A fragrant night in May... of what year?

What follows is the "perfect" time slip story - the kind of event that got me (and, I am sure, yourself) interested in this mysterious phenomenon in the first place.

It is the story of the extraordinary walk - down a brick road, no less ;) - taken by Laura Jean Daniels, from Dearborn, Michigan, USA.
She told it to a well-known columnist on the "paranormal", Joyce Hagelthorn (1918 - 2001). The article was originally published by the Dearborn Press newspaper, on May 10, 1973.

"While I was walking home from work late one night, I had a very strange experience.

I was walking along, looking up at the moon and enjoying the evening, when suddenly I looked down, and everything familiar just vanished! Everything – the houses, the automobiles, the lampposts, the garbage bins, and the fences, even the streets – was gone! Even the sidewalk was gone, and somehow I was walking down a brick path. There were no houses on either side of me, just trees and bushes, but several hundred feet before me I could see a thatched-roof cottage. The moon was still high up in the sky, but now there was a scent of roses and honeysuckle in the air. 

Obviously, I was a little frightened, but I kept walking toward the cottage. When I got closer, I noticed a young couple sitting in the garden. They were wearing very old-fashioned clothes, and they were naturally in love; I could see the look of love on the woman’s face.

Instead of while I was standing there, watching them, a small dog ran through the gate toward me, barking wildly. The man in the garden looked up and called to the dog to stop barking. I realized that he couldn’t see me, and yet I could smell the flowers and feel the gate beneath my hand – and the dog had obviously sensed that I was there.

While I was trying to make up my mind what to do, I turned to look back the way I had just come, and there was my street again! Even then, I could still feel the garden gate under my hand. But when I turned for another look at the cottage, it was gone, and I was standing in the middle of my own block, just a few doors from my own home. The cottage, the lovers, and the small dog were all gone."

I do wish she had told the exact date - by the mention of honeysuckle and roses I am assuming it was in early May - and other relevant circumstantial data (check this post if you've forgotten what they are ;).

Would it have made any difference?

I don't know. It might.

Would it have done any harm to include them?
(No need to answer that one.)

It would certainly be helpful to have available as many physical data as possible.
Personally I think it's highly unlikely that physical circumstances do not play any role at all in such temporal/spatial displacements. And even if they don't, having a vast array of such data might at least help us eliminate apparently irrelevant parameters.

And I wonder... did Ms Daniels ever have another experience of the kind?

You can find a (much shorter) version of this story on p. 40 of Leonard G. Cramp's curious book The A.T. Factor Advanced Time - Piece For A Jigsaw Part 3 (under the heading "Time and a little dog".)

And by the way, you might be interested in reading Joyce Hagelthorn's book I'Ve Never Told Anyone, But..., in which she compiled interesting contents from her column. I haven't read it yet; but according to the promotional leaflet (from 1987): "Stories told to Hagelthorn are from hard-nosed scientists, skeptics, and magicians about some personal psychic experience they had as a child or adult. Stories of the strange and supernatural blend with current psychic research and ARE EXPLAINED!" ;)

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NOTE:
The original picture of the rose, by Jillian Jeffrey, was taken from here.


If you want to report a perceived dimensional anomaly, please do, but read this first.