Let us look at some cases in which an apparition or dream or mysterious voice seemed to be of some great help to someone.
The part in red in the headline below makes a remarkable claim that Durkins escaped some construction disaster killing three others, because Durkins was "warned in a dream."
The account below is found on page 341 of the July 16, 1927 edition of the periodical Light, which you can read here. We read of lost Antarctic explorers who seemed to be saved from death by an apparition.
"Sir -The interesting communication from Captain H. W. Seton-Karr in your issue of 25th June, in which he states that when lost in the Alps, his party of three all saw the figures of two men who could not have been ordinary human beings, and who appear to have guided them into safety, reminds one of the similar experience of Sir Ernest Shackleton when he made his wonderful march across the glaciers of the island of South Georgia.
An account of the incident is given by Mr. Charles T. Spedding in his 'Reminiscences of Transatlantic Travellers ' (p.200). Shackleton, who was his intimate friend, having described to him his amazing experience. After the wreck of his ship, the 'Endurance,' in the Antarctic, Sir Ernest, with six companions, left Whale Island in an open boat, and after a stormy voyage of 750 miles, during which they suffered terribly, they reached the island of South Georgia on the side opposite to the whaling station, the only inhabited spot.
Though weakened and exhausted by exposure and privations, Sir Ernest with two of his companions set out to cross the trackless show-covered interior. Finally, in the darkness of night, when they had lost all sense of direction and practically abandoned hope, Shackleton saw a man ahead of him. He thought it must be Worsley, one of his companions, and ordered him to come back to his station behind (they were roped together), but Worsley answered him from the rear, which he had not quitted. They staggered on, blindly following the unknown figure, and finally arrived at the whaling station.
South Georgia has never been crossed either before or since. After Shackleton’s exploit a well-equipped party tried to cross it in the summer, but failed. Shackleton’s party succeeded in crossing when exhausted by starvation and exposure, clothed in rags in the darkness of winter, and the accomplishment of this apparently impossible task seems to be well explained by Shackleton's belief that he received spirit guidance.
Yours, etc.,
A. Campbell Holms"
A check of the book and page number provided matches the account above.
The account below appeared in 1897. We read of a daughter who has a dream of a recently deceased grandfather telling her of the location of buried treasure. After discussing the dream the next morning, she is told by someone else that she had a similar dream. A search finds just such a treasure, one amounting to $17,000, which at that time was worth than more than $50,000 is worth today.
You can read the full account here (although you may want to skip it because the text gets faded and rather hard to read):
https://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn/sn86071985/1907-12-21/ed-1/seq-7/
Caught by a Dream
"Mrs. George Bauder, whose husband deserted her at Quiney last September, has found him through a dream, and he is now in jail at Chicago as the result. Mrs. Bauder applied to Justice Hall for a warrant. She said that she had come here to hunt for her husband, but could find 110 trace of him. On Wednesday night she dreamed she saw- him at work in a bicycle' factory near an immense building. The next day she recognized Tattersalls as the building and Bauder was found at the factory and arrested.—Jf. Y. Evening Journal."
DREAM LEADS TO FIND.
"FINDLAY, 0., May 8. —It is reported here that a good oil well in Senaca county was located by a dream. The well is the property of the Sun Oil company and is on the Joseph Shannon farm. It was drilled to a depth of 150 feet in the sand and then shot. A good flow of oil resulted... Mr. Shannon became convinced through a dream that oil would be found in large quantities at the location of the new well, and it appears his dream will become a reality."
You can read the account here:
At the link below we have an account of a man who found a source of minable gold after searching at the spot suggested by a dream he had:
The account below appeared on page 251 of the April 1913 edition of the Journal of the American Society for Psychical Research, which you can go directly to by using the link here. We read of a child (Norah Tappen) who had lost knowledge of her vanished father, until she was pointed in the right direction by a dream appearance of her deceased mother. Click on the image to read it better.
The folks at the Society for Psychical Research in London and the American Society for Psychical Research were very diligent about following up on important-sounding stories such as these, which seem to suggest evidence of life after death. In this case someone at the American Society for Psychical Research followed up by sending letters of inquiry to the police. As shown on the page here and the next page, a police sergeant replied by giving an account corroborating testimony of Norah Tappen. Below is part of what he wrote:
