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The Future and Beyond – H F Saltmarsh

This case is taken from  Proc., XIV, 251.

Professor Haslam, between sleeping and waking, was thinking of a forthcoming horse-race, and saw a jockey in scarlet pass before him; he appeared to be pulling his horse in hard, and finally won the race. He thought, 'Scarlet is a common colour,' then the vision of the jockey passed before his eyes again. Next day he told various friends. He attended the meeting, and went to the saddling paddock to find a jockey who was in scarlet. He found his man and put a little money on the horse. The jockey pulled in his horse hard during the race and finally won. The case has good independent confirmation.

I think that the most impressive of these ' Winners' cases is that of Mr. John H. Williams, reported in Journal, XXVIII, 216.

Mr. Williams, a quaker, aged eighty or more, was an ardent opponent of betting. He awoke from sleep at 8.35 am on 31st May, 1933, from a dream in which he had listened to a detailed account by radio of the Derby, which was to be run that day at 2 p.m. He heard the names of the first four horses, Hyperion, King Salmon, and two others which he failed to remember. He listened to the whole running commentary from start to finish.

At 11.o'clock that morning he had to go out on business, and related to a neighbour, whom he met in a bus, his morning's experience. He also told it to another person whom he met on business matters. Though so opposed to betting and entirely uninterested in horse-racing he decided to listen to the running commentary on the radio, when he heard the identical expressions and names as in the dream.

I corresponded personally with Mr. Williams and the two gentlemen to whom he had told his dream that morning; they very kindly answered my questions and gave ample confirmation of the account.

It seems most inappropriate that precognition of a horse-race should have come to one who was so strongly opposed to racing and betting, and we can assign no reasonable explanation of the occurrence.

Journal S.P.R. Volume xxviii p216 [ as quoted in Tyrrell, G N M - The Personality of Man]

We now come to a case in which the event foreseen was of a kind quite foreign to the normal interests of the percipient. Mr. John H. Williams of Dulwich, a Quaker woke on the morning of the 31st May, 1933, and dozed off again at 8.20 a.m. He then dreamed that he heard the radio announcer giving the names of the first four winners of the Derby, which was to be run that day- Hyperion, King Salmon and two others, which he failed to remember.

Mr. Williams was not familiar with the names of the horses, being an ardent opponent of betting, and perhaps this made it more difficult for the last two names to remain in his memory. He continues:

"I had dreamed of listening in on the phones from a rather ancient crystal receiver and hearing the whole of the race from the start to ‘around Tattenham Corner,' and in excited tones how Hyperion gained the lead and won, when I was disturbed."

Between 11 and 11.30 that morning, Mr. Williams told three people about his dream. One, a neighbour, was "heard to relate in a restaurant long before the race what I had told him at 11 a.m." The two others, Mr. C. A. Young and Mr. W. E. Rowland Doughty, gave their signed statements that Mr. Williams related to them his dream on the morning of Derby Day. They say, however, that only the winner, Hyperion, was named; whereas Mr. Williams' impression was that he named to them the second horse, King Salmon, as well.

Mr Williams was interviewed and, although an octogenarian, was regarded as a perfectly clear and excellent witness. Mr. Williams said: "I knew the crystal set was out of order but was so impressed with the seeming reality of the account that I resolved to put the set right and listen at 2 p.m. This I did and when the race was proceeding heard the identical expressions and names as in the dream."