A few times in my life, I have had the infinite surprise when lifting the telephone receiver, of hearing the voice of the very person I was going to call up and who had called me up at the same minute. On the other hand, I have endeavoured with the help of very intimate friends to effect synchronic transmission of thought and have failed dismally on every occasion.
While I have never had prophetic dreams I have recorded one dream of mine which might be characterized as a "second sight" dream.
One day I mislaid some documents which once belonged to my father.
That night my father appeared to me and pointed to a desk drawer where the papers would be found. The next morning I looked in that drawer and found the documents.
I certainly placed the documents myself in that drawer the day before and forgot the fact. But the unconscious memory of that action was retained and came up at night while my mind was at work solving the problem of the lost documents.
If that explanation should meet with scepticism I would remind the reader that the wealth of information with which our unconscious is filled permits of unconscious mental operations of which in our conscious states we would be incapable. Janet's subject, Lucie, who was lacking in mathematical ability, could, in her unconscious states, perform calculations of an extreme complication. He would give her under hypnosis the following order: "When the figures which I am going to read off to you, leave six when subtracted one from the other, make a gesture of the hand." Then he would wake her up, and ask several people to talk to her and to make her talk. Standing at a certain distance from her, he would then read rapidly in a low voice a list of figures, but when the appropriate figures were read, Lucie never failed to make the gesture agreed upon.
We notice thousands of things unconsciously, which means simply that every sensorial impression causes a modification of our autonomic system and probably of our sensory-motor system which is never completely effaced.
During our waking hours only those memory impressions which are needed rise to consciousness. The many observations we have made, consciously or otherwise, enable us to calculate the distance between us and an automobile, the speed of that automobile, the width of the street, the dryness or the slippery conditions of the pavement, and to select the time for crossing as well as the speed at which we shall cross.