MURDERERS dream meaning

Murderers, I understand, often re-enact their crimes in their sleep, and have not infrequently been caught owing to their inability to avoid visiting the scene of the tragedy, which has been depicted with such fascinating vividness in their dreams. One murderer, I was told, the day before he was hanged, dreamed he was married and that his bride was the person he had so barbarously murdered for a few shillings.Though murderers often do have very harrowing dreams the night before their execution, this is by no means invariably the case, as I have heard instances of murderers, on the eve of execution, having enjoyed a sleep in every respect as sound and tranquil as the sleep of the just.T. Charley, in his News from the Invisible World, quotes the following extraordinary instances of warnings of murder in dreams, taken from a work entitled Records of my Life, by John Taylor.”Mr. Fox, in order to attend the House of Commons, had taken an apartment in St. Anne’s Churchyard, Westminster. On the evening when he took possession, he was struck with something that appeared to him mysterious in the manner of the maid-servant, who looked like a man dis- guised, and he felt a very unpleasant emotion. This feeling was strengthened by a similar deportment in the mistress of the house, who soon after entered his room and asked if he wanted anything before he retired to rest. Disliking her manner, he soon dismissed her and went to bed, but the disagreeable impression made on his mind by the maid and the mistress kept him long awake. At length, however, he fell asleep. During his sleep he dreamed that the corpse of a gentleman, who had been murdered, was deposited in the cellar of the house. This dream, co-operating with the unfavourable or rather repulsive countenances and demeanour of the two women, precluded all hopes of renewed sleep; and it being the summer season, he rose about four o’clock in the morning, took his hat, and resolved to quit a house of such alarm and terror. To his surprise, as he was leaving it, he met the mistress in the entry, dressed as if she had never gone to bed. She seemed to be much agitated, and enquired his reason for wishing to go out so early in the morning. He hesitated a moment with increased alarm, and then told her that he expected a friend, who was to arrive by a stage coach in Bishops gate Street, and that he was going to meet him. He was suffered to go out of the house, and when revived by the open air he felt, as he afterwards declared, as if relieved from impending destruction. He stated that, in a few hours after, he returned with a friend to whom he had told his dream and the impression made on him by the maid and the mistress. The friend, however, only laughed at him for his superstitious terror; but on entering the house, they found that it was deserted, and calling a gentleman who was accidentally passing, they all descended to the cellar, and actually found a corpse in the state which the gentleman’s dream had represented. Before I make any observations on the subject, “Mr. Taylor goes on to say,” I shall introduce a recital of a similar description, and care not if scepticism sneer, or deride, satisfied that I heard it from one on whose veracity I could most confidently depend. (I will, however, now take leave of Mr. Donaldson, though I could with pleasure dwell much longer on the memory of so valuable a friend.) The other extraordinary story to which I have alluded, I heard from what I consider unimpeachable authority. Mrs. Brooke, whom I have already mentioned, told me that she was drinking tea one evening in Fleet Street, when a medical gentleman was expected but did not arrive till late. Apologising for his delay, he said he had attended a lady who suffered from a contracted throat, which occasioned her great difficulty in swallowing. He said she traced the cause to the following circumstance. When she was a young woman, and in bed with her mother, she dreamed that she was on the roof of a church struggling with a man, who attempted to throw her over. He appeared in a car man’s frock and had red hair.Her mother ridiculed her terror, and bade her compose herself to sleep again; but the impression of her dream was so strong that she could not comply. In the evening of the following day, she had appointed to meet her lover at a bowling green, from which he was to conduct her home when the amusement ended. She passed over one field in hopes of meeting the gentleman, and, singing as she tripped along, had entered the second field, when, accidentally turning her head, she beheld in a corner of the field just such a man as her dream represented, dressed in a car man’s frock, with red hair, and apparently approaching towards her. Her agitation was so great that she ran with all speed to stile of the third field and, with difficulty, got over it. Fatigued, however, with running, she sat on the stile to recover herself, and, reflecting that the man might be harmless, she was afraid that her flight might put evil and vindictive thoughts into his head. While she thus meditated, the man had reached the stile, and seizing her by the neck, he dragged her over the stile, and she remembered no more. It appeared that he had pulled off all her clothes and thrown her into an adjoining ditch. Fortunately, a gentleman came to the spot, and observing a body above the water, he hailed others who were approaching, and it was immediately raised. It was evidently not dead, and some of the party remarking that the robber could not be far off went in pursuit of him, leaving others to guard and to endeavour to revive the body. The pursuers went different ways, and some, at no great distance, saw a man sitting at a public-house with a bundle before him. He seemed to be so much alarmed at the sight of the gentlemen, that they suspected him to be the culprit, and determined to examine the bundle, in which they found the dress of the lady, which some of them recognised. The man was, of course, immediately taken into custody, and was to be brought to trial at the approaching assizes. The lady, however, was too ill to come into court, but appearances were so strongly against him that he was kept in close custody. When she was able to give evidence, though he appeared at the trial in a different dress, and with a wig on, she was struck with terror at the sight of him and fainted. On recovering, however, she gave evidence and the culprit was convicted and executed. The medical man added that, when she had finished her narrative, she declared that she felt the pressure of the man’s hand on her neck while she related it; and that her throat had actually contracted from the time when the melancholy event occurred.”But these two instances of the murder dream being verified arc, of course, exceptions to the general rule, and should any of my readers be so unfortunate as to dream they are being murdered — I trust that it will only lead, as is usually the case, to trouble of a most ordinary and trivial nature.