Note 137 — Chapter VII · PHANTASMS OF THE DEAD

The Proceedings of the American Society for Psychical Research (vol. i. p. 405) contain a case where a physician and his wife, sleeping in separate but adjoining rooms, are both of them awakened by a bright light. The physician sees a figure standing in the light; his wife, who gets up to see what the light in her husband's room may be, does not reach that room till the figure has disappeared. The figure is not clearly identified, but has some resemblance to a patient of the physician's, who has died suddenly (from hemorrhage) about three hours before, calling for her doctor, who did not anticipate this sudden end. Even this resemblance did not strike the percipient until after he knew of the death, and the defect in recognition weakens the case evidentially.