The night Mrs. Williams dreamed of her uncle in a coffin: a shared-death experience

Step 1

1882 · In London · Mrs. Williams’ account

Mrs. Williams lives in London, and her uncle lives in Birmingham

Mrs. Williams lived with her husband in Clerkenwell, a neighborhood in London. They had been married for ten years.

Her uncle, David Gillan, was her father’s brother. He lived in Birmingham, in the middle of England. David was 64 years old.

Mrs. Williams didn’t know that anything was wrong with her uncle. She hadn’t heard any news that he was ill for a long time.

Step 3

That same night · Mrs. Williams’ account

She wakes her husband and tells him she is sure something has happened

Mrs. Williams woke her husband and told him about the dream. She told him she was sure that something had happened.

Her husband told her it was just her imagination and that she should go back to sleep.

In the morning they talked about the dream again.

Step 4

December 22, 1882 · Mrs. Williams’ account

That morning is their wedding anniversary, and that is why they remember the date

December 22 was their wedding anniversary. They had married on that same day in 1872.

That is why both of them remembered the date of the dream. It was the night before their anniversary.

Then seven weeks went by without any news of her uncle.

Step 5

February 9, 1883 · Mrs. Williams’ account

Seven weeks later, a letter arrives from Birmingham: her uncle has died

Mrs. Williams’ husband had written to the family in Birmingham. The book doesn’t say why. The reply arrived on February 9, 1883.

It came from her uncle’s sister. Inside were a letter and a printed mourning card.

That is how Mrs. Williams learned that her uncle had died.

Step 6

December 21 and 22, 1882 · According to the letter and the mourning card

The letter says her uncle died at five in the morning on December 22

In the letter, her uncle’s sister tells what happened. David went to bed on December 20. On the 21st, at nine in the morning, she found him having a fit and sent for the doctor. David never spoke again. He died at five in the morning on the 22nd.

The mourning card says that David Gillan died on December 22, 1882, at the age of 64. He was buried on the 28th in Witton Cemetery, in Birmingham.

Mrs. Williams had dreamed of him on the night of the 21st to the 22nd. The death came at five in the morning of that same night.

Step 7

February 1883 · The researcher Edmund Gurney’s account

As soon as the news arrives, Mrs. Williams writes down what she dreamed

That same February, Mrs. Williams described the dream in writing to a clergyman, the Rev. A. T. Fryer. He was a friend of some researchers in London who were collecting cases like this.

She wrote it as soon as the news arrived, when she already knew that her uncle had died. Gurney does not copy that first account in the book.

Three years later, Mrs. Williams wrote a fuller account.

Step 8

1886 · Edmund Gurney’s account

Her husband confirms to a researcher that she woke him that night

Edmund Gurney was one of those researchers. He published Mrs. Williams’ full account, dated January 1, 1886.

Gurney also spoke with both of them. Her husband confirmed to him that his wife woke him right after the dream and told him the details in the morning. He also confirmed that they remembered the date because of the anniversary. Gurney asked them for their marriage certificate, and it was dated December 22, 1872.

Mrs. Williams told him that she did not remember ever dreaming of her uncle, or of a death, on any other occasion. Gurney copied part of the letter from her uncle’s sister and the mourning card.

Gurney and his colleagues published the case in 1886, in Phantasms of the Living. On another page we explain how that book was made and what can be checked about 24 of its dreams.

The question remains: how did Mrs. Williams dream of her uncle on the very night he died?