Historical dream account · English · published source text
The Pocket-Knife in the Cast-Off Trousers
Horace G. Hutchinson
Dreams and Their Meanings (1901) · 1901 edition, chapter VI, printed pp.225–225; PDF pages 237–237; original scan leaves 241–241
Dreamer identified by the source: Augustus Brockelbank
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" Some years ago I lost a pocket-knife. I think it was some six months afterwards — when I had forgotten entirely the loss of the knife, and the subject never recurred to my memory in any way whatever — I dreamt one night that it was in the pocket of a certain pair of trousers I had cast off, I suppose about the same time as the loss of my knife. I awoke, and lay awake some time, till it occurred to me to prove the truth of my dream. I went upstairs in search of the said pair of trousers, and sure enough there it was as I had dreamt. The peculiarity of the above is this, that when I was awake and in my senses no train of thought or retracing of my memory would carry me back to the pair of trousers or to the knife, and it was quite as an experiment that I went in search of them.
Source & context
A sleep-dream recollection reproduced in the 1901 edition’s chapters compiled by an unnamed collaborator, mainly from earlier Society for Psychical Research material. The quoted waking follow-up and supernatural interpretation are historical claims by the source, not independently verified events.
Augustus Brockelbank, reported in Horace G. Hutchinson, Dreams and Their Meanings (London, New York and Bombay: Longmans, Green and Co., 1901), 1901 edition, chapter VI, printed pp.225–225; PDF pages 237–237; original scan leaves 241–241. Primary witness: original 1901 edition at Internet Archive. The compiler, dreamer, and separately credited earlier recorder are distinguished. Editorial title and navigation themes added; no generated narrative or new translation.
The publication year is not the dream date. No exact dream date or present-day person location is inferred. Dates printed in the narrative remain source wording.
Public domain in the United States (1901 edition) ↗
The original English 1901 edition is public domain in the United States by expired publication term; Archive metadata reports NOT_IN_COPYRIGHT. No new Archive license or Public Domain Mark grant is asserted. The linked NoC-US statement describes the US-only rights basis; blanket worldwide clearance is not asserted. Hutchinson’s own writing and named or unidentified contributors are distinguished; no contributor is assigned the compiler’s death date. Named or initialled historical contributor as printed; contributor death date not established here. US publication-term basis is used, not Hutchinson’s death year..
Source locator and text provenance
1901 edition, chapter VI, printed pp.225–225; PDF pages 237–237; original scan leaves 241–241
The original text and redactions are preserved. The page title is an editorial navigation label.
Whitespace/linewrap normalization, witnessed end-of-line dehyphenation, and listed scan-verified OCR repairs only. No dream narrative, person, event, translation or stylistic rewrite added.
- Account text SHA-256
- deee75345598766e659562f5d3d675d1db0d3627646ff5fe2ae287513e96ff73
- Source file SHA-256
- 40a41bb112104c3680401c260e060fde498bfe84e41f4394ee28e47f7e827b5f
Content notes
- Lost object
- Claimed clairvoyance
Connections in the Loom
Titles, theme labels, illustrations and map connections are editorial navigation aids. They are separate from the account’s words and do not establish connections between real people.