…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…

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…