Beyond the Wall of Sleep_The Fantasy Fan, Volume 2, Number 2, October 1934 The Fan's Own Magazine

by H. P. Lovecraft

"_I have an exposition of sleep come upon me_"--Shakespeare

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 permits of no ordinary interpetation, 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 constant;

and that time and space do not exist as our waking selves comprehend

them. Sometimes I believe that this less material life is our truer

life, and that our vain presence on the terraqueous globe is itself the

secondary or merely virtual phenomenon.

It was from a youthful reverie filled with speculations of this sort

that I arose one afternoon in the winter of 1900-01, when to the state

psychopathic institution in which I served as an interne was brought

the man whose case has ever since haunted me so unceasingly. His name,

as given on the records, was Joe Slater, or Slaader, and his appearance

was that of the typical denizen of the Catskill Mountain region; one of

those strange, repellent scions of a primitive Colonial peasant stock

whose isolation for nearly three centuries in the hilly fastnesses of

a little travelled countryside has caused them to sink to a kind of

barbaric degeneracy, rather than advance with their more fortunately

placed brethren of the thickly settled districts. Among these odd folk,

who correspond exactly to the decadent element of "white trash" in the

south, law and morals are non-existent; and their general mental status

is probably below that of any other section of the native American

people.

Joe Slater, who came to the institution in the vigilant custody of

four state policemen, and who was described as a highly dangerous

character, certainly presented no evidence of his perilous disposition

when I first beheld him. Though well above the middle stature, and of

somewhat brawny frame, he was given an absurd appearance of harmless

stupidity by the pale, sleepy blueness of his small watery eyes, the

scantiness of his neglected and never-shaven growth of yellow beard,

and the listless drooping of his heavy nether lip. His age was unknown,

since among his kind neither family records nor permanent family ties

exist; but from the baldness of his head in front, and from the decayed

condition of his teeth, the head surgeon wrote him down as a man of

about forty.

From the medical and court documents we learned all that could be

gathered of his case: This man, a vagabond, hunter, and trapper, had

always been strange in the eyes of his primitive associates. He had

habitually slept at night beyond the ordinary time, and upon waking

would often talk of unknown things in a manner so bizarre as to inspire

fear even in the hearts of an unimaginative populace. Not that his form

of language was at all unusual, for he never spoke save in the debased

patois of his environment; but the tone and tenor of his utterances

were of such mysterious wildness, that none might listen without

apprehension. He himself was generally as terrified and baffled as his

auditors, and within an hour after awakening would forget all that

he had said, or at least all that had caused him to say what he did;

relapsing into a bovine, half amiable normality like that of the other

hill-dwellers.

As Slater grew older, it appeared, his matutinal aberrations had

gradually increased in frequency and violence; till about a month

before his arrival at the institution had occurred the shocking

tragedy which caused his arrest by the authorities. One day near noon,

after a profound sleep begun in a whiskey debauch at about five of

the previous afternoon, the man had roused himself most suddenly;

with ululations so horrible and unearthly that they brought several

neighbours to his cabin--a filthy sty where he dwelt with a family as

indescribable as himself. Rushing out into the snow, he had flung his

arms aloft and commenced a series of leaps directly upward in the air;

the while shouting his determination to reach some "big, big cabin

with brightness in the roof and walls and floor and the loud queer

music far away." As two men of moderate size sought to restrain him,

he had struggled with maniacal force and fury, screaming of his desire

and need to find and kill a certain "thing that shines and shakes and

laughs". At length, after temporarily felling one of his detainers

with a sudden blow, he had flung himself upon the other in a daemonic

ecstasy of blood-thirstiness, shrieking fiendishly that he would

"jump high in the air and burn his way through anything that stopped

him." Family and neighbours had now fled in a panic, and when the

more courageous of them returned, Slater was gone, leaving behind an

unrecognisable pulp-like thing that had been a living man but an hour

before. None of mountaineers had dared to pursue him, and it is likely

that they would have welcomed his death from the cold; but when several

mornings later they heard his screams from a distant ravine they

realised that he had somehow managed to survive, and that his removal

in one way or another would be necessary. Then had followed an armed

searching party, whose purpose (whatever it may have been originally)

became that of a sheriff's posse after one of the seldom popular state

troopers had by accident observed, then questioned, and finally joined

the seekers.

On the third day Slater was found unconscious in the hollow of a tree,

and taken to the nearest gaol; where alienists from Albany examined him

as soon as his senses returned. To them he told a simple story. He had,

he said, gone to sleep one afternoon about sundown after drinking much

liquor. He had awakened to find himself standing bloody-handed in the

snow before his cabin, the mangled corpse of his neighbour Peter Slader

at his feet. Horrified, he had taken to the woods in a vague effort to

escape from the scene of what must have been his crime. Beyond these

things he seemed to know nothing, nor could the expert questioning

of his interrogators bring out a single additional fact. That night

Slater slept quietly, and the next morning he wakened with no singular

feature save a certain alteration of expression. Dr. Barnard, who had

been watching the patient, thought he noticed in the pale blue eyes

a certain gleam of peculiar quality; and in the flaccid lips an all

but imperceptible tightening, as if of intelligent determination. But

when questioned, Slater relapsed into the habitual vacancy of the

mountaineer, and only reiterated what he had said on the preceding day.

On the third morning occurred the first of the man's mental attacks.

After some show of uneasiness in sleep, he burst forth into a frenzy so

powerful that the combined efforts of four men were needed to bind him

in a strait-jacket. The alienists listened with keen attention to his

words, since their curiosity had been aroused to a high pitch by the

suggestive yet mostly conflicting and incoherent stories of his family

and neighbours. Slater raved for upward of fifteen minutes, babbling

in his backwoods dialect of green edifices of light, oceans of space,

strange music, and shadowy mountains and valleys. But most of all did

he dwell upon some mysterious blazing entity that shook and laughed and

mocked at him. This vast, vague personality seemed to have done him a

terrible wrong, and to kill it in triumphant revenge was his paramount

desire. In order to reach it, he said, he would soar through abysses

of emptiness, _burning_ every obstacle that stood in his way. Thus

ran his discourse, until with the greatest suddenness he ceased. The

fire of madness died from his eyes, and in dull wonder he looked at

his questioners and asked why he was bound. R. Barnard unbuckled the

leather harness and did not restore it till night, when he succeeded in

persuading Slater to don it of his own volition, for his own good. The

man had now admitted that he sometimes talked queerly, though he knew

not why.

Within a week two more attacks appeared, but from them the doctors

learned little. On the _source_ of Slater's visions they speculated at

length, for since he could neither read nor write, and had apparently

never heard a legend or fairy tale, his gorgeous imagery was quite

inexplicable. That it could not come from any known myth or romance

was made especially clear by the fact that the unfortunate lunatic

expressed himself only in his own simple manner. He raved of things he

did not understand and could not interpret; things which he claimed

to have experienced, but which he could not have learned through any

normal or connected narration. The alienists soon agreed that abnormal

dreams were the foundation of the trouble; dreams whose vividness

could for a time completely dominate the waking mind of this basically

inferior man. With due formality Slater was tried for murder, acquitted

on the ground of insanity, and committed to the institution wherein I

held so humble a post.

I have said that I am a constant speculator concerning dream life, and

from this you may judge of the eagerness with which I applied myself

to the study of the new patient as soon as I had fully ascertained

the facts of his case. He seemed to sense a certain friendliness in

me; born no doubt of the interest I could not conceal, and the gentle

manner in which I questioned him. Not that he ever recognised me during

his attacks, when I hung breathlessly upon his chaotic but cosmic

word-pictures; but he knew me in his quiet hours, when he would sit

by his barred window weaving baskets of straw and willow, and perhaps

pining for the mountain freedom he could never again enjoy. His family

never called to see him; probably it had found another temporary head,

after the manner of decadent mountain folk.

By degrees I commenced to feel an overwhelming wonder at the mad and

fantastic conceptions of Joe Slater. The man himself was pitiably

inferior in mentality and language alike; but his glowing, titanic

visions, though described in a barbarous and disjointed jargon, were

assuredly things which only a superior or even exceptional brain could

conceive. How, I often asked myself, could the stolid imagination of a

Catskill degenerate conjure up sights whose very possession argued a

lurking spark of genius? How could any backwoods dullard have gained

so much as an idea of those glittering realms of supernal radiance

and space about which Slater ranted in his furious delirium? More and

more I inclined to the belief that in the pitiful personality who

cringed before me lay the disordered nucleus of something beyond my

comprehension; something infinitely beyond the comprehension of my more

experienced but less imaginative medical and scientific colleagues.

And yet I could extract nothing definite from the man. The sum of all

my investigation was, that in a kind of semi-corporeal dream life

Slater wandered or floated through resplendent and prodigious valleys,

meadows, gardens, cities, and palaces of light; in a region unbounded

and unknown to man. That there he was no peasant or degenerate, but

creature of importance and vivid life; moving proudly and dominantly,

and checked only by a certain deadly enemy, who seemed to be a being of

visible yet ethereal structure, and who did not appear to be of human

shape, since Slater never referred to it as a _man_, or as aught save a

_thing_. This _thing_ had done Slater some hideous but unnamed wrong,

which the maniac (if maniac he were) yearned to avenge. From the manner

in which Slater alluded to their dealings, I judged that he and the

luminous _thing_ had met on equal terms; that in his dream existence

the man was himself a luminous _thing_ of the same race as his enemy.

This impression was sustained by his frequent references to _flying

through space_ and _burning_ all that impeded his progress. Yet these

conceptions were formulated in rustic words wholly inadequate to convey

them, a circumstance which drove me to the conclusion that if a true

dream world indeed existed, oral language was not its medium for the

transmission of thought. Could it be that the dream soul inhabiting

this inferior body was desperately struggling to speak things which the

simple and halting tongue of dullness could not utter? Could it be that

I was face to face with intellectual emanations which would explain

the mystery if I could but learn to discover and read them? I did not

tell the older physicians of these things, for middle age is sceptical,

cynical, and disinclined to accept new ideas. Besides, the head of the

institution had but lately warned me in his paternal way that I was

overworking; that my mind needed a rest.

It had long been my belief that human thought consists basically of

atomic or molecular motion, convertible into ether waves of radiant

energy like heat, light, and electricity. This belief had early led me

to contemplate the possibility of telepathy or mental communication

by means of suitable apparatus, and I had in my college days prepared

a set of transmitting and receiving instruments somewhat similar to

the cumbrous devices employed in wireless telegraphy at that crude,

pre-radio period. These I had tested with a fellow-student; but

achieving no result, had soon packed them away with other scientific

odds and ends for possible future use. Now, in my intense desire to

probe into the dream life of Joe Slater, I sought these instruments

again; and spent several days in repairing them for action. When they

were complete once more I missed no opportunity for their trial. At

each outburst of Slater's violence, I would fit the transmitter to

his forehead and the receiver to my own; constantly making delicate

adjustments for various hypothetical wave-lengths of intellectual

energy. I had but little notion of how the thought-impressions would,

if successfully conveyed, arouse an intelligent response in my brain;

but I felt certain that I could detect and interpret them. Accordingly

I continued my experiments, though informing no one of their nature.

* * * * *

It was on the twenty-first of February, 1901, that the thing occurred.

As I look back across the years I realise how unreal it seems; and

sometimes half-wonder if old Dr. Fenton was not right when he charged

it all to my excited imagination. I recall that he listened with

great kindness and patience when I told him, but afterward gave me

a nerve-powder and arranged for the half-year's vacation on which I

departed the next week. That fateful night I was wildly agitated and

perturbed, for despite the excellent care he had received, Joe Slater

was unmistakably dying. Perhaps it was his mountain freedom that he

missed, or perhaps the turmoil in his brain had grown too acute for

his rather sluggish physique; but at all events the flame of vitality

flickered low in the decadent body. He was drowsy near the end, and as

darkness fell he dropped off into a troubled sleep. I did not strap

on the strait-jacket as was customary when he slept, since I saw that

he was too feeble to be dangerous, even if he woke in mental disorder

once more before passing away. But I did place upon his head and mine

the two ends of my cosmic "radio" hoping against hope for a first and

last message from the dream world in the brief time remaining. In the

cell with us was one nurse, a mediocre fellow who did not understand

the purpose of the apparatus, or think to inquire into my course. As

the hours wore on I saw his head droop awkwardly in sleep, but I did

not disturb him. I myself, lulled by the rhythmical breathing of the

healthy and the dying man, must have nodded a little later.

The sound of weird lyric melody was what aroused me. Chords,

vibrations, and harmonic ecstasies echoed passionately on every

hand; while on my ravished sight burst the stupendous spectacle of

ultimate beauty. Walls, columns, and architraves of living fire blazed

effulgently around the spot where I seemed to float in air; extending

upward to an infinitely high vaulted dome of indescribable splendour.

Blending with this display of palatial magnificence, or rather,

supplanting it at times in kaleidoscopic rotation, were glimpses of

wide plains and graceful valleys, high mountains and inviting grottoes;

covered with every lovely attribute of scenery which my delighted eye

could conceive of, yet formed wholly of some glowing, ethereal plastic

entity, which in consistency partook as much of spirit as of matter. As

I gazed, I perceived that my own brain held the key to these enchanting

metamorphoses; for each vista which appeared to me, was the one my

changing mind most wished to behold. Amidst this elysian realm I dwelt

not as a stranger, for each sight and sound was familiar to me; just as

it had been for uncounted aeons of eternity before, and would be for

like eternities to come.

Then the resplendent aura of my brother of light drew near and held

colloquy with me, soul to soul, with silent and perfect interchange

of thought. The hour was one of approaching triumph, for was not my

fellow-being escaping at last from a degrading periodic bondage;

escaping forever, and preparing to follow the accursed oppressor even

unto the uttermost fields of ether, that upon it might be wrought a

flaming cosmic vengeance which would shake the spheres? We floated

thus for a little time, when I perceived a slight blurring and

fading of the objects around us, as though some force were recalling

me to earth--where I least wished to go. The form near me seemed to

feel a change also, for it gradually brought its discourse towards a

conclusion, and itself prepared to quit the scene; fading from my sight

at a rate somewhat less rapid than that of the other objects. A few

more thoughts were exchanged, and I knew that the luminous one and I

were being recalled to bondage, though for my brother of light it would

be the last time. The sorry planet shell being well-nigh spent, in less

than an hour my fellow would be free to pursue the oppressor along the

Milky Way and past the hither stars to the very confines of infinity.

A well-defined shock separates my final impression of the fading

scene of light from my sudden and somewhat shamefaced awakening and

straightening up in my chair as I saw the dying figure on the couch

move hesitantly. Joe Slater was indeed awaking, though probably for the

last time. As I looked more closely, I saw that in the sallow cheeks

shone spots of colour which had never before been present. The lips,

too, seemed unusual; being tightly compressed, as if by the force of a

stronger character than had been Slater's. The whole face finally began

to grow tense, and the head turned restlessly with closed eyes. I did

not rouse the sleeping nurse, but readjusted the slightly disarranged

headbands of my telepathic "radio" intent to catch any parting message

the dreamer might have to deliver. All at once the head turned sharply

in my direction and the eyes fell open, causing me to stare in blank

amazement at what I beheld. The man who had been Joe Slater, the

Catskill decadent, was now gazing at me with a pair of luminous,

expanding eyes whose blue seemed subtly to have deepened. Neither mania

nor degeneracy was visible in that gaze, and I felt beyond a doubt that

I was viewing a face behind which lay an active mind of high order.

At this juncture my brain became aware of a steady external influence

operating upon it. I closed my eyes to concentrate my thoughts more

profoundly, and was rewarded by the positive knowledge that _my

long-sought mental message had come at last_. Each transmitted idea

formed rapidly in my mind, and though no actual language was employed,

my habitual association of conception and expression was so great that

I seemed to be receiving the message in ordinary English.

"_Joe Slater is dead_," came the soul-petrifying voice or agency from

beyond the wall of sleep. My opened eyes sought the couch of pain in

curious horror, but the blue eyes were still calmly gazing, and the

countenance was still intelligently animated. "He is better dead, for

he was unfit to bear the active intellect of cosmic entity. His gross

body could not undergo the needed adjustments between ethereal life

and planet life. He was too much of an animal, too little a man; yet

it is through his deficiency that you have come to discover me, for

the cosmic and planet souls rightly should never meet. He has been my

torment and diurnal prison for forty-two of your terrestrial years.

I am an entity like that which you yourself become in the freedom of

dreamless sleep, I am your brother of light, and have floated with

you in the effulgent valleys. It is not permitted me to tell your

waking earth-self of your real self, but we are all roamers of vast

spaces and travellers in many ages. Next year I may be dwelling in the

Egypt which you call ancient, or in the cruel empire of Tsan Chan

which is to come three thousand years hence. You and I have drifted to

the worlds that reel about the red Arcturus, and dwelt in the bodies

of the insect-philosophers that crawl proudly over the fourth moon

of Jupiter. How little does the earth-self know life and its extent!

How little, indeed, ought it to know for its own tranquillity! Of

the oppressor I cannot speak. You on earth have unwittingly felt its

distant presence--you who without knowing idly gave the blinking beacon

the name of _Algol, the Daemon-Star_. It is to meet and conquer the

oppressor that I have vainly striven for aeons, held back by bodily

encumbrances. Tonight I go as a Nemesis bearing just and blazingly

cataclysmic vengeance. _Watch me in the sky close by the Daemon-Star._

I cannot speak longer, for the body of Joe Slater grows cold and

rigid, and the coarse brains are ceasing to vibrate as I wish. You

have been my friend in the cosmos; you have been my only friend

on this planet--the only soul to sense and seek for me within the

repellent form which lies on this couch. We shall meet again--perhaps

in the shining mists of Orion's Sword, perhaps on a bleak plateau in

prehistoric Asia. Perhaps in unremembered dreams tonight; perhaps in

some other form an aeon hence, when the solar system shall have been

swept away."

At this point the thought-waves abruptly ceased, and the pale eyes of

the dreamer--or can I say dead man?--commenced to glaze fishily. In

a half-stupor I crossed over to the couch and felt of his wrist, but

found it cold, stiff, and pulseless. The sallow cheeks paled again,

and the thick lips fell open, disclosing the repulsively rotten fangs

of the degenerate Joe Slater. I shivered, pulled a blanket over the

hideous face, and awakened the nurse. Then I left the cell and went

silently to my room. I had an instant and unaccountable craving for a

sleep whose dreams I should not remember.

The climax? What plain tale of science can boast of such a rhetorical

effect? I have merely set down certain things appealing to me as facts,

allowing you to construe them as you will. As I have already admitted,

my superior, old Dr. Fenton, denies the reality of everything I have

related. He vows that I was broken down with nervous strain, and badly

in need of the long vacation on full pay which he so generously gave

me. He assures me on his professional honour that Joe Slater was but

a low-grade paranoic, whose fantastic notions must have come from the

crude hereditary folk-tales which circulate in even the most decadent

of communities. All this he tells me--yet I cannot forget what I saw

in the sky on the night after Slater died. Lest you think me a biased

witness, another pen must add this final testimony, which may perhaps

supply the climax you expect. I will quote the following account of the

star _Nova Persei_ verbatim from the pages of that eminent astronomical

authority, Prof. Garrett P. Serviss:

"On February 22, 1901, a marvelous new star was discovered by Dr.

Anderson of Edinburgh, _not very far from Algol_. No star had been

visible at that point before. Within 24 hours the stranger had

become so bright that it outshone Capella. In a week or two it had

visibly faded, and in the course of a few months it was hardly

discernible with the naked eye."

* * * * *