Welcome to Mysteries Over Martinis!  This blog is a mix of unexplained phenomena and personal encounters served up with a mystery-themed cocktail. It’s a recipe for intrigue!

Honest Abellini:

3 oz Prosecco sparkling white wine

2 oz fresh white peach puree

Directions: To make the puree, peel and squeeze fresh, ripe white peaches and gently press the flesh Mix and serve in a champagne flute.

Presidential Precognition                     

Entering the world of dreams thrusts us into a nonsensical narrative filled with fictitious characters as well as those from our conscious life. Unlike the plot of a book or movie, the events lack pattern or sequence. Most of us disregard the bizarre episodes as mere absurdity. That is assuming we recollect them at all.  However, some dreams leave a lasting impression. They may be symbolic representations or true to life images. Regardless, the details are vivid and the experience is more of a reality than fantasy.  Within time, an event occurs which indicates that the compelling dream may have been giving the dreamer insight into the future. This phenomenon is known as a precognitive dream.

Precognitive dreams foretell of life events, deaths, disasters and can even present solutions to problems. These paradoxes have been recorded as far back as the Bible. Genesis 41 details 2 prophetic dreams dreamt by the Pharaoh of Egypt. In the first one, the Pharaoh was standing on the bank of the Nile River where he witnessed 7 fat cows devoured by 7 skinny cows. He awoke from this dream and then fell back to sleep. He then had a second dream where he saw 7 healthy heads of grain swallowed by 7 withered heads of grain. The Pharaoh believed there was meaning to these dreams so he asked Joseph to help him decipher them. Joseph believed God was giving him insight into the 7 years of famine that was to follow Egypt’s 7 years of abundance. The Pharaoh obeyed this message and stocked up on food in preparation for the famine. His response to the dream saved many people and animals from starvation.

One of the most fascinating accounts is that of Abraham Lincoln. According to Mary Todd Lincoln (his wife) and Ward Hill Lamon (his bodyguard and friend), Lincoln recounted a dream of his own demise. Ward Hill Lamon retold the following story in his book Recollections of Abraham Lincoln which was published in 1895.

About ten days ago, I retired very late. I had been up waiting for important dispatches from the front. I could not have been long in bed when I fell into a slumber, for I was weary. I soon began to dream. There seemed to be a death-like stillness about me. Then I heard subdued sobs, as if a number of people were weeping. I thought I left my bed and wandered downstairs. There the silence was broken by the same pitiful sobbing, but the mourners were invisible. I went from room to room; no living person was in sight but the same mournful sounds of distress met me as I passed along. I saw light in all the rooms, every object was familiar to me; but where were all the people who were grieving as if their hearts would break? I was puzzled and alarmed. What could be the meaning of all this? Determined to find the cause of a state of things so mysterious and so shocking, I kept on until I arrived at the East Room, which I entered. There I met with a sickening surprise. Before me was a catafalque, on which rested a corpse wrapped in funeral vestments. Around it were stationed soldiers who were acting as guards; and there was a throng of people, some gazing mournfully upon the corpse, whose face was covered, others weeping pitifully. “Who is dead in the White House?” I demanded of one of the soldiers. “The President,” was his answer; “he was killed by an assassin!” Then came a loud burst of grief from the crowd, which awoke me from my dream. I slept no more that night; and although it was only a dream, I have been strangely annoyed by it ever since.

President Lincoln’s assassination occurred just a short time later.  Unlike the Pharaoh, his fate seemed inevitable. His dream was a realistic snapshot of the aftermath rather than a preview of the events leading up to his death. Perhaps it was a tragedy not meant to be prevented. There’s no doubt we have intuitive dreams. The question is, how do these dreams manifest?

If you refer to the Bible, it explains the Pharaoh’s dream as a message sent from God. The scripture says God utilizes the dream state to relay messages to those who serve him. This is certainly not out of the realm of possibilities. Many people believe in divine intervention whether it be God, angels, spirit guides etc.

Of course, religious beliefs are controversial because they are based on a collection of writings done thousands of years ago. The scientific community explains a precognitive dream as the result of subconscious insight. Meaning, it isn’t “future sight” at all. It is a revelation of clues that could not be interpreted consciously. It’s believed that the subconscious brings our emotions and thoughts to light in the dream state using visual imagery and symbols. Lincoln’s encounter is a good example of this. He had been receiving death threats and assassination attempts since he took office 4 years prior. The country was in the upheaval of war. The notion that someone could act upon such a threat wasn’t out of the realm of possibilities.  The dream may have been the result of his repressed concern.  It’s possible his brain pieced together clues that were laid out in the days/weeks leading up to his assassination.

The suggestion that Lincoln’s dream was the product of his repressed fear is a reasonable explanation. However, there’s more to the story which may put a different spin on his experience. President Lincoln had an ominous vision in his home shortly after he was elected in 1860. Lincoln related it to his wife and a few associates, including Civil War journalist Noah Brooks. Brooks shared it with the readers of Harper’s New Monthly Magazine three months after Lincoln’s death. He recounted the president’s story “as nearly as possible in his own words”:

It was just after my election in 1860 when the news had been coming in thick and fast all day, and there had been a great “Hurrah Boys!” So that I was well tired out, and went home to rest, throwing myself down on a lounge in my chamber. Opposite where I lay was a bureau, with a swinging-glass upon it…and, looking in that glass, I saw myself reflected, nearly at full length; but my face, I noticed, had two separate and distinct images, the tip of the nose of one being about three inches from the tip of the other. I was a little bothered, perhaps startled, and got up and looked in the glass, but the illusion vanished. On lying down again I saw it a second time-plainer, if possible, than before; and then I noticed that one of the faces was a little paler, say five shades, than the other. I got up and the thing melted away, and I went off and, in the excitement of the hour, forgot all about it-nearly, but not quite, for the thing would once in a while come up, and give me a little pang, as though something uncomfortable had happened. When I went home I told my wife about it, and a few days after I tried the experiment again, when [with a laugh], sure enough, the thing came again; but I never succeeded in bringing the ghost back after that, though I once tried very industriously to show it to my wife, who was worried about it somewhat. She thought it was “a sign” that I was to be elected to a second term of office, and that the paleness of one of the faces was an omen that I should not see life through the last term.

His wife was correct. On April 14, 1865, Abraham Lincoln and his wife went to Ford’s Theatre to see a play called Our American Cousin. The president’s evening bodyguard was running late, so he told his daytime bodyguard, William Crook, to go home. William Crook was reluctant to leave the President without protection. Lincoln insisted and he agreed to leave. “Good night, Mr. President,” Crook said. Lincoln replied with “Goodbye, Crook.”  According to William Crook, this was the first and only time the President said “goodbye.” He claims that he always spoke the words, “Good night, Crook.”

Is it possible Abraham Lincoln knew what was going to happen that night? The combination of paranormal experiences in both his waking and sleep state seem to suggest he may have been tapping into something deeper than his subconscious. Extra sensory perception (ESP) is the belief that a person can perceive information beyond the use of the five senses: see, hear, touch, smell and taste. This is why it’s also known as the 6^th sense.  The subject of ESP is one of great debate. There have been a number of studies done with various results. Those which yield a positive outcome are often deemed flawed or fraudulent by skeptics. The biggest problem is that the research isn’t reproducible. This is a necessity for the scientific method. ESP is difficult to prove because the phenomenon isn’t a regular occurrence for most people and each subject is different. Many scientists discount any irreproducible data no matter how credible the source might be. Therefore, the results don’t discount the existence of ESP. It just means the physical laws of science are unable to prove, explain and/or quantify it at this time.

How the information is received may not be nearly as important as why we receive it. The dreams may be acting like an internal GPS, used to navigate us along the right path. It’s possible the dreams may occur to steer us away from a course with a potentially negative outcome. In Lincoln’s case, it seemed more of a destiny than a warning. Maybe his message was meant to help prepare him for what was to come. On the other hand, he may have been plagued by the ominous visions which lead to a self-fulfilling prophecy. Perhaps we need to pay attention to such impactful dreams but be careful not to let them consume us. This phenomenon may be an opportunity to set the potential future right.

As a side note, I came across something ironic while researching this topic. I read an article that rationalized precognitive dreams as mere coincidence. Every one of the responses to the article were people chiming in with their own experiences. Many felt statistics could not explain away the occurrence. I invite you to post your comments, questions or personal encounters. Anything weird is always welcome. Thank you for stopping by Mysteries Over Martinis. Until next week…

Cheers!

 References:

1. Ward Hill Lamon, Recollections of Abraham Lincoln, p. 115-116
2. Noah Brooks, “Personal Recollections of Abraham Lincoln,” July 1865 issue of Harper’s New Monthly Magazine, p. 224-225