Research source

I will conclude this chapter with the following extract from “Lockhart’s Life of Scott:”

Date of account: First published 1848
Source: The Night-Side of Nature; Or, Ghosts and Ghost-Seers
Reference: The Night-Side of Nature; Or, Ghosts and Ghost-Seers · selected passage 103
Rights: public_domain
Language: English
Record updated: 2026-08-24

Record summary

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

pect to these cloudy forms, I have met with four instances lately, two occurring to ladies, and two to gentlemen; the one a minister, and the other a man engaged in business; and although I am quite aware that these cases are not easily to be distinguished from those of spectral illusion, yet I do not think them so myself; and as they occurred to persons in their normal state of health, who never before or since experienced anything of the kind, and who could find nothing in their own circumstances to account for its happening then, I shall mention them. In the instances of the gentlemen and one of the ladies, they were suddenly awakened, they could not tell by what, and perceived bending over them a cloudy form, which immediately retreated slowly to the other end of the room, and disappeared. In the fourth case, which occurred to an intimate friend of my own, she had not been asleep; but having been the last person up in the house, had just stepped into the bed, where her sister had already been some time asleep.

Historical context

Contextual commentary · mention only

This is a historical account assembled under the reporting and publishing conventions of its period. It may preserve testimony, hearsay, retelling and editorial interpretation together.

Modern context

Contextual commentary · mention only

A modern comparison can identify recurring descriptions and possible explanations, but the account is not treated as independently verified evidence merely because it appeared in print.

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