Beyond Wall of Sleep - H.P. Lovecraft

"Beyond the Wall of Sleep" is a science fiction short story by American writer H. P. Lovecraft, written in 1919 and first published in the amateur publication Pine Cones in October 1919.

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Episode Transcript

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Beyond the Wall of Sleep by H. P. Lovecraft. I have often
wondered if the majority of mankind everpause to reflect upon the occasionally titanic significance
of dreams and of the obscure worldto which they belong, Whilst the greater

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number of our nocturnal visions are perhapsno more than faint and fantastic reflections of
our waking experiences. Freud to thecontrary, with his puerile symbolism, there
are still a certain remainder whose immundaneand ethereal character permit of no ordinary interpretation,

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and whose vaguely exciting and disquieting effectsuggests possible minute glimpses into a sphere
of mental existence no less important thanphysical life, yet separated from that life
by an all but passable barrier.From my experience, I cannot doubt but

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that man, when lost to terrestrialconsciousness, is indeed sojourning in another and
uncorporeal life, of far different naturefrom the life we know, and of
which only the slightest and most indistinctmemories linger after waking. From those blurred

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and fragmentary memories. We may infermuch, 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

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exist as our waking selves comprehend them. Sometimes I believe that this less material
life is our truer life, thatour vain presence on the terraqueous globe is
itself the secondary or merely virtual phenomenon. It was from a youthful reverie filled

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with speculations of this sort, thatI arose one afternoon in the winter of
nineteen hundred and nineteen o one,when to the state psychopathic institution in which
I served as an intern, wasbrought the man whose case has ever since
haunted me so unceasingly. His name, as given on the records, was

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Joe Slater or Slater, and hisappearance was that of the typical denizen of
the Catskill Mountain region, one ofthose strange, repellent scions of a primitive
colonial peasant stock, whose isolation,for nearly three centuries in the hilly fastnesses
of a little traveled countryside has causedthem to sink to a kind of barbaric

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degeneracy, rather than advanced with theirmore fortunately placed brethren of the thickly settled
districts. Among these awed folk,who correspond exactly to the decadent element of
white trash in the South, lawand morals are non existent, and their
general mental status is probably below thatof any other section of Native American people.

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Joe Slater, who came to theInstitution in the vigilant custody of four
state policemen, and who was describedas a highly dangerous character, certainly presented
no evidence of his perilous disposition whenI first beheld him. Though well above
the middle stature and of somewhat brawnyframe, he was given an absurd appearance

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of harmless stupidity by the pale,sleepy blueness of his small, watery eyes,
the scantness of his neglected and nevershaven growth of yellow beard, and
the listless duping of his heavy netherlip. His age was unknown, since
among his kind neither family records norpermanent family ties exist. But from the

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baldness of his head in front andfrom the decayed condition of his teeth,
the head surgeon wrote him down asa man of about forty. From the
medical and court documents we learned allthat could be gathered of his case.
This man of vagabond, hunter andtrapper had always been strange in the eyes

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of his primitive associates. He hadhabitually slept at night beyond the ordinary time,
and upon waking would often talk ofunknown things in a manner so bizarre
as to inspire fear even in thehearts of an unimaginative populace. Not that
his form of language was at allunusual, for he never spoke save in

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the debased patois of his environment.But the tone and tenor of his utterances
were of such mysterious wildness that nonemight listen without apprehension. He himself was
generally as terrified and baffled as hisauditors, and within an hour after awakening,
would forget all that he had said, or at least all that had

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caused him to say what he did, relapsing into a bovine, half amiable
normality like that of the other hilldwellers. As Slater grew older, it
appeared his matutinal aberrations had gradually increasedin frequency and violence till about a month
before his arrival at the institution hadoccurred the shocking tragedy which caused his arrest

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by the authorities. One day,near noon, after a profound sleep begun
in a whisky debauch at about fiveof the previous afternoon, the man had
roused himself most suddenly with euulations sohorrid and unearthly that they brought several neighbors
to his cabin, a filthy stywhere he dwelt with a family as indescribable

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as himself. Rushing out into thesnow, he had flung his arms aloft
and commenced a series of leaps directlyupward in the air, the while shouting
his determination to reach some quote big, big cabin with brightness in the roof
and walls and floor, and theloud queer music far away. As two

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men of moderate size sought to restrainhim, he had struggled with maniacal force
and fury, screaming of his desireand need to find and kill a certain
quote thing that shines and shakes andlaughs. At length. After temporarily felling

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one of his detainers with a suddenblow, he had flung himself upon the
other in a daemonac ecstasy of bloodthirstiness, shrieking fiendishly that he would quote jump
high in the air and burn hisway through anything that stopped him. Family

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and neighbors had now fled in apanic, and when the more courageous of
them returned, Slater was gone,leaving behind an unrecognizable pulp like thing that
had been a living man but anhour before. None of the mountaineers had
dared to pursue him, and itis likely that they would have welcomed his

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death from the cold. But whenseveral mornings later they heard his screams from
a distant ravine, they realized thathe had somehow managed to survive, and
that his removal in one way oranother would be necessary. Then had followed
an armed searching party, whose purpose, whatever it may have been, originally

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became that of a sheriff's posse afterone of the seldom popular state troopers had
by accident observed, then questioned,and finally joined the seekers. On the
third day, Slater was found unconsciousin the hollow of a tree and taken
to the nearest jail, where alienistsfrom Albany examined him. As soon as

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his senses returned to them, hetold a simple story. He had,
he said, gone to sleep oneafternoon about sundown, after drinking much liquor,
he had awakened to find himself standingbloody handed in the snow before his
cabin, the mangled corpse of hisneighbor, Peter Slater at his feet.

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Horrified, he had taken to thewoods in a vague effort to escape from
the scene of what must have beenhis crime. Beyond these things, he
seemed to know nothing, nor couldthe expert questioning of his interrogators bring out
as single a aditional fact. Thatnight, Slater slept quietly, and the
next morning he awakened with no singularfeature save a certain alteration of expression.

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Doctor Barnard, who had been watchingthe patient, thought he noticed in the
pale blue eyes a certain gleam ofpeculiar quality, and in the flaccid lips
and all but imperceptible tightening, asif of intelligent determination. But when questioned,
Slater relapsed into the habitual vacancy ofthe mountaineer and only reiterated what he

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had said on the preceding day.On the third morning occurred the first of
the man's mental attacks. After someshow of uneasiness in sleep, he burst
forth into a frenzy so powerful thatthe combined efforts of four men were needed
to bind him in a strait jacket. The alienists listened with keen attention to

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his words, since their curiosity hadbeen aroused to a high pitch by the
suggestive, yet mostly conflicting and incoherentstories of his family and neighbors. 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.

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But most of all did he dwellupon 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 toreach it, he said, he would

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soar through abysses of emptiness, burningevery obstacle that stood in his way.
Thus ran his discourse, until withthe 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 wasbound. Doctor Barnard unbuckled the leather harness

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and did not restore it till night, when he succeeded in persuading Slater to
down it of his own volition forhis own good. The man had now
admitted that he sometimes talked queerly,though he knew not why. Within a
week two more attacks appeared, butfrom them the doctors learned little on the

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source of Slater's visions. They speculatedat length, for since he could neither
read nor write, and had apparentlynever heard a legend or a fairy tale,
his gorgeous imagery was quite inexplicable thatit could not come from any known
myth or romance was made especially clearby the fact that the unfortunate lunatic expressed

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himself only in his own simple manner. He raved of things he did not
understand and could not interpret, thingswhich he claimed to have experienced, but
which he could not have learned throughany normal or connected narration. The alienists
soon agreed that abnormal dreams were thefoundation of the trouble, dreams whose vividness

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could for a time completely dominate thewaking mind of this basically inferior man.
With due formality, Slater was triedfor murder, acquitted on the ground of
insanity and committed to the institution whereinI held so humble a post. I
have said that I am a constantspeculator concerning dream life, and from this

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you may judge of the eagerness withwhich I applied myself to the study of
the new patient. As soon asI had fully ascertained the facts of his
case, he seemed to sense acertain friendliness in me. Bore no doubt
of the interest I could not conceal, and the gentle manner in which I
questioned him. Not that he everrecognized me during his attacks, when I

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hung breathlessly upon his chaotic but cosmicword pictures. But he knew me in
his quiet hours, when he wouldsit by his barred window, weaving baskets
of straw and willow, and perhapspining for the mountain freedom he could never
again enjoy. His family never calledto see him. Probably it had found

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another temporary head after the manner ofdecadent mountain folk. By degrees, I
commenced to feel an overwhelming wonder atthe mad and fantastic conceptions of Joe Slater.
The man himself was pitiably inferior inmentality and language alike, but his
glowing Titanic visions, though described ina barbarous, disjointed jargon, were assuredly

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things which only a superior or evenexceptional brain could conceive. How, I
often asked myself, could the stolidimagination of a cat skilled, degenerate conjure
upsights, whose very possession argued alurking spark of genius? How could any
backwoods duller to have gained so muchas an idea of those glittering realms of

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supernal radiance and space about which Slaterranted in his furious delirium. More and
more I inclined to the belief thatin the pitiful personality who cringed before me
lay the disordered nucleus of something beyondmy comprehension, something infinitely beyond the comprehension
of my more experienced but less imaginativemedical and scientific colleagues. And yet I

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could extract nothing definite from the man. The sum of all my investigation was
that, in a kind of semicorporeal dream life, Slater wandered or floated
through resplendent and prodigious valleys, mountains, gardens, cities, and palaces of
light in a region unbounded and unknownto man, that there he was no

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peasant or degenerate, but a creatureof importance and vivid life, moving proudly
and dominantly, and checked only bya certain deadly enemy, who seemed to
be a being of visible yet etherealstructure, and who did not appear to
be of human shape. Since Slaternever referred to it as a man,

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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 later alludedto their dealings, I judge that

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he and the luminous thing met onequal terms, that in his dream existence,
the man was himself a luminous thingof the same race as his enemy.
This impression was sustained by his frequentreferences to flying through space and burning
all that impeded his progress. Yetthese conceptions were formulated in rustic words wholly

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inadequate to convey them. The circumstancewhich drove me to the conclusion that if
a dream world indeed existed, orallanguage was not its medium for the transmission
of thought. Could it be thatthe dream soul inhabiting this inferior body was
desperately struggling to speak things which thesimple and halting tongue of dulness could not

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utter. Could it be that Iwas face to face with intellectual emanations which
would explain the mystery, if Icould but learn to discover and read them.
I did not tell the older physiciansof these things, for middle age
is skeptical, cynical, and disinclinedto accept new ideas. Besides, the

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head of the institution had but latelywarned me in his paternal way, that
I was overworking, that my mindneeded a rest. It had long been
my belief that human thought consists basicallyof atomic or molecular motion convertible into ether
waves or radiant energy like heat,light, and electricity. This belief had

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early led me to contemplate the possibilityof 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 tothe cumbrous devices employed in wireless telegraphy at
that crude pre radio period. TheseI had tested with a fellow student,

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but achieving no result, had soonpacked 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,

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I missed no opportunity for their trial. At each outbreak of Slater's violence,
I would fit the transmitter to hisforehead and the receiver to my own,
constantly making delicate adjustments for various hypotheticalwave lengths of intellectual energy. I had
but little notion of how the thoughtimpressions would, if successfully conveyed, arouse

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an intelligent response in my brain,but I felt certain that I could detect
and interpret them accordingly. I continuedmy experiments, though informing no one of
their nature. It was on thetwenty first of Bury nineteen o one that
the thing occurred. As I lookedback across the ears, I realized how

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unreal it seems, and sometimes wonderif old doctor Fenton was not right when
he charged at all to my excitedimagination. I recall that he listened with
great kindness and patience when I toldhim, but afterward gave me a nerve
powder and arranged for the half year'svacation, on which I departed the next
week. That fateful night, Iwas wildly agitated and perturbed, for despite

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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 to acute for his rathersluggish physique. But at all events,
the flame of vitality flickered low inthe decaded body. He was drowsy near

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the end, and as darkness fell, he dropped off into a troubled sleep.
I did not strap on the straitjacket, as was customary when he
slept, since I saw that hewas too feeble to be dangerous, even
if he woke in mental disorder oncemore before passing away. But I did
place upon his head and mine thetwo ends of my cosmic radio, hoping

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against hope for a first and lastmessage from the dream world. In the
brief time remaining in the cell withus was one nurse, a mediocre fellow,
who did not understand the purpose ofthe apparatus or think to inquire into
my course. As the hours woreon. I saw his head droop awkwardly

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in sleep, but I did notdisturb him. I myself lulled by the
rhythmical breathing of the healthy, andthe dying man, must have nodded a
little later. The sound of weirdlyric melody was what aroused me. Chords,

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vibrations, and harmonic ecstasies echoed passionatelyon every hand, while on my
ravished sight burst the stupendous spectacle ofultimate beauty. Walls, columns, and
architraves of living fire blazed effulgently aroundthe spot where I seemed to float in

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air, extending upward to an infinitelyhigh, vaulted dome of indescribable splendor.
Blending with this display of palatial magnificence, or rather supplanting it at times in
kaleidoscopic rotation, were glimpses of wideplains and graceful valleys, high mountains,

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and inviting grottoes, covered with everylovely attribute of scenery which my delighted eyes
could conceive of, yet formed whollyof some glowing ethereal plastic entity which inconsistency
partook as much of spirit as ofmatter. As I gazed I perceived that

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my own brain held the key tothese enchanting metamorphoses, for each vista which
appeared to me was the one mychanging mind most wished to behold. Amidst
this Elysian realm, I dwelt notas a stranger, for each sight and
sound was familiar to me, justas it had been for uncounted eons of

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eternity before, and would be forlike eternities to come. Then the resplendent
aura of my brother of Light drewnear and held colloquy with me, soul
to soul, with silent and perfectinterchange of thought. The hour was one

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of approaching triumph, For was notmy fellow being escaping at last from a
degrading periodic bondage, escaping forever andpreparing 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,

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when I perceived a slight blurring andfading of the objects around us,
as though some force were recalling meto Earth, where I least wished to
go. The form near me seemedto feel a change also, for it
gradually brought its discourse toward a conclusion, and itself prepared to quit, the
scene fading from my sight at arate somewhat less rapid than that of the

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other objects. A few more thoughtswere exchanged, and I knew that the
luminous one and I were being recalledto 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

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the oppressor along the Milky Way andpassed the hither stars to the very confines
of infinity. A well defined shockseparates my final impression of the fading scene
of Light from my sudden and somewhatshameface it awakening and straightening up in my
chair as I saw the dying figureon the couch move hesitantly. Jo's later

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was indeed awakening, though probably forthe last time. As I looked more
closely, I saw that in thesallow cheeks shone spots of color which had
never before been present. The lips, too seemed unusual, being tightly compressed,
as if by the force of astronger character than had been slaters.

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The whole face finally began to growtense, and the head turned restlessly with
closed eyes. I did not rousethe sleeping nurse, but readjusted the slightly
disarranged headband 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,

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and the eyes fell open, causingme to stare in blank amazement at
what I beheld. The man whohad been Joe's later the catskilled decadent,
was gazing at me with a pairof luminous, expanding eyes whose blue seemed
subtly to have deepened. Neither manianor degeneracy was visible in that gaze,

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and I felt beyond a doubt thatI 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 uponit. I closed my eyes to concentrate
my thoughts more profoundly, and wasrewarded by the positive knowledge that my long

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sought mental message had come at last. Each transmitted idea formed rapidly in my
mind, and though no actual languagewas employed, my habitual association of conception
and expression was so great that Iseemed to be receiving the message in ordinary
English. Joe Slater is dead,came the sole, petrifying voice of an

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agency from beyond the wall of sleep. My opened eyes sought the couch of
pain and curious horror. But theblue 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 ofcosmic entity. His gross body could not

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undergo the needed adjustments between ethereal lifeand planet life. He was too much
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 inmy torment and diurnal prison for forty two

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of your terrestrial years. I aman 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 effulgentvalleys. It has not permitted me to
tell your waking earth self of yourreal self. But we are all roamers

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of vast spaces, and travelers inmany ages. Next year, I may
be dwelling in the Egypt, whichyou call ancient, or in the cruel
empire of san Shahan, which isto come three thousand years. Hence you
and I have drifted to the worldsthat reel about the red Arcturus, and
dwelt in the bodies of the insectphilosophers that crawl proudly over the fourth moon

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of Jupiter. How little does theEarth self know life and its extent,
How little indeed ought it to knowfor its own tranquility of the oppressor.
I cannot speak you on Earth,have unwittingly felt its distant presence. You,
without knowing, idly gave the blinkingbeacon the name of Algol, the

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demon Star. It is to meetand conquer the oppressor that I have vainly
striven for eons, held back bybodily encumbrances. Tonight I go as a
nemesis, bearing just and blazingly cataclysmicvengeance. Watch me in the sky,
close to the demon Star. Icannot speak longer, for the body of

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Joe's later grows cold and rigid,and the coarse brains are ceasing to vibrate.
As I wish you have been myonly friend on this planet, the
only soul to sense and seek forme. Within the repellent form which lies
on this couch, we shall meetagain, perhaps in the shining mists of
Orion's sword, perhaps on oblique plateauand prehistoric Asia, Perhaps in unremembered dreams

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tonight, perhaps in some other forman eon, hence, when the solar
system shall have been swept away.At this point, the thought waves abruptly
ceased. The pale eyes of thedreamer, or can I say dead man,
commenced to glaze fishally in a halfstupor. I crossed over to the

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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 thedegenerate Joe Slater. I shivered, pulled
a blanket over the hideous face,and awakened the nurse. Then I left

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the cell and went silently to myroom. I had an instant and unaccountable
craving for a sleep whose dreams Ishould not remember. The climax, What
plain tale of science can boast ofsuch a rhetorical effect. I have merely
set down certain things appealing to meas facts, allowing you to construe them

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as you will. As I havealready admitted, my superior old doctor Fenton
denies the reality of everything I haverelated. He vows that I was broken
down with nervous strain and badly inneed of a long vacation on full pay,
which he so generously gave me.He assures me, on his professional

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honor, that Joe's later was buta low grade paranoiac, whose fantastic notions
must have come from the crude,hereditary folk tales which circulated even in the
most decadent of communities. All this, he tells me, yet I cannot
forget what I saw in the skyon the night after Slater died. Lest

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you think me a biased witness,another pen must add this final testimony,
which may perhaps supply the climax,who expect I will quote the following account
of the star nova perseille verbatim fromthe pages of that eminent astronomical authority,
Professor Garrett P. Service Quote.On February twenty second, nineteen oh one,

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a marvelous new star was discovered bydoctor Anderson of Edinburgh, not very
far from Algol. No star hadbeen visible at that point before. Within
twenty four hours the Stranger had becomeso bright that it outshone Capella. In
a week or two it had visiblyfaded, and in the course of a
few months it was hardly discernible withthe naked eye. And Beyond the Wall

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of Sleep by H. P.Lovecraft