Annie Harriss’s shared-death experience

Step 1

August 1875 · Annie’s account

Annie leaves home because her mother is better than ever

Annie Harriss was an English girl who was still at school. Her mother had been in poor health for years.

That summer, her mother was better than she had been in a long time. That is why Annie left home, about six weeks before what happened next.

Annie wasn’t expecting any bad news.

Step 2

September 23, 1875 · Annie’s account

Two days before, a letter from her mother says she is well

Two days before, Annie got a letter from her mother. Her mother was in good health and good spirits.

Nothing in the letter hinted at what was about to happen.

Step 4

That same afternoon · Annie’s account

Annie says that, while walking in the country, she heard her name called several times

That afternoon, Annie had gone out for a long walk in the country with her friend Edith Darwin. She wandered off for a moment to pick flowers.

Then she clearly heard someone calling her, several times. She felt that something bad was coming. Without knowing why, she looked at her watch. It was half past four.

She asked Edith why she had called her. Edith hadn’t called her.

Edith remembers the scene. According to the researchers, the voice didn’t make Annie think of her mother.

Step 5

The night of September 25 to 26 · Annie’s account

Annie says that night she dreamed her mother was dying

That night, Annie dreamed of her mother’s death. She saw her dying.

It was a very vivid, distressing dream. Years later, Annie said it was the only dream of death she ever had, and that she never heard voices again.

In the morning, she told her friend.

Step 6

September 26, in the morning · Edith Darwin’s account

Edith Darwin says Annie came down very upset and told them about the dream

Edith Darwin remembers that one morning Annie came downstairs very upset. She told Edith and the others that she had had a very vivid dream. In the dream she had seen her mother lying dead.

Edith wasn’t part of Annie’s family. That is why her account matters.

Step 7

An hour later · Edith Darwin’s account

An hour later, the mail arrives with the news

An hour after Annie told them about the dream, the mail arrived. It brought the news of her mother’s death.

Annie says the time of death was given in the letter and also in a telegram. No one knows when the telegram arrived.

If the telegram had arrived the afternoon before, Annie would have known the news before the dream. No one says so, but it can’t be ruled out either.

Step 8

1884 · The researchers ask

Nine years later, Annie and Edith put it in writing

In 1884, some researchers in London were looking for cases like this. Annie wrote to them in January. Edith Darwin wrote to them in July. Edmund Gurney, one of the researchers, copied out her father’s letter.

The two versions don’t fully match:

• The voice. Annie says she heard it at the exact time of the death. But her watch said half past four, and her mother died at around a quarter to four. Gurney called it an “exaggeration of correctness.”
• The death. Edith remembers that the mother was taken ill that afternoon and died at about the time of the dream. The father’s letter says she died in the afternoon.

The two versions do agree on what matters. Annie told the dream before the mail arrived.

Step 9

1886 · The book

Annie’s case goes into the list of 24 dreams in “Phantasms of the Living”

In 1886, Gurney and his colleagues published the book Phantasms of the Living. The book brings together 24 dreams of death that people had less than 12 hours from the death. Annie’s case is one of them.

Gurney proposed an explanation. In his view, something reached Annie in a vague form right after her mother died, like a voice she didn’t recognize. That night, in the dream, it took clear shape.

On the page about the study, we explain how those 24 dreams were gathered and what can be checked about them.

The question remains: how did Annie know, that night, that her mother had died?