Which story of H. P. Lovecraft begins with several paragraphs on the
theme of sleepers around the world sleeping restlessly, disturbed by
the same dark (maybe even "blasphemous," which as I recall was HPL's
favorite adjective) dreams--dreams that, of course, presaged some kind
of activity on the part of the Old Ones?
I read every major Lovecraft story and many minor ones at an earlier
stage of my career, and sometime later I went back through my
collection looking for that passage, but I couldn't find it, so maybe
something about my memory of it (such as its position at the beginning
of a story) is wrong. But I am certain that there is such a passage
in which dreamers are haunted and tormented by the same evil dream.
Thank you,
Apteryx |
Request for Question Clarification by
juggler-ga
on
26 May 2004 00:02 PDT
Hi Apteryx,
Could you be thinking of "The Call of Cthulhu" (1926)?
http://www.dagonbytes.com/thelibrary/lovecraft/thecallofcthulhu.htm
Several passages refer to sleepers around the world having the same
dark dream. For example:
"..These responses from esthetes told disturbing tale. From February
28 to April 2 a large proportion of them had dreamed very bizarre
things, the intensity of the dreams being immeasurably the stronger
during the period of the sculptor's delirium. Over a fourth of those
who reported anything, reported scenes and half-sounds not unlike
those which Wilcox had described; and some of the dreamers confessed
acute fear of the gigantic nameless thing visible toward the last. One
case, which the note describes with emphasis, was very sad. The
subject, a widely known architect with leanings toward theosophy and
occultism, went violently insane on the date of young Wilcox's
seizure, and expired several months later after incessant screamings
to be saved from some escaped denizen of hell..."
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Clarification of Question by
apteryx-ga
on
26 May 2004 22:18 PDT
Many thanks for your research, Juggler, but I don't think so. I think
that was one of many that I looked at hoping and believing it would
prove to be the one, but it wasn't.
What I am remembering was, in my imperfect recollection, about the
first four paragraphs of a long story (but not a novel) that ran
approximately thus (with allowances for rough strokes that are meant
just to convey the general idea):
There are patterns like the tides in the unconscious minds of men.
And so it was that dreamers in Amsterdam shuddered in their sleep over
dark and misbegotten horrors whose hideous tentacles reached into
their waking hours and touched them with feverish chills of quivering
dread while sailors at anchor off Ceylon muttered in dreams ancient
words of nameless mystery whose utterance opens the door to other
realms whose blasphemous geometry none can contemplate without passing
beyond the borders of insanity. Around the earth in city and cave,
mansion and hovel, great visions gathered simultaneous force in
unknown dreamscapes beneath whose troubled surface lurked unwholesome
et cetera.
I think the passage might even have actually mentioned Ceylon.
It was definitely not one of those written in a quasi-scholarly tone
but one full of extravagantly grim, ungainly, ghastly, gaunt, and
ominous adjectives that would have drained Roget to exhaustion and
that set the stage for yet another visitation by Cthulhu, Azathoth,
and the rest of the unholy gang.
Do look again, please, won't you?
Thank you,
Apteryx
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Request for Question Clarification by
willie-ga
on
01 Jun 2004 03:45 PDT
Hi
Could it possibly be "Beyond the Walls of Sleep"
http://daemon_sultan.tripod.com/sleep.html
"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 permit 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.
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Clarification of Question by
apteryx-ga
on
01 Jun 2004 20:14 PDT
Oh, dear, another good try, but it isn't. The passage I am after
definitely talks about dreamers in different places being tormented by
the same evil dreams. The theme of going to some other place in
dreams does occur in a number of stories, most especially "The Dream
Quest of Unknown Kadath," but that is not the same as a kind of global
dream-contagion that opens the gate to the ageless monster gods.
I went and looked at the context for the selection from "The Call of
Cthulhu" and really tried to see it as my sought-after story,
adjusting here and there for memory loss over time, but the main thing
there was the coincidence of certain dreams with other events and not
what I remember about dreamers around the world being troubled by the
same dream. There was definitely some oceanic element to it too,
besides the location of R'lyeh.
I'm sorry to be so much trouble, but this recollection is very strong
and I can't say yes when I don't think we've got a hit.
By the way, Lovecrafters, I don't know if everybody sees the same ads
at the top of the screen, but I see this one--a cuddly-plush
Nyartlathotep, would you believe:
http://givemetoys.com/product/TVCTHULHUNYARLATHOTE?meta=a10b
I almost think I might have to order one just on account of being
overcome by the sheer jarring mad radicalness of it and the irrational
impulse to support someone who would be nuts enough to make a kid's
toy out of the obscenely blasphemous Crawling Chaos.
Apteryx
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