The Book of Dreams and Ghosts
Andrew Lang · 1897
4.9 · 7 ratings
About the book
Scotland's great folklorist collects the best-attested dreams, wraiths and hauntings he can find and tells them like the storyteller he is — sceptical in the preface, spellbound by page ten. The Beresford ghost, Ticonderoga, and the case files of Victorian wonder.
Try the short course
Part 1 · Evidence first, shivers second. The first six slides, free.
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Andrew Lang starts from a claim that sounds like a verdict against ghosts, and is not. In the modern view he sets out in his preface, every ghost is a hallucination: a perception of something which is not present.
He leans on William James to take the sting out of the word. A hallucination is a real sensation, "as good and true a sensation as if there were a real object there. The object happens not to be there, that is all."
So when someone sees her grandfather standing by the dresser, the seeing is genuine. What is missing is a grandfather in flesh, blood and clothes. On that much, Lang says, you offend neither science, religion nor common sense.
Inside the course
14 parts- Lang's ground rules: evidence first, shivers secondFree above
- Dreams that knew things they shouldn't
- Crystal visions
- Hallucinations of the sane
Questions
Is The Book of Dreams and Ghosts free to read in Astra Trainer?
Yes. The full book opens free in the app’s reader, in English, Spanish, German, French, Italian, Polish, Portuguese, and Russian.
What is the short course?
14 short parts that walk through the book’s key ideas in slides, each with a quick quiz. The first six slides are free to try on this page.
Where do I get the app?
Astra Trainer is free on the App Store and Google Play. The Book of Dreams and Ghosts is waiting in the app’s library.
