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This puzzle is from my friend whom I'll call Arthur (I don't know why, but he gave me this from a book). As this was a long puzzle, he wrote it on a page for me. The puzzle was:

Mr. Adam looked up from a book he was reading on famous dreams and said to his wife: "Dear, listen to this story! It's really quite amazing!"

The story he told to his wife is:

Boston, Mass., April 1, 1903. Mr. K--- had the following dream. Having gone to bed after reading a book about King Arthur's Court, Mr. K dreamt that he was fighting in a joust against the dreaded Black Night. He had been thrown from his horse, and as he lay dazed upon the ground, the Black Night came thundering towards him with his lance aimed straight at Mr. K---'s middle. At this point, his wife woke up, and seeing her husband was having a nightmare, she poked him in the stomach in an attempt to wake him up. At this, her husband screamed in his sleep, clutched his stomach, and fell back onto the bed dead of a heart attack."

The story ends here. Now Mr. Adams is talking to his wife.

"All I can say, Martha, is never wake me up in the middle of a nightmare," finished Mr. Adams.

"That's quite a tale, all right, Amos" replied Martha, "but I don't believe a word of it. Any fool can see that that's a made-up story."

How did Martha know that the story was a phony?

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    $\begingroup$ The title says "A Good Dream Puzzle", but this is a puzzle about a bad dream. $\endgroup$
    – Acccumulation
    Commented Jan 31, 2018 at 20:40
  • $\begingroup$ If any of the existing answers are correct, please don't forget to mark them as correct by clicking the green tick box next to them. $\endgroup$
    – F1Krazy
    Commented Feb 1, 2018 at 10:43

4 Answers 4

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Besides the already stated reason

dead people cannot tell anyone their dreams

I think another reason could be

"April fools" with the date being April 1 in the story

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    $\begingroup$ Indeed, Martha does say "any fool can see..." Nice catch. $\endgroup$
    – maxathousand
    Commented Jan 31, 2018 at 14:24
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    $\begingroup$ WOW lol,"fool" I didn't even notice that! $\endgroup$
    – A Cool Guy
    Commented Oct 7, 2018 at 6:19
  • $\begingroup$ But the Black Knight doesn't die. He can tell what happened in the dream. :-) $\endgroup$
    – Florian F
    Commented Dec 8, 2021 at 21:14
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The most obvious clue seems to be that, in general,

dead people are unable to tell you what they were dreaming about.

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  • $\begingroup$ First by 23 seconds $\endgroup$
    – Engineer Toast
    Commented Jan 31, 2018 at 15:46
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This is an old one...

If he had died in his sleep, how would you know what he was dreaming about?

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The story teller failed to mention that Mr. K. screamed the following:

"Oh God, the Black Knite has just killed me punching my stomach by his lance."

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  • $\begingroup$ I think the reason is to make this a riddle so he removed ur line. By the way, where did u find this line from??? $\endgroup$
    – A Cool Guy
    Commented Oct 7, 2018 at 6:21
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    $\begingroup$ I made up this version... $\endgroup$
    – zoli
    Commented Oct 7, 2018 at 7:40
  • $\begingroup$ AMAZING! fully suits the story! Plus i never thought about that!!! $\endgroup$
    – A Cool Guy
    Commented Oct 25, 2018 at 5:49

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