…I have, over and over again in my dreams, visited a certain district when the weather has been fine; but the other night I was there during a storm, and the experience, though interesting, was not too agreeable. I was in a hut on a wide, vast desert traversed by a broad river, and bounded by a long chain of mountains on the one side, and on the other by a forest of pines. On my arrival all was hushed and still; the air soft and sweet; the sky clear and blue; typical in every respect of an ideal summer day. The change was brought about in a totally unprecedented manner. The blue of the heavens was suddenly metamorphosed into a vivid violet, and the wind from the mountain tops, shrieking and roaring like ten million devils across the plain, converted the hitherto placid waters of the rivers into…

…Some time ago I dreamed I left my body, and, after travelling at a great rate through the still night air, arrived at the sphere I designate phantomania. The spot where I settled down was a lonely railway cutting, and I at once remarked on the loud moaning and sighing of the wind through the telegraph wires, and the curious jar, jar, jar of the iron railroad; and the metals which grew less and less like ordinary metals the longer I looked at them, suddenly became imbued with life, and, rising on end, rushed blindly hither and thither and then lay down again. Presently I heard whistle of an approaching train. Nearer, nearer, and nearer it came, and as it whizzed past me all the passengers put their heads out of the windows simultaneously, and burst into peal upon peal of mad, hilarious laughter. There was then a tremendous…

…Soon after getting into bed one night (in January, 1908), I fell into a deep, blank sleep, from which I was abruptly torn to find myself at the entrance to a forest, a forest I knew, by sight, only too well. It was the forest of Trouble, and, willy-nilly, I had to enter it. On all sides, leviathan trees of the blackest ebony shot up hundreds of feet heavenwards, permitting only the feeblest rays of light to penetrate through their forked branches. What species of trees they were I do not know, for nothing I had seen outside my dreams resembled them. Their trunks were smooth, and in their mirror-like surfaces I could see reflected the workings of their innermost organs, whilst the rising and falling of their hollow voices was wafted down to me from on high, like the murmuring of wind from some mountain top. Nimble hands…

…Most writers and artists live in dreamland. In their hours of wakefulness, Phantasmagoria comes to them; in their hours of sleep they go to Phantasmagoria. Pursued and pursuing, in bed, at work or at play, they are never free from fantasies. In my novels my imagination runs riot, I make no attempt to suppress it. I write of the fantastic the weird, the occult; for at night I move, I breathe, I think in phantom land. So often have I visited this same phantom land that I have made a map of it, naming its isles, seas, mountains, lakes, forests, rivers, and plains. With many of the smaller landmarks, too, I am familiar, and I know what each turn and twist of certain roads have in store for me. Everything is portrayed to me so vividly that I believe my spiritual body, separating itself from my material body, actually…

…Murderers, I understand, often re-enact their crimes in their sleep, and have not infrequently been caught owing to their inability to avoid visiting the scene of the tragedy, which has been depicted with such fascinating vividness in their dreams. One murderer, I was told, the day before he was hanged, dreamed he was married and that his bride was the person he had so barbarously murdered for a few shillings.Though murderers often do have very harrowing dreams the night before their execution, this is by no means invariably the case, as I have heard instances of murderers, on the eve of execution, having enjoyed a sleep in every respect as sound and tranquil as the sleep of the just.T. Charley, in his News from the Invisible World, quotes the following extraordinary instances of warnings of murder in dreams, taken from a work entitled Records of my Life, by John…

At night, success, money; in the morning, a lawsuit; to kill one, pleasure.

To dream an owl flies over your sweetheart, and screeches violently, is a bad omen. It denotes he will be a sot, a rake, and night-walker, and he will be guilty of murder, or some great crime.