Research source

Now, the ghostly is nothing but the experience, when men are awake, or apparently awake, of the every-night…

Date of account: Published 1897
Source: The Book of Dreams and Ghosts
Reference: The Book of Dreams and Ghosts · selected passage 13
Rights: public_domain
Language: English
Record updated: 2026-08-24

Record summary

Now, the ghostly is nothing but the experience, when men are awake, or apparently awake, of the every-night phenomena of dreaming

Published source text

Read the available text below. Archive transcriptions may contain OCR errors; later context is labelled separately. A recorded claim is not a finding that it happened.

Source passage

Source text · mention only

Now, the ghostly is nothing but the experience, when men are awake, or _apparently_ awake, of the every-night phenomena of dreaming. The vision of the absent seen by a waking, or apparently waking, man is called "a wraith"; the waking, or apparently waking, vision of the dead is called "a ghost". Yet, as St. Augustine says, the absent man, or the dead man, may know no more of the vision, and may have no more to do with causing it, than have the absent or the dead whom we are perfectly accustomed to see in our dreams. Moreover, the comparatively rare cases in which two or more waking people are alleged to have seen the same "ghost," simultaneously or in succession, have _their_ parallel in sleep, where two or more persons simultaneously dream the same dream.

Historical context

Contextual commentary · mention only

This material belongs to a folklore tradition. Story type, collector, community, transmission and literary editing matter when comparing it with other sources.

Modern context

Contextual commentary · mention only

Lattice compares motifs and reported features without assuming that a traditional being is a biological species or that similar stories document one external cause.

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