Observations placeholder
Warner Allen, Herbert - The Timeless Moment – A prophetic dream
Identifier
021676
Type of Spiritual Experience
Background
He was clearly very very frightened when he had his dream and the fear also acted as a prayer for information.
A description of the experience
The Timeless Moment – Herbert Warner Allen
Years ago I was superintending the construction of one of the first dirigible balloons to cross the Channel under its own power and was waiting to fly with it from Mantes to Farnborough. While it was being built, an airship of the same type was lost with all its crew. A propeller broke in flight and one of its fragments ripped open the gas-bag. I read of this accident in the newspapers and soon after I dreamed that I was in the car of our balloon.
The sun was shining brightly, we were over the sea, and I noticed how delightfully smoothly we were travelling. The whole scene was vividly impressed upon my sleeping mind. Suddenly there came a loud explosion, and everything was enveloped in utter darkness out of which I struggled-to wake in a fright. I admit that I did not like this dream at all, but after I had told it to a friend I dismissed it from my mind
Some weeks afterwards the airship started on what was then regarded as an adventurous voyage. We had a bumpy journey over France, particularly over Rouen, where we pitched and tossed as if we were at sea. When we came out over the Channel, the sun was shining brightly, there were no air-pockets and I was just thinking how nice it was to be travelling so smoothly after our rough start, when I remembered my dream. The scene was exactly the one I had dreamed. As this flashed across my mind there came a loud explosion.
Thoroughly scared I awaited the worst. But nothing happened. The sun still shone and we sailed serenely on. A mechanic in the stern, who had a better view than I, shouted to me that our destroyer escort had fired a signal gun as we passed over her bows.
The darkness came later, when we were being hauled into the shed at our destination. There had been a mistake as to the dimensions of the hangar. It was too small for the airship and the gas-bag tore open against the roof. Down came the enormous canvas envelope (it was three hundred feet long), smothering the crew and myself in utter darkness, and out of that darkness we had to struggle through the wreckage into the light of day, very much as I had struggled out of my dream back to waking life.