Samuel Langhorne Clemens, known better by his pen name Mark Twain, is still considered one of the greatest American writers. And although many of his writings and famed quotations poke fun at the folly of men, he seemed to have a mystical side as well. It is well known, for example, that he predicted the circumstances of his own death: he was born in 1835 when Halley's Comet was visible and said that he came in with Halley and would go out with Halley. Sure enough, he died in 1910 when the comet was again visible.
Lesser known, however, is a dream that he had in the late 1850s, which came true in acute detail. He experienced an unusually vivid dream in which he saw the body of his brother Henry lying dead in a metal coffin in his sister's sitting room. The coffin was supported by two chairs, and upon his brother’s still chest was a bouquet of flowers with one red rose in its center.
It was just a few weeks later that Henry died as the result of injuries sustained in a boat accident. Appearing at the wake, Twain found his brother’s body just as he had seen it in the dream: in a metal coffin supported by two chairs. Missing only were the flowers. Just then, a woman entered the room and placed on Henry’s chest a bouquet – with a single red rose in the center.
The Scottish Earthquake
Earthquakes of any notable magnitude are quite rare in Great Britain, so it's unlikely that Edward Pearson would have been taken seriously by anyone. Pearson was traveling by train from Iverness to Perth in Scotland, the first leg of his trip to London. He was going there, he told authorities, to warn the Prime Minister of a devastating earthquake that he knew was going to strike Glasgow.
But Pearson never got any further than Perth, as he was arrested on the train for not having a ticket. Although a local newspaper reported the story of this "unemployed Welsh prophet," who would have really listened to him? Three weeks later, the earthquake struck, damaging buildings in Glasgow and other regions of Scotland.
Fortunate Policy
Jaime Castell was killed in a freak automobile accident. The Spanish hotel executive was driving home one evening when a car speeding in the opposite direction swerved off the road, jumped over the median barrier, flipped over and landed upside-down on top of Castell's car, killing him instantly. The insurance company readily and without question paid the $100,000 policy to Castell's pregnant wife.
The freak nature of Castell's death gave the insurance company no cause to question that it was an accident, even though Castell had suddenly purchased the policy just a few weeks earlier. The reason? A voice in a dream told him that he would never see his unborn child, and he was convinced that he would soon die.
Sources: "Mysteries of the Unexplained," Reader's Digest; "Charles Berlitz's World of Strange Phenomena," Wynwood Press.
