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John Adams, the second president of the United States (1797-1801), for some years (1805-1813) had been engaged in correspondence with Dr. Benjamin Rush (1746-1813). At some point, Rush suggested that they exchange dreams, to which John Adams agreed (Ellis, 2001, p. 214). Rush, a distinguished physician and educator, had long been interested in dreams. To his students he suggested that “dreams should be allowed to ‘sport themselves idly’ in their brains. Observed, dreams could provide useful inferences” (McCullough, 2001, p. 600). Rush had already related several dreams and then reported to Adams a dream prompted by a breach in friendship that had arisen between Adams and Thomas Jefferson.
In his dream, Rush had been reading the history of America written at some point in the future. On a particular page, the most extraordinary event of the year was the renewal of friendship between the two former presidents, Adams and Jefferson. According to Rush's dream, it was Adams who rekindled the old friendship, addressing a short letter to his friend, Mr. Jefferson, in which he congratulated him upon his escape to the shades of retirement and domestic happiness. This letter “did great honor to Mr. Adams, for it disclosed a magnanimity known only to great minds” (Schutz and Adair, 1966, p. 171). Mr. Jefferson reciprocated with “expressions of regard and esteem…. These letters were followed by a correspondence of several years” (p. 171).