 THE DREAM OF A RETICULOUS MAN by Fyodor Dostoyevsky Recorded for Dreams Collection No. 1, Stories and Poems Recorded by William Jones, Benita Springs, Florida This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org THE DREAM OF A RETICULOUS MAN by Fyodor Dostoyevsky Part 1, I am a ridiculous person. Now they call me a madman. That would be a promotion if it were not that I remain as ridiculous in their eyes as before. But now I do not resent it. They are all dear to me now, even when they laugh at me. And indeed it is just then that they are particularly dear to me. I could join in their laughter, not exactly at myself, but through affection for them if I did not feel so sad as I look at them. Sad because they do not know the truth, and I do know it. Oh, how hard it is to be the only one who knows the truth. But they won't understand that. No, they won't understand. In old days I used to be miserable at seeming ridiculous. Not seeming, but being. I have always been ridiculous, and I have known it, perhaps from the hour I was born. Perhaps from the time I was seven years old I knew I was ridiculous. Afterwards I went to school, studied at the university, and do you know? The more I learned, the more thoroughly I understood that I was ridiculous. So that it seemed in the end as though all the sciences I studied at the university existed only to prove and make evident to me as I went more deeply into them that I was ridiculous. It was the same with life as it was with science. With every year the same consciousness of the ridiculous figure I cut in every relation grew and strengthened. Everyone always laughed at me, but not one of them knew or guessed that if there were one man on earth who knew better than anybody else that I was absurd, it was myself. And what I resented most of all was that they did not know that. But that was my own fault. I was so proud that nothing would have ever induced me to talk to anyone. The pride grew in me with the years, and if it had happened that I allowed myself to confess to anyone that I was ridiculous, I believe that I should have blown up my brains the same evening. Oh, how I suffered in my early youth from the fear that I might give way and confess it to my school fellows. But since I grew to manhood, I have for some unknown reason become calmer, though I realize my awful characteristic more fully every year. I say unknown, for to this day I cannot tell why it was. Perhaps it was owing to the terrible misery that was growing in my soul through something which was of more consequence than anything else about me. That something was the conviction that had come upon me that nothing in the world mattered. I had long had an inkling of it, but the full realization came last year almost suddenly. I suddenly felt that it was all the same to me whether the world existed or whether there had never been anything at all. I began to feel with all my being that there was nothing existing. At first I fancied that many things had existed in the past, but afterwards I guessed that there never had been anything in the past either, but that it had only seemed so for some reason. Little by little I guessed that there would be nothing in the future either. Then I left off being angry with people and almost ceased to notice them. Indeed this showed itself even in the pettiest trifles. I used, for instance, to knock against people in the street and not so much from being lost in thought what had I to think about. I had almost given up thinking by that time. Nothing mattered to me. If at least I had solved my problems, oh, I had not settled one of them and how many of them they were, but I gave up caring about anything and all the problems disappeared. And it was after that that I found out the truth. I learned the truth last November on the 3rd of November to be precise and I remember every instant sense. It was a gloomy evening, one of the gloomiest possible evenings. I was going home at about 11 o'clock and I remember that I thought that the evening could not be gloomier even physically. Rain had been falling all day and it had been a cold, gloomy, almost menacing rain with, I remember, an unmistakable spite against mankind. Suddenly between 10 and 11 it had stopped and it was followed by a horrible dampness, colder and damper than the rain and a sort of steam was rising from everything, from every stone in the street, from every by lane. If one looked down as far as one could, a thought suddenly occurred to me that if all the streetlamps had been put out it would have been less cheerless, that the gas made one's heart sadder because it lighted it all up. I had had scarcely any dinner that day and had been spending the evening with an engineer and two other friends had been there also. I sat silent. By fancy I bored them. They talked of something rousing and suddenly they got excited over it but they did not really care. I could see that and only made a show of being excited. I suddenly said as much to them, my friends, I said, you really do not care one way or the other. They were not offended but they all laughed at me. That was because I spoke without any note of reproach simply because it did not matter to me. They saw it did not and it amused them. As I was thinking about the gas lamps in the street I looked up at the sky. The sky was horribly dark but one could distinctly see tattered clouds and between them featherless black patches. Suddenly I noticed in one of these patches a star and began watching it intently. That was because that star gave me an idea. I decided to kill myself that night. I had firmly determined to do so two months before and, poor as I was, I bought a splendid revolver that very day and loaded it. But two months had passed and it was still lying in my drawer. I was so utterly indifferent that I wanted to seize a moment when I could not be so indifferent. Why? I don't know. And so for two months every night that I came home I thought I would shoot myself. I kept waiting for the right moment and so now the star gave me a thought. I made up my mind that it should certainly be that night and why the star gave me the thought I don't know. And just as I was looking at the sky this little girl took me by the elbow. The street was empty and there was scarcely anyone to be seen. A cab man was sleeping in the distance in his cab. It was a child of eight with a kerchief on her head wearing nothing but a wretched little dress all soaked with rain. But I noticed particularly her wet, broken shoes and I recall them now. They cut my eye particularly. She suddenly pulled me by the elbow and called me. She was not weeping but was spasmodically crying out some words but she could not utter properly because she was shivering and shuddering all over her. She was in terror about something and kept crying. Mammy, mammy! I turned face in her. I did not say a word and went on. She ran pulling at me and there was a note in her voice which in frightened the children means despair. I know that sound. Though she did not articulate the words I understood that her mother was dying or that something of a sort was happening to them and that she had run out to call someone to find something to help her mother. I did not go with her. On the contrary, I had an impulse to drive her away. I told her first to go to a policeman but clasping her hands she ran beside me sobbing and gasping and would not leave me. Then I stomped my foot and shouted at her. She called out, sir, sir! But suddenly abandoned me and rushed headlong across the road. Some other passerby appeared there and she evidently flew from me to him. I mounted up to my fifth story. I have a room in a flat where there are other lodgers. My room is small and poor with a garret window in the shape of a semi-circle. I have a sofa uncovered with American leather, a table with books on it, two chairs and a comfortable armchair as old as old can be but of the good old-fashioned shape. I sat down, lighted the candle and began thinking. In the room next to mine, through the partition wall a perfect bedlam was going on as it had been going on for the last three days. A retired captain lived there and he had half a dozen visitors, gentlemen of doctoral reputation, drinking vodka and playing Stoss with old cards. The night before there had been a fight and I know that two of them had been for a long time engaged in dragging each other about by the hair. The landlady wanted to complain but she was an abject terror of the captain. There was only one other lodger in the flat, a thin little regimental lady on a visit to Petersburg with three little children who had been taken ill since they had come into the lodgings. Both she and her children were in mortal fear of the captain and lay trembling and crossing themselves all night. And the youngest child had a sort of fit from fright. That captain, I know for a fact, sometimes stops people in the Nevsky Prospect and begs. They won't take him into the service but strangely say, that's why I'm telling this, all this month that the captain has been here his behavior has caused me no annoyance. I have, of course, tried to avoid his acquaintance from the very beginning and he too was bored with me from the first. But I never care how much they shout the other side of the partition nor how many of them there are in there. I sit up all night and forget them so completely that I do not even hear them. I stay awake till daybreak and have been going on like that for the last year. I sit up all night in my armchair at the table doing nothing. I only read by day. I sit, don't even think. Ideas of a sort wander through my mind and I let them come and go as they will. A whole candle is burnt every night. I sat down very quietly at the table, took out the revolver and put it down before me. When I had put it down I asked myself, I remember, is that so? And answered with complete conviction, It is. That is, I shall shoot myself. I knew that I should shoot myself that night for certain, but how much longer I should go on sitting at the table I did not know. And no doubt I should have shot myself if it had not been for that little girl. Section 2 You see, though nothing mattered to me, I could feel pain, for instance. If anyone had struck me it would have hurt me. It was the same morally. If anything very pathetic happened, I should have felt pity just as I used to in old days when there were things in my life that did matter to me. I had felt pity that evening. I should have certainly helped a child. Why then had I not helped a little girl? Because of an idea that occurred to me at that time. When she was calling and pulling at me a question suddenly arose before me and I could not settle it. The question was an idle one, but I was vexed. I was vexed at the reflection that if I were going to make an end of myself that night nothing in life ought to have mattered to me. Why was it that all at once I did not feel that nothing mattered and was sorry for the little girl? I remember that I was very sorry for her so much so that I felt a strange pang quite incongruous in my position. Really I do not know better how to convey my fleeting sensation at the moment but the sensation persisted at home when I was sitting at the table and I was very much irritated as I had not been for a long time past. One reflection followed another. I saw clearly that so long as I was still a human being and not nothingness I was alive and so could suffer, be angry and feel shame at my actions. So be it. But if I am going to kill myself in two hours say what is the little girl to me and what have I to do with shame or with anything else in the world? I shall turn into nothing absolutely nothing and can it really be true that the consciousness that I shall completely cease to exist immediately and so everything else will cease to exist does not in the least affect my feeling of pity for the child nor the feeling of shame after a contemptible action? I stamped and shouted at the unhappy child as though to say not only I feel no pity but even if I behave inhumanly and contemptibly I am free to for in another two hours everything will be extinguished. Do you believe that that was why I shouted that? I am almost convinced of it now. It seemed clear to me that life in the world somehow depended upon me now. I may almost say that the world now seemed created for me alone. If I shot myself the world would cease to be at least for me. I say nothing of its being likely that nothing will exist for anyone when I am gone and that as soon as my consciousness is extinguished the whole world will vanish too and become void like a phantom as a mere appreternence of my consciousness for possibly all this world and all these people are only me myself. I remember that as I sat and reflected I returned all these new questions that swarmed one after another quite the other way and thought of something quite new. For instance a strange reflection suddenly occurred to me that if I had lived before on the moon or on Mars and there had committed the most disgraceful and dishonorable action and had there been put to such shame and ignominy as one can only conceive and realize in dreams in nightmares and if finding myself afterwards on Earth I were able to retain the memory of what I had done on the other planet and at the same time knew that I should never under any circumstances return there then looking from the Earth to the moon should I care or not should I feel shame for that action or not these were idle and superfluous questions for the revolver was already lying there before me and I knew in every fiber of my being that it would happen for certain but they excited me and I raged I could not die now without having first to settle something in short the child had saved me for I put off my pistol shot for the sake of these questions meanwhile the clamor had begun to subside in the captain's room they had finished their game were settling down to sleep meanwhile were grumbling and languidly winding up their quarrels at that point I suddenly fell asleep in my chair at the table a thing which had never happened to me before I dropped asleep quite unawares dreams as we all know are very queer things some parts are presented with appalling vividness with details worked up with the elaborate finish of jewelry while others one gallops through as it were without noticing them at all as for instance through space and time dreams seem to be spurred on not by reason but desire not by the head but by the heart and yet what complicated tricks my reason has played sometimes in dreams what utterly incomprehensible things happen to it my brother died five years ago for instance I sometimes dream of him he takes part in my affairs we are very much interested and yet all through my dream I quite know and remember that my brother is dead and buried how is it that I am not surprised that although he is dead he is here beside me and working with me why is it that my reason fully accepts it I will begin about my dream yes I dreamt a dream my dream of the third of November they tease me now telling me it was only a dream but does it matter whether it was a dream or reality if the dream made known to me the truth if once one has recognized the truth and seen it you know that it is the truth and that there is no other and there cannot be you are asleep or awake let it be a dream so be it but that real life of which you make so much I had meant to extinguish by suicide and my dream my dream oh it revealed to me a different life renewed grand and full of power listen part three I have mentioned that I dropped a sleep unawares and even seemed to be still reflecting upon the same subjects I suddenly dreamt that I picked up the revolver and aimed it straight at my heart, my heart and not my head and I had determined beforehand to fire at my head at my right temple after aiming at my chest I waited a second or two and suddenly my candle, my table and the wall in front of me began moving and heaving to pull the trigger in dreams you sometimes fall from a height or are stabbed or beaten but you never feel pain unless perhaps you really bruise yourself against the bedstead then you feel pain and almost always wake up from it it was the same in my dream I did not feel any pain but it seemed as though with my shot everything within me was shaken and everything was suddenly dimmed and it grew horribly black around me I seemed to be blinded and benumb and I was lying on something hard stretched upon my back I saw nothing and could not make the slightest movement people were walking and shouting around me the captain balled the landlady street and suddenly another break and they closed coffin and I felt how the coffin was shaking and reflected upon it and for the first time the idea struck me that I was dead, utterly dead I knew it and had no doubt of it I could neither see nor move and yet I was feeling and reflecting but I was soon reconciled to the position as one usually does in a dream accepting the facts without disputing them and now I was buried in the earth they all went away I was left alone, utterly alone I did not move whenever before I had imagined being buried the one sensation I associated with the grave was that of damp and cold so now I felt that I was very cold especially the tips of my toes but I felt nothing else I lay still strange to say I expected nothing accepting without dispute that a dead man had nothing to expect but it was damp I don't know how long a time passed whether an hour or several days or many days but all at once a drop of water fell on my closed left eye making its way through a coffin lid it was followed a minute later by a second and then a minute later by a third and so on, right early every minute there was a sudden glow of profound indignation in my heart and I suddenly felt in it a pang of physical pain that's my wound I thought, that's a bullet and drop after drop every minute kept falling on my closed eyelid and all at once not with my voice but with my whole being I called upon the power that was responsible for all that was happening to me whoever you may be if you exist and if anything more rational than what is happening here is possible sever it to be here now but if you are revenging yourself upon me for my sensual suicide of a hideousness and absurdity of this subsequent existence let me tell you that no torture could ever equally contempt which I shall go on dumbly feeling though my martyrdom may last a million years I made this appeal and held my peace there was a full minute of unbroken silence and again another drop fell but I knew with infinite unshakable certainty that everything would change suddenly and behold my grave suddenly was ripped asunder that is I don't know whether it was opened or dug up but I was caught up by some dark unknown being and we found ourselves in space I suddenly regained my sight it was the dead of night and never, never had there been such darkness we were flying through space far away from the earth and the being who was taking me I was proud and waited I assured myself that I was not afraid and was thrilled with ecstasy at the thought that I was not afraid I do not know how long we were flying I cannot imagine it happened as it always does in dreams when you skip over space and time and the laws of thought and existence and only pause upon the points for which the heart yearns I remember that I suddenly saw in the darkness a star is that serious I asked impossibly though I had not meant to ask any questions no that is the star you saw between the clouds when you were coming home the being who was carrying me replied I knew that it had something like a human face strange to say I did not like that being in fact I felt an intense aversion for it I had expected complete non-existence and that was why I put a bullet through my heart and here I was in the hands of a creature not human of course but yet living, existing and so there is life beyond the grave I thought with a strange frivolity one has in dreams but in its inmost depth my heart remained unchanged and if I have got to exist again I thought and live once more under the control of some irresistible power I won't be vanquished and humiliated you know that I'm afraid of you and despise me for that I said suddenly to my companion unable to refrain from the humiliating question which implied a confession and feeling my humiliation stabbed my heart as with a pin he did not answer my question but all at once I felt that he was not even despising me but was laughing at me and had no compassion for me and that our journey had an unknown and mysterious object that concerned me only fear was growing in my heart something was mutely and painfully communicated to me from my silent companion and permeated my whole being we were flying through dark, unknown space I had for some time lost sight of the constellations familiar to my eyes I knew that there were stars in the heavenly spaces the light of which took thousands or millions of years to reach the earth perhaps we were already flying through those spaces I expected something with a terrible anguish that tortured my heart and suddenly I was thrilled by a familiar feeling that stirred me to the depths I suddenly caught sight of our sun I knew that it could not be our sun that gave life to our earth and that we were an infinite distance from our sun but for some reason I knew in my whole being that it was a sun exactly like ours a duplicate of it a sweet thrilling feeling resounded with ecstasy in my heart the kindred power of the same light which had given me light stirred an echo in my heart and awakened it and I had a sensation of life the old life of the past for the first time since I had been in the grave but if that is the sun if that is exactly the same as our sun I cried where is the earth and my companion pointed to a star twinkling in the distance with an emerald light we were flying straight toward it and are such repetitions possible in the universe can that be the law of nature and if that is an earth there can it be just the same earth as ours just the same as poor as unhappy but precious and beloved forever arousing in the most ungrateful of our children the same poignant love for her that we feel for our earth I cried out shaken by irresistible ecstatic love for the old familiar earth which I had left the image of the poor child whom I had repulsed flashed through my mind you shall see it all answered my companion that there was a note of sorrow in his voice but we were rapidly approaching the planet it was growing before my eyes I had already distinguished the ocean the outline of Europe and suddenly a feeling of great and holy jealousy glowed in my heart how can it be repeated and what for I love and can only love the earth which I have left stained with my blood when in my ingratitude I quenched my life with a bullet in my heart but I have never never ceased to love that earth and perhaps on the very night I pardoned from it I loved it more than ever is there suffering upon this new earth on our earth we can only love with suffering and through suffering we cannot love otherwise and we know of no other sort of love I want suffering in order to love I long I thirst this very instant to kiss with tears the earth that I have left I don't want I won't accept life on any other but my companion had already left me I suddenly quite without noticing how found myself on this other earth in the bright light of a sunny day fair as paradise I believe I was standing on one of the islands that make up on our globe the Greek Archipelago or on the coast of the mainland facing that archipelago oh everything was exactly as it is with us only everything seemed to have a festive radiance the splendor of some great holy triumph attained at last the caressing sea green as emerald splashed softly upon the shore and kissed it with manifest almost conscious love the tall, lovely trees stood in all the glory of their blossom and their innumerable leaves greeted me, I am certain with their soft caressing rustle and seemed to articulate words of love the grass glowed with bright and fragrant flowers birds were flying in flocks in the air and pursed fearlessly on my shoulders and arms and joyfully struck me with their darling lettering wings and at last I saw I knew the people of this happy land they came to me of themselves they surrounded me, kissed me the children of the sun the children of their sun oh how beautiful they were never had I seen on our own earth such beauty in mankind only perhaps in our children in the earlier years you might find some remote faint reflection of this beauty the eyes of these happy people shown with a clear brightness, their faces were radiant with the light of reason and fullness of a serenity that comes of perfect understanding but those faces were gay in their words and voices there was a note of childlike joy oh from the first moment I said to them I understood it all it was the earth untarnished by the fall all that lived people who had not sinned they lived just in such a paradise as that in which according to all the legends of mankind our first parents lived before they sinned the only difference was that all this earth was the same paradise these people laughing joyfully thronged around me and caressed me they took me home with them and each of them tried to reassure me oh they asked me no questions but they seemed I'm fancy to know everything without asking and they wanted to make haste and smooth away the signs of suffering from my face section four and do you know what I did that it was only a dream yet the sensation of the love of those innocent and beautiful people has remained with me forever and I feel as though their love is still flowing out to me from over there I have seen them myself have known them and been convinced I love them I suffered for them afterwards oh I understood it once even at the time that in many things I could not understand them at all as an up-to-date Russian progressive and contemptible Petersburger it struck me as inexplicable that knowing so much they had for instance no science like ours but I soon realized that their knowledge was gained and fostered by intuitions different from those of us on earth and that their aspirations too were quite different they desired nothing and were at peace they did not aspire to knowledge of life as we aspire to understand it because their lives were full but their knowledge was higher and deeper than ours for our science seeks to explain what life is aspires to understand it in order to teach others how to live while they without science knew how to live and that I understood but I could not understand their knowledge they showed me their trees and I could not understand the intense love with which they looked at them it was as though they were talking with creatures like themselves and perhaps I shall not be mistaken if I say that they conversed with them yes they had found their language and I'm convinced that the trees understood them they looked at all nature like that at the animals who lived in peace with them and did not attack them but loved them conquered by their love they pointed to the stars and told me something about them which I could not understand but I am convinced that they were somehow in touch with the stars not only in thought but by some living channel people did not persist in trying to make me understand them they loved me without that but I knew that they would never understand me and so I hardly spoke to them about our earth I only kissed in their presence the earth on which they lived and mutely worshiped them themselves and they saw that and let me worship them without being abashed at my adoration they themselves loved much they were not unhappy on my account when at times I kissed their feet with tears joyfully conscious of the love with which they would respond to mine at times I asked myself with wonder how it was that they were able never to offend a creature like me and never once to arouse a feeling of jealousy or envy in me often I wondered how it could be that boastful and untruthful as I was I never talked to them of what I knew of which of course they had no notion that I was never tempted to do so by a desire to astonish or even to benefit them they were as gay and sportive as children they wandered about their lovely woods and coughs they sang their lovely songs their fair was light the fruits of their trees the honey from their woods and the milk of the animals who loved them the work they did for food and raiment was brief and not laborious they loved and begot children but I never noticed in them the impulse of that cruel sensuality which overcomes almost every man on this earth all and each and is the source of almost every man of mankind on earth they rejoiced at the arrival of children as new beings to share their happiness there is no quarrelling no jealousy among them and they did not even know what the words meant their children were the children of all for they all made up one family there was scarcely any illness among them though there was death no people died peacefully as though falling asleep giving blessings and smile to those who surrounded them to take their last farewell with bright and loving smiles I never saw grief or tears on those occasions but only love which reached the point of ecstasy but a calm ecstasy made perfect and contemplative one might think that they were still in contact departed after death and that their earthly union was not cut short by death they scarcely understood me when I questioned them about immortality but evidently they were so convinced of it without reasoning that it was not for them a question at all they had no temples but they had a real living and uninterrupted sense of oneness with the full of the universe they had no creed but they had a certain knowledge that when their earthly joy had reached the limits of earthly nature then there would come for them for the living and for the dead a still greater fullness of contact with the whole of the universe they looked forward to that moment with joy but without haste not pining for it but seeming to have a foretaste of it in their hearts they talked to one another in the evening before going to sleep they liked singing in musical and harmonious chorus in these songs they expressed all the sensation that the parting day had given them sang its glories and took leave of it they sang the praises of nature of the sea of the woods they liked making songs about one another and praised each other like children they were the simplest songs but they sprang from their hearts and went to one's heart and not only in their songs but in all their lives they seemed to do nothing but admire one another it was like being in love with each other but an all embracing universal feeling some of their songs solemn and rapturous I scarcely understood at all though I understood the words I could never fathom their full significance it remained as it were beyond the grasp of my mind yet my heart unconsciously absorbed it more and more I often told them that I had had a presentiment of it long before that this joy and glory had come to me on our earth in the form of a yearning melancholy that at times approached an unselfable sorrow that I had had a foreknowledge of them all and of their glory in the dreams of my heart and visions of my mind that often on our earth I could not look at the setting sun without tears that in my hatred for the men of our earth there was always a yearning anguish why could I not hate them without loving them why could I not help forgiving them in my love for them there was a yearning brief why could I not love them without hating them they listened to me and I saw they could not conceive what I was saying but I did not regret that I had spoken to them of it I knew that they understood the intensity of my yearning anguish over those whom I had left but when they looked at me with their sweet eyes full of love I felt that in their presence my heart too became as innocent and just as theirs the feeling of the fullness of life took my breath away and I worshipped them in silence oh everyone left in my face now and assures me that one cannot dream of such details as I am telling now that I only dreamed or felt one sensation that rose in my heart in delirium in the details myself when I woke up and when I told them that perhaps it really was so my god how they shouted with laughter in my face and what mirth I caused oh yes of course I was overcome by the mere sensation of my dream and that was all that was preserved in my cruelly wounded heart but the actual forms and images of my dream the very ones I really saw at the very time of my dream were filled with such harmony were so lovely and enchanting and were so actual that on awakening I was of course incapable of clothing them in our poor language so that they were bound to become blurred in my mind and so perhaps I really was forced afterward to make up the details and so of course to distort them in my passionate desire to convey some at least of them as quickly as I could but on the other hand how can I help believing that it was all true it was perhaps a thousand times brighter happier and more joyful than I describe it granted that I dreamed it yet it must have been real you know I will tell you a secret perhaps it was not a dream at all for then something happened so awful something so horribly true that it could not have been imagined in a dream my heart may have originated the dream but would my heart alone have been capable of originating the awful event which happened to me afterward how could I alone have invented it or imagined it in my dream could my petty heart in my fickle, trivial mind have risen to such a revelation of truth oh judge for yourselves hitherto I have concealed it but now I will tell the truth the fact is that I corrupted them all section 5 yes yes yet ended in my corrupting them all how could it come to pass I do not know but I remember it clearly the dream embraced thousands of years and left in me only a sense of the whole I only know that I was the cause of their sin and downfall like a vile trichina like a germ of the plague infecting whole kingdoms so I contaminated all this earth so happy and sinless before my coming they learned to lie no fond of lying and discovered the charm of falsehood oh at first perhaps it began innocently with a jest with amorous play perhaps indeed with a germ but that germ of falsity made its way into their hearts and pleased them then sensuality was soon begotten sensuality begot jealousy jealousy cruelty oh I don't know I don't remember but soon the first blood was shed they marveled and were horrified and began to be split up and divided they formed into unions but it was against one another reproaches, upbradings followed they came to no shame and shame brought them to virtue the conception of honor sprang up and every union began waving its flags they began torturing animals and the animals withdrew from them into the forests and became hostile to them they began to struggle for separation for isolation for individuality for mine and thine they began to talk in different languages they became acquainted with sorrow and loved sorrow they thirsted for suffering and said that truth could only be attained through suffering then science appeared as they became wicked they began talking of brotherhood and humanitarianism and understood those ideas as they became criminal they invented justice and drew up whole legal codes in order to observe it and to ensure they're being kept set up a guillotine they hardly remembered what they had lost in fact refused to believe that they had ever been happy and innocent they even laughed at the possibility of this happiness in the past and called it a dream they could not even imagine it in definite form and shape but strange and wonderful to relate though they lost all faith in their past happiness and called it a legend they so longed to be happy and innocent once more that they succumbed to this desire made an idol of it set up temples and worshiped their own idea their own desire though at the same time they fully believed that it was unattainable and could not be realized yet they bowed down to it and adored it with tears nevertheless if it could have happened they had returned to the innocent and happy condition which they had lost and if someone had shown it to them again and had asked them whether they wanted to go back to it they would certainly have refused they answered me we may be deceitful wicked and unjust we know it and we pour it we grieve over it we torment and punish ourselves more perhaps than that merciful judge who will judge us and whose name we know not but we have science and by means of it we shall find the truth and we shall arrive at it consciously knowledge is higher than feeling the consciousness of life is higher than life science will give us wisdom wisdom will reveal the laws and the knowledge of the laws of happiness is higher than happiness that is what they said and after saying such things everyone began to love himself better than anyone else and indeed they could not do otherwise all became so jealous of the rights of their own personality that they didn't their very utmost to curtail and destroy them in others and made that the chief thing in their lives slavery followed even voluntary slavery the weak eagerly submitted to the strong on condition that the latter wanted them to subdue the still weaker then there were saints who came to these people weeping and talked to them of their pride of their loss of harmony and due proportion of their loss of shame they were laughed at or pelted with stones holy blood was shed on the threshold of the temples then there arose men who began to think how to bring all the people together again so that everybody while still loving himself best of all might not interfere with others and all might live together in something like a harmonious society regular wars spraying up over this idea all the combatants at the same time firmly believe that science, wisdom and the instinct of self-preservation would force men at last to unite into a harmonious and rational society and so meanwhile to hasten matters the wise endeavored to exterminate as rapidly as possible all who were not wise and did not understand their idea that the latter might not hinder its triumph but the instinct of self-preservation grew rapidly weaker there arose men haughty and sensual who demanded all or nothing in order to obtain everything they resorted to crime and if they did not succeed to suicide there arose religions with a cult of non-existence and self-destruction for the sake of the everlasting peace of annihilation at last these people grew weary of their meaningless toil and signs of suffering came into their faces and then they proclaimed suffering was beauty for in suffering alone was their meaning they glorified suffering in their songs I moved about among them ringing my hands and weeping over them but I loved them perhaps more than in the old days when there was no suffering in their faces and when they were innocent and so lovely I loved the earth they had polluted even more there had been a paradise if only because sorrow had come to it alas I always loved sorrow and tribulation but only for myself for myself but I wept over them pitying them I stretched out my hands to them in despair blaming cursing and despising myself I told them that all this was my doing mine alone and brought them to corruption contamination and falsity I besought them to crucify me I taught them how to make a cross I could not go myself I had not the strength but I wanted to suffer at their hands I yearned for suffering I longed that my blood should be drained to the last drop in these agonies but they only laughed at me and began at last they called me as crazy they justified me they declared that they had only got what they wanted themselves and that all that now was could not have been otherwise at last they declared to me that I was becoming dangerous and that they should lock me up in a madhouse if I could not hold my tongue then such grief took possession of my soul that my heart was rung as though I were dying and then then I awoke it was morning that is it was not yet daylight but about six o'clock I woke up in the same armchair my candle had burnt out everyone was asleep in the captain's room and there was a stillness all around rare in our flat first of all I leapt up in great amazement like this had ever happened to me before not even the most vivid trivial detail I had never for instance fallen asleep like this in my armchair while I was standing and coming to myself I suddenly caught sight of my revolver lying loaded ready but instantly I thrust it away oh now life life I lifted up my hands and called upon eternal truth not with words but with tears ecstasy immeasurable ecstasy flooded my soul yes life and spreading the good tidings oh I look at that moment resolved to spread the good tidings and resolved it of course for my whole life I go to spread the tidings I want to spread the tidings of what of the truth for I have seen it I have seen it with my own eyes I have seen it in all its glory and since then I have been preaching moreover I love all those who laugh at me more than any of the rest why that is so I do not know and cannot explain but so be it I am told that I am vague and confused that if I am vague and confused now what shall I be later on it is true indeed I am vague and confused and perhaps as time goes on I shall be more so and of course I shall make many blenders before I find out how to preach let us find out what words to say and what things to do for it is a very difficult task I see all that as clear as daylight but listen who does not make mistakes and yet you know all are making for the same goal all are striving in the same direction anyway from the sage to the lowest robber only by different roads it is an old truth but this is what is new I cannot go far wrong for I have seen the truth I have seen and I know that people can be beautiful and happy without losing the power of living on earth I will not and cannot believe that evil is the normal condition of mankind and it is just this faith of mine that they laugh at but how can I help believing it I have seen the truth it is not as though I had invented it with my mind I have seen it seen it and the living image has filled my soul forever I have seen it in such full perfection that I cannot believe that it is impossible for people to have it and so how can I go wrong I shall make some slips no doubt and shall perhaps talk in secondhand language but not for long the living image of what I saw will always be with me and will always correct and guide me oh I am full of courage and freshness and I will go on and on if it were for a thousand years do you know? at first I meant to conceal the fact that I corrupted them but that was a mistake that was my first mistake but truth whispered to me that I was lying and preserved me and corrected me but how establish paradise I don't know because I do not know how to put it into words after my dream I lost command of words all the chief words anyway the most necessary ones but never mind I shall go and I shall keep talking I won't leave off for any way I have seen it with my own eyes though I cannot describe what I saw but the scoffers do not understand that it was a dream they say delirium hallucination oh that meant so much and they are so proud a dream what is a dream and is not our life a dream? I will say more suppose that this paradise will never come to pass that I understand yet I shall go on preaching it and yet how simple it is in one day in one hour everything could be arranged at once many is to love others like yourself that's the great thing and that's everything nothing else is wanted you will find out at once how to arrange it and yet it's an old truth which has been told and retold a billion times but it has not formed part of our lives the consciousness of life is higher than life the knowledge of the laws of happiness is higher than happiness that is what one must contend against and I shall if only everyone wants it it can all be arranged at once and I tracked out that little girl and I shall go on and on end of the dream of a ridiculous man by Fyodor Dostoyevsky by Sarah Brown this is a LibriVox recording all LibriVox recordings are in the public domain for more information or to volunteer please visit LibriVox.org The Dream by Edna St Vincent Millay Love if I weep it will not matter and if you laugh I shall not care foolish am I to think about it but it is good to fill you there love in my sleep I dreamed of waking white and awful the moonlight reached over the floor and somewhere, somewhere there was a shutter loose it screeched swung in the wind and no wind blowing I was afraid and turned to you put out my hand to you for comfort and you were gone cold cold as dew under my hand the moonlight lay love if you laugh I shall not care but if I weep it will not matter ah it is good to fill you there End of The Dream by Edna St Vincent Millay A Curious Dream Written about 1870 containing a moral by Mark Twain recorded by William Jones in Minita Springs, Florida this is a LibriVox recording all LibriVox recordings are in the public domain for more information more to volunteer please visit LibriVox.org A Curious Dream Night before last I had a singular dream I seemed to be sitting on a doorstep in no particular city perhaps ruminating and the time of night appeared to be about twelve or one o'clock the weather was balmy and delicious there is no human sound in the air not even a footstep there was no sound of any kind to emphasize the dead stillness except the occasional hollow barking of a dog in the distance and the fainter answer of a further dog recently up the street I heard a bony clack clacking and guessed it was the castanets of a serenading party in a minute more a tall skeleton hooded in half-clad in a tattered and moldy shroud whose shreds were flapping about the ribby lattice work of its person swung by me with a stately stride and disappeared in the gray gloom of the starlight it had a broken and worm-eaten coffin on its shoulder and a bundle of something in its head I knew what the clack clacking was then it was this party's joints working together and his elbows knocking against his sides as they walked I may say I was surprised before I could collect my thoughts and enter upon any speculations as to what this apparition might portend I heard another one coming for I recognized his click-clack he had two-thirds of a coffin on his shoulder and some foot and headboards under his arm I might only wanted to appear under his hood and speak to him but when he turned and smiled upon me his cavernous sockets and his projecting grin as he went by I thought I would not detain him he was hardly gone when I heard the clacking again and another one issued from the shadowy half-light this one was bending under a heavy gravestone and dragging a shabby coffin after him by a string when he got to me he gave me a steady look for a moment or two then rounded to and backed up to me saying ease this down for a fellow, will ya I eased the gravestone down till it rested on the ground and in doing so noticed that it bore the name of John Baxter Kopmanhurst with May 1839 as the date of his death deceased set warily down by me and wiped his osfontos with his major maxillary chiefly from former heaven I judged for I could not see that he brought away any perspiration it's too bad too bad said he drawing the remnant of the shroud about him and leaning his jaw principally on his hand then he put his left foot up on his knee and fell to scratch in his ankle bone absolutely with a rusty nail which he got out of his coffin what is too bad friend oh everything everything I almost wish I never had died you surprised me why do you say this has anything gone wrong what is the matter matter look at this shroud rags look at this gravestone all battered up look at that disgrace old coffin all a man's property going to ruin and destruction before his eyes and ask him if anything is wrong fire and brimstone calm yourself calm yourself I said it is too bad it is certainly too bad but then I had not supposed that you would be in such matters situated as you are well my dear sir I do mind them my pride is hurt my comfort is impaired destroyed I might say I will state my case I will put it to you in such a way you can comprehend it if you will let me said the poor skeleton tilting the hood of his shroud back as if you were clearing for action and thus unconsciously giving himself a jaunty festive air very much at variance with the grave character of his position in life so to speak and in prominent contrast with his distressful mood proceed said I I reside in the shameful old graveyard a block or two above you here in this street there now I just expected that cartilage would let go third rib from the bottom friend hitch the end of it to my spine with a string if you have got such a thing about you though a bit of silver wire is a deal pleasanter and more durable and becoming if one keeps it polished to think of shredding out and going to pieces in this way just on account of the indifference and neglect of one's posterity and the poor ghost graded his teeth in a way that gave me a wrench and a shiver for the effect is mightily increased by the absence of muffling flesh and cuticle I reside in that old graveyard and have for these 30 years and I tell you things are changed since I first laid this old tired frame there and turned over and stretched out for a long sleep with a delicious sense upon me of being done with bother and grief and anxiety in doubt and fear forever and ever and listening with comfortable and increasing satisfaction to the sexton's work from the startling clatter of his first spade full on my coffin till it dulled away to the faint padding that shaped the roof of my new home delicious by I wish you could try it tonight and out of my reverie deceased fetched me a rattling slap with a bony head yes sir 30 years ago I laid me down there and was happy for it was out in the country then out in the breezy flowery grand old woods and the lazy winds gossiped with the leaves and the squirrels capered over us and around us the beings visited us and the birds filled the tranquil solitude with music ah, it was worth ten years of a man's life to be dead then everything was pleasant I was in a good neighborhood for all the dead people that live near me belonged to the best families in the city our posterity appeared to think the world of us they kept our graves in the very best condition the fences were always in faultless repair headboards were kept painted or white washed and were replaced with new ones as soon as they began to look rusty or decayed monuments were kept upright railings intact and bright the rose bushes and shrubbery trimmed, trained and free from blemish the walls clean and smooth and graveled but that day is gone by our descendants have forgotten us my grandson lives in a stately house built with money made by these old hands of mine and I sleep in a neglected grave with invading vermin that gnaw my shroud to build them nests with all I and friends that lie with me founded and secured the prosperity of this fine city the stately bantering of our loves leaves us to rot in a dilapidated cemetery for neighbors curse and strangers scoff at see the difference between the old time in this for instance our graves are all caved in now our headboards have rotted away and tumbled down our railings reel this way in that with one foot in the air we have a lot of difficulty our monuments lean whirly and our gravestones bow their heads discouraged there be no ornaments anymore no roses nor shrubs nor graveled walks or anything that is a comfort to the eye and even the painless old board fence that did make a show of holiness sacred from companionship with beasts tottered till it overhangs the street and only advertises the presence of our dismal resting place and advice yet more derision to it and now we cannot hide our poverty and tatters in the friendly woods for the city has stretched its withering arms abroad and taking us in and all that remains of the chair of our old home the cluster of lugubrious forestries that stand bored and weary of a city life with their feet in our coffins looking into the hazy distance and wishing they were there I tell you it's disgraceful you begin to comprehend you begin to see how it is while our descendants are living sumptuously on our money around us in the city we have to fight hard to keep skull and bones together bless you there isn't a grave in our cemetery that doesn't leak not one every time it rains in the night we have to climb out and roost in the trees and sometimes we are waken suddenly by the chilly water trickling down the backs of our necks then I tell you there is a heaving up of old graves and kicking over of old monuments and scampering of old skeletons for the trees bless me if you had gone along there some such nights after twelve you might have seen as many as fifteen of us roosting on one limb with our joints rattling rearly and the wind wheezing through our ribs many a time we have perched there for three or four dreary hours then come down stiff and chill through and drowsy and borrowed each other's skulls to bail out our graves with if you will glance up in my mouth now as I tilt my head back you can see my head pieces half full of old dry sediment how top heavy and stupid it makes me sometimes yes sir many a time if you had happened to come along just before the dawn you'd have caught us bailing out the graves and hanging our shrouds on the fence to dry why I had an elegant shroud stolen from there one morning think a party by the name of Smith took it that resides in a plebeian graveyard over yonder I think so because the first time I ever saw him he hadn't anything on but a check shirt and the last time I saw him which was at a social gathering in the new cemetery he was the best dressed corpse in the company and it is a significant fact that he left when he saw me and presently an old woman from here missed her coffin she generally took it with her when she went anywhere because she was liable to take cold and bring on this spasmodic rheumatism that originally killed her if she exposed herself to the night air much she was named Hotchkiss Anna Matilda Hotchkiss you might know her she has two upper front teeth is tall but a good deal inclined to stoop one rib on the left side gone has one shred of rusty hair hanging from the left side of her head and one little tough just above and a little forward of her right ear has her under jaw wired on one side where it had worked loose small bone of left forearm gone lost in a fight has a kind of swagger in her gait and a gallus way of going with her arms a Kimbo and her nostrils in the air has been pretty free and easy and is all damaged and battered up till it looks like a queen's wear crate in ruins maybe you've met her God forbid I involuntarily ejaculated for somehow I was not looking for that form of question and it caught me a little off my guard but I hasten to make amends for my rudeness and say I simply meant I had not had the honor for I would not deliberately speak discourteously of a friend of yours you're saying that you were robbed and it was a shame too but it appears by what is left of the shroud you have on a costly one in its day how did a most ghastly expression began to develop among the decayed features and shriveled integments of my guests face and I was beginning to grow uneasy and distressed he told me he was only working up a deep sly smile with a wink in it to suggest about the time he acquired his present garment a ghost in a neighboring cemetery missed one this reassured me but I begged him to confine himself to speech that's forth because his facial expression was uncertain even with the most elaborate care it was liable to misfire smiling should especially be avoided but he might honestly consider a shining success was likely to strike me in a very different light he said I'd like to see a skeleton cheerful even decorously playful but I did not think smiling was a skeleton's best hold yes friend said the poor skeleton the facts are just as I have given them to you two of these old graveyards the one that I resided in and one further along have been deliberately neglected by our descendants of today until there is no occupying them any longer aside from the osteological discomfort of it and that is no light matter in this rainy weather the present state of things is ruinous the property we have got to move or be content to see our effects wasted away and utterly destroyed now you will hardly believe it but it is true nevertheless that there isn't a single coffin in good repair among all my acquaintances now that is an absolute fact I do not refer to low people who come in a pine box mounted on an express wagon but I am talking about your high toned silver mounted burial case your monumental sword that travel under black plumes at the head of a procession and have choice of cemetery lots I mean folks like the barbuses and the Bledsoes and burlings and such they are all about ruined the most substantial people in our set they were and now look at them utterly used up and poverty stricken one of the Bledsoes actually traded his monument to a late barkeeper for some fresh shavings to put under his head I tell you it speaks volumes there is nothing a corpse takes so much pride in as his monument he loves to read the inscription he comes after a while to believe what it says of himself and then you may see him sitting on the fence night after night enjoying it epitaphs are cheap and they do a poor chap a world of good after he is dead especially if he had hard luck while he was alive I wish they were used more now I don't complain but confidentially I do think it was a little shabby in my descendants to give me nothing but this old slab of a gravestone and all the more that there isn't a compliment on it it used to have gone to his just reward on it and I was proud when I first saw it but by and by I noticed that whenever an old friend of mine came along he would hook his chin over the railing and pull a long face and read along down till he came to that and then he would chuckle to himself and walk off looking satisfied and comfortable so I scratched it off to get rid of those fools but a dead man always takes a great deal of pride in his monument yonder goes half a dozen of the Jarvis's now with a family monument along and some mythers and some hired specters went by with his a while ago hello Higgins goodbye old friend that's Meredith Higgins died in forty four belongs to our set in a cemetery fine old family great grandmother was an ingener I am on the most familiar terms with him he didn't hear me he was the reason he didn't answer me and I am sorry too because I would have liked to introduce you you would admire him he's the most disjointed sway back and generally distorted old skeleton you ever saw he is full of fun when he laughs it sounds like rasping two stones together and he always starts it off with a cherry screech like raking a nail across a window pane hey Jones that is old Columbus Jones shroud cost four hundred dollars entire trousseau including monument twenty seven hundred this is in the spring of twenty six it was enormous style for those days dead people came all the way from the Alleghenies to see his things the party that occupied the grave next to mine remembers it well now do you see that individual going along with a piece of headboard under his arm one leg bone below his knee gone and not a thing in the world on that is Barstow Dalhousie and next to Columbus Jones he was the most sumptuously outfitted person that ever entered our cemetery we are all leaving we cannot tolerate the treatment we are receiving at the hands of our descendants they open new cemeteries but they leave us to our ignominy they mend the streets but they never mend anything that is about us or belongs to us look at that coffin of mine yet I tell you in its day it was a piece of furniture that would have attracted attention in any drawing room in the city you may have it if you want it I can't afford to repair it put a new bottom in her and part of a new top and a bit of fresh lining along the left side and you'll find her as about as comfortable as any receptacle of her species you ever tried no thanks no don't mention it you have been civil to me and I would give you all the property I have got before I would seem ungrateful now this winding sheet is a kind of sweet thing in its way would you like to know well just as you say but I wish to be fair and liberal there's nothing mean about me goodbye friend I must be going I may have a good way to go tonight don't know I only know one thing for certain and that is that I am on the immigrant trail now and I'll never sleep in that crazy old cemetery again I will travel till I find respectable quarters if I have to hoof it to New Jersey all the boys are going it was decided in public conclave last night to immigrate and by the time the sun rises there won't be a bone left in our old habitation such cemeteries may suit my surviving friends but they do not suit the remains that have the honor to make these remarks my opinion is the general opinion if you doubt it go and see how they departing ghosts upset things before they started they were almost riotous in their demonstrations of distaste hello here are some of the blitzos if you'll give me a lift with his tombstone I guess I will join company and jog along with them mighty respectable old family the blitzos they used to always come out in six horse herces and all that sort of thing fifty years ago when I walked these streets in daylight goodbye friend and with his grave stone on his shoulder he joined the grizzly procession dragging his damaged coffin after him for notwithstanding he pressed it upon me so earnestly I utterly refused his hospitality I suppose that for as much as two hours these sad outcasts went clacking by laden with their decimal effects and all that time I set pitting them one or two of the youngest and least dilapidated among them inquired about midnight trains on the railways but the breast seemed unacquainted with that mode of travel and merely asked about common public roads to various towns and cities some of which are not on the map now and vanished from it and from the earth as much as thirty years ago and some few of them never had existed anywhere but on maps and private ones in the real estate agencies at that and they asked me about the condition of the cemeteries in these towns and cities and about the reputation the citizens bore as to reverence for the dead this whole matter interested me deeply and likewise compelled my sympathy for these homeless ones and at all seeming real and I not knowing it was a dream I mentioned to one shrouded wonderer an idea that had entered my head to publish an account of this curious and very sorrowful exodus and said also that I might not describe it truthfully and just as it occurred without seeming to trifle with a grave subject and exhibit any reverence for the dead that would shock and distress their surviving friends but this bland and stately remnant of a former citizen leaned him far over my gait and whispered in my ear and said do not let that disturb you the community that can stand such graveyards as those we are immigrating from can stand anything a body can say about the neglected and forsaken dead that lie in them at that very moment a cock crowed and the weird procession vanished and left not a shred or a bone behind I awoke and found myself lying with my head out of the bed and sagging downward considerably a position favorable to dreaming dreams with morals in them maybe but not poetry note the reader is assured that if the cemeteries in his town are kept in good order this dream is not leveled at his town at all but is leveled particularly and venomously next to town end of a curious dream by Mark Twain Kubla Khan by Samuel Taylor Colleridge recorded for Dreams Collection number one stories and poems by LG pug this is a LibriVox recording all LibriVox recordings are in the public domain for more information or to volunteer please visit LibriVox.org Kubla Khan or a vision in a dream a fragment by Samuel Taylor Colleridge In Sun Ado did Kubla Khan a stately pleasure-dome decree where Elf the Sacred River ran through caverns measureless to man down to a sunless sea so twice five miles of fertile ground the hills and towers were girdled round and here were gardens bright with sinuous rills where blossomed many an incense-bearing tree and here were forests ancient as the hills in folding sunny spots of greenery but oh that deep romantic chasm which slanted down the green hill a thwater-seedened cover a savage place as holy and enchanted as air beneath a waning moon was haunted by woman wailing for her demon lover and from this chasm with ceaseless turmoil seething as if this earth in fast thick pants were breathing a mighty fountain momentally was forced amid whose swift half-intermitted burst huge fragments vaulted like rebounding hail or chaffy grain beneath a thresh's flail amid these dancing rocks at once and ever it flung up mermitly the sacred river five miles meandering with a mazy motion through wood and dale the sacred river ran then reached the caverns measureless to man and sank in tumult to a lifeless ocean and amid this tumult from far ancestral voices prophesying war the shadow of the dome of pleasure floated midway on the waves where was heard the mingled measure from the fountain and the caves it was a miracle of rare device a sunny pleasure dome with caves of ice a dam saw with a dulcimer in a vision once I saw it was an abyssinian made and on her dulcimer she played singing of Mount Abora could I revive within me her symphony and song to such a deep delight would win me that with music loud and long I would build that dome in air that sunny dome those caves of ice and all who heard should see them there and all should cry beware, beware of his blushing eyes his floating hair weave a circle round him thrice and close your eyes with holy dread for he on honeydew hath fed and drunk the milk of paradise End of Kubla Khan by Samuel Taylor Colleridge The Christmas Dream of Little Childs by Justice Star Redfield Recorded for Dreams Collection 1 Stories and Poems This is a LibraVox recording all LibraVox recordings are in the public domain For more information auto-volunteer, please visit LibraVox.org The Christmas Dream of Little Childs Justice Star Redfield 1 Christmas Eve Little Childs' Esther Brook hung her stocking carefully by the chimney corner and, after saying his prayers, got into bed and soon fell asleep Childs was a good little boy he was fond of horses and feeding them and attending to their wants On the day previous a traveller came along his horse was thirsty, so Little Childs got a pail filled it with water and gave the horse to drink for which the traveller rewarded him by giving him a shilling but, although so fond of horses Little Childs was not unmindful to the claims of his sister Lizzie as she was familiarly called and, in pleasant weather would go out to walk with her in the engraving opposite they are on their way to school together and have stopped that he may tie her shoe which has become unfastened Childs dreamed that he was in bed peeping at his stocking over the back clothes when he saw a very pleasant looking old gentleman come down the chimney on a nice little pony precisely like the one named Lightfoot that his uncle Ben had promised to give him it was funny indeed to see the pony slide down feet foremost and Childs could not help laughing but he laughed still louder when he examined old Nicholas the rider his hair was made of crackers and as he came nearer and nearer to the lamp that stood on the half Pop went one of the crackers, then another and then another but St Nicholas was not a bit frightened he only rubbed his ears with his coat sleeve padded the pony to keep him quiet and laughed till he showed the concave of his great mouth full of sugar plums he was chubby and plump a right jolly old elf Charlie laughed when he saw him in spite of himself while a wink of his eye, twist of his head soon gave him to know yet nothing to dread Childs was excessively delighted and shouted so loud that his mother thought he had a nightmare he watched the old gentleman closely and then looked at his stocking it hung very conveniently he can't put the pony in it said he to himself that's a pity the old gentleman's pockets stood out prodigiously and he panted and puffed as if he had been cuddling an alligator well said he wept in the perspiration of his face although it was the 25th of December if this is not hard work 85 youngsters have I called on the last hour Huck sent Michael's sounds loud down the chimney one, two I shall have a tough job from two o'clock till daylight popping down the chimneys from the battery to the higher bridge I wonder what this chap will like for a Christmas present continued he, eyeing the stocking and then putting his arms at Kimbo he began to consider good Mr. Nicholas said to himself if you could only give me that pony but he kept quite still for he saw the old man put his hands into his tremendous pockets hmm, let me see set up Nicholas here's a jackknife that I was to have given Tommy battle if he had not quarrelled with his sisters open sesame the stocking opened and in went the jackknife it was the very thing that Charles wanted one after another the old gentleman pulled out tops twine, marbles, dissected maps picture bits, sugar plums besides diverse other notions all the while talking to himself hmm, this drum said he is for Tom Barnwell a clever little fellow who'd never tantalise this pretty little fish egg sent the line must a trout must have plus patient care for his father when he was sick this mask is for Orris Allen he must not use it to frighten little children or I shall remember it when Christmas comes again let me see who is a studious boy and he will make a good use of it this pretty annual was with William Wiley but the lad kicked his brother and called him a bad name so I will lay it by for George Wilde Charles thought he could stay forever to see the old gentleman take out his knickknacks and tell who they were for but he began to be a little frightened for his own stocking when he recollected that he had been remiss in his latin the last quarter I hope the old gentleman doesn't understand the classics said Charlie to himself but he stopped short for his queer visitor held up the stocking saying I think this lad laughs gunpowder by the smell of his stocking he then took hold of his hair and pulling out crackers by the dozen from his head tied them into neat parcels and threw them into the stocking as fast as he pulled them off new crackers appeared and hung down over his hairs and forehead this accounts for the noise we hear on Christmas said Charles I never knew who made all the crackers and he had to hold his sights for laughing the old man looked so droll the light had put a new supply in the stocking an unusual number exploded and the little pony giving a start up the chimney disappeared Charles awoke it was just daylight he sprung out of bed, roused all the family with his Merry Christmas ran to the stable and what should he see but uncle bans little pony with a hilt on his neck on which was tied a piece of paper written Merry Christmas with a pony light fit for my nephew Charles end of the Christmas dream of little Charles by Justice Darlatfield The Nightmare by William Danby read for Dreams Collection 1 Stories and Poems by Colleen McMahon this is a LibriVox recording all LibriVox recordings are in the public domain for more information or to volunteer please visit LibriVox.org The Nightmare by William Danby I come in gleams from the land of dreams wrapped round in the midnight's paw you may hear my moon in the night winds groan when the tapestry flaps on the wall I come from my rest in the death owl's nest where she screams in fear and pain and my wings gleam bright in the wild moonlight as it whirls round the madman's brain and down sweeps my car like a falling star while the winds have hushed their breath when you feel in the air the faint damp smell of death my vigil I keep by the murderer's sleep when dreams round his senses spin and I ride on his breast and trouble his rest in the shape of his deadliest sin and hollow and low is his moan of woe in the depth of his strangling pain and his cold black eye rolls in agony and faintly rattles his chain the sweat drops fall on the dark prison wall he wakes with a deep drawn sigh he hears my tread as I pass from his bed and he calls on the saints on high I fly to the bed where the weary head of the poet its rest must seek and with false dreams of fame I kindle the flame of joy on his pallid cheek no thought does he take of the world awake and its cold and heartless pleasure of his own loved liar is his best and dearest treasure but neglects foul sting that cheek shall bring to a darker and deadlier hue the last dear token his liar is broken and his heart is broken too when the maiden asleep for her lover may weep afar on the boundless sea and she dreams he is pressed to her welcome breast returned from his dangers free in the form of a wave of the storm and sweep him away from her heart and then in a dream she starts with a scream to think that in death they part and still in the light of her dream bound sight the images whirl and dance till my swift elision dispels the vision and she wakes as from a trance with dreams I affright the startled sight of the miser withered and old is to arise with horrible cries as he thinks of his stolen gold but fate is each limb and ghastly and grim gurgles his stifled gasp and his sinews I strain on his bed of pain till he faints in my elvish grasp an awful one with a hand of bone seems to beckon him off to the tomb and I laugh as I whirl through the night's black furl and the film of the shadowy gloom when the sweet babe lies with its half-closed eyes as blue as the sky of even and you know the while by its innocent smile that its dreams are of joy in heaven I steal to the bed where that gentle head in meek composure lies and with fandoms of fright I break the light of its visions of paradise oh the horror and fear of that night so drear is long ere it pass away and the fearful glare is remembered from any a day when the clouds first born of the breezy mourn in the eastern chambers roam I glide away in the twilight gray to rest in my shadowy home and darkness and sleep to their kingdom sweep and dreams rustle by like a storm but where I dwell no man can tell who hath seen my hideous form whether it be in the caves of the sea where the rolling breakers go the crystal sphere of the upper air or the depths of hell below End of The Nightmare by William Danby Dream World by R.A. Lafferty Recorded for Dreams Collection 1 Stories and Poems by Mocha This is a Libravox recording All Libravox recordings are in the public domain For more information or to volunteer please visit Libravox.org Dream World by R.A. Lafferty It was the awfulest dream in the world no doubt about it in fact it seemed to be the only dream there was He was a morning type so it was unusual that he should feel depressed in the morning he tried to account for it and could not he was a healthy man so he ate a healthy breakfast he was not too depressed for that and he listened unconsciously to the dark girl voice often she ate a kale on the morning with her girlfriend grape juice, pineapple juice, orange juice, apple juice why did people look at him suspiciously just because he took 4 or 5 sorts of juice for breakfast Agnes it was ghastly I was built like a sack a sack full of skunk cabbage I swear and I was a green bound colour and had hair like an electric mop Agnes I was sick with misery it just isn't possible for anybody to feel so low I can't shake it at all and the whole world was like the underside of a log it wasn't that though it wasn't just one bunch of things it was everything it was a world with things just weren't worth living I can't come out of it Teresa it was only a dream sausage only 4 little links for an order do people think he was a glut he had 4 orders of sausage it didn't seem like very much my mother was a monster she was a wart hogish animal and yet she was still recognisable how could my mother look like a wart hog and still look like my mother mum is pretty Teresa it was only a dream forget it the stairs a man must suffer just to get a dozen pancakes on his plate what was the matter with people who called 4 pancakes at all stuck and what was odd about ordering a quarter of a pound of butter it was better than having 20 of those little putts each on its coaster and as we all of us had eyes that bucked out and we stank we were bloated and all the time it rained a dirty green rain that smelled like a 4 letter word good grieve girl we had hair all over us we were in warts and we talked like cracked crows we had crawlers I itched just from thinking about it and the dirty parts of the dream I won't even tell you I've never felt so blue in my life I just don't know how I'll make the day through Teresa doll how could a dream upset you so much there isn't a thing wrong with ordering three eggs sunny side up and three over easy and three poached ever so soft and six of them scrambled what law says a man should have all of his eggs fixed alike nor is there anything wrong with ordering five cups of coffee that way the girl doesn't have to keep running over with refills Baskham Swyscott liked to have bacon at waffles after the egg interlude and the earlier courses but he was nearly at the end of his breakfast he jumped up what did you say he was surprised at the violins of his own voice what did who say Mr Swyscott that girl that was just here that just left with the other girl that was Teresa and the other girl was Atenis or else that was Atenis and the other girl was Teresa it depends on which girl you mean I don't know what either of them said Baskham ran out into the street girl the girl who sat at rain dirty green all the time Teresa you've met me four times every morning you looked like you never saw me before I'm Atenis said Atenis what did you mean that ran dirty green all the time tell me about it I will not Mr Swyscott I was just telling a dream I had to Atenis it isn't any of your business well I have to hear all of it tell me everything you dreamed I will not it was a dirty dream it isn't any of your business if you weren't a friend of my uncle that Kelly I'd call a policeman for you bothering me things like life rats in the stomach to digest for you did they oh how did you know get away from me I will call a policeman Mr McCarty this man is annoying me the devil is Ms Atenis Baskham just doesn't have it in him anymore they should know more harm in him than a lamppost did the lamppost suffer and then Mr Teresa did that pendant swell and smell green oh you couldn't know you awful man I'm Atenis said Atenis but Teresa dragged Atenis away with her what is the lamppost Jack Baskham asked Officer Mossback McCarty oh I know what it's like to be in hell Mossback I dreamed of it last night and well you should a man who neglects his Easter duty year after year but the lamppost Jack if it concerns anything on my beat I have to know about it it seems that I've had the shame the pressing dream as a young lady identical in every detail not knowing what dreams are and we do not know we should not find it strange that two people might have the same dream there may not be enough of them to go around and most dreams are forgotten in the morning Baskham's wise good had forgotten his dismal dream he could not account for a state of depression until he heard Teresa Inanius telling pieces of her own dream to Agnes Schoenapfel even then it came back to him slowly at first but afterwards with a rush the oddity wasn't that two people should have the same dream but that they should discover the coincidence what with the thousands of people running around and most of the dreams are gone yet if it were a coincidence it was a multiplex one on the night when it was first made manifest it must have been dreamed by quite a number of people in one medium large city there was a small piece and an afternoon paper one doctor had five different worried patients who had had dreams of rats in their stomachs and hair growing on the insides of their mouth this was the first publication of the shared dream phenomenon the script did not mention the foul green dream background but later investigation uncovered that this and other details were common to the dreams but it was a reporter named Willy Wagoner who really put the town on the map until he did the job the incidents and notices had been isolated Dr. Heerome Judas had been putting together some notes on the green rain syndrome Dr. Florence Appian had been working up his evidence on the Syriac ventriculus trauma and Professor Gideon Greathouse had come to some learned conclusions on the inner meaning of warts but it was Willy Wagoner who went to the people for it and then gave his conclusions back to the people Willy said that he had interviewed a thousand people at random he hadn't really, he had talked to about twenty, it takes longer than you might think to interview a thousand people he reported that slightly more than sixty seven percent had had a dream of the same repulse of world he reported that more than forty four percent had had the dream more than once thirty two percent more than twice thirty seven percent more than three times many had had it every damp night and many have refused frostily to answer questions on the subject at all this was ten days after Baskham Swisegood had heard Theresa Inania's tell a dream to Agnes Willy published the opinions of the three learned gentlemen above and the theories and comments of many more he also appended a hatful of answers he had received that were sheer levity but the phenomenon wasn't local Wagoner's article was the first comprehensive or at least wordy treatment offered but only by ours similar things were in other papers that very afternoon and the next day it was more than a fad those who called it a fad fell silent after they themselves experienced the dream the suicide index arose around the country and the world the thing was now international the cacophonous ditty green rain was on all the jugues as was the warthog song people began to loathe themselves and each other women fear that they should give birth to monsters there were new perversions committed in the name of the thing and several audiastic societies were formed with a stomach rat as a symbol all entertainment was forgotten and this was the only topic nervousness orders took a fearful rise as people tried to stay awake to avoid the abomination and as they slapped in spite of themselves and suffered the degradation it is no joke to experience the same loath them dream all night every night it had actually come to that all the people were dreaming it all night every night it had passed from being a joke to being a universal maness even the sudden new millionaires who rushed the cures to the market were not happy they also suffered whenever they slapped and they knew that their cures were not cures there were large amounts posted for anyone who could cure the populace of the warthog people dreams there was presidential edict and dictated decree and military teams attacked the thing as a military problem but they were not able to subdue it then one night a nervous lady heard a voice in her noisome dream it was one of the repulsive cracked warthog noises you are not dreaming said the voice this is the real world but when you wake you will be dreaming that barefaced world is not a world at all it is only a dream this is the real world the lady awoke howling and she had not hulked before for she was a demure lady nor was she the only one who awoke howling there were hundreds then thousands millions the voice spoke to all and in generated doubt which was the real world almost equal time was now spent in each for the people had come to need more sleep and most of them had arrived at spending a full 12 hours or more in the nightmarish world it could be was the title of a headland article in the subject but the same professor greythouse mentioned above it could be he said in which the green rain fell incessantly was the real world it could be that the warthogs were real and the people a dream it could be that rats in the stomachs are normal and other methods of digestion were comical and then a very great man went on the air in worldwide broadcast with a speech that was a ringing call for collective sanity it was the hour of decision he said the decision would be made things were at an exact balance and the balance would be tipped but we can decide one way or the other we will decide I implore you all in the name of sanity that you decide right one world or the other will be the world of tomorrow one of them is real and one of them is a dream both are with us now and the favour can go to either but listen to me here whichever one wins the other will have always been a dream a momentary madness soon forgotten I urge you to the sanity which in a measure I asked myself yet in our dark dilemma I feel that we yet have a choice choose and perhaps that was the turning point the mad dream disappeared as suddenly as it had appeared the world came back to normal with an embarrassed laugh it was all over it had lasted from its inception 6 weeks best comes wise good a morning type felt excellent this morning he breakfasted at Cales and he ordered heavily as always half a year to the conversation of two girls at the table next to his but I should know you he said of course I'm Teresa I'm Agnes said Agnes Mr. Swice good how could you forget it was when the dreams first came and you overheard me telling mine to Agnes then you ran after us in the street because you had had the same dream and I wanted to have you arrested when they horrible dreams and have they ever found out what caused them they were horrible they had a group mania which is meaningless and now there are those who say that the dreams never came at all and soon they will be nearly forgotten but the horror of them, the loneliness yes we hadn't even put a cue light to carry our body hair we almost hadn't any body hair Teresa was an attractive girl she had a cute trick of popping the smallest rat out of her mouth so we could see what was coming into her stomach she was bulbous and beautiful like a sack full of scum carriage her hair was covered marringly in his head and then flushed green at his forehead Teresa had protuberances upon protuberances and warts and warts and hair all over her where she wasn't warts and bums like a latrine mop sat Muscombe with true admiration the cracked clang of Teresa Swice's music in the early morning all was right with the earth again gone the hideous nightmare world when people had stood barefaced and lonely without bodily friends or dependents gone that ghastly world of the sick blue sky and the near epsons of entrancing odour Muscombe attacked manfully as played of prime carrion and outside the pungent green rain fell incessantly end of dream world by R.A. Lafferty