A real-life story · United States, 1910
The morning Mrs. Sutton dreamed of her old teacher in a coffin, eighteen days before her teacher’s death: a shared-death experience
In December 1910, Mrs. Sutton, who lived in Portland, in the United States, dreamed of a coffin. Inside was Sister Dorothy, a nun who had been her teacher when she was a girl. She told a researcher about it that same day, and he says he wrote it down before the death. She believed the nun had died months earlier. But Sister Dorothy was still alive, and she died eighteen days later.
This case is different from almost all the others, because the dream came eighteen days before the death, and not at the moment of death. A researcher heard about it the same day, and he says he wrote it down before the nun died. But Mrs. Sutton believed the nun was already dead. And the nun died in a hospital very close to Mrs. Sutton’s home, although it is not known whether she knew the nun was there. We tell the story step by step and then look at what can be checked. Did Mrs. Sutton dream of a death that had not happened yet?
Step 1
1870 to 1910 · Vancouver and Portland · According to a researcher from the American Society for Psychical Research
As a girl, Mrs. Sutton went to a school run by nuns, and in 1910 a researcher writes down her dreams
Mrs. Sutton lived in Portland, in the state of Oregon, in the United States. As a girl, she had gone to a convent school in Vancouver. There, one of her teachers was a nun, Sister Dorothy. Sister Dorothy was also the teacher of her sister Mary, and for a longer time.
In 1910, a researcher from the American Society for Psychical Research was visiting Mrs. Sutton. She said she had visions and dreams about things she could not know. The researcher asked her to tell him about each one at the time, so that he could write it down.
Mrs. Sutton had gone to that school more than thirty years earlier.
Step 2
December 16, 1910, in the morning · Portland · Mrs. Sutton’s account
She dreams that a voice tells her to step into a room where there is a coffin with Sister Dorothy inside
That morning, before she woke up, Mrs. Sutton had a dream or a vision. She told the researcher that she seemed to hear a voice say:
“‘Just step into that room.’ I did so and saw a coffin and as I exclaimed ‘who can be in that coffin?’ I stepped nearer and saw the smiling face of sister Dorothy. She smiled at me very sweetly and said, ‘your sister Mary will know.’”
The dream doesn’t make clear what Mary would know.
That same day, a little after one in the afternoon, the researcher arrived at her house, and she told him about it.
Step 3
December 16 and 19, 1910 · The researcher’s account
The researcher writes down the dream, but Mrs. Sutton believes the nun has already died
Mrs. Sutton told the researcher she believed Sister Dorothy had died about six months earlier. The researcher thought the dream might be foretelling something, and that perhaps she was wrong to believe the nun had already died.
Without mentioning the dream, he went to see Mary, Mrs. Sutton’s sister, on December 19. Mary confirmed that Sister Dorothy had been her teacher. She told him the nun had been dead for six months, and that she was sorry she had not visited her during her last illness. The journal does not explain where the two sisters got that idea.
The researcher then thought that the dream had not foretold anything after all, because both sisters said the nun had been dead for months. Even so, he put it in writing.
Step 4
January 3 and 4, 1911 · Portland · According to the newspaper Morning Oregonian
Eighteen days later, the Portland newspaper reports that Sister Dorothea has died
On January 4, 1911, the Portland newspaper Morning Oregonian published a photo and a notice about the death of Sister Dorothea. She had died the day before, January 3, at St. Vincent’s Hospital in Portland. The newspaper called her Sister Dorothea, and the family remembered her as Sister Dorothy. That hospital was very close to Mrs. Sutton’s home.
The researcher called Mary on the phone. Mary assured him that the nun in the photo was not her old teacher. Mrs. Sutton, on the other hand, said it was her old teacher, although she looked younger in the photo.
The dream had come eighteen days before the death.
Step 5
January 1911 · The researcher’s account
After reading the news, Mrs. Sutton gives more details of the dream, and then she goes to the funeral
On January 4, after reading the news, Mrs. Sutton gave the researcher more details of the dream, which she had not told him on December 16. She said the coffin was made of black wood and did not seem to have handles. She described the room, and she said that the nuns who showed her in did not speak, but only beckoned with their hands. These were new details. On December 16, she had only talked about a voice.
Then she went to the funeral. She said that there the coffin did have handles, but they were covered by a black cloth. She said the room was like the one in the dream, and that the nuns beckoned to her without speaking.
Her husband told the researcher that she had already told him about the black coffin and the nuns before the funeral. She had also told the researcher about them before she saw the dead nun.
Step 6
1911 · Portland · According to the researcher and the hospital’s Sister Superior
Mary admits she was wrong: the nun who died was her old teacher
The researcher went back to see Mary, who admitted she had been wrong. The nun who died on January 3 was Sister Dorothy, her old teacher.
The Sister Superior of St. Vincent’s Hospital confirmed it to him. She told him that Sister Dorothea had been a teacher at the convent in Vancouver in the 1870s. Some people who knew the two sisters confirmed that they had gone to that school at that time.
When they learned the whole story, the two sisters regretted not having taken the dream seriously. They said they had been sure the nun was already dead.
Step 7
1911 · The researcher’s account
The American Society for Psychical Research publishes the case in 1911
The journal of the American Society for Psychical Research published the case in 1911. The researcher writes that the dream really did foretell the death and that no deception was possible. He also says he has no reason at all to think that Mrs. Sutton would want to deceive anyone.
The question remains: did Mrs. Sutton dream of her old teacher’s death eighteen days before it happened?
Where this story comes from
Journals
- Journal of the American Society for Psychical Research, volume 5, 1911, pages 608–610Read for free
Case documents
- The researcher’s note from December 16 to 19, 1910, published in the journal
- The death notice in the Morning Oregonian of January 4, 1911, cited in the journal
- The confirmation from the Sister Superior of St. Vincent’s Hospital in Portland, as reported by the researcher
Learn more
- Andrew Jukes: another voice that announced two deaths before they happenedRead
- More shared-death experiencesRead
Our archive
- Our full reading of the case and its scoring against our five criteria, as of October 28, 2026
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