MISTER MYSTERY RESPONDS

Dr. Hugues made it crystal clear that sneaking into someone else's dreams was invading her privacy. However, his patient did not seem to mind the least that since four nights ago that man with the shell glasses and the wild hair interfered in her dreams. On the contrary, it would seem that Margaret Rowland was delighted with that intruder of whom she spoke with such familiarity and tenderness. That's why Dr. Hugues objected: a young woman should not rely so quickly on a stranger, let alone fall in love with him in such a frank and naive way. “Sometimes, strangers turn out to be simple opportunists who only seek to take advantage of young naïve women like you”, he instructed her, “How the hell have you known him?”. Then she told her dream: She was in Newport with her family. She went down to the beach and, as always when she went down to the beach in her dreams, the sea level grew and grew until the water reached her neck and she had to swim to save her life. Usually, after a lo...

The truth is that during the question time that followed the Friday afternoon conference at the SPR headquarters, the questions of the “silly genre” abounded. "If ghosts do not occupy space, how many ghosts fit in a tylbury?" "Telekinesis could be manufactured and put on the market at a low price?" "Clairvoyance is in colors or in black and white?”. This kind of silly things. Once, however, a question apparently as silly as the ones I just mentioned was asked, but that question led several members of the Society for Psychical Research to undertake a serious investigation. The question was: "Can anyone recognize a person he has never seen?". And indeed, if that had been all, the question would have gone to swell the list of stupidities that were said in those long evening sessions open to the public. But when, soon thereafter, the man who formulated it put the question in its context, the members of the SPR were intrigued and decided to investigate the...