotten its existence save when it was directly in sight. Out of sight it was out of mind. One autumn morning, just after I had risen from bed, I was combing my ambrosial locks before the looking-glass, and I caught myself reflecting that after all it was a pity the thing had blown down and broken, for it did not look so bad at a distance surrounded by the ferns. "Strange too," I thought to myself, "that the head should be so neatly decapitated, though the fall made no other fracture." Then I pulled myself up mentally, for all at once it came to my mind that I had been dreaming, and I smiled to myself that such a trumpery thing should be the subject of my dreams.

The whole matter would have been forgotten, would have gone to the limbo of things unremembered, but on going downstairs to breakfast and finding the table not yet furnished, I went for a stroll into the garden. It was wet under foot and a strong wind was blowing. When I came to the fernery I gave a start and for a moment I stood tout ébahi, for there was the poor " Venus de Milo," the body unbroken, lying across the ferns, and the head, neatly decapitated, in the middle of the walk, exactly as I had seen it in my dream. For the moment I was convinced that I had been walking in my sleep and had visited the garden, but that I found could not be the case, as it had rained all night and my garments would have been wet through, and my feet, if unshod, muddy, or their covering, if they had any, defiled, which was not the case. Neither am I given to walking in my sleep. I have never done so. I walked back to the house feeling, to use a vulgar phrase, " knocked all silly." Can it be, I asked myself and I have asked myself the same question a score of times since, that while my body material slumbered in bed some immaterial part of my being wandered in the garden.

If so, that immaterial part of me had a remarkable disregard for wind and rain.

The episode is a trifling one, but it has often given me pause and it remains to me inexplicable. As you know I am a Bank Holiday sort of young man, not given to day-dreams. J. Hunter Watts.

In answer to the inquiry whether the statue could have been seen from his bedroom window, or from any other window in the house, Mr. Hunter Watts says: " No, impossible; only by stretching the head out of window another side of house - from rooms occupied by ladies".

A lady to whom Mr. Watts related the dream corroborates as follows: -

45 Hungerford Road, Camden Road, N.

August 9th. All I can at all remember about the Venus is that Mr. Watts told us one morning that a strange thing had happened, he having dreamt that the statue had been decapitated, and on going into the garden he found it was so, and that the head of the Venus had been cut clean off, and had rolled on to the path from the figure, which had been placed in the rockery among the ferns. He was very much astonished, as the dream was vivid, and he saw the headless statue as he had seen it in his dream. We could never explain how it happened, the head being as it were cut off. M. Adams.