{"id":4038,"date":"2012-01-10T03:17:37","date_gmt":"2012-01-10T08:17:37","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/dreamgates\/?p=4038"},"modified":"2012-01-10T03:37:00","modified_gmt":"2012-01-10T08:37:00","slug":"the-shadow-of-mark-twains-precognitive-dream","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/dreamgates\/2012\/01\/the-shadow-of-mark-twains-precognitive-dream.html","title":{"rendered":"The shadow of Mark Twain’s precognitive dream"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>Great humor often sparkles on the surface of a dark tide of challenge or tragedy. Mark Twain, still America’s most beloved humorist, was stricken by many terrible events in his life and that of his family – the loss of a beloved brother and later his favorite daughter, the loss of all his money late in life, forcing him to start over – yet generally managed to come back laughing, and making the rest of us laugh.<\/p>\n

His ability to laugh his way through did not mean numbing himself to tragedy. Sam Clemens (who adopted the pen name Mark Twain) dreamed the death of his younger brother Henry before it took place, in exact detail, and this haunted him for the rest of his life..<\/p>\n

Sam and Henry were set to embark together on the riverboat Pennsylvania<\/em>, Sam as apprentice pilot, Henry as a \u00a0lowly \u201cmud clerk\u201d, given food and sleeping space in return for helping out at places on the river where there were no proper landing sites. The night before they sailed, Sam dreamed \u00a0he saw Henry as a corpse, laid out in a metal casket, dressed in one of his older brother\u2019s suits, with a huge bouquet of white roses on his chest and a single red rose at the center.<\/p>\n

Sam woke grief-stricken, convinced this had actually happened and that Henry was laid out in the next room. He could not collect himself, or convince himself that the dream was not \u201creal\u201d until he had walked around outside. He had walked a whole block, he recalled, \u201cbefore it suddenly flashed on me that there was nothing real about this \u2013 it was only a dream.\u201d<\/p>\n

Family members urged him to dismiss his terrible dream; after all, it was \u201conly a dream\u201d. Though the force of his feelings told him something else, Sam agreed to try to put the dream out of his mind.<\/p>\n

The tragedy began to unfold soon after the two young men boarded the Pennsylvania<\/em>.<\/em>\u00a0The pilot of the Pennsylvania<\/em>, William Brown, was an autocrat with a violent temper with whom Sam was soon scrapping. During the voyage downriver, Sam got into a full-blown fight with him. The captain sided with Sam, and said they would find a new pilot when they got to New Orleans. But a new pilot could not be found and since Sam and Brown could not coexist on the same boat, Sam was transferred to another vessel, leaving Henry on the Pennsylvania<\/em>, <\/em>which started the upriver journey fist. Just before they parted company, Sam and Henry discussed how they would act in the event of a riverboat disaster such as a boiler explosion, which was a common occurrence.<\/p>\n

The Pennsylvania<\/em>\u2019s <\/em>boiler exploded in a hell of steam and fire, in the way they had discussed.\u00a0 Badly burned, Henry survived for a few days, to die in Memphis, where the injured were carried. His handsome face was untouched, and the kindly lady volunteers were so moved by his beauty and innocence that they gave him the best casket, a metal box.<\/p>\n

When Sam entered the \u201cdead-room\u201d of the Memphis Exchange on June 21, 1858, he was horrified to see the enactment of his dream: his dead brother laid out in a metal casket in a borrowed suit. Only one element was missing: the floral bouquet. As Sam watched and mourned, a lady came in with a bouquet of white roses with a single red one at the center and laid it on Henry\u2019s chest.<\/p>\n

Mark Twain kept telling and retelling the circumstances of Henry\u2019s death, in his mind and in his writing, for the rest of his life. He was one of the first to join the Society for Psychical Research after it was founded in London in 1882 in the hope that its investigators could help him understand the workings of dream precognition. He could never escape the thought that \u2013 had he only known how to use the information from his dream \u2013 he might have been able to prevent Henry\u2019s death.<\/p>\n

~<\/p>\n

For more on Mark Twain’s dreams and his study of coincidence and what he called “mental telegraphy,” please read the chapter titled “Mark Twain’s Rhyming Life” in my Secret History of Dreaming<\/a><\/em>, published by New World Library.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Great humor often sparkles on the surface of a dark tide of challenge or tragedy. Mark Twain, still America’s most beloved humorist, was stricken by many terrible events in his life and that of his family – the loss of a beloved brother and later his favorite daughter, the loss of all his money late…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":224,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5,23,20,30],"tags":[929,350,932,933,930,928,931],"class_list":["post-4038","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-dreams","category-dreams-of-the-dead","category-history-of-dreaming","category-precognition","tag-henry-clemens","tag-mark-twain","tag-precognitive-dreams","tag-premonition","tag-riverboat-boiler-explosion","tag-samuel-clemens","tag-society-for-psychical-research"],"yoast_head":"\nThe shadow of Mark Twain's precognitive dream - Dream Gates<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/dreamgates\/2012\/01\/the-shadow-of-mark-twains-precognitive-dream.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"The shadow of Mark Twain's precognitive dream - Dream Gates\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Great humor often sparkles on the surface of a dark tide of challenge or tragedy. Mark Twain, still America’s most beloved humorist, was stricken by many terrible events in his life and that of his family – the loss of a beloved brother and later his favorite daughter, the loss of all his money late…\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/dreamgates\/2012\/01\/the-shadow-of-mark-twains-precognitive-dream.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Dream Gates\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2012-01-10T08:17:37+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2012-01-10T08:37:00+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/dreamgates\/files\/2012\/01\/riverboat-boiler-explosion-300x211.jpg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Robert Moss\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"The shadow of Mark Twain's precognitive dream - Dream Gates","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/dreamgates\/2012\/01\/the-shadow-of-mark-twains-precognitive-dream.html","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"The shadow of Mark Twain's precognitive dream - Dream Gates","og_description":"Great humor often sparkles on the surface of a dark tide of challenge or tragedy. Mark Twain, still America’s most beloved humorist, was stricken by many terrible events in his life and that of his family – the loss of a beloved brother and later his favorite daughter, the loss of all his money late…","og_url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/dreamgates\/2012\/01\/the-shadow-of-mark-twains-precognitive-dream.html","og_site_name":"Dream Gates","article_published_time":"2012-01-10T08:17:37+00:00","article_modified_time":"2012-01-10T08:37:00+00:00","og_image":[{"url":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/dreamgates\/files\/2012\/01\/riverboat-boiler-explosion-300x211.jpg"}],"author":"Robert Moss","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/dreamgates\/2012\/01\/the-shadow-of-mark-twains-precognitive-dream.html","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/dreamgates\/2012\/01\/the-shadow-of-mark-twains-precognitive-dream.html","name":"The shadow of Mark Twain's precognitive dream - Dream Gates","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/dreamgates\/#website"},"primaryImageOfPage":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/dreamgates\/2012\/01\/the-shadow-of-mark-twains-precognitive-dream.html#primaryimage"},"image":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/dreamgates\/2012\/01\/the-shadow-of-mark-twains-precognitive-dream.html#primaryimage"},"thumbnailUrl":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/dreamgates\/files\/2012\/01\/riverboat-boiler-explosion-300x211.jpg","datePublished":"2012-01-10T08:17:37+00:00","dateModified":"2012-01-10T08:37:00+00:00","author":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/dreamgates\/#\/schema\/person\/941740e4115cce34706832d06aa76b6b"},"breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/dreamgates\/2012\/01\/the-shadow-of-mark-twains-precognitive-dream.html#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/dreamgates\/2012\/01\/the-shadow-of-mark-twains-precognitive-dream.html"]}]},{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/dreamgates\/2012\/01\/the-shadow-of-mark-twains-precognitive-dream.html#primaryimage","url":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/dreamgates\/files\/2012\/01\/riverboat-boiler-explosion-300x211.jpg","contentUrl":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/dreamgates\/files\/2012\/01\/riverboat-boiler-explosion-300x211.jpg"},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/dreamgates\/2012\/01\/the-shadow-of-mark-twains-precognitive-dream.html#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/dreamgates"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"The shadow of Mark Twain’s precognitive dream"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/dreamgates\/#website","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/dreamgates\/","name":"Dream Gates","description":"Beliefnet Voices - Robert Moss","potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/dreamgates\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":{"@type":"PropertyValueSpecification","valueRequired":true,"valueName":"search_term_string"}}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/dreamgates\/#\/schema\/person\/941740e4115cce34706832d06aa76b6b","name":"Robert Moss","image":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/dreamgates\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/dreamgates\/wp-content\/wphb-cache\/gravatar\/777\/7770e3a2cde4458084d9a31237336b92x96.jpg","contentUrl":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/dreamgates\/wp-content\/wphb-cache\/gravatar\/777\/7770e3a2cde4458084d9a31237336b92x96.jpg","caption":"Robert Moss"},"description":"Robert Moss describes himself as a dream teacher, on a path for which there has been no career track in our culture. He is the creator of Active Dreaming, an original synthesis of dreamwork and shamanism. Born in Australia, he survived three near-death experiences in childhood. He leads popular seminars all over the world, including a three-year training for teachers of Active Dreaming. A former lecturer in ancient history at the Australian National University, he is a best-selling novelist, journalist and independent scholar. His nine books on dreaming, shamanism and imagination include Conscious Dreaming, Dreamways of the Iroquois, The Dreamer's Book of the Dead, The Three \"\"Only\"\" Things, The Secret History of Dreaming, Dreamgates, Active Dreaming and Dreaming the Soul Back Home: Shamanic Dreaming for Healing and Becoming Whole. His most recent book is The Boy Who Died and Came Back: Adventures of a Dream Archaeologist in the Multiverse. Over the past 20 years, he has led seminars at the Esalen Institute, Kripalu, the Omega Institute, the New York Open Center, Bastyr University, John F. Kennedy University, Meriter Hospital, and many other centers and institutions. He has taught depth workshops in Active Dreaming in the UK, Australia, Canada, Costa Rica, France, the Netherlands, Denmark, Sweden, Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia, Romania, Brazil and Austria and leads a three-year training for teachers of Active Dreaming. He hosts the \"\"Way of the Dreamer\"\" radio show at www.healthylife.net. He has appeared on many TV and radio shows, ranging from Charlie Rose and the Today show to Coast to Coast and the Diane Rehm show on NPR. His articles on dreaming have been published in media ranging from Parade to Shaman's Drum.","sameAs":["http:\/\/www.mossdreams.com"],"url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/dreamgates\/author\/rmoss"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/dreamgates\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4038","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/dreamgates\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/dreamgates\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/dreamgates\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/224"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/dreamgates\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4038"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/dreamgates\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4038\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4041,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/dreamgates\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4038\/revisions\/4041"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/dreamgates\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4038"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/dreamgates\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4038"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/dreamgates\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4038"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}