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moment. Huge grey shadows were moving before my vision, slowly at first, then with accelerated motion,
until they commenced whirling around with an almost vertiginous rapidity. Then, as though that motion had
taken place for the purposes of brewing darkness, the object once reached, it slackened its speed, and the
darkness became gradually transformed into intense blackness, it ceased altogether. There was nothing now
VII -- ETERNITY IN A SHORT DREAM 43
 Nightmare Tales
within my immediate perceptions, but that fathomless black Space, as dark as pitch; to me it appeared as
limitless and as silent as the shoreless Ocean of Eternity upon which Time, the progeny of man's brain, is for
ever gliding, but which it can never cross.
Dream is defined by Cato as "but the image of our hopes and fears." Having never feared death when awake,
I felt, in this dream of mine, calm and serene at the idea of my speedy end. In truth, I felt rather relieved at the
thought -- probably owing to my recent mental suffering -- that the end of all, of doubt, of fear for those I
loved, of suffering, and of every anxiety, was close at hand. The constant anguish that had been gnawing
ceaselessly at my heavy, aching heart for many a long and weary month, had now become unbearable; and if
as Seneca thinks, death is but "the ceasing to be what we were before," it was better that I should die. The
body is dead; "I," its consciousness -- that which is all that remains of me now, for a few moments longer --
am preparing to follow. Mental perceptions will get weaker, more dim and hazy with every second of time,
until the longed for oblivion envelopes me completely in its cold shroud. Sweet is the magic hand of Death,
the great World-Comforter; profound and dreamless is sleep in its unyielding arms. Yea, verily, it is a
welcome guest. . . . A calm and peaceful haven amidst the roaring billows of the Ocean of life, whose
breakers lash in vain the rock-bound shores of Death. Happy the lonely bark that drifts into the still waters of
its black gulf, after having been so long, so cruelly tossed about by the angry waves of sentient life. Moored
in it for evermore, needing no longer either sail or rudder, my bark will now find rest. Welcome then, O
Death, at this tempting price; and fare thee well, poor body, which, having neither sought it nor derived
pleasure from it, I now readily give up!
While uttering this death-chant to the prostrate form before me, I bent over, and examined it with curiosity. I
felt the surrounding darkness oppressing me, weighing on me almost tangibly, and I fancied I found in it the
approach of the Liberator I was welcoming. And yet how very strange! If real, final Death takes place in our
consciousness; if after the bodily death, "I" and my conscious perceptions are one -- how is it that these
perceptions do not become weaker, why does my brain -action seem as vigorous as ever now . . . . that I am
de facto dead? . . . . Nor does the usual feeling of anxiety, the "heavy heart" so-called, decrease in intensity;
nay, it even seems to become worse . . . . unspeakably so! . . . . How long it takes for full oblivion to arrive! . .
. Ah, here's my body again! . . . Vanished out of sight for a second or two, it reappears before me once more .
. . . How white and ghastly it looks! Yet . . . . its brain cannot be quite dead, since "I," its consciousness, am
still acting, since we two fancy that we still are, that we live and think, disconnected from our creator and its
ideating cells.
Suddenly I felt a strong desire to see how much longer the progress of dissolution was likely to last, before it
placed its last seal on the brain and rendered it inactive. I examined my brain in its cranial cavity, through the
(to me) entirely transparent walls and roof of the skull, and even touched the brain-matter . . . . How or with
whose hands, I am now unable to say; but the impression of the slimy, intensely cold matter produced a very
strong impression on me, in that dream. To my great dismay, I found that the blood having entirely congealed
and the brain-tissues having themselves undergone a change that would no longer permit any molecular
action, it became impossible for me to account for the phenomena now taking place with myself. Here was I,
-- or my consciousness which is all one -- standing apparently entirely disconnected from my brain which [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]