Observations placeholder

The Marquis d’Hervey de Saint Denis – Dreams and how to Guide them

I wasn’t aware I was dreaming and I thought I was being pursued by frightful monsters. I was fleeing through an endless series of interconnecting rooms, always experiencing difficulty in opening the dividing doors and closing them behind me, only to hear them opened again by my hideous pursuers, who uttered terrible cries as they came after me……

Instead of fleeing, and by what must indeed in the circumstances have been an effort of will, I leaned against the wall and resolved to contemplate with the closest attention the phantoms that I had so far only glimpsed rather than seen. The initial shock was, I confess, strong enough; such is the difficulty that the mind has in defending itself against an illusion that it fears. I fixed my eyes on my principal attacker, who somewhat resembled the grinning, bristling demons which are sculpted in cathedral porticos, and as the desire to observe gained the upper hand over my emotions, I saw the following.

The fantastic monster had arrived within several feet of me, whistling and cavorting in a manner which, once it had ceased to frighten me, appeared comic. I noted the claws on one of its paws, of which there were seven, very clearly outlined. The hairs of its eyebrows, a wound it appeared to have on its shoulder and innumerable other details combined in a picture of the greatest precision – one of the clearest visions I have had. Was it the memory of some Gothic bas-relief?

In any case, my imagination added both movement and colour. The attention I had concentrated on this figure had caused its companions to disappear as if by magic. The figure itself seemed to slow down its movements, lose its clarity and take on a woolly appearance, until it changed into a kind of floating bundle of rags, similar to the faded costumes that serve as a sign to shops selling disguises at carnival time. Several insignificant images appeared in succession, then I awoke