The night a woman dreamed of injured people covered in blood, hours after an explosion in Rome

Step 1

1907 · England · Her sister F. S. W.’s account

A woman keeps paper and pencil by her bed to write down her dreams

The woman was the youngest of several sisters and lived with her family. From their letters, it seems they lived in England. They read the London newspaper The Standard, and one sister was planning to work in London. Her name was never published. Her sisters signed only with their initials, which end in W.

She was very interested in paranormal experiences. That is why she slept with paper and pencil by her bed, so she could write down her dreams, her visions, or the voices she thought she heard as soon as they came. She also used it for automatic writing, which means writing while letting the hand move on its own, without thinking about what is being written.

Her sister F. S. W. says the family had already had several unusual experiences of this kind, and that later events had confirmed them.

Step 2

December 31, 1907, in the afternoon · Rome · According to the newspaper The Standard

In Rome, a gas explosion brings down part of the Stock Exchange roof and injures about twenty people

On the afternoon of December 31, 1907, there was an explosion in the center of Rome. It happened at the Stock Exchange, a building set inside the remains of an ancient temple.

The explosion brought down the glass roof of one of the halls. About twenty people were injured, mostly employees, with head wounds. A line of horse-drawn cabs took the injured to the hospital. There, some families could not recognize their own relatives, because they were so badly disfigured.

The explosion was caused by a gas leak. Two messengers at the Stock Exchange noticed the smell, and one of them lit a cigarette. The noise was like that of a bomb. The same newspaper carries a second report from that day, which speaks of twelve injured. Neither report mentions any deaths.

In England, the news appeared in the newspaper The Standard the next morning.

Step 4

January 1, 1908, at two in the morning · The woman’s account

She wakes up and writes down the dream at once, with the time

The woman woke up wide awake. She took the paper and pencil and wrote down everything she remembered of the dream. At the top she put the time and the date, two in the morning on January 1, 1908.

In the note she says she doesn’t remember the whole dream, but that she feels she has to write it down. She ends by saying she couldn’t get those people writhing in pain out of her mind.

The note doesn’t mention Rome, a stock exchange, or an explosion.

Step 5

That morning, at breakfast · Her sister F. S. W.’s account

At breakfast she reads the dream aloud, and one sister thinks of a London hospital

In the morning, the woman read the note aloud to her family at breakfast. She apologized for the unpleasant details.

They all thought the dream meant something. One of her sisters, F. S. W., thought of a hospital in London with people injured in traffic accidents. It came to mind because she was planning to start work at a hospital like that soon.

Another sister, E. W., was sure the newspaper would carry a report similar to the dream.

Step 6

January 1, 1908, in the morning · Her sister E. W.’s account

Her sister opens the newspaper and finds the report of the explosion in Rome

As soon as their daily paper, The Standard, arrived, her sister E. W. opened it and searched through it. She found the report of the explosion in Rome. She folded the page and handed it to the woman. This is how E. W. tells it:

“Here is your dream, and this account tallies with yours.”

Her sister F. S. W. says the explosion in Rome was the first news from outside the house she heard that morning.

Step 7

January to December 1908 · According to the journal of the Society for Psychical Research

The sisters send the note to researchers in London, who publish the case with a caution

On January 4, 1908, F. S. W. and E. W. each wrote a letter to the Society for Psychical Research. It was a society in London that studied cases like this. They sent the note of the dream along with the letters. They asked that only their initials be published.

The Society’s journal published the case in October 1908, under the title “Coincident dream.” In December, it added the report from The Standard.

The researchers warn that people will disagree about whether the dream had anything to do with the explosion. Even so, they think the resemblance is striking enough to be worth putting on record.

The question remains: did the woman dream of the explosion in Rome, or was it a coincidence?