71. Beyond the Wall of Sleep
72. The Man of Stone
73. The Strange High House in the Mist
74. The Street
75. Supernatural Horror In Literature
76. The Temple
77. The Hound
78. The Tomb
79. The Tree
80. In The Vault
Beyond the Wall of Sleep
by H. P. Lovecraft
Written 1919
Published October 1919 in Pine Cones, Vol. 1, No. 6, p. 2-10
I have often wondered if the majority of mankind ever pause to reflect
upon the occasionally titanic significance of dreams, and of the obscure
world to which they belong. Whilst the greater number of our nocturnal
visions are perhaps no more than faint and fantastic reflections of our
waking experiences - Freud to the contrary with his puerile symbolism -
there are still a certain remainder whose immundane and ethereal character
permit of no ordinary interpretation, and whose vaguely exciting and
disquieting effect suggests possible minute glimpses into a sphere of
mental existence no less important than physical life, yet separated from
that life by an all but impassable barrier. From my experience I cannot
doubt but that man, when lost to terrestrial consciousness, is indeed
sojourning in another and uncorporeal life of far different nature from
the life we know, and of which only the slightest and most indistinct
memories linger after waking. From those blurred and fragmentary memories
we may infer much, yet prove little. We may guess that in dreams life,
matter, and vitality, as the earth knows such things, are not necessarily
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