Observations placeholder
MrL Bugaut of Cork in Ireland sees his friend's French granny
Identifier
011278
Type of Spiritual Experience
Exploring group perception
Inter composer communication
Hallucination
Background
This is very complex inter composer communication, so complex it ranks as exploring group perception as there is quite a lot of hopping between the perceptions of various people [including his friend] to get the image of the granny in her night cap.
I have added hallucination only because the resulting image transmitted to him was superimposed on the image he had from his senses.
It was probably instigated by him issuing a sort of 'prayer' in that he was wondering what she looked like or was like.
The granny, being deaf and dumb, had a form of sensory deprivation
A description of the experience
Death and its Mystery, At the Moment of Death; Manifestations and Apparitions of the Dying – Camille Flammarion
Here is an account received in April 1889
We have a friend whose mother is deaf and dumb. As the mother lives very far from us, not even being French, we had never seen her; we correspond with her, and it was understood that I should go to see her in the course of the summer of 1897.
But before I made the trip I knew her, and this is how. I had just gone to bed; I had hardly laid my head upon my pillow when, at the foot of the bed, but higher up, almost at the ceiling, I saw the pretty face of an old lady, smiling at me. I was frightened and hid my head under the covers; then, ashamed of myself, I put the covers aside, determined to be brave, if indeed, I had not been dreaming.
The smiling face was still there, but this time it was coming towards me. All my courage fled; once more I hid my head in the blankets, and to make completely sure I was not dreaming, I pinched myself hard.
When I decided to look again, there was no longer anything there.
The next day I told this to my mother, whom I had not called, though she was not asleep. She told me that it was, perhaps, Grandmother, who had had in fact a fine and delicate face. This grandmother had died long since, without my ever having known her and I was not very ready to admit this hypothesis. After some time the incident was forgotten.
In the month of August, I made the projected trip. Imagine my surprise when in the mother of my friend I recognised the ice little old lady who had frightened me so. The only difference was that my apparition wore a white cap, which framed her face and this lady did not wear one. But after all, since it was night when she came to pay me a visit, it was, perhaps, a night cap.
This occurrence took place in a little region of the Department of Saone et Loire. What may give it some added value is the fact that I am a skeptic, and wish to admit only facts which can be poved by A + B; everything in me balks at the supernatural. It is unnecessary, after saying that, to tell you with what trembling interest I am following your investigations.
I should be happy if I can have brought to your notice the slightest bit of evidence
Signed
L BUGAUT
Charleston, Ballinscurra, Cork, Ireland