Beyond the Wall of Sleep E-Book

H. P. Lovecraft

• Herausgeber: SAMPI Books
• Kategorie: Abenteuer, Thriller, Horror
• Sprache: Englisch

Seitenzahl: 21

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2025

Beschreibung

When a troubled, violent patient is brought to a psychiatric institution, a young intern becomes fascinated by the man's strange visions and inexplicable bursts of cosmic insight. Determined to understand what lies behind these episodes, he builds an experimental device to connect their minds. The experience reveals a glimpse of a vast, luminous reality that lies beyond ordinary perception—suggesting that human consciousness may reach far past the limits of the waking world.

Leseprobe

Beyond the Wall of Sleep

H. P. Lovecraft

SYNOPSIS

When a troubled, violent patient is brought to a psychiatric institution, a young intern becomes fascinated by the man’s strange visions and inexplicable bursts of cosmic insight. Determined to understand what lies behind these episodes, he builds an experimental device to connect their minds. The experience reveals a glimpse of a vast, luminous reality that lies beyond ordinary perception—suggesting that human consciousness may reach far past the limits of the waking world.

Keywords

Transcendence, Consciousness, Oneiric World

NOTICE

This text is a work in the public domain and reflects the norms, values and perspectives of its time. Some readers may find parts of this content offensive or disturbing, given the evolution in social norms and in our collective understanding of issues of equality, human rights and mutual respect. We ask readers to approach this material with an understanding of the historical era in which it was written, recognizing that it may contain language, ideas or descriptions that are incompatible with today's ethical and moral standards.

Names from foreign languages will be preserved in their original form, with no translation.

Beyond the Wall of Sleep

“I have an exposition of sleep come upon me.”

—Shakespeare.

I have frequently 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 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 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.